Charity Quilting

Once a month anyone who is interested comes to my house for an evening and we do quilting. At the moment we are doing quilts for Hope Homes International. Hope Homes International This is a orphanage in El Dorat in Kenya, which is set up for the children to live and learn life skills they would have learnt if being brought up in their own house. They go to a private school as public schools have up to 60 children in a classroom, then they live in houses on a five acre block. They have house cows for calf raising, a chicken raising area which gives them eggs and extra money selling adult eating chickens to the community. They have goats for milking, huge maize growing and are currently filling a pond with fish for eating and selling. Eventually it should have five houses, housing 10 kids each with a mum and dad employed in each house. Currently there are two houses.
The quilting current aim to give a quilt to each child. We have nearly finished two quilt tops.

This is Jeanette and Karen G hard at work last night.

Recreate - What a find

Well, yesterday on the way home from Rugby at Mandeville, I finally stopped at a shop that I had meant to go and look at ever since it opened about one and a half years ago. The Barn on Giles, which is on Giles Road, just out of Kaiapoi. The Barn on Giles

My goodness the things I have missed out on. It was so me. Button necklaces, pieces of material, retro feather duvets and blankets, mosaics, re-upholstered chairs like mine. A veritable treasure trove of ideas.
I am going back when I get some time to myself and I am taking everyone who comes to visit me.
They also are so into reusing and recycling that they sell rolls of wallpaper. but it is what they do with it in the shop. If you buy something it gets packaged into a lovely bag with string handle and cut out picture (mine was a dove). The bag is the width of a wall paper roll, folded over and sewn down the two sides, then with holes punched in the top. The cut it is old paint swatches that are from colours the paint shop is no longer doing. How cool is that!!!!

Recession busting ladies - here we go - idea city!!

What we do on a Saturday night.

Like many people we watch some TV or a movie, not always, just sometimes. Only at the moment we are watching more. We have just gotten an HDMI system and as you can get it to record things you like (the whole series not just the day) we now have far far far tooooooo much TV to watch. Before I would miss 3/4 of the programmes I wanted to watch. Now I have to sit down for two hours every other night ( slight exageration, but it wouldn't be so good a story) to see all the veiwing we have recorded.

I looked over and what did I see???? But this. Who could resist taking photos of a blissed out Morris?

Jakob - player of the day

On Saturday Jakob got "player of the day" at rugby. He was thrilled. More thrilled I think with all the goodies they gave him, than with anything else!

Recreate - yet another stool

Well this rainy Sunday afternoon I have spent remaking a bar stool. I purchasesd it from the Salvation Army store for $4. I nearly didn't buy it as the chrome was just pinpricks of rust and the condition of the seat was gastly. Isn't it funny what you umm and ahh about. Don't even think about filling the car with 65litres of petrol but I stew over whether to spend $4 or not!!!!

but it has been a hit. Eli absolutely loves sitting on it at the kitchen bench and doing things with me or helping to cook or just keeping me company and reading a book while I am doing dinner.

Because the chrome was not that flash I was not prepared to spend any money on it. I used the left overs from my previous stools and had enought floral, chrome tacks to complete the task. I scrubbed the chrome twice. Once with a kitchen scrub and once with a steelo. It has improved it beyond what I thought it would. Aaron is not thrilled. He wanted something funky and cool. So if anyone has any stools like this I would love to get another one so that there is no fighting for the boys as to who gets the seat.

I am very pleased with the result. Before photo is the red one.

My Four year old can carry my Seven year old around

This morning Eli spent the entire morning piggy backing Jakob around the house to show how strong he was. I can't believe that at his age he has the strenght to do that.

Recession busters - Why three slippers makes a pair

At our last meeting we all started knitting our slipper socks. The pattern was for about a size 7 foot. So I added four more rows for the length of my foot. Then I got on with the knitting. Feeling very industrious I even took the knitting to rugby on Saturday. Ball of wool in my pocket and my kneedling clicking (figuratively only) I gaily finished the second slipper. Only to discover that in my haste and pride that it would get done, I had forgotten about the extra rows and my second one was very tight. So the third one was knitted. Hence it has taken me three attempts to make a pair. I crocheted around the top and it rolled a bit and am very happy with the results. My boys are both saying they want a pair, I think I will be able to shrink that pattern.

Cameras

yesterday I took the boys down for a picnic at the river. We had a great time and they ended up stripping off and sliding down a muddy bank. What a mess!! Took heaps of photos and the camera has lost them all!!! This is the second time the camera has not retained the pictures. Now I have to test to see if it is the card or have a gotten a wonky camera? Aaron was going to take this camera to America next month but hmmm.

Saturday rugby

This morning was occupied in the normal way of saturday mornings. Jakob's rugby. As I had my new camera I thought I would take a few photos. After troubleshooting the camera because it would not keep a photo it had taken (and I noticed the photos from thursday were lost), I just merrily clicked away.

Kaiapoi Blues (Jakob's team) vs Ashley. Eli was the usual enthusiastic supporter - NOT!!! He puts his boots on, gets a team ball and goes and plays behind the field, and he will not allow anyone else to play with him.

Recession Busters

I am gutted. I took a whole pile of photos on Thursday night and somehow the camera has had a glitch and has not kept them. My new camera too!!! They were great photos of our knitting night - Steff's mum would have been pleased to see that Steff did not have a bottle of red wine in her hand (I think it might have only been a glass), it was Bailey's night. Jolly marvelous.
Penny provided a great simple pattern for slipper socks. So we all madly knitted. I finished my first foot today at rugby.

Steff and Paula - check the pattern when you are doing the end of the foot. It says knit 2 tog knit 1 - you do this for the whole row - just trying to figure out where else the pattern may not be obvious. Anyway next month there will be a great photo for all to see of our finished slipper socks!

The enormous pears

This year the pear tree has decided to outdo itself. I kept meaning to take a photo. This is the third to last pear on the tree and it weighed 456g. I did have one that weighed over 600g but ate it before I thought of taking a photo. The tree has been prolific, juicy, delicious and we have loved it.