Rainy Day Truce.

Sunday spent by the fire while it rains outside.

I'm stitching in the ditch in red embroidery cotton on this cot quilt.

I want it to look vintage and handmade, and cuddly, which is why I'm hand quilting it.

The Tail Cat and Marigold have called a truce for the day because they both felt inclined just to sit by the fire.

So if you pretend the other one isn't there it all works perfectly!

And when you nick off out to the kitchen to see what's available, someone else gets your posie!

Two in a basket is even cosier.

Graham's idea of phone a friend perhaps?

Oh Marigold you have such a dirty face! I am affronted!

I found some Brambly Hedge china on Trade Me, which was very exciting, because I've always wanted some.
This one is "Winter."

And this one is "The Meeting."

Spent the evening climbing over engines, ladders and various gear box parts with Hubby measuring up the Granny HQ kitchen.

Brain storming solutions for hiding the electric fence controls, and the water filtering system,

while still keeping enough bench space and keeping the look that we want.

We have come up with a cunning plan, which I won't bore you with, but I think it will work very well.

Watch this space.

Babushka with Pine Cones!

Another useful thing to do with vintage fabric bags.

Gets me out of going for an official walk today.

It's pretty chilly, and wet under foot. I didn't fancy walking up our busy road because I have to dive off into the long grass whenever a car comes along. And get wet up to my knees! UGH!

So I went off down to the 100 Acre Wood to look for a Woozle.

Didn't find one, but I did find a few pine cones along the fence line.

Meanwhile, I have been progressing with the picnic quilt a bit more.
It will be quite spectacular on the lawn in the summer time.

Sitting inside by the fire now, burning pine cones because I can!

And reading my June NZ House and garden, and dreaming of spring.

I'm such a sook about the cold!

The Magpie Chic request session.

Sarah from Red Gingham requested a closer look at my Christmas Quilt. So I braved the spring equinox and took it outside for a photo session.



I have a somewhat grotty iron fence with some rather magnificent fox gloves growing against it, all self seeded.

Which made a perfect back drop, when not horizontal

Then I tried the picket gate in Piggling Bland's garden.

It's out of this book by Anni Downes. You can get it from Annie's Country Quilts by mail order.

I've made a few things from it besides the quilt.

This little wall hanging, and the Santa's sack that I made for my nephew Alistair, brother of the more famous Woozle.

I often think that there must have been some very small foxes around; for someone to have imagined one putting it's hand into a petal when in need of a glove. But a very pleasing image all the same. Would it have been a formal occasion, or just a chilly morning, that necessitated the wearing of such a glove?

I love this time of year, when my garden becomes the Beatrix Pottter landscape of my imagination. It lasts such a short time.

Pretty in Pink.

Finished this quilt top ages ago, and have been trying to decide weather to have it machine quilted or to hand quilt it. Decided on getting it mchine quilted, because there is just so much detail in it. I love it's vintage colours and 1930s fabrics. I got to use a lot of my favourite tiny scraps for the applique and the umpteen 2 inch squares in it.

I think I was proabably attracted to it because of the tea set in the middle block.

But there are so many pretty bits. I loved making it.

Why Cats Quilt.

A few years ago Burnard Silver wrote a book called Why Cats Paint. The cover photo was a cat standing on it's hind legs painting a picture, brush in hand. It was very tongue in cheek, but I heard Burnard interviewed on Radio New Zealand once, and he said there was a small readership of well healed little old ladies who believed it to be all true. Obviously they had not come from a Sunday night tradition of watching Country Calender spoofs such as the remote controlled sheep dog and guinea pig farming in Wellington.

This weekend while I have been working on my yeo yeo vintage sheet inspired quilt, the Magpie Cats have never been very far away from the action. And whenever I try to lay a quilt top out or put a few blocks down to arrange them, they are immediately sat on by the nearest cat.

My Mum's cat sleeps on the finest of crocheted edgings, and considers it her absolute right to do so.

I planned to write about it in this blog post, and had the photos ready to go, text half written in my head, when this appeared in the letter box today, sent by my dear friend Katie of

An Angel in the Garden. She said she just had to send it to me.

It's beautifully written. The story of a tabby cat who loves her smelly old patchwork blanket so much that she goes in search of it in the rubbish bin when the mother throws it out.

The language is beautiful. The illustrations even more so. Tabby is very cross when her blanket is thrown out

"I think I should send this family away," she says.

"I shall have the milkman here to lodge instead."

When the inevitable happens and Tabby gets picked up and taken to the rubbish dump with her old patchwork quilt, it is the milkman who finds her wandering around looking for home, and gives her a ride.

And the mother washes the blanket, which is exactly what she should have done in the first place. Nobody I know would throw out any kind of patchwork quilt in any state of disrepair. Especially if it belonged to a cat. That's my only beef with the book. The mother in this book does not look the type to throw out a cat quilt. She reminds me so much of the mother in Margaret Mahey's The Lion in the Meadow. And she entertained dragons in her broom cupboard and all sorts of interesting nonsense, and hung out her patchwork on the washing line in the meadow.

This mother looks like one of those mothers, so I am absolutely sure she would not really have thrown out the patchwork.

Thank you Katie, it's the lovliest book.

Horizontal Pansies.

Hello Blog Chics. The thing about spring is that it can so easily relapse back into winter!


This weekend we are experiencing an ugly storm, with ferocious winds, heavy rainy squalls and it's cold again. The Magpie Cats are wanting to stay inside by the heater, night and day. Which keeps me busy at night letting them out for toilet stops. But it's so cold out there in the storm that it would be mean to leave them out in it





My pansies are horizontal and the deck chairs have blown off the deck into the garden.

The washing on the line is also horizontal, and I've given up on it and resorted to the clothes dryer.

A new House and Garden appeared in my letter box yesterday, just in time for a weekend in doors. I've got a dreadful cold, and not much energy, so I've just been a complete couch potato. Planning projects rather than actually doing any, and watching the Living Channel on TV.

I haven't even done any walking. Too cold, and I just don't have the oomph. In my previous job I gradually built up an immunity to all the old lady bugs, so I suppose in this job I'll just have to put up with catching all the kiddy bugs, till I've had them all. Luckily I have had the chicken pox, so won't have to do that one again.

This is my favourite article from the October issue of NZ House and Garden.

Only enough energy to load the dryer and dump it on a chair. None left to actually fold it and put it away!!!Just enough energy to make coffee and turn the pages of NZHand G LOL!

And have a lovely time visiting all my favourite blog chics and leave some comments and follow some links to all your favourites and recommendations. I've had such a lovely day.

I found a lovely blog by another Kiwi girl called Catalina.

She's organising quilt blocks for making into quilts for kids in Christchurch after the earthquake.

A couple of weeks ago Christchurch experienced a 7.1 magnitude quake (same as the one in Haiiti). Thankfully no one was killed as it happened at 4.30 in the morning, but the inner city is a mess, and in certain suburbs where they have had a lot of liquefaction occur in the subsoil, likewise. They are still experiencing aftershocks and a lot of people can not return to their homes. It must have been very scary for children and elderly people living alone especially.

So I thought that was a lovely idea, to donate quilt blocks to be made into quilts for kids. I've had a rummage through some of my randoms and experiments and found some that I could send straight away.

That's all for today Blog Chics. I'll leave you with my Christmas fairy who is already thinking about which window sill she'll sit on this Festive Season. She's been talking with the snow man in my linen cupboard. They get organised very early here. They'll be planning the menu as soon as the December issue of NZ`House and Garden turns up in the letter box.