Fun and frustration

That pretty much describes my weekend.
The trip to Christchurch passed quickly thanks to some fun with my husband's new GPS. There is not much for it to do for a while once it has said 'continue for 160 kilometres', after all the road to Christchurch is fairly straightforward. However, as we have a shorter route into Christchurch and the GPS kept trying to turn us back onto the main road, it created a bit of a laugh as we kept saying 'nope, not going there!'. It did pretty well at getting us to our destination in Christchurch though.
We confused it by stopping at the mall to pick up my iPad. Naturally it was a comfort stop too and here came some of the frustration. I can't believe some people. Here were two hand driers and a queue of people waiting to use them. One lady seemed to be taking some time. Turns out she was actually drying a shoe! Too bad about everyone else, and I'm not even going to consider how the shoe got wet.
More fun in seeing my two adult sons and visiting with my mother-in-law before heading home to play with my new toy.
No quilting done this weekend, and not a lot of reading. Plenty of frustration in sorting out the iPad to set up, but lots of fun now I have audiobooks, ebooks, Solitaire, Bookworm, and Mahjong to play and all our contacts entered. Photos still to come. There are a couple of quilt apps that could be interesting and I still have to try buying a book online and getting it onto my iPad.
Naturally it's going to work with me tomorrow to try things out on the free wifi. Do you think I could consider testing out options on the iPad as part of my work? Nope - oh well, worth a shot.

An iPad weekend

After a sunny week on the Coast while we are at work, naturally the weather turns to rain for the weekend.
The weather probably suits the  mood of many locals with the Pike River Coal tragedy to the forefront as the Coroner's inquest has been held in Greymouth this week. Another terrible time for the families as they relive details of the tragedy in the attempt to find out more about what happened to their family members.

Tomorrow we head over to Christchurch for a visit to family and, importantly, to pick up my new iPad. That's right folks, even though we have Noel Leemings, Smith's City and Dick Smith stores here none of them hold iPads in stock. So much for trying to spend our money in the local community. To be fair, there seems to be little stock available in Christchurch either so I will end up with a dearer model than originally intended just to get my paws on one. I figure I am all set. I have my quilted iPad cover and I have borrowed iPad for Dummies from the library. I shall have a week to get things set up before we set off overseas (the North Island).

This week I've read the latest Shelia O'Flannagan A Season to Remember which reminds me of a Maeve Binchy with the technique of intertwining the lives of a group of people staying in an Irish hotel at Christmas. We are given a glimpse of the lives of each room's occupants in a light but enjoyable story.
Nothing like a total contrast as I am now 50 pages into the epic which is Justin Cronin's The Passage. Somewhere I read that this is to be a trilogy which will make it an epic work as the first book is doorstop size. I'm enjoying the writing style so far and no doubt the several threads which have begun will merge somehow later on.
Still managed to find time to finish two of the four borders for the second single 'mystery' quilt, but I have a feeling that once the iPad hits the house there won't be much quilting done for awhile. Mind you the iPad store has a few quilting apps which could be worth exploring. I'm definitely looking forward to using the free wifi at work to try out finding ebooks and audiobooks. All in the name of professional development naturally :-)

Quilting and reading - what else is a weekend for?

Another beaut weekend on the Coast, and someone else's turn to have all the rain. The washing's all done, some gardening attempted, and lots of blobbing out enjoyed.
A library customer loaned me a copy of an early Wally Lamb book She's come undone. Having enjoyed I know this much is true and The hour I first believed, I thought I'd give it a go. It's an interesting book being written by a male author from a female's point of view. He certainly crams in a lot of topics from rape to obesity, from domestic abuse to homosexuality and HIV-AIDS. The main character is not loveable in many ways, plus the whole work could be viewed as depressing with all that happens in her life, and yet for me it was a book I didn't want to put away until I finished it. Maybe though, I will fill in with something lighter before I tackle the next book on my list- The Passage by Justin Cronin.
There was also time for some quilting in my weekend. I may not have that iPad yet, but I already have an iPad cover made in a Laurel Burch cat fabric. I used the tutorial from http://oneshabbychick.typepad.com/one_shabby_chick/ as I just wanted something simple. I did take out the batting around the lining as it seemed too bulky. It was probably because I didn't have any leftover cotton batting and used whatever I had handy instead. It still looks fine to me and I can't wait for it to be in use.
And here's the first of my two single bed quilts from the Quiltville mystery quilt.

Taken on the only large piece of floor space I could find and not a great photo angle, but the idea is there.
I've also made most of the pieces for the second quilt border. Once that's done I guess it's back to finishing some of the projects still lying around. My aim was to spend last year finishing instead of starting anything new, but we all know how that goes.....
Ah well, back to work tomorrow. The rest will have to wait for another day.

Beaten by a book

For the first time in ages I have given up on reading a title. The Stephen Frey book defeated me. What first looked like an interesting story about smoke jumpers in Montana became, for me, a mish-mash of several stories which didn't link well, some women who were very obviously going to become the romantic interest, and the stereotypical good and bad guys. In fact I even returned it to the Library without having a peek at the ending. After that Fiona O'Brien's Without Him is, for me, a better read even if it would probably be decried as chick-lit by some.
Checking book lists today for ordering revealed some more titles which add interest to the job - Justice for hedgehogs (about philosophy believe it or not), Teenage as a second language (I could have used this years ago) and Seriously senior moments : or have you bought this book before? (I can relate to this).

But now the weekend is here and while I may have given up on the book I didn't give up on the quilt, naturally. My one large quilt is now two smaller ones which means more borders to make. Oh, joy!
Hopefully I can sort that out this weekend, because I intend to begin putting together projects to take with me on an upcoming two week North Island trip. I'm looking forward to finding quilt shops, poking my nose into other libraries, catching up on reading and visiting family. Only another two weeks of work before holiday time!

A day at the races

Honour is satisfied after we watched my brother's horse come second in its race and only lost a couple of dollars in the process. We're told he ran very well after having a bad barrier draw (don't ask me, I know nothing about it!).
The next day, being showery, was the perfect day to work on my quilt or, as they are now, quilts. Having decided to follow my neighbours advice I have managed to split one large quilt in two and put on the inner border to stabilize things. I've even managed to begin adding the outer borders on one quilt.

Having made the switch I wonder if the large outside border would balance better on one large quilt rather than two small ones. Too late, it's done and I don't intend to go back. Now if only I had time to sit and sew the 'x' more rectangles I need to make to finish the extra borders. Maybe next weekend.

David Baldacci's Hells Corner is finished and enjoyed even if it was your usual spy thriller with a twist in every chapter. Finished reading too is Jennifer Weiner's Fly Away Home, a story woven around the lives of a mother who has spent her life being the perfect wife to a husband who then has an affair, and their two adult daughters each with their own problems.  I found this a pretty pedestrian chick-lit version of the old 'finding myself' story, but a reasonable read if you're not expecting something you can't put down.

After the mystery quilt comes a mystery book. Next on my list I have Hell's gate by Stephen Frey. I have absolutely no idea why I reserved this one to read. Never heard of either the author or the title, so here goes.

End of the working week

TGIF! Greymouth has had a week of lovely hot weather which was a shame to waste at work really, but here's hoping some of it lasts for the weekend.
Tomorrow it's off to the race meet at Omoto. I confess to knowing three tenths of very little about horse racing. However, I have a brother who owns, as he might put it, "one leg of a horse" through a syndicate and that horse is racing tomorrow. We feel we should show some family solidarity and go and watch the race. My brother has been warned that if we lose money we will take it back in wine when we visit in a month's time. Go General Georgi!
Also in the mix this weekend is more work on my no-longer-a-mystery quilt. I was happily joining border pieces together until my neighbour, who is also a quilter, suggested that it might be more use to split the large quilt and make two singles from it. At this point it could be easily done, but my mind balks at the thought of making all the pieces for another two side borders. She's probably right, unfortunately. She's also a very wise lady as, having thrown that spanner in the works, she is now moving house before she has to listen to my complaints. I don't think the two things are connected.
So racing, quilting, housework (blah), grocery shopping, and that's the weekend gone. Somewhere in there there must be time to continue reading David Baldacci's Hell's corner and listening to Debbie Macomber's Married in Seattle on my iPod.
How many hours in a weekend? Not enough.

Not a good way to have a day off

Having a tummy bug is not the best way to have a day off work. It did mean that in  between sleeping and drinking lots of fluids I finished reading the J.D.Robb. I've also downloaded one of her audiobooks to my iPod for when I get out walking again. This is practice in using the Overdrive system which some libraries are looking at providing.
A U.S. friend was given a Kindle for her birthday and is rapt with it. Overdrive can also be used for eBooks if a library chooses and it's likely that will happen in the future. That is my excuse for coveting an eBook reader to try out. I have a significant  birthday coming up shortly and am angling for an iPad! I think that picking up a physical book will still likely be my first choice, but the nerd in me is fascinated by the new formats coming out.

Meantime, my mystery quilt is getting its borders slowly pieced together, photos to come shortly.

 As for reading I picked up a very easy book to start today - Samantha Smythe's Modern Family Journal by Lucy Cavendish. An airy bit of chick-lit, based around a family with young children and the chaos they can cause in life, it suited my concentration span and my tendency to doze off today.
Lined up next I have the latest David Baldacci. Nothing like a change.

Mystery quilt almost finished

Hooray for weekends! My mystery quilt is now together except for the final borders which are still underway.

Here is Misty giving it her seal of approval. What is it with cats and quilts anyway?
And if you can't see the picture for one fat cat, here is the top laid out on the only large floor space I have.

After all that sewing it was time to get back to reading for a break. Nora Roberts Sanctuary is finished and turned out to be a (predictable) romance come family intrigue come murder mystery. Not a bad read but a bit too predictable for my taste. So now on to J.D. Robb an author who tends to the predictable also in that the pattern of her books I find much the same. The actual crimes and character dialogue though usually intrigue me.
Time to see how much reading I can get through before it's back to finding reading for others at work tomorrow.

Quilting, blogging, reading - who has time to work?

Having dived in the deep end with this blog during a training course I have just dipped into two books on blogging and found out what I could have done better. Ah well, perhaps it is, as we quilters say, a UFO (unfinished object) or PhD (project half done), or perhaps better yet a WIP (work in progress). I definitely need a new title and the brain is working on it.
It is a little like some other unfinished ideas of mine. I do wonder if other quilters attend classes, do the projects and techniques and then never find time to return to try more. I attended a wonderful class using fabric pastels and pencils and made a sample piece. I now have sets of oil pastels, Derwent watercolour and Inktense pencils, the books Faux Applique by Helen Stubbings, and Quilts of a Different Color by Irena Bluhm. lots of ideas, but nothing further made yet.
Similarly a Gloria Loughman workshop produced this and I also have her Luminous Landscapes book.





I would love to make another project using her techniques and I'd like new wallhangings to complement some home decorating we are doing, so maybe this year is the year to try these techniques again.

In the meantime it's back to my warm conservatory, my bean bag, and Nora Roberts Sanctuary which is proving to be an intriguing read. When I can put that down it's time to retire to my sewing room to wrestle my large mystery quilt together. I cheated by sewing the shorter rows at each end  first, but this will now come back to haunt me as I have to handle the long rows in the middle. I'm really looking forward to trying out putting the border together so better get a move on.

Roll on the weekend

Unfortunately it's a conundrum that when you are working in a library surrounded by books, you don't have time to read because you are busy ...working in a library.  The pile of "I must read that"  beside my bed is getting taller again, but I aim to make inroads into it in the weekend. After all, housework can wait, reading can't, at least in my world.
Next up I am going to re-visit two sides of Nora Roberts with Sanctuary and (as J.D.Robb) Origins in Death.
Of course fitted in there will be more work on my Quiltville mystery. Finally started joining the rows of the top together tonight and learned two things. Firstly, when Bonnie Hunter says she likes big quilts she means it - this one is going to be what my sons would call 'gi-normous' and the border is yet to come. Secondly, I'm not accurate enough at making half-square triangles, although after making 600 they are improving!
I take heart from looking back at some photos and remembering how much I enjoyed making last year's mystery quilt (as yet unquilted)

Love those double green stars. This time I wasn't sure how the colours would go together - pink, brown and red? And pink is definitely not my favourite colour. Just the same I am loving how it is going together so far.
Photo to come.....

Hi, ho, hi, ho it's back to work we go

Holidays are over and it's back to work tomorrow.
Rainy weather has at least given me the excuse to be totally lazy and catch up on some eclectic reading: Forensic Investigator: true stories from the life of a country crime scene cop by Esther McKay which deals with horrific accidents and crimes and the effect they have on those who have to attend them.
Fat chance : my big fat gastric band adventure by Melanie Tait which is an incentive to return to better eating habits and exercise after the Christmas blow-out.
And now - John Marsden's three parts of the Ellie Chronicles following on from the Tomorrow When the War Began series.

Last night my husband and I ventured out to one of the new Greymouth theatres for the first time to see The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest which I enjoyed even more than the previous two movies in the trilogy.

Lots of off-work time, and little housework, also gave me the chance to get into my quilting room and complete the blocks for the Quiltville Christmas mystery quilt, a sample of each shown below.

Also this McKenna Ryan dolphin block which was made into a cushion for my mother-in-law

Amazing what can be accomplished when not spending hours at work. Ah to win Lotto and retire to my quilt room ........