An Early Start

I was up at 5.15 am. Terry was leaving early to spend the day at a Rotary conference in Wellington and by the time his alarm had rung, twice, and he had been in and out of the bedroom, twice, I was wide awake. I was looking forward to my day sewing with Helen so I decided to take advantage of the early start and get the sewing room cleaned up while I waited for it to be light enough to go for a walk. Unfortunately I didn’t get photos of the room in its clean and tidy state but here it is as we were working this afternoon. You can see the remains of its old function as a sleepout with the bed where visitors still sleep and the kitchen bench with the rice cooker and electric jug still stored up on the shelf and a knife block still holding knives on the bench. We don’t do any cooking out there anymore but it is useful for cleaning up after painting fabric, etc.

Helen’s sewing machine is on the right and mine on the left. Through the window you can see the washing Helen shamed me into hanging up. I had misjudged the day and left it in the laundry to put in the dryer at some stage but the day was lovely and sunny at lunchtime and Helen pointed out what a good day it was for drying the washing so I took the hint and hung it out!

It was a neat day. We had grilled chicken with lemon and a chickpea salad and a glass of white wine for lunch. Helen worked on a fractured landscape – she will be posting pictures on her blog I’m sure, but you can get a glimpse of it on the cutting table in the pictures here. I finished the top of the Orange Explosion. It’s been turned 90 deg at Nellie’s suggestion and I think it looks great.

I also did some more quilting on the community quilt that I need to finish this week. I had made a promise to myself that I would finish the two quilts (orphan blocks and community quilt) that were ready for quilting before doing any more work on the Orange Quilt – but I broke that when I couldn’t resist working on the Orange One this morning. So I now have 3 tops that need quilting before I can start any more quilts. And that is so hard to do!! But it was easier with Helen to talk to.