27 November, 2016

Celebration Cakes

Recently I have been asked about the Celebration Cakes that I make.  Here they are, all gathered together.  Tighe's Pyramid cake, and Quinn's Lego cake are amongst my favourites.
Anneke's 10th Safari cake
Mama's 80th
Oscar's Monster 8th

Quinn's Xbox 11th

Thanksgiving 2016
Oscar's Minecraft 9th

Quinn's Lego 9th


Tighe's Dinosaur 8th
 


Oscar's 7th Treasure
Ginas Edible 18th
Tighe's Egyptian 6th

Thanksgiving 2014

Gina's 21th (100 and 1000s)
Mama's 82th

Danielles 21th (gold to the max)
Updated:  Only cake made in 2017, Emilee's Welcome to the family Cake
 Purple is her favourite colour.
I found some more images of Quinn's and Gina's cakes:
Quinn's 7 year Treasure chest


Gina's Rainbow cake


26 November, 2016

Moving Mountains

Road and Rail cut off by Earthquake
 7.8 Earthquake in Kaikoura.  Two minutes after midnight on 14th November 2016.   I have found this week to being very unsettling.  5000 aftershocks so far in the region.  Homes destroyed, people killed, land uplifted, evacuations. Buildings in Wellington need to be demolished.
Seabed lifted 2 meters (black rocks new coastline)
In some cases the land has moved 10 meters sideways and more than 2 metres up.  Lots of landslides, roads destroyed.  Paua needed to be saved.
Seabed uplifted 2 meters, paua needed to be moved
To help me through the anxiety, and the feeling of helplessnes, I needed to do "something" and put some colour on the wall. I have been working with hexigons, and the half hexi is my favourite block at the moment. This is what happened...
Representing the up-thrust of the earth and the shakey effect of the earthquake.
"Pink" trench dug before earthquake, has moved 9 metres. Red is Fault line.

22 November, 2016

Make roses

 To keep myself occupied after the Earthquakes, I have been making icing roses.
The roses are created freeform, using a plastic bag, soup spoon, and my hands.  I learnt the technique from Lisa Templeton, from Denheaths in Timaru.  This is her technique, and I feel blessed that she has chosen to share her knowledge and skills.

15 November, 2016

Making the most of scraps, left overs, crumbs ...

The Blues
 Rainbow Quilters, Rotorua, were given 5 rubbish bags full of fabric scraps.  We meet every 1st and 3rd Tuesday of the month.  Here's a link to our facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/181844985351307/

After sorting them by colour, I brought home the browns and blues. I challenged myself to work in colours I don't normally "do".
The Browns
On sorting through the fabrics, they are all CATS!  There must be more than 100 different cat fabrics here.  I noticed a lot of the fabric was cut into 8inch squares, so I created this quilt with half square triangles.
180 triangles of scrap
 I still had lots of left overs, and noticed most of them were 8x 5 inch rectangles, so I created this "reflections" quilt.  The pale fabric has butterflies.
 I still had a pile of fabric, so I cut that into 2 1/2 inch strips, joining the fabric with "like" colour.
A wall of strips
 A new technique I discovered.  Tube Strip Piecing.  Join 6 strips together into a tube, and cut 90 degree triangles from the strips, rotating the top and bottom of the triangle.  Unpick the short bit, and voila, SQUARES!
Tube Strip Quilt
 I now had a pile of scraps.  I cut 50 x  1 1/2 inch orange squares for continuation of colour, and just sewed small bits of fabric to small bits of fabric.  The pieces grew, and I just kept adding bits of fabric.  Every now and then I would stop sewing, and put the "blocks" on the wall in about the same size columns.  In some cases, I added more scraps to some of the blocks, and put more blue in, as it was quite brown.
The orange squares add a spot of colour
 A dark blue and orange border.  Another quilt top finished, from leftovers.
Leftovers Quilt
These are the fabric crumbs that are left.  I took them to club night at quilting, and the other members found a use for the crumbs.

02 November, 2016

Purple pleasure

 Spring is finally here, and the wisteria at Kuirau Park is looking fantastic this year.