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.

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.

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.

Purple pleasure

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

Happy Halloween

 The evening was perfect for outside dining.

Lots of urchins came around to help us celebrate Halloween.

Jelly brain and Anneke's friends

The food is always important.  Eyeballs, mummy ninja biscuits, skulls, severed fingers, creepy crawlies, cochcroaches, ghosts, all washed down with vampire wee.

Mummy Ninja biscuits

Marshmellow eyeballs and ghosts

Jelly cochcroaches

Mona Lisa

Tighe with his friends, Christen, Yoshin, Chen Hao, Tyler

 The trick or treaters ventured up the long driveway for treats, and tricks.

Geyserland Gravel Grind 2016

Erik has been organising a bike packing event. (self supported adventure cycling)  He has ridden so many of the gravel roads around the Rotorua region, while training for the Tour Aotearoa 2016 event.

8am Saturday, Rotorua City Centre

Over Labour weekend, 30 bike packers rode the gravel roads.  The event was split into 4 courses.  La Petite, designed for newbies to bikepacking, a 2 day Course.  La Regular, 3 day Course, and Le Grande, 4 days and a total of 575kms.

 

White Island, from Matata beach

After an absolutely fantastic day's riding on the first day of the Geyserland Gravel Grind, we're camping in Matata in perfect conditions tonight. Legs are a little tired but looking forward to soaking at the hot pools at Waikite Valley after a 120 km ride tomorrow...

La Petite

The riders got to camp beside the ocean, ride past lakes and geothemral hot pools, discovered lesser known roads and trails running through vast forests.

First day about 120 kms
Second day about 130 kms
Third day about 160 - 190 kms depending on the course taken
Fourth day about 135 kms

The Geyersland Gravel Grind differs from other brevets (self supported bike events), in that everyone camps together each night at designated camp sites. This was a great opportunity to meet the other riders, see what gear people were using, help each other out, or just chat.

Day 2 of the Geyserland Gravel Grind was a brutal festival of hills. 130 km all up, with around 2,100 metres of climbing. At least people were still smiling at the end...though nachos and a soak in the hot pools may have helped.

La Regular

Day three of the Geyserland Gravel Grind took riders down Te Kopia Road past this geothermal area. The three-day riders then took some gravel back-roads and then headed up the highway to Tokoroa before riding up Mamaku South Road and heading back down to finish in Rotorua. Meanwhile, the four-day riders did a bigger loop heading south towards Taupo, before returning to Rotorua and camping for the night in Ngongotaha.

A couple of us nutters decided that 160 km wasn't long enough so we added an extra 30 km to ride the southern end of the Waikato River Trail. Great riding, though finishing in the dark wasn't quite so great...

La Grande

Four riders ended up finishing all four days. Today's ride included a quick climb over the hill to Tokoroa, then a ride through quiet country roads in South Waikato to Putaruru, then up the hill to Mamaku again, before returning to Rotorua via Oturoa Road and the Ngongotaha cycleway. It started out looking a bit damp, but it soon cleared and the rest of the day was perfect riding conditions, except for a bit of a pesky headwind.

I ended up covering a total of 575 km and climbing over 8,500 metres in 38 hours of riding. What an awesome ride it's been.

School work

 Sometimes maths needs to be a little more doodled on.

Tighe has spent Maths creating new creatures and new stories.