Over swirling and a question

Today I finished the black swirls in the background of the Tokyo Subway Map Quit - YESSSSS! The last  of the quilting is in the 'stops', the white with black swirls. You might remember I was quilting frangipani blossoms into that in white. I was making really good progress, until all of a sudden:

A bit loose on top, and

A complete mess on the bottom. I experimented for a while: Rethread the machine, rethread the bobbin, wound another bobbin, changed tension bottom and top, went from fmq stitch back to straight stitch with the standard foot - no success. Any suggestions PLEASE? So close to the end...

Life is treating us well, lots of paper work and organising; finally got my tax number and my first proper payslip (now to find out why they deducted about $1000 more in tax than I expected), have met with a lovely Diabetes Educator (nurse) and are in the process of sorting out what paper work needs to be done around oldest DS' diabetes (as NZ citizen we are entitled to some but not other payments and support, and it's not always clear which ones they are). Work is still a bit slow, but I am starting to get time in schools which is good:) DH had a significant birthday last weekend, we had a quiet day, went for a drive in the afternoon and had a picnic. It was nice to see a bit of the country side! Tomorrow we hope to go to a concert, planning to take the younger boys with us.

Queensland residents were bracing themselves for a category 5 cyclone which caused a fair bit of devastation further up north, we only had a lot of rain which I hope will clear tomorrow. Mst14 doing well at school, Mst12 has settled so well that he has started not paying attention in class and as a result got moved to sit close to the teacher's desk (in my books actually a good sign, and no harm in him sitting close to the teacher in Maths in particular!!!), and Mstr10 is starting to play the trumpet this week - as his dad and I met playing music this is really special for us; let's hope he sticks with it!

Once I have my machine trouble sorted, a few new ideas are in the pipeline; Vintage Quilt Revival is loaded in my Kindle app, watch this space ;) and I have finally decided that I will give the Giant Chevron to 'custom quilting' treatment; I'm thinking of star shape(s) in the negative space, echoing the big chevron, quite possibly somehow offset. There will be marking and hopefully this will make it manageable. No idea what I will do with it when it's done, would be a good size for Mstr14‘s double bed but I doubt he will like it!

I better get on with dinner now, will return to this post on the laptop and give it a bit of a tidy up:) Please let me know if you have any suggestions for how I might be able to resolve my machine trouble:)

Happy Sewing!

Settling in

4 weeks in and we have found most items we have been looking for, either found a home for it inside the house or put it back into a box to keep it in the garage until we have more space. It is actually amazing how much does fit inside this relatively small house :)

2 weeks ago I found and brought up my bobbins and thread (not without dropping two open boxes with pin into the grass at the gate...). Last weekend I did the dreaded mending (and that was only the new mending, Suz, the old one did make it here, too :0) and gave my first echo swirls a go (yes, still working on that Tokyo Subway Map quilt...). Working on the dining table is simply too inconvenient, having to put the machine away after every session, so this weekend I persuaded DH to cut the table top in my small sewing table to size and tada - I have a sewing table again! (It didn't go perfectly, I had drawn to exact size and only told him once to make it larger than that lol; however, we got there eventually :D).

The problem remains where to put it; unless I want to take over one of the boys' bedrooms after all, it will ave to stay in the lounge for the time being. Today I moved it right under the fan in the lounge which made for a comfortable temperature, but light is not that great, especially when fmqing black on black; I'll need to experiment a bit. To be perfectly honest I'm over that quilt, and itching to get my fingers on something new! Been thinking about smuggling my stash into the house so I can get something new started, I'm thinking colourful, not batiks, piecing involving curves... I also have my Whakapapa quiltlet sitting somewhere waiting for more work to be done to it...

And then there was this one waiting to be sandwiched and quilted - in the back of my head is still some Jenni Madsen (Green Fairy Quilts) type dense quilting, but do I have the patience for this? Maybe if I did some serious marking and worked through sections of it? Or do you think I should maybe just do some all over design?

We are settling into our routines, the close proximity of everything is still a novelty after almost 18y living in the country side. Thinking about it, its not so different from how we had grown up in Germany. While I still have way to go, due to more walking I am less unfit than I used to be, and I have made a small start at loosing weight.

The temperatures have been very high (day and night) from when we arrived until about the end of January; for the last couple of week temperatures went back to more comfortable low 20s at night and around 30 during the day. We have had a few heavy rains, one where I simply took my shoes off and walked barefoot to the door; if we owned this place, we'd definitely look at rain water tanks :)

The boys have started school and after 2 weeks all three are happy. Mstr10 gives me a 10 out of 10 for every day, he has a lovely young teacher who is obviously great at building relationships with her students. Mstr14 loves some of his subjects, namely STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) which will involve use of the school's 3D printer for their own designed projects, and Multimedia Studies. We were not able to get him into all his choices, we are still pushing to have him take Maths and Computing in the next year level up as he passed this level last year and with Merit. Mstr12 was initially very anxious about school, but since he has made two friends he has been happy going to and coming home from school, too :)

Sculpture at the Brisbane River - due to be replaced with a permanent copy that won't be affected so much by the elements

Work is going quite well, I have spent time in 3 schools, still lots to learn on the software side as I didn't use Office365 in my last role. Part of my time I work from home, part from the office in Paddington which is just 30min on foot and on the bus, or just under 20min by car (depending on traffic). DH has a job application in progress, we are hoping he will get the job, otherwise he will look for something else.

There are a few things I still need to get used to; having lived in the country for so long I am used to buying in bulk, preserving and freezing. We bought a new large fridge with a freezer compartment when we moved in, but this freezer space is much smaller than I am used to. So I alternate between buying loads and stuffing everything in the freezer one week and going to the supermarket for small lots every other day the next... I'll figure out a proper routine eventually!

There are lots of similarities between New Zealand and Australia, many products in the shops are the same, in fact many shops are the same (meaning many Australian chains have branches in New Zealand). Love shopping at Ikea (I probably mentioned that before lol), and a couple of weeks ago I found out that H&M is due to open a shop in at the shopping centre in Indooroopilly! While I don't have the figure from 20y ago anymore, I'm still looking forward to going shopping there again!

Some things have surprised me:

I have now completed 3 applications for a tax number (=IRD number), the first one was lost in the system, the second one could not be found at my second call to them, at my third call the second and third application have been found (not the first still) but as it's been less than 28 days from the second one, it can't be followed up yet?!

We had heard in NZ that Kiwis don't qualify for special education support; however, the guidance counsellor went out of her way and tracked down a way to get some support for Mstr14 should he ever need it.

Mstr14 was referred to the children's hospital for continuation of his diabetes care late September. We heard nothing until I contacted them early January. Eventually they reviewed his referral (admittedly, two hospitals had been merged and I suppose things can be overlooked) and while he was classed category 2 (to be seen in less than 60 days), we were told the wait time for his first appointment is 6-9 months! And we send NZ patients to AUS because of our waiting times?!

With the help of an awesome FB Diabetes Community we have found a GP and a Diabetes Educator (Diabetes Nurse) who will look after us for now.

Some groceries are cheap, some are expensive: Milk is $1/l, alcohol is only sold a liquor stores and rather dear, however, you can get German beers relatively cheap :) Beef is expensive I find, but then we have been lucky to have had home kill for many years. Petrol is cheap, gone back up to $119.9 after it was just over $1 for a while. Internet packages are cheap. Citrus trees in the garden centre are expensive. So everything evens out in the end.

While the voting in the Queensland election closed 7 days ago, we are still waiting for the final result?!

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We haven't done too much sightseeing yet, we though we might head a bit inland one of these days. The kids and I enjoy being home on the weekend, but DH is keen to get out - he might have to pick up a hobby or a job soon!

So that's all from us for the moment, I hope you all are well wherever you are and get some sewing done!

Happy Sewing!

I blinked

and now it is end of January - how does this happen??? Well, since the last post I have enjoyed the warmth heat and even more so the air conditioning (until the air con in the master bedroom died on Friday...), we have looked around Brisbane a bit, been to a few different public pools, driven up to D'Aguilar National Park, spent a considerable amount of time at Ikea (LOVE IT!) and in shopping malls etc.

The only time Mstr12 came on a walk with us so far lol

Literally up the road from us

Public Pools

Redcliffe Cove Lagoon

At our new 'local' pool

Two weeks ago our container arrived on the day I started work - thankfully Chris has been very productive in moving contents into our smallish house or repacking and storing them in the garage. Yesterday I finally found my threads and today my bobbins, so once it has cooled down a bit (35degC outside and 32degC in the lounge where there is no aircon), I might pull out my machine and at least get some mending done.

School is starting on Tuesday and my kids are all more or less organised (how we forgot to get stationery for Mstr10 is beyond me - I hope they have packs at school on Tuesday!). So far everything has fallen into place, I managed to get almost all their uniform items second hand or for free, and today I will get Mstr14's diabetes care plan for school organised. DH has a job application running, next step happening in a week, fingers crossed it will work out - so that would take care of all my four boys and keep them out of mischief!

It's been interesting moving into a city after so many years in the country side: The neighbours are closer but our neighbourhood is nice and quiet; the shops are much closer, and I am yet to get used to balancing the 'big shop' that doesn't fit into my smaller pantry and freezer compartment with going shopping 'frequently' and spending too much money on stuff we don't need; fast food is very handy, and if it was up to Mstr12 we would probably have Domino's Pizza twice a week at least; there is public transport though it pays to check the maps beforehand where exactly to get off, some parts of Brisbane are quite hilly and it's no fun walking up and down streets to get where you need to be.

A few snaps of our place

So altogether we're really happy at the moment, we're enjoying ourselves. Will we stay here forever? Who knows, the size of the house and absence of a pool will mean that we are very likely to move when our 6m lease is up, but I like the suburb, the proximity to the office, the fact it is tucked away yet really close. Once school starts we will see how the children settle in. Despite his original reservations "get used to my sad face, Mum, I will never be happy again, because you are taking us to Australia", Mstr 12 has already announced he will make friends at school because he doesn't want to be bored at home. 

Mstrs10 &12 at the primary school play ground

Starting work has been very interesting, the same work I have been doing in New Zealand but mainly within the Microsoft platform, where in NZ we used a lot of Google applications and iPads. For the first week I spent most of my time online / in the office, and in week two it was straight away off to Melbourne for training and then back to Brisbane to spend my first day in school. I loved being back in a school! Next week I'll be in three schools, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, and I better remind myself to take a breath every now and then! I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Melbourne, partly because two of my ex-colleagues flew over from NZ, in fact there were more Kiwis than Aussies there! My belief in the the 2 degree separation of Kiwis was re-affirmed when I met a girl at the training who had grown up in Kerikeri, taught with one of my ex-colleagues from Northland and turned out to be the daughter of someone I had played music with for many years.

View from Level 37(!!!!!)

Vertigo anyone?

My building had 40 levels, but others were higher! 

So that's all from me for the moment, I better get that Diabetes Plan done, enough procrastinating! I hope you are more productive than I am!

Happy Sewing!

151 unread blog posts???

Hi there, everyone, I have not completely disappeared out of the blogosphere but so much has been going on over the last few months and barely anything had to do with quilting!

As I had written in a previous post, I have accepted a job in Australia, so for the last few months we have been busy getting ready for the big move across the ditch (as we here in New Zealand tend to call the Tasman Sea separating us from Australia). Both DH and I resigned from our jobs, we packed up the house (well, actually the movers did it for us TG!) we found a rental in one of the western suburbs of Brisbane and on 18th December we arrived in Oz. It all sounds a lot less stressful than it was at times, 2 trips for me to Australia in Oct and Nov topped off by a trip to Germany for DH in Dec amongst the usual madness of family, school, work, conferences etc.

We have left our NZ place with a property manager and tenants which gives us options for the future. For now we're quite happy with the suburb we have chosen though the house is smaller than our NZ place and we'll definitely miss the pool. At this stage I won't have a sewing room either but with the container still a fortnight or so away there is plenty of time to come up with some creative ideas. Being in walking distance to shops and schools is a novelty for us, and even the office is less than 7km away and easy to get to by car or bus.

We have already stalked the local Ikea (how I had missed shopping there!) and DH has already suggested I might want to go and check out the quilting shops:) We're definitely missing family and friends but at this stage it's still a great big adventure. Today we finally got phone and internet hooked up hence the mention of 151 posts I had unread in my Feedly in just 10 days without proper internet!

The lovely Suz from All the Good Ones are Taken has suggested a Trans-Tasman Challenge using Vintage Revival - can't wait for my sewing stuff to arrive! (I yet have to get me the book, too lol). Looking back over the last few months there's been little accomplished on the sewing front, still some more to do on the Tokyo Subway Map and I haven't started anything new. However, I entered Uni{que}versal and Spring Fling at our local P&A Show and received 1st and 3rd place (I think?) respectively.

DH is cooking tea, the boys are enjoying being back online, so there's little else to do for me but to wish you a belated Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I will try to check in more regularly again in 2015!

Mstr10 & fluffy cat - in need of a haircut!

Big move...

... coming up for us. I have been offered a very cool job in Brisbane, Australia, starting in January, and we have decided to accept it. So the big move is on!!!

If anyone has any suggestions about

• how to move and stay sane
• reliable and reasonably priced moving companies
• 'nice' suburbs and great (state) schools in Brisbane
• 'must connect with' Quilting groups and shops in Brisbane, as well as
• any tips and tricks for moving from NZ to AUS

please send them this way, we will need all the help we can get :)

Not much sewing going on I'm afraid but lots of sorting out, packing up etc....

Hope you are more productive than I am! Happy Sewing!

Around the World Blog Hop

The lovely Suz from All the Good Ones are Taken - quilter, neighbour and friend - has asked me to join her in the Around the World Blog Hop. It's been a long time since I have taken part in a blog hop, so let's see how we'll go:

1. What am I working on?

I haven't done much lately, but I have out both the Tokyo Subway Map quilt that still needs more echo swirls as well as Whakapapa I for which I have a lot of ideas but not found the time and 'muse' yet to continue on.

Tokyo Subway Map - WIP - 2013 - 2014

2. How does my work differ from others of its genre?

I like to design my own pieces, but I usually only make one of a particular design - it's a bit like "been there, done that". Often I use bright colours:

I love batiks though they can give me grief with quilting at times due to the tight weave. Lately I have been doing a lot of heavy quilting on many of my pieces. Quite often I have a purpose and finished size in mind and work from that. While some projects develop over time, sometimes I just know what it needs to look like.

3. Why do I write/create what I do? 

I have always liked creating things. I like the touch of fabric, maybe that is one of the reasons why I struggle to buy material online? Quilting is 'me time', it gives me a chance to create, to play, to simply have a good time :)

4. How does my writing/creating process work?

I don't often work from a pattern nowadays - recent exceptions include Spring Fling and Tokyo Subway Map.

Springfling 2014

There is usually some kind of spark, sometimes a Challenge theme like "free" or "ten" from the AQC in 2013 and 2014, 

Uni{que}versal 2014

or just an idea like Against the Odds,

Against the Odds 2011

or something I have seen like Whakapapa I

Whakapapa I - WIP - 2014 (apologies for the poor quality photograph)

which was inspired by our trip to Germany in 2013. Sometimes I know straight away what has to happen, sometimes a piece will sit for a long time before inspiration strikes. I have yet to completely abandon a big project. Suz and I often laugh how size is one of the starting points for me (she takes quite a different approach :D). 

Thanks for joining me for this Blog Hop! To continue it I have asked Rona from Layer upon Layer and Bente from I like to Quilt to hop on next week - please check out their posts on 8 Sept!

Time out over lunch and some contemplating

I took some time out over lunchtime today and DH and I went to the concert of the Royal NZ Navy Band. It was absolutely fabulous and brought back dear memories of our time (a long time ago) playing in our concert band back in Germany. The band did really well catering for the audience of mainly school children, music, entertainment, fun, engagement and at 1h just long enough. As our sons' schools were not taking classes there, DH went back to grab Master 9 and is currently enjoying the repeat of the concert.

As an ex-musician and music teacher I am quite sad that children in our area rarely have the opportunity to hear such music life, also that learning musical instruments happens only in pockets, esp. when you look at instruments beyond recorder, ukulele, guitar and drums. I sometimes wonder if I am denying my children some opportunities by not exposing them to more different experiences, though often it is just too much of an effort to get them there.

Despite the prevalence of online learning and ubiquitous access to knowledge, are we creating a society that has a very narrow view of the world and the limited skills that go with that. What price will we pay as a society for not passing on skills and knowledge beyond what is in their immediate surrounding? How can we expose young people in rural areas to 'what they don't know'? How can we ensure we are not limiting them to the point where they are denied certain pathways - pathways of personal growth, enjoyment and for future job prospects?

(Cross-blogging this post to thebelbird.blogspot.com)