Thoughts

In three weeks time, my family and I will be packing our bags and heading to Greymouth to live for the next eight months. Greymouth is on the west coast of the South Island of NZ. With a population of only around 8,500, Greymouth is known for the greenstone, having a wild beach, mining, impressive rainfall and, consequently, impressive river floods. So why are we moving to Greymouth? It's all part of a convoluted plan to get ourselves a bach (or crib as they are known down there) so we can visit the south whenever we like and have a base when we get there.

I know, it seems a long way to go just to get a holiday home, but the adventure and change of scene is part of the drawcard to the plan too. We've never been a family to sit tight for too long...

This means packing up my studio and deciding what to take with me and what to leave behind. Very hard decisions! But it's made me reevaluate some of the 'in-progress' work I have lying around. If I haven't worked on it for over a year, and if it doesn't 'fill me with joy' á la Marie Kondo, then why the heck do I still have it? I'm setting a fair few things free and it feels good!

What have you got lying around that you said you'll finish one day? Does it fill you with joy, or a mixture of resignation and guilt? If it's the latter, consider setting it free, you'll be freeing yourself too.

Stitches

Some of you may know that I'm the vice president of Aotearoa Quilters, NZ's national quilting association. Part of my role has been helping organise The upcoming Great NZ Quilt Show that is being held at The Energy Events Centre in Rotorua in May (shameless plug: you should go, it'll be awesome!) And as part of the show I agreed to do a couple of technique demos showing how I use silk organza in my work.

The photo above is a work in-progress and I'll be using it as part of my demonstration. The background is a piece of white fabric that I gelli-plate printed and stencilled with textile paints. I've then layered hand-dyed silk organza over the top to form the landscape. It's unimaginatively named 'fantasy landscape' at the moment, but I'll have to think of a better title at some point, suggestions welcome!

Next up, I'll machine stitch a few of these layers down to hold them in place while it travels. But finishing it and quilting it will have to wait till after the show.

If you do visit the Great NZ Quilt Show, you can see my demo on Friday 14th May at 1.45pm or Saturday 15th May at 10.45am.

Contemplation was also made with layers of silk organza. The background layer was a beautiful cerise cotton that I had hand-dyed. I used a piece of white silk to suggest a window and then stencilled the leaves with textile paint. I used a piece of hand-dyed silk organza that shaded from cerise to blue over the plants and then the contemplative women drawn onto a piece of white silk organza sits of top of everything else. The layers are machine free-motion quilted together and the piece is finished with a hand-stitched binding.

Contemplation is for sale for $150 NZD incl GST and plus postage. Please reply to this email if you are interested.

(I'm a bit of a bird freak, so every month I intend to profile one of NZ's cool, unique, special, wondrous, fabulous birds)

This newsletter is brought to you by...

The New Zealand falcon, or kārearea in te reo Māori. Also - kaiawa, kārewarewa, kāiaia, kāuaua.

• Doesn't miss a trick
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The NZ falcon is much smaller than the harrier hawk it is sometimes mistaken for, being about 43cm long (females are larger than the males.) It has a dark brown eye compared to the yellower eye of the hawk and almost exclusively takes live prey. The bird you saw feeding on possum roadkill was almost certainly a harrier hawk.

The falcon is a fast and furious predator, catching small to medium birds on the wing in a puff of feathers. They usually nest in scrapes in the ground, making them vulnerable to predators, but they will vigorously and aggressively defend the nest - watch your head, their talons are impressive and they won't hesitate to make contact! Early NZ scientists liked to call it Falco ferox for it's ferocious tendencies, but it's now known officially as Falco novaeseelandiae.

They have the most beautiful barring pattern on the underside of their wings and rich dark brown feathers on their crowns and backs. Legs and feet of the adults are yellow, but an interesting bluish-grey in juveniles.

Want to know more? Wingspan is NZ's national birds of prey centre, committed to the conservation of the falcon and our other raptors. Visit their website to hear the falcons call and learn more about them. The photo above is taken at Wingspan, when one of their display birds decided to land on my daughter's head!

Thanks for staying to the end! It really does make me happy to know that you're reading my thoughts. If you'd like to continue the conversation, please hit reply and send me an email. You can also find me hanging out on Facebook and Instagram.