Views off the morning mist (or smog) over the Heretaunga plains to Napier and snow on the ranges.

Today's daisy is a wood cut, hubby is working on, before it has been cut, I think it looks good at this stage. Will post a pic of the block when it is finished.

Sunset today in our garden, taken by my hubby.

Two more blocks I finished yesterday for the sampler quilt. Only two more to come from our teacher. Then I would like to do a quarter dresden plate for each corner. Which means I will have to do one more block, another applique, probably a daisy.

Spring at Keirunga Gardens

Tulips in a vase.








Cat in a bowl.

Camelias at Keirunga

Sunrise through the pines at about 7:30am this morning.

Today's daisies are one of my favourite paintings. It was painted by a scottish artist, Fiona McBryde.

Two blocks I finished today for the sampler quilt. Only four more to go. I am looking forward to getting the whole quilt finished.

We went to the beach yesterday to gather some pebbles. The waves were a little wild. The first view is looking along the beach to Haumoana, and the second is looking out to Cape Kidnappers.

Today's happy daisy pic.

Garden Now

As spring is in the air and the buds are starting to appear on the trees, I need to start thinking about our garden. As you can see from the pics it is nice but boring. Yesterday I trotted off down to the library and got out a whole load of gardening books. The first couple of pics are of the top garden and I have no idea what I am going to do with it yet.

The second two pics are of the bottom garden which we do know what we are going to do with. As it floods we are going to put in a raised broadwalk and a small deck. Then plant around with native flaxes and rushes. Then add in some irises, primulas and hostas.

I will post pics of the gardens as they change over the months.

A crisp fresh rose pic taken last christmas in our rental garden.

Daisy pic of the day is two of my nieces in the daisies at my wedding last year.

Winter tree down in the lower garden. I think this is a walnut tree, but I will have to wait until the leaves come back before I find out. If you know what it is please leave a comment to let me know.

This is our other cat Rana. She usually sleeps in this basket on top of my wardrobe. Rana and my other cat Buffy are twin sisters, but are very very different. A bit like yin and yang of the cat world. Rana is the hunter of the pair.

After last weeks flood, we have aquired a small beech. Well a load of sand has been washed down from somewhere and deposited on our lower garden. My youngest has been having great fun building sand castles. This is a pic of one of the beautiful shells I found in the sand. This sand is going to come in quite useful, as we can use it to level off that part of the garden. We intend to plant some native wetland plants down there, as well as some Irises and grasses. We would like to make a raised wooden walkway beside the stream, so we can wander through without always needing our wellies(gum boots). I will post some pics once we have completed it.

Daisies recovering from yesterday's frost.

Current Projects


At my local quilting group we are working on a sampler quilt. These are the blocks I have done so far. I have 6 more blocks to go. The blocks I have enjoyed doing most have been the applique ones. The blocks I have hated doing are the ones with circles or curves. I now know that I do not ever want to make a quilt using only curves.




I am also about to start my next Thimble Berries project out at the Quilters Cabin. These are the fabrics I am going to use. I would like to use this quilt as a table cloth when it is finished.

Another sunflower from our old garden, this time with a few bugs. Maybe I should have named this blog Nicola's flowers!

Day after the party daisies.

Did you feel that rumble then http://www.geonet.org.nz/x2593170g_l.html. I had just dropped off to sleep and was gently shaken awake again. A good end to the day we had our house warming and welcome to New Zealand party.

These daisies are on the quilt from our bed. It is getting a bit faded now and needs replaced soon. The daisies were created using a machine applique technique. Good old freezer paper is used to make each petal, then they are applied to the background by machining around the edge with a zigzag stitch in invisible thread. The freezer paper is then removed by cutting away the background.

No daisies today as far to wet. Just a pic of our flooded creek, and it is still raining. Glad our house sits at the top of a very steep bank!

Future Project

The next project I would like to start is a quilt for my almost 16 year old son. I would like to do one based on a Denyse Schmidt quilt.

Here is the link
http://www.dsquilts.com/co_2tone.html.

The pic is my first trial of the pattern using scraps to make a quilting bag.

A scottish sunflower to cheer up a very wet evening.

Another daisy from the garden. I think this is a weed in some people's eyes, but not in mine. We have loads of these all around the house.

Another view from the bottom of our garden. This time over the creek looking up at next doors paddock.

Buffy investigating the ducks.

She stayed well back from the ducks swimming in the creek at the bottom of the garden.

The camellia outside my bedroom window has just started to flower.

A couple of daisies from our lawn.

The views from the end of our street

Unfortunately we live at the bottom of the street without the view.

Today's daisy

Ok I know technically it is an Osteospermum (I hope). For the purposes of this blog a daisy is anything with the daisy shape, which includes sunflowers.
This one lives on our drive way.

Buffy the blonde cat, blonde in appearance and blonde in nature. She likes to investigate the garden with me.

The end of our garden this morning, with a bright blue winter sky, after the rain stopped.