At the end of last month Brenda and I travelled to Oamaru, on the South Island of New Zealand. I was teaching a class for the North Otago Patchers and Quilters for two full days, but we got some extra time to explore this lovely city on the day we arrived.

Oamaru is known as the Steampunk Capital of the world. The old town has been preserved and transformed into a gorgeous area with cobbled streets, and the old Whitestone buildings from the early days of European settlement, when Oamaru was a bustling port.

Beautiful buildings with quirky and interesting shops, including lots of craft shopping opportunities make this a great place to explore.

We ventured into the Textile Emporium - what a delightful place! Vintage sewing machines, looms and an amazing spinning wheel from the 1700's caught our attention, as did all the lovely samples. 

This weaving had been done by students at the Emporium.

There really is something for everyone in this shop - whether you love to...

Here in New Zealand we are just getting to the last days of summer and heading into autumn. We've been making the most of the beautiful weather and scenery in our new to us caravan, who we have named 'Dolly'.

Dolly is a very simple little lightweight caravan with no power but going away in her has been so relaxing and lots of fun. We have lots of campsites close to us where we can just go and listen to the birds singing, take a walk in the bush and be laid back for a day or two.

To keep us warm in Dolly I chose my Garden Party quilt. This quilt was made from fabrics in my stash, using the Creative Grids Perfect Rectangle ruler. It was so much fun to make and it's a good size for keeping Carl's feet warm at night!

We visited a tiny little town in our region called Pongaroa, and of course we had to grab a delicious pie for lunch from the one shop that serves the entire farming area for miles around.

We love travelling in Dolly, but the one thing that was missing was my...

How exciting! My episode of The Quilt Show is up and you can now watch for free until December 15th 2019 by following this link:

I hope you enjoy watching!

This week I am in Denver to tape an episode of The Quilt Show with Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims.

We took off from a beautiful sunny Wellington on Tuesday

By the time we reached Auckland the weather had gone downhill with roaring winds and sheets of rain ! At least we didn't have to take off till later when the storm had passed us by.

Denver put out a lovely welcome - with the time difference we took off after sunset on Tuesday and then landed before sunset on the same day

We spent a couple of days acclimatising and then visited The Quilt Show studio today to watch some of the taping and get set up for my filming tomorrow.

So now my quilts are up on the wall and ready for filming in the morning. I'm really looking forward to it, everyone was having so much fun today.

This month I have been visiting family in England, and while I am here I have been teaching my Triangle Block Party class.

My walk this time doesn't include a quilt, but look at these beautiful native bluebells that adorn many English woods at this time of year

When I was a child, we would gather armfuls of bluebells to enjoy, but these days it's not allowed, and really so much better to see them in swathes in their natural setting. My sister, great niece and I loved our adventure in the woods, and the added bonus was a beautifully built wooden playground.

After a bit of catch-up time, I was off on the train to Huddersfield. Nestled in the Peak district in the North of England, Huddersfield was at the heart of the wool trade in the nineteenth century, and many mills have now been converted for new purposes. Four trains from Bedford, I arrived in the village of Slaithwaite (pronounced 'Slawett'), and met Justine and Lisa, who run Simply Solids. It's a great shop stocking a fabulous...

What a busy month it has been! In July, we had Sew Marlborough, the New Zealand mini Symposium. Hundreds of excited quilters gathered together in Blenheim on the South Island of New Zealand for five days of classes, exhibitions, merchants and meeting up with friends old and new.

We were up before dawn to get to the ferry terminal in Wellington

What a view we had from our seats at the front of the lounge area! This is the beautiful Marlborough Sounds on the South Island of New Zealand.

Opening night arrived and I was up on stage to award the Hoffman Challenge prizes for 2015. Here is the fantastic winning quilt, 'Sarah and Getty', by Debby Williams.

You can see photos of all the quilts on the New Zealand Hoffman Challenge page.

Over the next couple of days I went to a class with Jacqui Karl of Kowhai View creations. Two days of art quilting, using freezer paper stencils, discharge paste and paints was just what I needed to completely relax and rest my mind from the day to day...