Home again, Home again, Jiggity Jog

It seems like forever since my last post.

Taupo Symposium has been and gone.  This had been a much anticipated and planned for (and saved for) occasion, in fact, the first time my family and I have been away for longer than a couple of days.  After a seven hour drive to get to Taupo (how did families ever cope before tablets and ipods??) it was action stations for our entire seven day stay.

While I was otherwise occupied, my family hit the tourist spots:

I booked in for three classes, the first being Needle Turn applique with Kim McLean.  No photographic evidence for this one, I need to pull out all my pieces and start applying them to the background - but invaluable in terms of advice and how Kim approaches choosing fabrics.

Next it was Freemotion Quilting with Deborah Louie.  This was amazing - she was full of tips and advice - very straightforward and approachable - and solved many of the problems of the world, at least, the quilting world!

Fantasy flowers and leaves... great fun!

I didn't expect to have to follow a pre-drawn pattern for this class - probably my biggest fear - but look how close to the lines I got! 

Lastly a two day applique class with Michele Hill - who is the funniest and nicest lady you could possibly ever meet... and who added so much extra value to our class, including extra handouts and patterns, and explaining her design process even though that wasn't in the class outline!  Our project focused on a William Morris-ish tile design - check out Michele's blog for extra photos here

Let's just say my choice of fabric was unique!

Hard to tell but this is a very small blanket stitch (with my trademark grey thread of course).

Symposium wouldn't be symposium without some purchases from the Merchants Hall!

Fabrics...

I bought a baptist fan template from Grandmothers Garden on the way home...

Plus some extra supplies that had been recommended at some of the classes:

60/8 needles for quilting 100wt thread, Microtex 10 needles for sewing fusible applique, plus some needleturn applique needles, and a chalk mechanical pencil that just looked so handy!

I think I actually have another stash of things I bought... but I haven't found them yet... we unfortunately returned complete with flu bugs, so I don't quite feel like myself yet - and spent yesterday concentrating on unpacking, washing and putting away clothes.  Having this holiday through the middle of the two week school holidays means I now feel like I really NEED a holiday, instead of returning to work on Monday.  Although I shouldn't complain, hubby returned to work on Thursday, after a nine hour trip home on Wednesday.  And he's got bugs too... poor thing.

Today I took our dog into the vets, where she had a biopsy done on a lump on her chest.  While we can't be sure until we receive the test results, it is highly likely that it is cancer, which just sucks.

Surprisingly, or maybe not surprisingly, I don't feel like sewing just at the moment.  Which is not like me at all.  Like the players in the band that continued to play as the Titanic went down... I imagine I would have kept on sewing... maybe tomorrow?