Archive of ‘New Caledonia’ category
Have you missed me? Did you notice my absence? Are you also melting in this crazy heatwave that Australia is currently enduring? What a homecoming!
I often describe myself as overly optimistic. I truly thought that I would continue blogging during our move. Um… that didn’t quite work out! But I’m back and I’m itching to get back to designing, piecing and quilting. The weekly I Quilt linky party will restart from next Thursday 23rd January, I hope you join me 
But first up, let’s recap.
Last sunrise in Nouméa
Leaving Nouméa was emotional. Like any move it was chaotic, but those three years were more challenging and less enjoyable than many others that I’ve experienced and I really had to face it all as I left. I do dearly miss my friends in Nouméa and oh how I mourn the blue of the lagoon! I’ve swapped our tropical vista for the bush in Canberra (known as ‘Australia’s bush capital’ for a good reason!) and I am loving it.
Sunset from our house in Canberra <3
I feel relaxed, happy, relieved. All those things that don’t usually closely follow an international move. Of course I am very lucky that both my husband and I are on leave and are able to spend the summer holidays with the children and setting up the house. I LOVE our house. Many times a day I gaze lovingly into my husband’s eyes and tell him how much I love this house 
It feels so right for us. It features classic 1970s mission brown and bright white paint, cathedral ceilings and mostly original fixtures. I am on a serious mid-century modern furniture bender at the moment (my budget being the only thing stopping me from refurnishing the entire house) and am eyeing off second hand sales and thrift stores. Do other people furnish their homes this brightly?
Excuse the shutters and blinds, we’re in the middle of a heatwave…
Whilst I am eternally frustrated that the house isn’t perfectly organised right NOW!! I am happy with the progress that we’re slowly making. Our ‘dumping ground’ (ie. the rumpus room that we put all the stuff in that we didn’t initially know what to do with) has transformed into a guest room quilt show room.
But I know what you’re really wondering about… Yes, I have a longarm!!!! I won’t bore you with the setup hiccups that we had but I will tell you that’s she’s beautiful, clever, sexy and powerful. She also needs a name… Any suggestions?
I’ve been having fun practicing and working on some charity quilts.
I am open for business but the quilting website is still a work in progress. If you are so inclined you can check it out here Here I am in my studio with my lovely girl (and just for the record, I cannot bring myself to use the term ‘lady cave’, think about it people… ‘man cave’ works, ‘lady cave’ sounds a bit erm… Well, let’s just say I enjoy my STUDIO)
And yes, I make my own clothes so I can blend in with my stash LOL Apparently it’s known as “quilter’s camo”
Thank you for all the lovely messages and support during our move. I have lots of quilts to share that I made just before we left Nouméa but blogging really had to take a backseat whilst we focussed on family. Now that normality is starting to return, expect to see me back to blogging and quilting <3
Big love and happy new year to all you lovely, marvelous quilty folk. Oh, and if you’re in Canberra, give me a hoi! I’m looking forward to joining the modern and local quilt guilds Keep an eye out for me, I’m much more shy in real life
Once again I am participating in the Blogger’s Quilt Festival which is very generously organised and hosted by Amy’s Creative Side. This time I am entering two quilts. South Pacific Dreaming in the Wall Hanging category and “Celebrate” quilt #1 in the bee category. If you’re new to Pretty Bobbins, welcome! I am all about free motion quilting, it’s my passion and I host a weekly linky party on quilting process I’m soon to become a longarm quilter, but for now I work on a Bernina 440QE. I’m currently based in Nouméa, a French territory in the South Pacific but am about to return to live in Australia.
Back in June some very good friends of ours left Nouméa. They had lived here on their catamaran for many years and are one of the happiest, nicest family’s that I know (can you tell that I miss them?). They commissioned me to make a set of three wall quilts (above) for their family as a souvenir of their time in Nouméa. Honestly, the pressure was on. I don’t know if you know many “boaties” but they tend not to have a huge amount of belongings (because they need to fit them all onto a boat). These three quilts were to be a key souvenir of their time not only living in Nouméa, but sailing around the world and the South Pacific. (I’m tearing up writing this LOL). I spent a lot of time talking to them and they gave me some special photos for inspiration.
They are kite surfers – go girl!!
I made three quilts for them but the one I’d like to enter into the festival is South Pacific Dreaming (also the title of the set).
I used a lot of techniques in this quilt that I have learnt in the last year or so. The improv curve piecing was based on the class I did with Rachel of Stitched in Color.
The family portrait outline style thingy (very technical!) was self taught and involved merging two photos, tracing, some freezer paper and some free motion quilting. I’m planning a tutorial at some point but I’m sure you can figure it out yourself I merged two photos, in the original photo the Father and son were sitting in a hammock and I tried to keep the texture of the hammock to give the idea of my friend sitting with his baby on his knee (seriously cute baby!). The second photo was taken years later and my friend was leaning in perfectly toward her now four year old. Pairing the two photos to create a family portrait was a lot of fun and I love the outcome.
You can see the family silhouette better from the back.
The detail in the quilting is momentarily lost when you glance at this quilt. I didn’t want the family portrait to be overly obvious and it took me a few days to work out how to quilt it. Whilst I’m usually up for all sorts of fancy free motion quilting, this quilt called for lots of straight lines to really give the picture that I was after. You can see that I went with the beach scene quilting a palm frond in the top corner.
A photo taken on a joint family vacation. See those palm fronds everywhere? :)
The white section is quilted to show the iconic shape of the Catana Catamaran windows.
My friend’s catamaran moored at The Isle of Pines. Can you believe this? Stunning!
To me this quilt really felt like a night scene in the South Pacific but I took the colour palate for all three quilts from the Mahi Mahi fish. My friends gave me a great photo of a freshly caught (by them) Mahi Mahi and it took my breath away.
Photo courtesy of my friends
Whilst I am only entering the South Pacific Dreaming quilt in the Blogger’s Quilt Festival, it is a set of three and I’d like to briefly share the other two with you because they are deep with meaning. ”She Travels” was for my girlfriend (the wife/mom of the family) and the pink symbolizes her sailing around the world. I included some prints with French text to represent the French culture in which we live (and remind them of me – one has a sewing machine!).
For the quilting I followed the path that my friends took from Florida, to the Caribbean onto the Galapagos, Tahiti, The Cook Islands, New Zealand, New Caledonia and Australia (with many stops in between!). I then echoed this route in ever expanding lines to give the idea of a map of the sea bed or currents. The three circles come from details of the catamaran and I added the phrase, ”Know your dream, find a route” just above these circles.
The third quilt is called “Elements” as to me it represents the elements of the wind, water and land as well as kiting, a clear passion of my friends. This quilt excites me. I really pushed myself by pairing a busy pieced section with an expanse of white which I then quilted in bold colours. Absolutely no room for error!
I took the shape of the island from the photo below, the lighter blue of the wake behind the board shifting into the darker blue. The colours represent the turtles that laze about in the seagrass bed and the unsuspecting kiters that have to dodge them. The flaming C represents the kites that my friends have used during recent years.
I have no idea of winds and waters but I absolutely love these photos of my friends kiting. I can see how much they love it and I can feel the excitement. These things zoom and on a good day there are dozens of them weaving around each other. Pouring over these photos I could almost imagine the wind and I did my best to capture this in my quilting.
My friends now live in Floriada and are sorely missed. You know the kind of friends that you can pick up with at a moment’s notice? The ones that you randomly think about and imagine what they might be doing? We will leave Nouméa in two months and I hope to make something similar as a souvenir for my family.
South Pacific Dreaming (set of three wall quilts)
Usually when I share a quilt I talk about the materials used, these quilts used more than just materials, there were memories and emotions and dreams involved. It was a privilege and a pleasure to work on these pieces and I miss my friends dearly. They sent me a photo last week showing me the quilts on the walls of their new home and I want to share their words with you, “…we hung your quilts today and I am feeling so much better. I wanted to get a photo for you with/before the sunset… Anyway, they have very much lifted our spirits – thank you so much again. They have just so much meaning in every stitch and really look amazing in their spots.”
Details:
Pieced and Quilted: by me on my Bernina 440Qe
Size: approximately 30″ x 20″ (from memory!)
Thread: Aurifil threads (2000, 1135, 5005, 5006,1128, 2810 in 50 wt and 2024 in 40 wt)
Fabric: Bella solids (the white is snow) and lots of favourite prints from my stash. If you would like the details of a specific print, please let me know and I’ll try and help you, but I suspect I used around 40 different prints so I’ll skip trying to list them all
Wadding: 100% cotton
South Pacific Dreaming – my entry into the Wall Quilt Category
Thanks for stopping by and I encourage you to participate in the Blogger’s Quilt Festival by either visiting and/or entering the festival. This is my third time entering and it’s a great quilty and bloggy event. Thanks for all your work Amy!
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| Hotel garden |
We’re currently in the middle of two weeks of school holidays, Mr Husband took the first week off and we headed to the small hamlet of Sarraméa in the hills for two nights. We had a great time and the hotel was right near a horse ranch so my city kids had a lot of fun checking out the horses.
The hotel had wifi but there was no reception and I intentionally did not get the password for the wifi. Since being sick with pneumonia last July I really struggled with energy levels. Although I only spent 4 days in hospital it took me four months to recover. Then in December I had a thyroid episode which took another 4 months to recover from. The chronic fatigue I suffered during those months saw me spending hours at a time just laying on the bed unable to summon the energy to get up. I didn;t have the energy to be a good parent. I yelled a lot, I cooked the quickest and easiest meals I could manage and I pretty much stopped participating in any activities that occurred outside of the house.
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| “hiking” family style LOL |
It is so amazingly wonderful to have my energy back that I am really just focusing on being with my family, on being an active and engaged parent. So it was great to completely disconnect from social media. A good friend of mine said to me a couple of years ago, “I always wanted to be an active Mum, the Mum that gets in the pool with the kids rather than sits on the side watching them swim.” I feel like I’m finally at that point again. That I can race the boys down a path, jump in a freezing pool with them, take them for a ‘hike’ and get down on the floor and play lego and Hello Kitty.
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| Racing Mr 4 whilst Mr 6 photographs us
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It’s great!
Having said all of that, I am hoping to get my craft on today A girl does need some ‘me time’ and for me that means sewing and quilting. I kind of have too many projects to choose from so I will just quickly show you an order I finished earlier in the week
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| Pillowcase |
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| Chequebook cover (I LOVE this one!) |
Do you ever struggle to be the parent/person you want to be? How do you find the right balance? Any tips?
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| Mr 4 enjoys taking photos with the iPod |
Bon weekend!
Welcome to Pretty Bobbins for the Travelling PicStitch Blog Hop!
I am lucky enough to live in Nouméa, New Caledonia (before you head to google where it is, it is a little east of Australia kind of level with Brisbane which is about half way up the Australian east coast). Not only are we lucky enough to be surrounded by a gorgeous lagoon, there are numerous ilots nearby and lots of green. Colour is a huge part of life here, from buildings to dresses and everything in between.
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| Colourful house/business, Anse Vata. |
I had a really hard time choosing a photo to use for my colour palette! Whilst I don’t spend a lot of time on the water, the lagoon what I picture when I think of Nouméa.
The city itself provides fantastic colour inspiration with buildings providing an eclectic yet vibrant heart.
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| Anse Vata |
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| La Croix Rouge (Red Cross), Centreville, Nouméa |
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| Vacant block, Quartier Latin. |
When I look around me there is colour everywhere, clothing, buildings, the blue of the lagoon and the green of the foliage.
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| House, Quartier Latin. |
I decided I had to use a photo of the lagoon for my colour palette, even then I had a tough time choosing just one!
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| Northern Provence, Grande Terre. |
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| Maré |
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| Ilot Maitre |
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| Maré |
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| Tadine, Maré. |
And then I remembered the sunsets. Oh, the sunsets!
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| Poindeme, Northern Provence, Grande Terre. |
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| Anse Vata |
I probably spent a little too much time thinking about how to capture the shimmering blues from the deep dark water to the azure shallows.
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| Anse Vata (dodgy phone pic, sorry!) |
In the end I settled on these fabrics for a cushion cover.
You may notice that one fabric is missing in this photo, it was a scrap of liberty and I included it at the last minute and used every last piece!
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| Hmm, that really needed more ironing! |
I have good friends who are leaving Nouméa and I really wanted to give them a farewell gift, but it is hard to find the right souvenir. The photograph I chose for my palette inspiration is from a lovely day that we spent on Ilot Maitre.
I thought it fitting that I use this photo for their farewell gift. I made them a cushion to take back to New Zealand and hopefully remind them of their time on this beautiful island
To be honest I’m more of a paper piecing girl than an English Paper Piecing girl and when I was weighing up designs I almost settled on squished hexagons (technical term!). In the end I’ve selected a design that I could have easily paper pieced, so I’m not sure if that defeats the purpose LOL I love it though and I don’t know if I could have achieved such a lovely curve if I was Paper Piecing.
I used Aurifil 50wt (2720) thread to both hand stitch my pieces together and machine appliqué the strip onto some furnishing weight fabric. I love my sewline glue stick and it worked a treat EPPing! Normally I would have whipped out my overlocker (serger) to finish my edges inside the cushion, but I am actually in the process of packing up my house so I just used the zigzag stitch on my sewing machine.
I wanted the colours of the lagoon to jump out but not shock them too much in the somewhat more subdued palette of their new home of Wellington, New Zealand so I selected a dark furnishing weight fabric for the main part of the cushion. The negative space is somewhere between brown and grey, reminiscent of the traditional Kanak huts which are still used to accommodate families and are found all around New Caledonia. I did consider quilting it, but I really want that paper pieced strip to speak for itself so I left the negative space alone.
I inserted an invisible zipper so that the cushion can be double sided. Although this print is called African butterflies, it really reminds me of New Caledonia.
Thanks for stopping by, there are two of us hosting the blog hop today so make sure you pop over and say hi to Cyndi at Cyndi Stitches. Tomorrow you can find the Travellin’ Pic Stitch Blog Hop at Displacement Activity.
This post is part of the Travellin’ Pic Stitch Blog Hop. From 1st October – 30th November we are hopping all over the world EPP-ing in some fantastic locations. Check out the full list here and be sure to check out the other participants. On 30th November it’s over to you to link up for a chance to win these fabulous prizes! Sponsored by Paperpieces.com, FabricwormPink Castle Fabrics , Marmalade Fabrics, the Fat Quarter Shop, WantItNeedItQuilt, and Aurifil.
Full details for competition entry can be found here.
OK, that title makes no sense and I’m blogging after my post lunch sneaky chocolate and coffee. This whole post might be a weird sugar and caffeine high if the title is anything to go by…
But back to Wombats. (if you’re here for the sewing and not the wombats, then scroll down for some paper piecing.)
According to my Wombat buddy Fiona, today is World Wombat day. If you’re not Australian you may not have heard of wombats. They are a marsupial (marsupials are a group of mammals unique to Australia. I’m going on memory here, high school science…), kind of look like a wooden wine barrel on short legs but about the size of a small esky/ice cooler. You couldn’t really call them cute, although I did once get to cuddle a baby wombat and that was definitely cute!
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| Oh, to have my post 2nd child body back! |
Why am I blogging about Wombats you ask. Because I am in a super cool paper piecing bee called Wombat Stew along with Kristy, Fiona, Alyce, Jane, Marieka and Lara. We are into our second month. Last month Alyce was Queen Wombat and we made Japanese cuisine block. This month Jane is Queen Wombat and we’re making house blocks.
Jane asked for a 10″ block that has realistic colours. I am totally in love with the other blocks I’ve seen so far. I decided to design a house based on the colonial New Caledonia houses. This was my second time using Quilt Assistant. I think I have a lot to learn still and I wonder how much easier EQ7 is. Quilt Assistant is definitely finicky and whilst the help PDF document is good, I find myself getting very frustrated as there is some logic missing. Probably on my behalf, and I’m not seriously complaining because it is free and I have loved the two blocks that I designed with it. However, both times I have felt that both patterns were a form of torture. Again, that is probably user error. I should be designing simple blocks, not ones with over 100 pieces!
I based my house on the house on the right in this photo.
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| Source |
But also had this rickety old house in mind.
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| Source |
What I really wanted to do was this doorway and leafy canopy, but I figured that might not be enough house for Jane
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| Source |
I love my block! It isn’t perfect and I’m worried that it isn’t good enough for Jane (the other blocks are genius!), but I love it and I would more than happily keep it. I figure that is a good litmus test; do I want to keep it and turn it into a mini? Yes. Ok, it’s good enough for the Queen Wombat
I also used some super favourite fabrics. Jane asked for each house to be number 34 from a selvedge (she has a thing for selvedges). My selvedge is from Washi which Alyce loves, I used some sketch and herringbone like Kristy and Lara. I used some Heather Ross for the weedy garden (for Fiona who has a thing for Far Far Away) I did have a print picked out to put a ghost in the window, but I really, really, really wanted to make the typical colonial coloured glass windows. Can I tell you how insane I am?? Those windows were very challenging. I don’t think I can replicate them. At least not for a little while I love them, not so much my seam ripper!
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To give you some perspective… Small. Very, very small pieces.
Seam Ripper was involved. |
Here are a few of the other house blocks from this month. Kristy is the queen of paper piecing, wombat related or not, she made this beauty!
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| Image courtesy of Quiet Play, pattern available here. |
Lara made this cute block!
Fiona made this beauty and it has an awesome story with it!
Getting back to Wombats, I had a quick look through my children’s book collection and found quite a few books that feature wombats. It turns out that we Australians definitely have a soft spot for the wombat. Possibly my all time favourite kids book, purely for the illustrations (but it also has a great story line and won a few prizes back in the day) is Possum Magic. I read it as a child and I love reading it to my kids.
It’s all about Australian food and animals and it turns out wombats like cake.
Another all time favourite is The Magic Pudding which was first published in 1918! I thought my 1977 copy was vintage LOL This is the first book that I read to my eldest child. He was a newborn, or only a few months old but I loved cuddling him and doing all of the voices for this book. There are rascals and heroes and adventurers and a really naughty pudding who is also magical.
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| Sitting on the Magic Pudding so he doesn’t run away |
I remember loving the illustrations, I love the gusto with which Barnacle Bill is striding towards the villians (above). It turns out the wombat is a villain in this book…
A recent favourite is Diary of A Wombat.
This is one of those kids book that has a story line that entertains the adults too. It is about a silly old wombat who it turns out isn’t so silly after all. It’s a great book and I’ve included a page to give you a taste
Wombat Goes Walkabout is also a new book. It is about the bush, the real Australian bush and it teaches a lesson that I grew up knowing but not all kids do. If you ever get caught in a bush fire and you are completely stuck, find a wombat hole and crawl into it. Wombat burrows are big and have multiple entries so you are unlikely to meet the grumpy inhabitant and even if you do it is better than being in the open in a fire. The wombat saves the day in this book by digging a burrow for everyone to shelter in.
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| Apologies for the worst photo ever! |
A few other wombat books we have on our shelves are:
Wombat Divine, this baby Jesus is a real cutie
One Woolly Wombat, a very Australian counting book.
Bush Nativity, I’m not all that familiar with this book but it has a great illustration that probably gives you the best idea of what wombats really look like. Like I said, not overly cute!
Happy World Wombat Day!
If you’re a regular reader you may have been waiting to see how my triangle quilt turned out I finished it last Saturday, just missing out on a Friday finish… Then we had 4 days of rain and wind. I knew where I wanted to photograph this beautiful quilt so I held out for a sunny and not too windy day. I’m glad I waited.
Isn’t it pretty?
It started life as a gorgeous bloggers bundle over at Pink Castle Fabrics (she currently has a 25% discount with the code MOVING so head on over!). I added approximately the same number of fat quarters from my stash, mostly yellows, a solid grey and some orange, pink and yellow prints. I LOVE it!
The backing is Kona (some fancy name for) white with a scrappy strip of the remaining prints and some appliqué triangles.
I wanted the back to provide a fun alternative to the front, using the same fabrics and be nice and keeping modern. I hope I achieved that.
The binding is a really fun, bright yellow dot (also from Pink Castle).
I quilted it using Aurifil 50wt which I LOVE. I used my favourite Aurifil colour (2000) which kind of glows golden but also blends really well with a range of colours. I panicked when I realised I didn’t have any yellow Aurifil to machine sew the binding down, but the Aurifil blended in perfectly I used white (again Aurifil 2024) thread in my bobbin as I wanted the back to be clean with just a pop of colour. I had originally planned to quilt on both sides of every seam but once I’d done two directions I actually really loved the diamonds.
I used bamboo wadding for the first time. I really wanted to try working with it as it is meant to have lots of anti-fungal/moisture/allergy properties. It felt kind of squeeky but it clung nicely to the quilt top and bottom when I was basting it and quilting was fine. I will definitely use bamboo wadding again (in fact I am right now for my son’s birthday quilt).
I love this quilt, when I lay it on my bed to take some photos the whole room glowed orange. This was the first blogger bundle that I’ve bought and I have since purchased a few more. I don’t have a LQS so all of my fabric shopping is done online and this is a great way of ensuring that fabrics match well.
I used a tri recs triangle ruler which speed up cutting and really helped with accuracy. Can I tell you a secret? This is my first time working with triangles… Well, I did a couple of HST sampler blocks a few years ago, but this is my first jaunt into the world of triangles on a quilt scale. I’m so glad I decided to try something new!
I actually made this quilt with the intention to sell it and I am so proud to tell you that sell it did Instantly! How exciting is that? I’ve had a few people tell me that I under priced it, but those four days that I waited for sunshine to take some photos, well I spent those days agonizing over the right price. Setting a price was harder than making the quilt and let me tell you, I spent a lot of time getting those points perfect and unpicked the binding twice as it just wasn’t working for me (but that’s a whole different story!). I won’t go on about it here, but I would love to hear any advice or suggestions you have on pricing quilts
And just in case you’re wondering about that quilt shoot location (because I think it’s pretty awesome!), it’s my local beach, Baie Des Citrons, Nouméa, New Caledonia.
I’m linking up with TGIFF at Echinops and Aster and holy moly, I am very happy that this baby is finished I am also keeping up with Blogtoberfest. I also want to remind you that I will be hosting Sunday Stash for Fiona from Finding Fifth this Sunday I’d love you to pop back and link up any new stash additions on Sunday!
I just posted on my Nouméa blog about our wonderful day with friends at a local island. I’ll save the words for Suburban Adventures, but I’ll share the pics here as well I’m thinking of using some photos from today as inspiration for colour palettes. The blues are just amazing!
I’m continuing to write a post a day as part of Blogtoberfest
I’m probably starting to sound like a bit of a broken record if you know me on Facebook and read my other blog, Suburban Adventures. But really, honestly, today was special.
I didn’t get any sewing done today and I won’t tomorrow either, but that’s OK. Today we visited some friends who not only provided charming company and delicious food, but also took us to visit a farm and some 3,000 year old petroglyphs! I won’t go on about it too much as you can read my post on my other blog here.
You may be asking why am I sharing this here when I didn’t do anything crafty today… Although I didn’t sew today, I was inspired. I took inspiration for the quilting of my Colour Therapy quilt from a shell I found in Maré.
The petroglyphs I saw today are simmering away in my brain. I’m thinking free motion quilting. I have a specific project in mind, but I think there is more to it than that.
Have you ever been completely inspired by something Ancient? I’d love to hear about it. An old building, a Mountain, stories that have survived through the ages? Tomorrow when I’m out on the water I’m going to be thinking about these things. I’m not dreading another day away from my sewing machine. I’m looking forward to some more inspiration. Now, I better go delete my camera’s memory card and charge her up for tomorrow!
I’m struggling to keep up with Blogtoberfest LOL
I’m a day or two late, I know, but I actually wasn’t going to do a September round up as I didn’t feel like I’d been very productive. I have made a few things but the two main quilts I worked on in September remain WiP. The first because I ran out of fabric, and the second because I dithered for quite awhile and only got cutting and piecing at the end of the month.
L-R: Triangle quilt WiP, I Spy rainbow quilt WiP
Looking back at my September posts, however, I feel a little more productive than I thought I was
Clockwise from top left: triangle girly quilt WiP, bunting for my new nephew!, Japanese Cuisine block for Wombat Stew PP Bee, heart bunting for a new baby girl, detail PP helicopter block, heart bunting for a new big sister, PP coffee plunger mini for Mr Husband, helicopter pillowcase, design wall/rainbow I Spy quilt WiP.
Turns out I did a bit! I haven’t posted about the handbag yet, so I’ll include that here My housekeeper (who I’ve written about on my Nouméa blog) Marie (not her real name) is a close friend of mine and asked me about some handbags that I had hanging on my clothes rack. She was asking about prices and I knew that they were out of her budget. I had almost finished this bag ages ago (it’s the Melly and Me Black Forest Bag, I purchased the pattern here). I only had to sew on the buttons. But when it was all sewn up (minus the buttons) I decided it wasn’t me at all so I left it sitting in the work in progress pile. So I offered Marie the bag as a gift. She was thrilled but I asked her to wait until I’d sewn on the button.
Once I’d sewn on the button I decided I did actually really like it but I wanted to really make it special for Marie. She is Kanak and over the course of our friendship has told me a bit about her family history and culture. The population of New Caledonia is made up of Kanak, Melanesian, Polynesian, Caldoche, Metropolitan French and Anglophone expats (there are some other groups, you can read more about the history of New Caledonia here). I feel very privileged to have an insight into Kanak culture through Marie.
Marie has told me that her totem is the lizard and that every time she sees one it is significant for her. With the aim of personalising I hand stitched a little gecko onto the pocket for Marie. She loved it and I’m so glad, because she is part of our family and it is important to let her know that we care for her.
Can you see the gecko? He is twisted around and his head is facing downward. I did French knots for his toes as they have cute little sucker type feet. Mr Husband found this one in his shoe recently, if you look closely you can see his little toes
Did you get much sewing done in September? Did you find any lizards in your shoes? Is it actually possible to post every day this month???
I’m linking up to Fresh Sewing Day at Lily’s Quilts and BlogtoberFest at I Saw You Dancing.
