post cruise & post covid! – Owl Hare & Hollow

We had a great time in New Zealand and it was so nice to be back on board a cruise ship again. The weather was perfect, it’s a beautiful country and we enjoyed having a balcony cabin so we could just watch the views from our room. Sydney Harbour put on a good show  for our sunset sail-away.

We had a few days scenic cruising starting in Milford Sound – it really is a beautiful place, reminded me of Alaska. It wasn’t as cold as last time we were here but there was still snow on top of the mountains.

Here’s me in the pink.

 

Of course everywhere you go in New Zealand its just filled with picturesque scenes of old lovely old buildings like this church perched on the side of the hill and its just green everywhere!

The highlight for us was visiting the Whakarewarewa  Village. The steam pools were so hot the geyser was spraying quite high and the ground is hot under your feet. It’s not a tourist village but a real home to the people who live there. Unfortunately I can’t upload the videos I took but I have a couple of pics.

Overall we had a great time, but near the end of the cruise we had a bit of a cough and a sniffle and tested positive for Covid. Fortunately we were not too sick at all but as we did not want to bring it home to DD we decided to stay away until we both tested negative. So our holiday was extended another week or so while we lay around at a house at the  beach just resting and recuperating.  We’ve been home a few days now, still not 100% but pretty good.

I took my Owl Hare & Hollow embroidery panels with me on the cruise and I really enjoyed doing them – it’s so relaxing – and I was glad to have them with me when we extended our time away.  I just love this quilt pattern. I think its going to be a long term project though as I’m not so good at English Paper Piecing which I’ve been putting off but I was able to complete five more panels while away.

and I’ve started on some of the easy blocks:

On the home renovating front we’ve been ‘ghosted’ by the tradie who gave us a quote for some work so we have had to start again – finding a new person to come and quote. It’s so frustrating, this is the second tradie who has done this, given a quote then ghosted us when we ask for details to make the deposit. I wish they would just tell us if they don’t want the job and with Christmas coming up that will probably slow them down as well.

Bonnie Hunters Mystery Quilt starts today so I am planning to do that over the coming weeks. I need to pick our my colours so I can get to work on the first clue and finish up a donation quilt thats almost done.

Linking up with:

RSC, Owl & Hare Hollow.

I’ve been plodding along with the embroideries from the Owl & Hare Hollow quilt and this week I finished this one.  I am enjoying doing embroidery again and I want to get these all finished before Christmas.  I had not tried EPP before and didn’t really enjoy it so I am probably going to change some of the blocks to avoid it.

I had heaps of 1.5″ yellow scraps so I’ve made lot of 2 patches. I might use them for a postage stamp quilt or an Irish Chain, not sure yet.

Made a few more of these blocks.

We spent three days this week out in the garden, clearing away overgrown shrubs, pruning trees and taking rubbish to the dump. It looks much better now but still lots more to do in our very overgrown garden this week. The weather has been lovely for working outside, cool in the mornings and 17 -19C by mid-morning.

This week I want to start making the Owl & Hare Hollow blocks, sew my aqua scraps, finish two donation quilts and declutter my pantry.

Linking up with SoScrappy, Oh Scrap & Kathys Quilts