New Zealand Week 5

 My tour is over, we got into Christchurch yesterday.  The weather has been miserable for several days now, so our last few days were a bit confined as the danger of landslips prevented us from going too far afield - one of the roads we had taken just the day before was closed due to a slip. So nothing crafty to report from the west coast of the south island although I did see some pretty greenstone carvings in Hokitika.

However, Christchurch has made up for it as I found some good shops today despite the soggy weather.  The first was a branch of Knit World, a large knitting store only a few blocks from my hotel.  They had a big selection of Rowan wool, and then loads of NZ wool, with just a little acrylic, synthetics and cotton.  They had the Decadent brand, a lovely 100% NZ wool and I had just bought two balls of their lovely mottled 'Neutrals' DK at a farm experience we went to on the last day of the tour. It has a lovely sheepy smell as well. Since I am currently carrying around 4 balls of wool (plus my own knitting) and have posted some home, I didn't buy any more but enjoyed looking around the store which had a big patterns corner, some knitted samples, and some haberdashery as well.

I got the bus out of the town centre to visit The Tannery, a converted Victorian tannery complex now housing a variety of boutique shops and cafes.  I went there to visit Cushla fabrics quilting store, which I'd seen recommended online. It turns out it's been sold and is now Sew & Co. so it's still there and what a wonderful store!  Absolutely loved their beautifully  curated displays, the large quantity of sewn samples displayed with their patterns to purchase (which makes it so easy), the riot of colour everywhere you looked, and the staff were so friendly.  The store is divided into two parts, at first it looks really small but you go around a corner and it opens up into a much bigger room.  And they had loads of stuff on sale, I assume they are selling off older stock from the previous owners.  I thoroughly enjoyed looking around the whole store and bought a cute pattern for a teapot pincushion, some more Kiwiana fabrics, and picked up a huge bargain on a McKenna Ryan kit for the quilt 'Beach Walk' (reduced from $490 to only $200, which is only £100 for me).  I sold a kit for one of her other patterns last year because I'd had it forever and realised I was never going to do it, but I really like this one and it looks less complicated than the one I had.  However it is heavy, which is not going to help the suitcase situation.  They had a really wide fabric selection: lots of Tilda, American Jane, lovely batiks, Moda of course, loads of others and I really liked all of it - would have been quite happy to take the whole store home.

Also in the same complex was 'Bolt of Cloth' with an inhouse 'marimekko' shop including bolts of their iconic fabric.

And also The Fabric Store, which had a wide selection of dressmaking fabrics including Liberty Tana Lawn, and also haberdashery and leather. I think a lot of it might be deadstock, and there were some great 50% off sales going on.

Further along is the Wool Yarn Fibre store, a small store front selling mainly handknitted or handwoven items, but behind it is an enormous room which is the local spinning and weaving guild's treasure house.  It looked like a fantastic resource: they had a huge library of textile books, all kinds of spinning wheels, floor looms, tons of room - I'm very envious. 

On the way back to my hotel, I spotted these adorable smocked dresses, possibly in Liberty cotton, in a shop window.  I tried smocking a baby romper for my son when he was little, it was a lot harder than I thought it would be and not a great success.

I finished my sumo sashiko. 

NZ week 4

 Only four days of my tour left.  We've driven all the way down the South Island to Queenstown and now are starting back up towards the west coast.  

In Kaikoura I found yarn for sale in one of the tourist shops and picked up a couple of skeins of NZ DK yarn in pretty blues.

Driving down the Canterbury Plains, I did spot a couple of nice looking patchwork and quilting shops out of the window but of course I can't get off the tour bus.  In Queenstown there was a Saturday arts and craft market near the lakeside on a lovely sunny day. There was actually a handspinner set up to sell skeins of handspun and the wheel was there - proprietor was absent temporarily.  There was also a man called Reynold Turner from Cromwell, who was selling little model houses assembled from real stone chunks to mimic the 19thC miners cottages in Arrowtown.  Another stall was selling the most wonderful handmade candles modelled in soy wax I think he said, with all kinds of kawaii details.

Today we visited Arrowtown, with wonderful autumnn colour in the trees. After enjoying my walk around the cute town, I went into the museum where I found a colourful textile exhibition by the COOTS (Central Otago Outside the Square!) which sounds like a fun and supportive local group. Several things caught my eye in the exhibition.

And in the gift shop, they had prints made from textile art designs by Sarah Auld in felt which were really cute.

In Wanaka, I came across Wools of Wanaka, which sells both knitting yarn and a variety of woollen clothing and goods.  Here I bought a shawl pattern called 'Dirty Lace' which looks quite fun, by Truly Myrtle a NZ designer,  It needs four skeins of sock yarn and they had some wonderful samples knitted up.  It's knit on the bias with simple lace patterns which look fun.

New Zealand Week 3

 I am one week into my tour, it's going fine.  The pace is pretty leisurely compared to how I normally pace myself, also the budget level for experiences and hotels is a lot higher so equally a novel experience for me.  We have made it all the way down the North Island to Wellington at the southern tip, and tomorrow we cross over on the ferry to the South Island. Today marks roughly the halfway point for my overall trip I think.

I visited the Te Papa Tonga Tongarewa national museum today and saw a couple of quilts or 'tivaevae' which their label said are important to the Cook Islands people living in New Zealand  being used for their practical purpose but also as decorations and presentati

ons on important ceremonies such as weddings, 21st birthdays etc.  One was a 2015 applique quilt made by Tukua Turia, the other is a 1992 patchwork quilt made on the Cook Islands by an unknown maker.

Walking up Cuba Street in Wellington, I came across Made Marion Craft, a nice multi-craft shop with a classroom area in the back.  From the notices, they do some interesting introductory courses to sewing, lampshade making, crochet etc.  They have small displays of yarn, fabric (I bought another Kiwiana FQ which I think is different from the ones I bought in Auckland), haberdashery, embroidery etc.

I was briefly excited in the old mining town of Waihi when I saw a large knitting store in a heritage building called Unravelled Yarn Store on our lunch stop. My hopes were dashed  by the permanently closed sign in the door however. I've seen a few shops advertising knitting as we drive along, and one tantalising sign for quilting and knitting supplies but I don't think the rest of the group would see stopping for that as a priority. I went into the library at Taupo while waiting for the bus to come back - they had a good selection of craft books but the knitting section was twice as big as the quilting section, so I don't know if that reflects the demographic here.  I've been looking at craft magazines in newsagents and bookstores - there don't seem to be any native NZ publications, they are carrying some American quilting magazines and British knitting and cross stitch mags.

I carry my knitting on the minibus and have turned the heel on my second sock on a few of the longer driving days.  In the evenings I've been working on the sashiko sumo panel that I bought in Japan.

New Zealand Week 2

 I've joined my small group bus tour now, we've had three days on the road and so far it seems fine. A more leisurely pace than I would take on my own, but they are driving me places that I wouldn't be able to access as a non-driver.   When I was still on my own, after leaving Napier I caught the bus to Rotorua which is a centre for the Maori culture as well as being extremely geothermally active. I enjoyed a couple of the Maori experiences that you can book, and learning more about Maori history and culture. 

Quite near my hostel was the attractive shop 'Cottage Flair' which is mainly a patchwork shop but also has some knitting wool.  There is a classroom at the back of the store and the sound of sewing machines whirring away made me a bit homesick for my own sewing room.  I enjoyed looking around, especially as they had a number of sewn samples made up from patterns to look at.  They feature a lot of Australian designers but also had ByAnnie and the British designer Love from Beth.  There were one or two NZ designers as well.  I only bought a small pattern from Australian designer Hatched & Patched to make a cute pincushion featuring a caravan.

I bought a cute teatowel featuring multi coloured kiwi birds which is too cute to use as a towel, I will probably make something else with it.

I was interested to see in a Rotorua bookstore, instruction manuals in English for various Maori crafts such as how to prepare and weave flax, woodcarving etc.  It's good to see that this traditional knowledge has been captured for the modern generation. 

Not exactly craft but the Jelly Belly store at the top of the Rotorua gondola run had pictures made entirely from real jelly beans on their wall. Also in the gift shop up there, I found a lasercut model Maori meeting house (forgot to take a picture) that I bought for my dollshouse collection.

In some of the museums I've visited, they've had examples of Maori weaving for clothing, often embellished with things like feathers.

In a craft gallery, I saw this teacup 'still life' which is quite cute, I own a similar one at home.

On the first day of our tour, we stopped at a bird rescue centre and I got to pet a kiwi, it's an educational bird rescued after losing a leg in a trap and has been toured around the country to schools and the like to raise awareness of this threatened species.  The feathers unexpectedly felt like coarse dog hair. He was quite happily rooting for worms while we admired him.