ka kite ano, Aotearoa...

told  you those swedes was as big as housies...just compare them to the not insubstantial steps [leading up to the Baptist Centre]

and here are the delicious greens slow brewed from a cocktail of green plants. the deepest colour [top right] was taken up by [drum roll] a scrap of wool fabric.

i love wool. it's a miracle fibre. sucks up plant colour, keeps one warm even when wet, can be knitted/woven/felted/stitched or a combination of any of these, is fire-resistant [EXCEPT when superwashed - grrr] and is a sustainable renewable resource [when the sheep flock is managed properly]

 

wandering on from Gore i arrive in Wellington [via Invercargill and Christchurch].  i love flying into Welly. the scenery is magic and when the sun sparkles on everything i know it's going to be a splendid afternoon.

in fact, tis my first afternoon "off" for some time - travel days don't really count as downtime - having squeezed eight days of teaching into a relatively short trip.  the hectic schedule reinforces my decision to restrict future teaching to longer "retreats" once present commitments are honoured. good things take time and it shouldn't be about rushing to finish a "product". this work is about journey and process and whatever object is made during a workshop is merely the icing on the cupcake

so anyway, here i am in lovely Welly. first call is Minerva Bookshop on Cuba Street to collect some kimono that Anne Scott [the proprietor] very kindly picked up for me during a sale at Asia Gallery [and had been hoarding in the store cupboard for some time]

Minerva is one of my favourite bookstores along with Matilda's [Stirling, South Australia], City Lights [San Francisco, USA], Artisan [Fitzroy, Victoria], Ariel [Sydney, NSW] and that yummy architectural bookstore on Montgomery Street [also in San Francisco]

at Minerva i browse. in fact i browse for some time. resistance is useless and i come away with "The architecture of the Quilt - Gee's Bend". i hope to study some of these quilts at the San Jose Museum of Textiles next week...

at 3 pm i wander across Cuba to visit my friend Roger for a lovely chat about art and the whirled and our respective wanderings and what we think about stuff. oh, and he kindly inks my favourite phrase for me...

this of course requires a visit to the Flying Burrito Brothers for a celebratory margarita. 

it's good. [nearly as good as the delicious one, oops, two that Pat mixed for me at Nelson, bless her cotton socks]

their food is fab as well but i have other plans and wander on

sadly there isn't time for visits to all my usual haunts. the Northland Panels and the Botanic Garden will have to wait for next time. so will the Green Parrot.

i have a girlie night planned with my friends Cleo and Rachelle. we eat fish and chips from the Wellington Trawling Seamarket [conveniently located just across the road from my digs] and drink wine made by Cleo's father

we look at treasure that Rachelle has brought in her basket of tricks

we sit and stitch and talk and drink wine and then tea. several cups of tea. it's good.

Rachelle glows.

in fact we all glow happily together, three skinsisters sitting on the floor of a secondfloor helltell room on Cuba Street...