Here's my kowhai tree (Sophora) in full flower.
The grape hyacinths (muscari) are plentiful....
....and I love the little hoop petticoat daffodils.
I bought this red settee for the corner of the living room after I gave Sophie the yellow one - I like the red better. So does Cressy!
And while I'm not quilting at present, I AM knitting. Here's the back of the possum merino cardigan all finished - currently I'm halfway up the first front.
I was doing some folded batik.....
...putting my Blended fabrics into a quilt top (ahem! still unfinished!)...don't they look like stained glass here?
...dyeing wool......
.........marbling with shaving foam................
..and generally dyeing up a storm. 
Blossoms on my dwarf fruit trees.........
the first daffodils.....
...........and shaggy poodles.
One of my favourite harbingers of spring is daphne flowers. These are the first ones I've picked and the scent is glorious.
The poodles are still in shaggy mode, and being twins as usual.
I'm also babysitting Sophie's pets until she moves. Here are Peaches and Cream, the cockatiels.
And the little tank you can see behind them is housing Jose, the axolotl (Mexican Walking Fish). These are a type of salamander, and have faces only a mother would love.
I have been away at Hanmer Springs, an alpine town nestled in the foothills of the Southern Alps, and about an hour and a half's drive from where I live. This is just before you get to the town.
Here's the cottage where the dogs and I stayed.
On Saturday morning, we were out walking. There was a heavy frost. This is down on the flat looking up to the hills behind the town.
Meantime, at home, there is the odd little bit of spring coming through. Here are some tiny (and fuzzy) irises.
I made this hat for Sophie who has moved down here now - it's quite a bit colder here than in Auckland.
I didn't sell any of my artworks at the exhibition, but it was an interesting experience, and now I can hang them on MY walls! Here's "Comfortably Numb" (top) and "Rust Madonna" (below). Madonna is under glass, so there's a bit of reflection on it that makes it hard to see.
We had a big frost this morning. That piece of ice on a tray in the back garden is about 1cm thick (1 inch=2.5 cm)
Even by 9am when I took these photos, it was zero degrees as not much sun is on the ground there at this time of year.
Plants were well and truly frosted. They have to be tough to take the cold winters and hot dry summers that we have in inland Canterbury.
And here's Frodo being a "snow dog".
Recently, Hikurangi School, a small rural school in Northland, bought a variety of dyes from me to use on t-shirts for a stage performance. They kindly sent me their newsletter with these photos, to show me how amazing the colours were. You kids certainly rock!
This is "Taniwha", trying to look like a biiiiig piece of art when it's really only postcard size. It's backed with handmade paper.
And here is "Comfortably Numb", on a fabric-covered canvas frame. Boy, it's hard to operate an industrial stapler when you have small hands. I only get about 1 in 5 staples in. 
than this one. I stitched them differently as well as painting them with different colours. That's dye paint, of course. They will be stretched over canvas for the exhibition.
This is the ORIGINAL Octarine I painted and stitched, but the very heavy stitching made it pucker. I like this one best but can't exhibit it.
and here's the Michael Jackson touch (may he rest in peace) - it's a Machingers glove that I bought from Patsy Thompson and boy, does it make machine quilting easier.
Being out at work all day 
And this is "Out of Africa", made with a mix of South African animal prints given to me by my daughter Sophie after her trip there, and earthy hand dyed fabrics.
The reverses are lovely - "Bizarre Stars" is heavily quilted, except for the stars themselves....
...while"Out of Africa" is quite minimally quilted. This was actually my first attempt at free motion quilting.
Yes indeedy, the Evil Twin has been bending the plastic at Amazon again. Here's the latest crop of books that have arrived.
Ugh, ghastly photo. This is op-shop (=thrift shop) wool, dark blue with a reddish thread in it. It's hard to see the pattern, but it has a slanting cable running up the front. I have to think while I'm knitting this, so it's not getting much attention at present.
I love this purple one (actually it's a cardigan) with the cabled rib, but now I'm working on the sleeves and have to use double-pointed which I hate! They are ok for socks, but I find them so clumsy and awkward on a big garment. Now that I'm having to go into the city to work, I'm tired in the evenings so have been knitting simple scarves that don't require any concentration.
This is the top, featuring appliqued cows, as he liked cows. Some are running, some standing still and some jumping. I drew all these. The reverse (below) was freehand curves. This was a fully reversible quilt-as-you-go queen sized quilt.
By the end, I was thoroughly sick of black and white and vowed I'd never make a quilt with them again.
Where I live, the Nor'wester is a hot, dry wind that sweeps across the flat Canterbury Plains, sometimes for days on end. It comes from the Tasman Sea, dries as it flows over the Southern Alps, then heats up as it descends to the plains. This pinwheel pattern makes me think of wind, and the colours remind me of the Canterbury landscape, so this is what I've called this quilt. The borders are on, but the quilting will have to wait for a while.
I am busy making stuff, but not really enough to post. I'm in the proces of making this....
..or maybe this....as a class sample.
This, on the other hand, is called "Octarine" and is a painted dye piece that I'm stitching and will enter in a local art exhibition next month.
