Lindisfarne Camp

First up I want to say thank-you to Joanne for the ride down and the great company, it always helps with a car journey when you have pleasant company.    We couldn't fit anyone else in, as normal we took more than we actually needed; but that's ok.   Next time I think I'll stick to just one knitting project as I never get much knitting done in the car; too busy talking

We left early; I think Joanne was at my place by 9.30am and we weren't supposed to get to the camp till 4pm at the earliest.   The trip would normally take about 2 hours or thereabouts.   We turned up dead on 4pm due to a lot of stops on the way.  Some were toilet stops, but we also stopped at Ashfords where both of us fell for some lovely silk to spin, though I didn't buy any on that stop.   Then we had lunch before heading over to the local Bernina shop to get some ribbon, surprisingly that was all I bought at that stop.

Lunch at Ashfords; yummy panini for me and vege quiche for Joanne.

From there we went to Tinwald which is just over the Ashburton bridge and dropped in at Annies Quilt Store; love that place! 

 I didn't get a lot there, but I did get a couple of charm square lots to use for George's quilt.

Curio and Circa 1934 both by Moda.  Both have some nice non-floral prints for a boy quilt

From there we went to the Tin-Shed which was much closer to SH1 than I thought it was; luckily their yarn selection wasn't that good this time and I wasn't tempted at all.   Some nice clothes, but I'm not buying clothes till August at the earliest so that was easily done without too.

Next stop was Geraldine where we visited the local yarn store come tourist store and I did succumb to 2 balls of a lovely alpaca/silk in peacock blue; no photo as it's still in its bag at the moment, it's laceweight though and I think will make a lovely cardigan later.  I will take photo's at some point as I need to put it into the Ravelry stash.   We also popped into the local quilters shop and I picked up some more charm squares and some fat quarters to add to George's quilt stash

The dragonfly charm squares have some nice non-florals in there and I think the African prints will make for a nice pop.   The two at the top may not end up in his quilt, I'm not sure yet but I don't see them as fitting in.   I'm planning a black background, using a Kona solids jelly roll in the darks range for the smaller squares and the charms for the bigger ones; it's still able to be changed at the moment. 

I did this using Paint, so my squares aren't all lined up like they will be in the finished article.   Another possiblity would be this:

Though in black and white this makes me think of the American flag for some reason even though it's not the same at all.

Back to the road trip and we also visited Barkers in Geraldine and I picked up some plum sauce for pizzas (theirs is the best!) and some caramel topping (love this stuff so much) and some passionfruit curd as well, yum.    A quick side trip to Pleasant Point resulted in a custard square each from Denheath and we then arrived at Lindisfarne at 4pm exactly.

Some of the birds there.   I saw some of these wee guys swooping and diving outside the back door; lovely.

The main hall

Looking down at the accommodation from the hall

Lindisfarne is a Presbyterian camp and as such there's a wee lecturn sitting in the hall, and a cross up on the hill overlooking the camp.   The camp itself consists of two buildings.  The accommodation which has bunk rooms, toilets, showers and lounge and the main hall which was rebuilt last year after an arson attack.    The hall was fantastic!   There's a toilet in there, a lovely big kitchen which uses gas stoves and the water was just as good as Christchurch water, tonnes of room for our sewing.   We're already planning to go back again.   The costs were very reasonable too.
We all accomplished a lot, though I only have one project to show you as the quilt still has a long way to go.  Catherine finished her quilt and Summer and Karen worked on theirs.    Melissa was busy sewing clothing as was Rachel.    I'll show you a few photo's of what was accomplished.

Catherine working on the Hungry Caterpillar quilt

Joanne's project bags; very yummy

Summer's quilt

Karen's quilt blocks

Rachel's dressing gown for her daughter

The finished quilt

And finally, what I did:

My bicycle basket is now covered so it looks a lot better than it did, you can't see the damage to it now.  No photo's of the quilt yet; need to get more done first.   I did get Ian's first mitten finished though.

Squirrels!