PAY IT FORWARD continued......

There were four replies to my Pay it Forward posting.

Mouse from Tales of a Stitching Mouse blog (U.K.)
Lilian Pilar from Spain
Evelyne from EEF's needle blog ( France)
Diane from Didi's beaded goodies ( NZ)

It is impossible to select three to pay it forward to out of four replies... so you all will sometime in the next 365 days receive a small stitched item from me.
 Do remember you do not have to do anything till you receive your gift, only  then  will it  be time for you to ask others to join in, and in turn pay it forward.

Mouse and Lilian please email me your address...to groatieburn@xtra.co.nz.

 andI would love to hear if anyone has a favourite colour, the fun is all mine now looking for something to stitch for each one of you.

THE PARCEL

Before my trip south I had said I would stitch a small item  to have as a draw on my return, I also collected post cards and other small items along the way to make the parcel more interesting.These included some NZ fabrics and I covered the box with the same one I had used to back the embroideries, these were a lucky find as I went to get more thread at a shop in Geraldine and while I waited to be served, browsing round the shop I found not only the red fabric but also small squares printed with NZ items on them and the ones with the Fantail on them, were a must as I had already started to collect items with this little bird on the. I have just received word from Evelyne in France that the parcel has arrived, so I can now show what I have sent to her.

The Fantail items included a bookmark, small bird pin, ( I also got one of these for myself) printed fabric squares and the bird card that when you open it you can hear the fantail sing.
I wanted a cross stitch pattern of a fantail but did not visit enough embroidery shops to find one.
Did find three bead shops on our travels and I added tiny charms to my collection.
And here below is the embroideries I stitched, the scissor fob is the one over one piece I set out to do,  and the floss ring tag is stitched on 40 count permin linen, both are stitched with Maderia silk thread. And are from Mon Ami Pierre designs.

The threads sent were   hand dyed Perle  threads from Chameleon in South Africa.

There is still time to go in the draw for my Pay it Forward, see my previous posting, I look forward to stitching something special for three lucky people.

PAY IT FORWARD

Last year I was one of the three lucky people  for Carol of Stitching Dreams blog, Pay it Forward  challenge and it was a real thrill when her parcel arrived. I just love the delightful cushion with the little bird and it is so beautifully stitched and finished. And she very thoughtfully chose the card to go with it, with a black and white cat, a lovely reminder of Tippy my cat whose album of photos are at the bottom of my blog page. Thank you Carol I will really treasure it........Now it is my turn to Pay it forward.

The rules are very simple. I will send a stitched gift to three people who leave a comment (on this post only) requesting to join my PIF challenge.  Would you like to participate in a PIF from me ? If more then three people sign up I will do a draw for three names.... I will leave this open till 27 March, remember if you wish to be considered for this you must also be prepare at a later date to pay it forward.at a later date 

I have 365 days in which to fulfill my pary of the challenge and will do my best to stitch pieces that are quite special. Then if you are chosen as one of my PIF recipients, once you have received something from me then you must offer the same on your blog to keep the kindness going. 

Pay It Forward (PIF)~ verb: "1. to repay the good deeds one has received by doing good things for other unrelated people

 I also realise  some of the followers of my blog do not have blogs........ so shortly I will have a special draw just for you ..... more on that later

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ONE OVER ONE

I showed photos earlier  ( see posting January 27th) of the lovely piece I received from Celine in Valentine Stitcher's Toys exchange but unfortunatley I had accidently wiped the photos of what I had stitched for that  exchange, My contribution went to Celine which was fun as we have exchanged several pieces now.

I have received photos from her of the piece I stitched. A scissor fob stitched one over one  using a Simply Shaker Sampler Thread in a Ruby shade, The fabric was on oddment from my stash, not sure what it was but it worked well, the tiny beeds round the edge are from an antique necklace and I was thrilled to get the ribbon through the gold rose beads.
 Handy tip on how to do this put a little quick drying glue on the end of your ribbon, roll it tight between your fingers so it looks like the end of a shoe lace and let it dry before pushing it through the bead, cut off the glued piece later. The bead needs to have a reasonalble size hole.
As you can see I did her initial on the back.


My planned one over one stitching during my trip away was not so successful, one requirement for this fine stitching is good light, and not much chance to stitch by daylight, I found only two of the motels we stayed in had well placed lights for an embroiderer. So I mostly worked on cross stitch on 40 count which was no problem. I was very dissapointed with the one over one I had stitched that I have since stitched another piece to send with the goodies collected on my travels
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 More of this later.
                               
                                   

THE TRIP

I have made a map to show how much of the country we covered in our 21  days away...... in all close to 3,000 miles starting at our home in Stratford (1) we traveled to Wellington (2) before crossing the next day on the ferry to the South Island, where our first stop was at Lake Rotoiti, St Arnaud. Nelson Lakes.(2)  We had been to this lovely spot some years ago ,we enjoyed it just as much this time, specially the walks in the forrests and the bird life.

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Top-Lake Rotoroa, Top. R. and bottom L. The Silver beech Forrest walks at the edge of the Lake Rotoiki and one of the colourful toadstools seen on our walks.
We had three days and good weather during our stay at Lake Rotoiti and then moved on to the West Coast (4) last time we were there 15 years ago Paul was not able to walk so we planned so we could visit some of the places he had missed
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He specially wanted to see the Punakaiki Rocks these limestone rock formations anre also known as the Pancake rocks  seen here in bottom L. photo........The two other photos were taken a short distance south of Punakaiki and are two views of the same rocks, one taken from the beach and the other from on the cliff above. Again blessed with good weather we were able to enjoy several walks on the beaches.

We then drove across from West coast to Canterbury on the East side of the Island, going via Arthurs Pass(5) a route we had not taken before. I was keen to see the Keas that could be found at high up on the pass, these large parrots are extremely cheeky and inquisitive and will examine anything that comes into their territory to the point of pulling anything they can off cars, including windscreen wipers, rubber seal on windows.... of the photos above I took the one top R, the others son, Barryn had taken and really are good views of the Keas. while I took my photos Paul was kept busy chasing the other Kea away from our car and the other one in the parking area.

Two night in South Canterbury at Geraldine (6) allowed me to visit places of my childhood holidays and to do some generalogy research, from there we moved south to The Catlins (7)


We had several days here, exploring both the coast line,  enjoying both forrests and bird life and the walks to the different waterfalls.

Paul is very pleased he made it to all the points of interest we visited, I have to admit I did not manage any of the steeper walks. We were rewarded with veiws of Sea lions sunbaking on a beach, the call of the rare fern bird right be side us when we did the estuary board walk, one friendly little South Island Tom Tit accompanied us along one forrest walk
He did not stay still long enough to have his photo taken..... but looked justlike this one I stitched some years ago. 

Some of the waterfalls we walked to in the Catlins, left is the Matai Falls where I stopped at this point and Paul went on up a very steep track to the upper section of the falls known as the horseshoe falls .. bottom R

 the Top R photo is the Purakaunui Falls  are really enjoyable walk through the forest.

view looking south from Nugget Point in the Catlins 

From The Catlins we headed north stopping at Christchurch, with a day at Akaroa Peninsula ( 8) we left Christchurch the day before the earthquake and were on the ferry crossing to Wellington when it struck.
From Wellington were travelled north to Napier (10) to spend a few days with my sister and her husband.

We finished our holiday with a Safari trip to the gannet colony out on Cape Kidnappers. When we lived in Coromandel driving up the coast road we would often see these birds fishing  but had never seen them close up.The Safari took us overland  through private property to quite high on the cliffs,  to the cliff top where one colony was and we were able to get up quite close to the birds.
How the parent birds find their own when returning from fishing is quite amazing
The late chicks are just balls of fluff and sadly some of them will not mature in time to leave, the young birds the grey ones will fly straight off the cliff with no practise flights heading to Austalia and return to their home colony in 5/6 years.
 At The Cape their are 3 colonys we visited the top one in the group of photos below centre L. is the Saddle colony and there is a lower one known as the Beach colony.

Home again now, I have to rackle the garden the weeds have grown well in our absence, and hopefully the painters will arrive later this week to work on the house. Off now to catch up on some stitching.
                                          
                                                      
                                                   



HOME AGAIN

We arrived Home at the begining of this week, and life has been a bit hectic since then. I will post some pictures from our trip in the weekend, so I can show off New Zealand.
Thank you to all who left a comment on my last posting, I did manage a little stitching while we were away, however I need to mount the pieces I stitched before I show them to you., I also gathered some postcards to send with them.
When we stopped for a few days with my sister and her husband in Napier at the end of our trip, I asked Joan to give me a lucky number for the draw. She selected no. 6.

AND THE WINNER IS....
 Evelyne from France who was the sixth person to leave a comment.

Please send me your full name  address, Evelyn so I can post the pieces to you.

And here is one veiw taken on the West coast of the South Island.....more to come.