Photo Friday - Waihi Beach

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A Loopy Knit

Shortly after we left our WWOOFing hosts for our tour of New Zealand, Joe decided that he was feeling devoid of a project with which to relax. Noticing that I had progressed far enough through my shawl to prove that I didn't need all three of the balls I'd brought with me, he requisitioned one, plus a spare needle and set about finding an appropriate pattern.

He choose a scarf with an interesting lacy panel, comprised of not one, but four yarn overs which are promptly dropped on the next row to create a very open set of stitches. Once the scarf was long enough - and in this case that meant around 100 inches of scarf - he then set about adding tassels to both the ends of the scarf and along the length of the body for a sheekishly scruffy look. 

It still needs a block which will probably wait for when we get home, but otherwise it's all finished; a nice little travelling project.

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Hobbiton and Hot Springs

We've had a fairly quiet week exploring the Bay of Plenty for the most part. Life has taken on a slower pace with plenty of time spent reading, knitting and watching the world go by. Each night we've parked the camper up on the sea front, relished the lack of effort needed to get the kettle on and then had a good peer at any sea birds in case we might spot something new hiding among the gulls. Our main successes this week on that front have been seeing NZ dotterels and a flock of lesser knots. 

NZ Dotterel

As well as making our way slowly along the coastline we nipped in land for a couple of days to tick a couple of things off our "must see" list, starting with a trip to Hobbiton. This marvel in set making is now a permanent feature of this stretch of farmland and takes a two hour guided tour to see. The level of detail on each of the 40 or so different hobbit holes was impressive. We were very pleased to find that the gardens outside each hole are real and loving cared for, each giving a different aspect of an English country garden - be it a small vegetable plot or a wonderfully scented lavender. Along with the variety of general hobbit holes, be they to hobbit or human scale, we also got to see the outside of the infamous Bag End complete with "no admittance" sign and a completely fake, and incredibly realistic, oak tree over the top. Our guide was disappointed to find that no one in our tour group wished to propose from the steps of bag end though. 

The only place "real" enough to go inside was the green dragon where they kindly handed out flagons of ale, cider or ginger beer and we happily found a spot by the fire to dry out as it was a rather showery day. All in all a good trip, and certainly gives food for thought as to the level of detail they went to for background shots that might not even have made it.

Steaming sulphurous mud - a Rotorua speciality...

The following day we went for a walk around Rotorua, home to many geothermal sites. We found the sulphurous smell that lingered in the air everywhere a little unsettling but it was fun to see the ground mysteriously steaming all over the place. The boiling mud along the lakeside and the yellow patches of earth, along with a variety of interesting buildings certainly made for an unusual walk. 

And with that we were back to the coast and more beaches. Did I mention we did a lot of knitting this week?

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Photo Friday - Tutea Falls

The highest waterfalls in the world that are commercially rafted. 

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A Guide to Papercutting

I've mentioned paper cutting a few times around here, but often just in passing. As this is something I've grown to love over the last couple of years and have used to make more cards than I can now remember, I thought I'd share with you a guide to my technique - if you can call it that! I'm by no means an expert, and often find myself in awe of some of the delicate pieces of art that can be made out of a simple sheet of paper. Maybe one day I can aspire to more intricate pieces but I think the process I go through here would work on any level, the trick comes down to your design skills and the nimbleness of your cutting.

I use a scalpel for cutting with, along with other drawing tools. 

There are two main ways of creating an image using papercutting - from the positive space or the negative space. For example the owl and flower shown here are created from the negative space (i.e. an owl shaped hole in a piece of paper), whereas the labels are created from the positive space (i.e. the paper is cut away to leave the letters behind). Both can work really well, but it's worth considering from the start which one you're going for as it will affect the way you create your design. Of course you can use both in one piece of art.

I started by defining a border so that my flower would have somewhere to connect to the rest of the card.

1. Start by sketching out your idea. Often at this stage I only have the loosest plan of which bits I'm going to cut out - this is all about having a viable drawing to kick things off. If I'm creating a picture using positive space I'll usually start by marking out a border as then I can make sure my picture touches it in multiple places and is therefore anchored into the rest of the sheet.

I do all my sketching on the back so that I don't need to remove all pencil lines at the end.

2. Once I have my sketch I start working out which pieces I'm going to cut away to create the effect I want. I go over these areas in a bolder pencil line until I'm happy with the design making sure all the details have been picked out. What I'm left with is a series of "holes" and "islands". It's worth checking at this stage that all the islands are connected together, preferably at more than one point for stability.

Building up layers of pieces to cut...

... until all the details I want are picked out.

3. Next it's simply a case of taking a craft knife and cutting away the sections you've marked out. I always try and cut the holes that will create the most instability last - in the case of this flower starting with the inside petal and finishing with the gap between the border and the flower at each point. This is because the thinnest points are when each petal meets the border so I wanted to put these under the lowest amount of strain.

I always work my way methodically round a piece, rotating my paper as I go...

There are three main mistakes I find I frequently make when papercutting:

1. Bad Design: I've created a design where the parts aren't all as well connected as I thought they were and as I'm cutting it falls apart. The only thing to do here is start again, or - depending on what's gone wrong - salvage the rest of it sans the part you've cut away.

2. Cutting through an island. Sometimes you're cutting down a nice long straight or curve and you slip... straight into the next hole. I find this is most likely to happen when my blade is a little dull and I'm having to put more pressure than normal on the knife to achieve the cut. Simplest solution - put a fresh blade on your knife.

Only creating the thinnest part when everything else nearby has been cut...

3. Tearing a part you've previously cut carefully. If you have a specially delicate part of the design you'll often find that it rips as you're cutting somewhere else. The knife has a certain amount of drag and friction to it and this pulls at the paper as it cuts. Partly this is solved by leaving these sections to the end, but what I also do is pin down the paper just above where I'm cutting so that my finger takes the strain, not the paper, paying particular attention to pinning down nearby danger spots.

Here I'm using the middle finger of my left hand to pin down the card just in front of where I'm cutting.

You're done! There's not much to it - just lots of patience and a steady hand.

Finally I add a contrasting colour behind to show off my cut and if a design works well I do it again and everyone gets one!

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Sailing and Storms

Having got off the ferry on Saturday evening we continued our quick trek up the North Island, pausing on Sunday morning at Mt Bruce Wildlife Centre - in particular the kiwi house. Unlucky at our attempts to spot these creatures in the wild we couldn't leave New Zealand without seeing one. The kiwi house is kept dark as kiwis are nocturnal (hence the red photo) and the two adult kiwis there were constantly on the move both hunting for grubs and having a bit of a fight with each other, much to the amusement of the watching visitors. They're hoping these two will become a breeding pair, but I think there's a way to go yet! The centre is also part of operation nest egg. Kiwi chicks currently have incredibly low chances of survival in the wild, part of the reason they're so rare, so various wildlife trusts are involved in finding eggs near to hatching and taking them for incubation (kiwis aren't particularly paternal which is part of the problem). They then raise the chicks through the first 6 months and release them back into the wild hopefully giving them a much better chance at life. Mt Bruce had one 27 week old chick in care at that point; a very cute pile of fuzz.

The last stages of our run north included popping back in to see Alastair (Suzie was away) where we both donated the remains of our tent to whatever cause they'd have, and got to sample the Brie Joe had left in a cool damp corner several weeks earlier. We were incredibly amazed to find that it looked smelt and tasted like a moderately ripe Brie; a real success! Finally we got to the reason for our dash to the north. When our tent broke we decided to treat ourselves to our last few weeks in a camper for a much more luxurious touring experience. We'd spent a fair portion of our time on the road discussing that that was surely the way to travel and maybe we should try it sometime and here was a ready made excuse. Unfortunately our hire car company were insistant that our 4x4 must be returned to Auckland and only Auckland - so to Auckland we went.

We spent a fair portion of Tuesday first collecting our campervan and then dropping off our car. When booking our camper we'd been looking at the larger 2 birth vehicles but it was pointed out to us that the smallest 4 birth were a very similar price so we happily booked one of those - we were going to be in it for a while after all. When we arrived they gave us a 6 birth and it's a beast! Wonderfully comfortable when we've chosen our camping spot for the night and with an over the cab bed that's nice and roomy and we can leave set up all the time, but not an agile vehicle for travelling in and particularly not for parking! Joe is getting to grips with it now and we are loving the extra space though.

Having done our vehicle swap we headed into Northland - the area north of Auckland - well known for its Mauri culture and interesting coastline. Unfortunately we saw little of the west coast as we drove up due to rather poor visibility and a storm that woke us up early on Wednesday morning, knocked out the power to the campsite and continued to rumble on for a good portion of the morning. Having stayed the night on the west coast we then took a fairly quick route over to Kerikeri on the east coast - not least because that's where mechanics connected to the campervan company were and we left the van with them for a couple of hours so that they could replace a missing valve on the waste water pipe and stop it piddling everywhere.

Having acheived so much distance over the last few days we then spent the second half of the week around the Bay of Islands, which is as it sounds; a stunning section of coastline covered in lots of islands. We found a lovely campsite on the waterfront near Haruru Falls and relaxed there in the sun that finally came, watching the birdlife come and go. We walked along the river edge as far as Waitangi and the Treaty House there and had a very pleasant day indeed.

The highlight of the week though came on Friday. The best way to see the Bay of Islands is naturally by boat but we weren't overly tempted by the tourist laden motor boats that would take you out to visit a particular feature of the coastline. Imagine our delight therefore when we discovered that for a similar cost we could have a day learning to sail with just us and our instructor on a 20ft yacht. We had a really good day out on the water, though were rather sore at the end of it. The best bit was when a pod of dolphins came by to say hello and swam with the boat for a few minutes - I don't think we could have asked for more.

p.s. We appreciate all your comments - sorry we don't have enough internet to be able to respond!

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Photo Friday - Mount Doom and the Rangipo Desert

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