Christchurch

I was in Kaikoura last week for work when Christchurch was hit by a massive and destructive earthquake.  Unfortunately, unlike the original earthquake and the Boxing Day aftershock, this aftershock caused chaos and a major loss of life - a death toll they're still counting.  

Kaikoura is a two and a half hour drive from Christchurch and BM's parents and close friends of mine live there.  BM's parents were outside of the affected area.  And fortunately my friends were uninjured apart from cuts and bruises but their houses were wrecked.  I've also found out that some of the workplaces have been red stickered (due for demolition).

I feel a silly and writing about crafty stuff when something so unimaginable is happening in the same country.  Hopefully some of what I make over the next while will be of some use. 

I've been sewing and crocheting for the Queensland Flooding effort from Sarah London's crochet a rainbow appeal and Monkeemoomoo's dolly drive.  And thankfully I just need to stitch in the ends on my granny squares and have already posted my softies for Monkeemoomoo.  The recent earthquake in Christchurch has made me think about people much, much closer to home.

I flew out of Christchurch airport on Thursday - two days after the earthquake and felt two aftershocks while I was in the airport.  The journey home was a very surreal experience. I was so far removed from the aftermath in Kaikoura and it just seemed so eerily normal in the suburbs close to the airport - just a few short kilometers from the ongoing rescue effort.

I keep hoping that the news will bring some miraclous recovery from a building but unfortunately they haven't rescued anyone for a few days now.  Needless to say, we're still thinking of Christchurch and hoping to find ways to help. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Siding stories

Image
We've had a tonne of house projects this year and currently the house's siding is being fixed.  If the weatherboard is cracked or rotten, we're replacing it.  If a lot is coming off we're putting insulation in behind it.  Lots of hammering and sawing and lots of scary pictures! We had a fun afternoon tracking down the colour of the house paint.  As it turns out, its Wattyl's Flemish Blue (Deep Base, Solagard, B 144.0, E 280.0, V84.0, KX 144.0).  I love this colour and need to think about sheen's for when we get the house repainted next year.  For now we just went with the closest to the tin we already had.  One side of the house is done and we've painted a first coat of the blue. We've also had scaffolding up for a while.  Its been hard to get in and out of the house with it though - this is our entrance walkway. This is the other side of the house after a day's work removing the weatherboards.  There's a lot more work required
Read more

The great WSBN sewing room tour

Image
Gemma from Sixty Six Stitches started off a rather revealing tour of the Wellington Sewing Bloggers Network sewing rooms. I was far too intrigued not to join in.  Of course, I wanted to snoop around the creative spaces of some very creative people and felt that I had to participate rather snoop unrequited! ;) Previous in the series is:  Zara from Off Grid Chic  (Loving the idea of the screen and rather jealous of the mannequins) So here we are - a view into my study, sewing and craft room (and erstwhile cloak room during parties).  Be warned this is not a pinterest worthy room - I'm treating this like my before pictures as I plan on removing and renovating sometime over the next few years! And here it is in all its higgledy piggledy glory.   Hanging on the door are my current works in progress.  Each with a neat label reminding me what I need to sew next or what's left to finish off. To the right is my spare table.  Grea
Read more

Harping on about Harpers

Image
Wendy  (of Sew Biased ) made a StyleArc Harper Jacket and I loved it.  It helped that I bought the same fabric at some point and couldn't think what to do with it! So I made the exact same jacket!  Lacking imagination, me?  Sorry Wendy! So comfy! I really like how the jacket closes.   There's a button hole on both sides. I managed to find a covered button that's really close in colour to the jacket. The whole thing was a quick make and the fabric didn't need to be hemmed.  Nicely work appropriate and also so comfy.  I didn't really follow the instructions as its fairly straight forward. I also made a second version very quickly with some wool fabric I felted by mistake.  I didn't quite have enough so I used a fabric-a-brac fabric (from desiree) for the back of the jacket.  Not much more to add about it!
Read more