I have just popped over to Fiona’s blog this morning to see yesterday’s good wishes to NZers everywhere because it was Waitangi Day and also news that it is (well yesterday was) the 60th Anniversary of the death of King George the VIth, which of course means that it is 60 years since Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II has been Queen.

I noticed today that a few bloggers have marked the anniversary with posts about Her Majesty so decided to follow the trend, just a day late.

I spent all day yesterday in Melbourne but, as I said to Fiona, I spent the 100km or so drive each way listening to a healthy dose of Kiwi rock on my Ipod as celebration of the first event. And a nice drop of NZ Savignon Blanc to aid relaxation when I got home.

 So today I’m showing off the talents of my clever Father which plays into a celebration of yesterday’s second event.

So of course this picture pre dates yesterday’s anniversary of the Queen becoming Queen, this is from the time when the world learned that she would be Queen… the abdication of King Edward the VIIIth in 1936.

At the time my very talented and artistic Dad was a schoolboy of 17 and he decided to enter a NZ wide competition run by one of the national newspapers.

The brief was to create a ‘picture’ of the Princess Elizabeth and it was open to all NZ school students, no doubt with assorted age appropriate categories.  The above is Dad’s entry.

It isn’t a photograph, it is a pencil sketch.

Unfortunately the silverfish had a field day when it was in storage during house renovations. I am filled with shame whenever I look at the damage to this picture, but when I look past the damage I am so very proud of my Father’s talents.

I have done a bit of a trawl around the interweb this morning and found this

 I’m assuming this photo, or another taken at the same ‘shoot’, would have been the one the appearing in the newspaper for the kids to copy.

I have no idea who won the competition, I do know it wasn’t my Dad as his entry was disqualified because it was deemed by the judges to have not been done by a student, despite protestations from his teachers.

That’s right, all competitions have the clause  ‘no correspondence will be entered into’.

I don’t think he was ever disappointed about not winning, for him the enjoyment (and challenge) was creating something beautiful with simple tools, pencil and paper in this case.

Sometimes when I am working blissfully in the zone, hand stitching,

I think of Dad and am very thankful that the gift he passed on to me was the love of doing the painstakingly slow, the tinier the detail the better.

Haven’t we all had a non quilter say to us, I’d love to be able to do that but I wouldn’t have the patience.

I’ll be the first to tell you I don’t have one iota of patience, my kids would be the second ones to tell you.

Quiltmaking is something I love to spend time doing, ergo no patience required.

I’m sure you feel exactly the same.

til soon

Margaret

Thank you for sticking with a non quilty post today.

For Dad Arohanui