tiny happy

botanical bags

I finished making some bags over the weekend to send with my baby shoes to Beckon Gallery in Wellington. I thought I was making each one to be quite different from the other, with a different 'feel' to it, but, photographing them this morning, I realised they're all very similar indeed! Brown, green, wintery, and botanical looking. I guess I can't escape my own taste!

I used almost all recycled fabrics to make these- 1950s barkcloth, corduroy, hand-dyed calico and old linen curtains.

I'm feeling extremely nervous about having some things I've made in a 'real' shop- excited, too, but mostly nervous! The owner of Beckon, Bec, has being so lovely and supportive about the whole thing though, so that has helped a lot! My two main fears are: a) noone will want to buy them and b) the items will fall apart when being used. Does anyone else have these sorts of thoughts? Am I being irrational? Maybe, but I sewed all the seams extra securely, just in case!

quite a score.

Tom's Mum, Clare, came to visit yesterday, with two old orange suitcases, which she said were presents from a friend of hers.

I thought they looked quite cool, and we need a suitcase- but then I saw what was inside!

Clare said they came from the mother of her friend, who has now retired from sewing, and none of the younger members of her family have an interest in craft. Given the look of this fabric and some of the smaller scraps included at the bottom of each suitcase, I think this woman must have sewn everything her family wore- underwear and swimsuits, nappies, baby clothes and bedding for many years. There is a lot of muslin, cotton of all weights and colours, and fine wool fabric (I think it is called 'viyella'?) Everything has that lovely smell like the inside of an old book - my favourite... Aren't I lucky?!

Thank you so much for your great feedback yesterday. Suffice it to say I will be busy sewing those shoes for another twenty, maybe thirty years, without ever having to buy another piece of fabric.

These are my favourite two pieces. The fabric on the left is a fine muslin-cotton blend, and the piece on the right is a heavy sateen-type fabric.

an early sign of spring and some new links.

I was excited to find this in the hedge by the washing line today.

Some glossy sweet-smelling jasmine poking its head out of our native hedgerow... winter can't stick around for too much longer, can it?

I've updated my 'reading this month' list of links to the right there... some new blogs I've just discovered and others I've loved for a while...

I've been meaning to post the link to Voor Nop for a long time and finally did today- (sorry, Suzanne!) This is a lovely site with simple patterns for making all sorts of baby clothes- jackets, pants and dresses- definitely worth checking out! I'd love to make this little jacket for Keira. Suzanne explains how to use recycled fabrics for the clothes- and all her examples are made from adult-sized t-shirts and other finds. A helpful site.

My work in progress shot: more of the same, I'm afraid. Just need to do the hand-sewing and I'm done!

elves and the shoe-maker

I'm looking after a friend's three-year old again for the day (we do this every Thursday) so with three little ones running around, plus a line-up of baby shoes on the kitchen window-sill, it feels like the shoemaker's studio around here. If only I could go and have a sleep and let my elves finish the work for me...

I'm trying to complete a little collection of baby shoes and bags to send to the lovely Beckon Gallery in Wellington, which I'm very excited about, but everything seems to be taking longer than I had imagined (doesn't it always?)

I had to show you this lovely barkcloth I found yesterday at my favourite 'vintage-y' shop in town: it will become bags, I think.

I love it's softness and muted colours. I was 'talking' (over email) with Marianne of applehead about our mutual love for this kind of fabric, and we're going to do a swap sometime soon of handmade barkcloth bags. I'm excited about this, as i've been trying to come up with a new design that suits this fabric well, and I do adore the things she makes.

Oh and this was feeling lonely at the bottom of a drawer in the shop, so I couldn't leave it there unloved:

Isn't the embroidery beautiful? There were a few little holes and stains so I didn't feel bad about 'refashioning' some of it into these: (part of the Beckon Gallery line-up.)

the Great Wristlet Swap

A while ago I signed up to this Wristlet World swap over at africankelli because I loved the idea of making a small handcrafted item to swap, inspired by one's hometown, country or culture (or all of these!) According to Kelli, there are swappers from 8 different countries participating!

After a couple of unsuccessful attempts at making a little wristlet pouch ( I thought I could sew zips reasonable well, but I was wrong!) I finally came up with this as my 'New Zealand-inspired' wristlet:

I just made a basic zip-up case with an old antique green zip, corduroy for the front and a green native fern print on the back. Then I embroidered a little branch with some brown felt flowers to show what most of the trees look like in our backyard right now! And added a few green leaves because I'm really hoping for spring right now...

Then I remembered that my swap partner, Rebecca, likes purple so I made her another, for good measure, in that colour:

I put pictures of the rest of the swap and the linings of the wristlets on my Flickr page. So they're on their way to the States today. I hope she likes them!

magazines and brooches

This was delivered to our doorstep this morning: a surprise parcel from my friend Helen (of former Stripy Sock Studio fame.)

A nice stack of magazines that I can't wait to look at, three pieces of vintage fabric (oops, sorry Helen, I should have ironed those first!), a huge book filled with patterns for making some very cool and retro children's clothes, and a stack of her handmade collage cards, which I'm very excited about because it's so fun and useful to have these on hand to send to friends...

And then, my favourite things: two of her wonderful handmade felt brooches that I admired a long time ago... she must have remembered and kept them for me. They're both going straight onto my winter jacket now... thank you so much, Helen! Don't you love the little label? She used her 'new' (but actually quite old) typewriter to print the brooch details onto the back of an old library catalogue card- very sweet!

piles of fabric all over the kitchen table.

Yeah, got quite a few of those sitting around on the kitchen table- is it wrong that it makes me mad to have to pack them away for serving dinner? I don't think they'd be safe, knowing the mess that is usually made during meals. Oh well.

I finished these little things last night to send to a friend who has just had a baby. Two embroidered and appliqued cotton vests, and another little Mini-Moopy bunny. This one is made from brown corduroy, and that retro maroon print. How I love making those wee bunnies!

Luckily for me I have FOUR new babies to make them for- three girlfriends and a cousin are due in two months. Bring on the spring babies!

busy house

Things are feeling a bit chaotic around here...

The phone has been ringing all morning, it's cold and rainy outside and Arlo and Keira are in super-hyped-up mode along with their three-year old friend who has come to play for the day.

Not even drawing, Arlo's favourite afternoon activity, will occupy them for five minutes.

While they were eating lunch I remembered about this project for a stained-glass window picture to make with pre-schoolers I saw a while ago on the wonderful Kiddley. How I love this site! So we'll try that this afternoon.

And here's a plain sort of book-bag I finished last night using the last of that chrysalis fabric I found... it's lined with coarse brown linen with a couple of pockets. Amelia and I resume our weekly craft stalls at the local market in a few weeks, eeeek! I'm not as , ahem, prepared as I hoped to be by now... not surprising really. Anyway I hope to sell a few simple bags along with my baby clothes... if I end up making them that is!

to brighten up a cold, grey day

...I love to make lemon curd. Last night at our Craft Night, Rhiannon brought along some little pastry tarts with lemon curd inside, which reminded me of how good that stuff is in the middle of winter (or anytime, come to think of it.) We had a big bowlful of lemons on the kitchen bench from my parent's farm so I made a few jars.

I've been eating this and helping to make it, for as long as I can remember. My grandmother made it for us when we were really small, and I loved it so much I learned to make it too. Also we had a good grove of lemon trees surrounding our house which bore fruit all year round, and I think this is why lemons are my most-favourite fruit ever. The flavour, in my opinion, is second only to chocolate!

Here's how I make lemon curd (sometimes called 'lemon honey'):

5-6 lemons

125g butter

2 cups sugar

4 free-range eggs

Beat the eggs briskly with a whisk and set aside. Grate the rind from all the lemons and set aside, then squeeze them and strain the juice. Set up a double boiler (I use a saucepan inside/on top of a bigger one filled with water) and inside it melt the butter. Stir in the sugar and lemon juice, until sugar is dissolved. Then add the beaten eggs and lemon rind, stirring all the time. Adjust the heat of the double boiler so that the water is moderately bubbling, then cook the lemon curd, stirring well all the time) until it becomes quite thick. Pour into sterilised jars. (Makes about 2 large or 3 small jars)

Lime curd is also nice, if you ever have enough limes to extract the equivalent juice and rind from! I've also had it made with passionfruit and lemon which was super-yummy.

You can use it to sandwich plain cakes together, or eat it over vanilla icecream, or fold it through whipped cream, or bake it in little tarts...

but my favourite way to eat it is spooned onto hot buttered toast!

it's not knitting but it's progress

Tom's just had two weeks of school holidays (he's a high-school teacher) and I was very excited to find him one morning, carving out some pieces of linocuts to make two little prints of the children.

Keira's print was inspired by this photo of her, taken last summer. And Arlo's was taken from this one. He used a small chisel to mark and carve out the pieces of lino, and small rubber rollers to apply the sticky black Fas Printing Ink to it.

I've always hoped Tom might get inspired to knit or sew with me in the evenings, and while he actually knit a baby hat once (for Arlo, when I was pregnant!) he hasn't developed a passion for craft as far as I can tell. But these prints are progress, and he still could, right?