tiny happy

old people, young people, babies and dogs.

We had a great turnout at the benefit concert over the weekend. All the kinds of beings mentioned above and more. Thank you for all your wonderful support and encouragement!

It rained for most of the afternoon, so the event took place in this beautiful old house, instead of outside in the surrounding gardens. But despite the bad weather, we had lots of support and interest, and generous donations from everyone who attended.

Here's the stall I set up and looked after, with the help of my kind friend Amelia. Thank you again to those wonderful women who sent crafty goodness to fill up the table. Everything was a hit!

(The Bruno Stevens 'No Fences' exhibition we set up outside, before the torrential rain)

In the evening Tom had arranged a link-up using Skype and our home computer, to Jeff Halper, a well-known peace activist who founded the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, working to oppose the demolition of Palestinian houses in the occupied territories. Various practice-runs with Jeff Halper had proved successful, so we were feeling quite confident about the whole link-up.

But then with an expectant audience filling one of the rooms and waiting for Halper to appear on the screen, Tom realised he was going to have to wake him up by calling his cell-phone (it was 5am in London, where he was staying that day.) Eventually, he came onto the screen, and we heard him talking, but he couldn't hear us! So the entire interview had to be conducted by writing our questions on a whiteboard and holding them up to the web-cam, and then he answered them.

It was amazing to hear him speak, but also hilariously funny to see him squinting down his camera to try and read the hand-written questions. I loved the combination of such a high-tech practice (the video link-up) with the old-school ask-a-question-on-the-blackboard technique. It was the perfect ending to a wonderful day.

preparations...

Tomorrow is the day of Tom's No Fences: Peace and Justice in Palestine concert. It's been a wonderful event to be part of so far- we've met many new, interesting people in our community and learnt a lot about what is involved in 'organising' an event! Tom is excited about everythng coming together tomorrow, and seems unphased by the current forecast for rain. I've really enjoyed watching him be fully immersed in something that he is so passionate about and clearly enjoying the hard work.

While he, Nick and some friends are building a stage for the bands this evening, I'm organising my craft stall for tomorrow. Here's my box of gear all ready and waiting by the front door. I have t-shirts to sell from the Human Rights Palestine Group in Wellington, Middle Eastern olive oil donated by the wonderful Trade Aid, and some bags and baby shoes I've made over the last week. Also, there's a huge box of beautiful craft items donated by my kind NZ (and Australian!) blog friends for the cause.

I want to say a big THANK YOU to everyone who has been supportive, kind and generous to us - donating items for the craft stall, and sending encouraging emails and comments through the blog- and that's only my online friends! Thank you all. xxx I can't wait to tell you tomorrow how it all went.

And now, even though it's 9.30pm, I've decided I need to start baking cookies and muffins for our helpers, musicians and speakers tomorrow. The more last-minute I am, the fresher the baking, right? It might be a late night.

branches + leaves

These pieces of card were a Christmas gift to Tom and I from our dear friend Arti. I have no idea how they were made, but I imagine them to be prints from amazing botanical-print fabric.

Here they are lined up on our bedroom mantelpiece. (we're lucky enough to have a fireplace in our bedroom!) Such beautiful things to look at upon waking up is guaranteed to be good for one's peace of mind...

My favourite is this green one:

And still on my leaves theme, I found this big piece of linen on TradeMe, and couldn't resist it. I am weak-willed when it comes to fabric. I'm sure I'll think of something to make with it...

And some little leaves for Keira: a new freezer-paper stencil on her plain white t-shirt:

Hope you have a great weekend and get some quiet time to sit under a tree.

a kitchen bed

In this summer heat, Keira has not been keen to have her usual afternoon nap at one o'clock. But she still needs it- after protesting for a while I get her out of her cot, but she spends the rest of the afternoon setting up little beds for herself around the house. Yesterday, ignoring the general chaos of sewing/playing/cooking, she made her bed in the middle of the kitchen floor:

She takes great pains to make sure her quilt is laid out neatly and does her best to keep it that way as she climbs under it. It looks like she prefers to have company when going to sleep.

The kitchen floor is also a great place for a spot of naked drawing.

Over the past few days I've been busy making bags for various things, including these four which are off to the lovely Babylicious website. These are all from my usual pattern, and vintage fabrics-barkcloth, wool, and printed linen.

Sometimes, I can't believe I get to make these for a job.

cardinal love

I love cardinals.  Although I've never seen one in person, (they're found in North and South America), there's something about this little bird that fascinates me. Last week I found a website where you can watch little videos of different birds from around the world. Here are the cardinal clips. And I believe they're the State bird of seven states in America, so I guess I'm not alone in my Cardinal Love. They even appear in my favourite song by Sufjan Stevens, 'Casimir Pulaski Day.'

Over the last month I've found three cardinals on my op-shopping adventures:

a page from the 'Golden Treasury of natural history' book, 1952

a vintage Crown Lynn plate with a cardinal on a pine branch.

thick fabric with bird panels, including these cardinals

Because I've only seen pictures of them, I'm starting to think of these birds as being quite magical. Much in the way moles, squirrels and raccoons are... hmm. Perhaps I need to travel more?

iceblock weather

We're having a bit of a heatwave: our first week of relentless sunshine in a while. Today's been a great day for splashing in the paddling pool and eating lemonade iceblocks outside under a tree:

I made this brown skirt last week, as I feel it's officially too hot around here to be wearing jeans. The pattern is New Look #6433 and it was very simple to make up. At least, it would be, if I was better at putting in zips.

I used a light brown linen-cotton blend, which, as you can see, was folded up on the shelf for a long while before I cut it up. Hopefully those crease lines will wash out eventually? Also some darker brown cotton for the waistband, and brown ribbon (which is actually vintage 'hem binding tape' kindly sent to me by Laura) to tie at the top.

This is the back:

The patches are appliqued bits from an old shirt I found a long time ago at the op-shop. Brown and red poppies, what could be nicer?

trees currently in my heart.

my latest barkcloth find (a present from Tom) - 2 small vintage curtains, black barkcloth with silverbirches...

...a piece of fabric I found this week at the Recycling Centre- deciduous trees and birds looking for a place to perch.

Am I brave enough to cut into these beauties?

It's sunny today; the walnuts on our backyard tree are slowly ripening...

more matchiness

I was so happy when I first worked out how to change a simple chair covering so I'm quite surprised I haven't been collecting old chairs like this on my op-shop travels lately.  I've had this particuar chair for a long time, with a nice but fairly food-stained cover. Upon the arrival of this fabric last week, I decided it needed a new look:

If you haven't done this before, you simply push the chair pad out of the frame, remove all tacks and old cover, place old cover on new fabric and use as a template to cut out your new cover. Then stretch the new fabric over the pad and tack on the underside. I used small thumb-tack-sized nails, but you can also use good drawing pins. Gently hammering them in is sometimes necessary. Fold the fabric evenly and economically around the corners before tacking into place. Then push the pad back into the chair frame, and voila! A new look for your old chair.

I also made a new bag from the same fabric, to put on my craft stall tomorrow. Hopefully it will go to another home, so I won't be caught sitting on the new chair with this bag on. That would be too much matchiness.

matching apples

'Tuffer', by Betty Ren Wright, 1959

Arlo and I found this wee picture book at the op-shop today and on the way home he was looking through and said 'wow Mum, I love this book, because I can really feel the little deer!'  I was just thinking about how empathetic he was getting these days, when I realised the little deer was made of brown felt fabric stuck to the page. It's very cute.

Here are two baby sets I sent away yesterday for friends in the North Island who have two new babies among their friends. They didn't know if the babies would be boys or girls, so I made these little red and green shoes, with matching bodysuits with apple appliques.

I was tagged by Kate to do the '6 wierd things about me' meme. I asked Tom for help and he could think of many more than six but here are some anyway. Rather than tagging people back, please feel free to do it too if you'd like.

a) I often feel genuine sympathy for inanimate objects such as rubbish bags waiting outside in the rain, raisins being dropped into the fruit cake mixture, items on TradeMe that noone has bid on, carrots I'm about to chop the tops from. Old toys, especially dolls and teddies, in op-shops are almost too much to bear.

b) If I am sitting or lying down, even in quite hot weather, my feet will be freezing. Even if the rest of me is warm. For most of winter I don't feel them at all, and they're black/purple to look at. I've heard you can increase your salt intake to ease this problem but that brings me to:

c) I can never get enough salt on my food. The saltier the food, the more I like it. I sprinkle salt on everything, even my peanut butter toast and olive and feta salad.

d) I have quite a nervous feeling when calling someone on the phone, during the time between dialing the number and waiting for them to answer. I always try to picture what's going on in their house while i'm waiting for them to answer.

e)sometimes when I'm having my morning coffee I try to imagine what the christian names of my pottery cups would be if they wanted to be named. Like 'Rosella', 'Martin', 'Penny', etc.

f) As a child I would feel very nervous after being called into the doctor's surgery, and asked what was wrong. No matter what my ailment (usually an ear infection) my face would go red, and I would try to speak but only a whisper would come out. My poor mother. I'm getting better, you know, now that I actually have to take my own children to the doctor sometimes.

By the way, I don't actually find any of these things to be 'wierd' myself. Viva la difference!

sticky, but nice.

Thanks for all your de-lurking yesterday... I had such a lot of fun reading all the comments. See, it wasn't so scary saying hello, was it ;)?

I've been having a sticky, but nice time making marmalade. Over the weekend we stayed at my parent's holiday house for a night and enjoyed lounging around on the beach the next day.

Mum has a pretty, flourishing garden there, which includes several orange trees. I stole some oranges to make this marmalade when i got home, and now we have a jewelled jars sitting in the sun on the windowsill as a reminder of our trip.

Last night I listened to a radio interview with the two NZ men who marched across Antarctica, pulling heavy sleds. The journalist asked what food they had most looked forward to eating upon their return, and one said, 'Just a piece of bread, with butter and honey. I must have eaten that 50 times in my head while we were out there.'

I think I would have been just the same, although perhaps it would have been marmalade on my imaginary bread. Yum.

here's my recipe:

Sweet Orange Marmalade

1.5kgs oranges

2 lemons

1.5 litres water

sugar

Squeeze the juice from all fruit, reserving the pips and tying them in a piece of muslin. Discard pulp. Finely chop the skins and place in a pot with pips, water and juice. Leave overnight, or for several hours. Bring mixture to a gentle boil, boil for about an hour or until the skins are soft. Cool a little, then measure how many cups of marmalade you have in the pot. For every cup, add one cup of sugar. Bring to the boil rapidly for about 30 mins, or until a setting point is reached. Pour into sterilised jars. Makes about 6-8 medium-sized jars.