tiny happy

asparagus line-up

I had a free afternoon yesterday, so sat down to make some new cards with my gocco machine. I use flat cards like this to send out with my etsy orders, and for sending to friends too. I decided a spring-y design would be best... and the first thing that popped into my mind was asparagus.
This simple drawing was printed in green ink on light watercolour card.

I like everything about asparagus, but especially the way it looks. Actually, I'm not a fan of tinned asparagus, kiwi-style: soggy and limp, wrapped in a piece of white bread with the crusts chopped off. But I know lots of people who do.

long days

 









































Here are two new bags that I included in my etsy shop update today, along with some more baby shoes. The floral bag was made from some amazing wool-embroidered fabric I found in the second-hand shop. I think it could be from India, because I remember Tom's parents bringing back some quite similar when they visited India last year. It's all done in wool, and chain-stitch. Gives me lots of ideas for my own chain stitch attempts, but mostly it just humbles me. To think that people stitch such vast areas of fabric, with such great skill.





















We are really enjoying our garden at the moment. Most days, the sun shines brightly until the children go to bed, and then it's still light until after 10pm. Last night I went to bed at midnight, and noticed there was still light in the sky. It's taking a bit of getting used to, mostly because I think it's still early in the evening, when it's really 11pm. Lots of late nights around here, and a general jet-lagged feeling. But I do love it- and it gives me a good reason to stay up all night sewing.

Some happy news from the garden: yesterday our nasturtium seedlings (sent by Emma in Sweden) came out. Looking forward to seeing the flowers...

etsy love

One of my favourite things about being a member of the etsy community is shopping. Well, maybe that's not so much of a surprise, but it's more than that: it's shopping directly from small companies and independant craftspeople and artists that makes it extra special for me.
I like to buy fabric and other craft supplies on etsy, too, but I thought I'd share a few of the handmade pieces I've bought over the last few months.
I bought this bag from Carol at yorktown road and I love it quite a lot. It's made from grey linen with beautiful wavy pleat detailing, and has soft leather handles. It's a bit smaller than the bags I've been using over the past few years, so I like to think it marks a departure from that stage in my life when I carried around lots of baby gear, wherever I went.
















I fell in love with this cheerful little smock, made from vintage cotton. I bought it for Keira, from starbugaloo on etsy, which has lots of great stuff for little girls in it- smocks and bloomers and hairpins.





















And my most recent purchase was this gocco print: 'Ruby Slippers' from Flowerpress in Australia. So much great stuff in there- it's very inspiring to me as a beginner with the old gocco machine. Susie's work is beautiful.
So, there you have it... long live etsy!

sun bursts

I don't know the name of these flowers, but I suppose they must be some kind of daffodil. They smell divine anyway, and when I stopped to pick some from the garden this morning, I knew that I wanted to sew with some yellow and white vintage fabric I found last week.

So I made a few of these skirts, in honour of the exaggerated spring going on outside- little 'sunburst skirts.'
The fabric is a kind of light, yet drapey cotton- it was formerly a norwegian duvet cover.

heart-shaped

A collection, found while walking today.

apples for pudding

We had some Granny Smith apples and a small punnet of blueberries in the fridge yesterday, so I made this pie- I think it's called a 'galette'-  for pudding. I first saw a savoury version of one in a Nigel Slater book, and then read about them again here on Angry Chicken a while ago. (So many good things come from there.) 

I'll put the recipe/quantities I used to make this at the end of the post, but you could probably use any type of filling you would in a double-crust pie, and any pastry recipe. And the finished galette is so good. Really nice with cream or yoghurt. You just roll out the pastry, pile in the filling then fold the edges of the pastry up and over the middle.
















Filling:
4 granny smith apples, peeled and sliced
1/4 cup flour
2 tablespoons sugar
handful of blueberries

Mix altogether in a bowl.

Pastry:
2 cups flour
pinch of salt
125gms cold butter, chopped into small pieces
1/3 cup cold water

Sift flour and salt into a bowl. Rub in butter until it resembles breadcrumbs. Add sufficient water to make a firm dough. Knead lightly and roll out. Place on a floured baking tray, pile filling into the middle and fold pastry up around the edges like above. Bake at 180 degrees celcius for about 15-20 mins.

norris min

 




















I seem to be amassing quite a collection of fabric scraps these day. Today I let Keira play with a bag full of them, sorting them into colours and wrapping her toys up in them, when she asked if I could make her a toy cat. I picked out some brown pieces, including some small bits of cotton ribbon and a leftover patch of my gocco-printed branches, and sewed up this little fellow. He has a wool felt face onto which I embroidered the eyes and whiskers.





















Keira is pretty good at coming up with 'original' names for her toys, but usually she can't remember them for longer than five minutes, so has to invent a new one. But she named this cat 'Norris Min' and hasn't changed it yet, so Norris Min it is.

I did my weekly etsy shop update today, and without meaning to, I can see I've focused on one main colour again- brown today. I found the brown daisy linen below in an antique shop here in Norway. It was a long skinny piece, perfect for a pencil case.

















And to make this grocery bag, I used some excellent garden-y vintage fabric sent to me by Helen. Lots of trees and plants in brown tones. My favourite.

a linen dress

I made this tunic dress over the weekend, using some navy linen and New Look pattern #6725 which was kindly sent to me a while ago by Marcella. I used some blue and white striped cotton for the facing panels, and navy bias tape around the arms. The back panel is also gathered under the yoke, and I think it would be easy to customise this pattern to make different styles of dresses or tops- especially by adjusting the shape of the neckline.

It was fairly simple to sew, and I'm pleased with how it came out- I made it a bit shorter than the pattern so that I could wear it happily as a sort of long-tunic/short dress over jeans or longer skirts.  And there's just something very pleasing about wearing linen, I think.

And while on the topic of clothes-sewing, have you seen the Clothkits website? You can buy kits to make some great pieces like this sweet dress. Or this amazing printed skirt designed by Rob Ryan...

cooking update

I wrote a post last week about cooking dinner and how I thought making a new apron might inspire some  kitchen enthusiasm around here. I have been enjoying the new apron, but what was more useful was the wonderful emails and comments I received about cooking after I wrote that. I thought I'd share a few discoveries, in case they help inspire you too:

* Jess and Molly reminded me of two books I've seen around lately: Apples for Jam and The Splendid Table's How to Eat Supper which look to be full of cooking inspiration. I've ordered the latter and will report back.

* I'm going to try to stop planning ahead for weekly dinner ingredients. I actually think that is what was stressing me out every night- worrying about wasting ingredients I'd bought for a certain meal, and then not getting the chance that week to make it... etc.  I'll just buy whichever vegetables look fresh and good when I'm at the shop, try to grow a few in the garden over summer, and keep lots of pasta, beans and rice in the cupboard. Then decide what to make from what we have on hand.

*I've re-discovered two old staples: risotto (above) and quiche-making. The risotto is great because all you need is rice and stock, and then you can just throw in whatever else is in the fridge or garden- yesterday we drove by a little stall in the country selling fresh asparagus, so that's what our risotto had in it.  I used to feel as though I couldn't make risotto unless I had arborio rice, but have tried it with other types of rice recently and it's still pretty good. And we always have rice in the cupboard.

The quiche is good too because if you have some time you can make pastry, but if you need a quicker way to make it, you can make 'self-crusting' version. My Mum made that a lot when I was growing up. If you have eggs and some old vegetables, you can make it. (My recipe is really similar to this one at angry chicken.)

* Esther sent me a scanned page from her personal cookbook with an excellent soup recipe on it. You fry up some veges + cumin in a big pot with olive oil, then add stock- then other vegetables (tomatoes, green beans) and chicken and herbs. I love the idea of a big pot of soup simmering away slowly for an afternoon and plan to try it very soon.

*Amisha mentioned the '10-minute mains' section of Gourmet Magazine and you should definitely take a look. I also noticed this recipe when I was looking around there... dangerous but good.

national day

Yesterday we took part in celebrations for Norwegian Constitution Day - which was an interesting chance to learn more about this new country we're exploring- even if it did start at 7am with a few loud cannon blasts to wake up the townsfolk. Keira loved that bit- she shouted 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY, NORWAY!' when she woke up.

I think typically for NZers, such a patriotic day can be something slightly complicated/uncomfortable- but I enjoyed being a part of this one, and watching the marches of children, teachers, and brass bands through the street.  Well okay, I didn't see much of the marching, because it was so cold and wet, and I took some children home to warm up.

Something that sets Norway's national day apart from that of other countries' is its non-military nature; and I thought it was great to see the focus of the day on children and their families and schools. A mother from Arlo's school told me that when she was a child, the national day was special for the fact that children were allowed to eat as much icecream, waffles and sausages as they liked. Very nice.

My favourite part was inspecting the different types of bunad worn by the women- some were especially beautiful with folksy-style embroidery and layers of skirts and apron-like pieces. I'm sorry that I didn't get any pictures of these- but you can see some examples in the link above.