tiny happy

pop flowers

I was given a present last week, wrapped by Helen in this amazing vintage botanical wallpaper. Those pop flowers and general cheerfulness of the colours used inspired these wool cases, all hand-embroidered in brightly coloured wool. I used scraps of wool fabric in dark colours for the actual purses. They are all a bit different and were made for my table at this weekend's Craft 2.0 fair. It should be a fabulous event and I would love to to see you if you're in town.

Here's a new song for you, if you feel like one: Marilyn by Bat for Lashes. Thank you, Nick.

bright and new

This week I made up a stack of bright and new cotton clothes for children in Uganda. I was at the library the other day when I saw a poster for Make a Difference as part of the Global Volunteer Network, which appealed to me- after all, I always have my machine set up and ready to go. After a few emails to Karen, she'd arranged for the unsewn garments plus instructions to be delivered to me, and they were very simple to put together.

If you'd be interested in doing a bit of sewing for Make a Difference, you can email Karen through her site here.

Wishing you a bright and cheerful weekend. We're planning a trip to a cousin's school fair, a walk on the beach, and some waffles for breakfast on Saturday. Nothing too taxing.

two more salads

As promised, here are two more salads from the spring-time kitchen. Thank you for your suggestions last week- they all sound brilliant, and quite a few are now in my hand-written recipe book. Will be sure to report back soon.

Here are two new salads I made over the weekend. The first was inspired by my friend Jenny, who wrote about her favourite nicoise in my first salad post.

I didn't have quite the same ingredients to hand, so this is how i made it: assorted salad leaves and herbs, steamed baby new potatoes, chopped boiled eggs, pieces of smoked fish. I made a dressing from mayonaise and lots of lime juice to finish.

The second salad recipe was originally from Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diaries I think, but that book is at my sisters' house so I might well have forgotten something integral.

It consists of baby spinach leaves, a tin of cannellini beans (rinsed several times to free them from that slimy tin liquid), halved olives and chopped pancetta. Over the top: a dressing of olive oil, red wine vinegar, dijon mustard, salt and pepper and chopped herbs.

(Incidentally, have you seen this amazing collection of NS recipes over at the Guardian? I love his writing.)

embroidery cases

This week I've been finishing these little embroidery needlecases, or I suppose embroidery cases, as I've been dreaming of adding in pockets they could include for little scissors, threads, etc. Maybe my next batch will have those.

This lot of ten is to take along to the next Craft 2.0 fair, which will be at the St James Theatre in downtown Wellington on November 3rd. I really enjoy making them, but they do take me a succession of evenings- first I cut them out, then embroider them, lastly machine sew them together. Then another week of evenings to handsew the fasteners on, etc. 

This time I felt like doing some geometrical, sampler-style embroidery. I'm not a very geometrical person, so there are some rather wonky crosses and dashes. That's the way I like it though.

I bought Tom this new Jens Lekman album- I Know What Love Isn't, as he is a big JL fan. The album is a beautiful piece of genius pop writing, in my opinion, especially this track. 

two salads

Now the weather is getting warmer I've been trying to mix it up a bit with the evening meals. My goal is to try some new salads and vegetable dishes but here are two I've been making quite often. I will try and find another two favourites to post here next week.

The first salad is a very easy and much loved one in this family (although the kids still aren't completely sure that raw beetroot is something they should have to eat.)

It consists of one grated raw beetroot, a couple of grated carrots, toasted sunflower seeds, chopped mint leaves from the garden and a dressing of natural yoghurt mixed with lemon juice, salt and pepper. 

The second salad is just a bowlful of leaves (I use baby spinach, rocket and mesclun from the garden), just-cooked brown lentils, pieces of roasted pumpkin and crumbled feta cheese. I usually make some sort of lemon juice/olive oil dressing for this one.

Do you have a favourite salad right now? I'd love to read your suggestions.

lime green

Thank you for entering the giveaway in the last post. I drew a random number for the book and it worked out to be Rach's entry. So well done R, I will pop it into the post for you.

I've been noticing the lime-green here today. It's pretty grey outside, so limes will be made into a cake for the weekend, I think. 

The last photo above shows a page from my latest favourite graphic novel: The Wrong Place, by Belgian artist Brecht Evens.The book features a poignant story but most stunning are the watercolour illustrations. Definitely inspiration to get out the paints, I think.

Enjoy your weekend.

 

crafty girls talk- giveaway

I was honoured a while back when Jennifer Forest interviewed me for her book Crafty Girls Talk, which is fresh off the press this month (you can read more about it here.) The book is like a craft group on paper- in it, Jennifer chats to 20 different crafty women about their work and inspirations, and includes many photos too. It's a lovely collection, and she kindly sent me an extra copy for one of you to keep, dear readers.

Would you like the extra copy for your craft book collection? Just leave a comment below and I will draw a winner at the end of the week.

quiet sunday

It's been a quiet Sunday around here so far, it's cool and dark inside our old house but the sun is shining outside. I've been reading this book in the sun with my childhood quilt (made by Mum many years ago but still used every day.) And I found an old piece of embroidery I did when I was first getting into free-form stitching, and made it into a useful case. 

Other tame Sunday activities include washing, drawing, walking and movie-going (later on.)

- In music news, have you seen this video - Who by St Vincent and David Byrne, from their brilliant and quirky new album.

spring pins

These tiny botanicals were found on a recent walk home, and I was inspired to make them into pins because I had just been to this store and stocked up on wool felt in purple, yellow, green and red. 

The pins were a lot of fun to make- sort of like miniature textile collages inspired by the real thing- and I like that they are a tiny pop of colour on my (typically grey) spring cardigans.

My friend Helen reminded me about Etsy's video channel- it's a collection of artist profiles beautifully made and I think you'll find it inspiring, if you haven't seen it already.

Hope your weekend is a fun one!

forest shop

I've been making things to send to Japan for a while now, to a little design store called Tapiiri which is located in a forest in Yamanashi. I had a bit of free time yesterday so I managed to finish this latest order for Sayaka, who runs Tapiiri. An autumn-winter coat, and some wool embroidered cases. 

I love the idea of my handmade things being so far away and in a place so different from here. I hope I can visit Sayaka's small cafe some time soon.

How is your Tuesday so far? Today I am dreaming of making a flying-geese-block quilt (like this or this) from all my fabric scraps. It probably won't happen anytime soon, but I will dream nevertheless.