tiny happy

sprigs, etc

Hello! I hope you are having a nice weekend so far. 

I don't have much to share here, really. Just some daisies in a jar. And ferns to accompany them. 

I'm working on a big-ish project that involves lots of embroidery, and above you can see a little bit of it. Some white sprigs stitched onto dark linen.

A few good things I've found around the traps lately:

- The Lonely Death of George Bell is an amazing piece of journalism. NYT writer N.R Kleinfield investigated what happened when an elderly person died alone, and followed the many ripples it caused. Sad, but completely engrossing and important work, I think.

- The programme for the NZ Arts Festival (early next year) is out and I'm having fun planning what to see/hear.

- A friend and I went to see Gifted, at Circa Theatre. Janet Frame is one of my favourite authors, and this play mythologised her quite a bit. But the performances were beautiful. 

- I found the book A Good Yarn at the library. And now (probably over-ambitiously) I want to make the 'narwhal blanket' - and have seen it's published for free online, in case you want to, too.

- This dress. I am going to try and make something similar to wear this summer. Again, perhaps a bit ambitious...!

found while gardening

I found some forget-me-nots while pulling out weeds in the vegetable garden, so they became my latest all-over embroidered pattern.

Hope you've had a lovely long weekend, if you're in NZ and had Labour day off work.

This is a new favourite song of mine.

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imperfections

I finished a project this week that has been waiting a long time for some attention. Searching through my blog archives, I see it was actually begun in 2012. (The niece for whom it was intended received something else for her birthday!)

I guess I was pretty confident about my running stitch enthusiasm, because in that post I mentioned I would like to make a full-size quilt in the same way. Probably just as well I never got started on that. 

I've taken the doll-quilt sized project and made it into a cushion for the sofa. It's backed in grey wool fabric. The front is made from the last piece of Heidi I printed onto cotton voile. I layered that with some wool batting, and more cotton, and used these beautiful threads to work lines of running stitches. I wouldn't call them sashiko, as they are intentionally imperfect. Some might say wonky. That's the way I like them.

I found the blue beads on etsy - this Belgian crafter made them. I love their weight and imperfect shape.

strawberry shortcake

We have two rhubarb plants in the garden at the moment, and they've really taken off in the last month or so. That's how i knew it was time to make some dessert, using this recipe: rhubarb and strawberry shortcake. It's been a favourite of ours for a few years now. Something about the tart rhubarb, matched with the sweet strawberries. Then the rich buttery shortcake. And even better, eating the leftover cake for breakfast with coffee.

The magnolia stem was a gift from a visiting friend. The scent is divine, and that pink! The petals look like they're made from the finest hand-painted porcelain.

new (old) supplies

Here are the treasures I brought home from this fabulous little fair on the weekend. I hadn't really planned on buying anything but then I couldn't resist. What a surprise..

The fabrics include soft grey wool - I was thinking it would be lovely to embroider on, or maybe make a coat for K next winter?

I also found a long length of drapey denim that I have set aside for a winter dress. And some striped cotton which is always useful for lining things.

There was a stall of beautiful vintage buttons - I could have looked at them all day. Some were tiny and made of bone, and there were also cards of buttons made from mother-of-pearl, metal, horn and wood. Some were round and wooden, like beads, but hand-painted with bright flowers.

I chose one card (so restrained!) of flat wooden buttons. They're topped with what looks like swirling white shell, but the label says '1970's buttons, wood + acrylic'. I mostly bought them because they remind me of iced biscuits. 

The stall belonged to Ruth Meier, who also just happens to have a button exhibition on at the Dowse Gallery right now - I can't wait to check it out.

from the worktable

I made some time yesterday to finish some projects, including a set of needlebooks (I love making them) and I even had a chance to put a few things in my etsy shop. That poor old shop - it's so often neglected, despite my best intentions.

My friend Nikki and I did some shopping at Fabricabrac this morning - there were such treasures to be found (including many fabrics that I myself had donated a few months ago - ahem. I promise i didn't buy any of them back.) I'll show you some of the things I did however buy in my next blog post. 

Are you watching anything good these days? In the evenings, Tom and I have been steadily progressing through Orange is the New Black. It features so many interesting and different characters, mostly women, of all ages. I love it.

character knitting

These photos were taken by the lovely Meg at Tea Pea - a beautiful wee shop here in Wellington. She asked if I would teach a class at the start of November and of course I said yes.

At the class we'll be knitting a family of little creatures just like these. 

Everything will be provided - yarn, needles, etc if you need them, and treats to eat. Beginner knitters are welcome. A small family of these characters would look so great sticking out of a Christmas stocking, don't you think?

You can read more about the class here. Hope you can join in - I think it will be a lot of fun. 

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Also very local - but if you are in Wellington this weekend, this is always a fabulous place to drink coffee, eat cake and buy fabric while supporting hospice at the same time.

beauty, even

The kids and I went on an outing to Petone (an old part of the Wellington region situated on the northern shore of the harbour) to walk on the beach and mooch around the shops and cafes. 

It's a beautiful bit of Wellington, and I always forget about how good it is until I get there - and it has a great array of specialty food (and other) shops as well as good coffee and second-hand places.

I found a book I've wanted for ages, called 'beauty, even' which was published to accompany an exhibition of NZ artist and poet Joanna Paul's work in 2004. There aren't many books published about her (she was a prolific producer of drawings, paintings and poems) and I've loved her work since first discovering it in a library book when I was a kid. Her drawings, especially. 

In the last photo above I have tried to capture a new favourite piece of clothing which has been worn quite a bit so far. I sewed it from some soft linen originally set aside for embroidery (there's still some left for that purpose) in dark blue and grey, with a grid pattern - quite hard to photograph. I used the pattern 'Lou Box Top' (found here) and the back neck opening is fastened with a white ceramic button. The partnership of ceramic + linen is very pleasing to me.