tiny happy

golden light and preoccupations

It feels like the days are turning ever so slightly - the afternoon light is more golden than it was last week and the mornings are cooler. 

Perhaps inspired by that, I've started a new project to use up all the fabric scraps I can find. I have one of those big plastic storage containers crammed with off-cuts, old pillowcases and clothes destined for their next life and when I was sorting through it the other day I felt inspired to make a big quilt with it all.

I thought it would be nice to try the English paper piecing technique, as I do like a bit of slow hand stitching, and because the hexagon formation is beautiful. What I didn't realise is how addictive it would be! I keep thinking 'just one more hexagon,' and stay up too late obsessively stitching.

Another good thing about the EPP method is its portability. I made myself a big zipped pouch to hold all the templates, tools and the quilt-in-progress and it's good to keep it all together in one place like that. I've popped a few of these big zipped cases in my online shop, too.

Incidentally, zipping it up and placing it in another room is also how I manage to get other work done! Do you ever get that obsessive feeling about your projects?

+ + + + + + + + + + + 

Another thing I've been loving lately is the latest album by Marlon Williams album, Make Way for Love. Especially this song, Nobody Gets What They Want Anymore, which is a duet with Aldous Harding. 

= = = = = = = = = = =

plants and books of note

I think I write about tansy this time every year - we have a plant growing beside the washing line and it's something nice to contemplate when hanging out the laundry in the morning. I also try to embroider a portrait of the flowers every summer, and you can see this year's effort in the first photo above. I never seem to tire of those feathery leaves and buds like flat yellow buttons.

In other summer plant news, I recently found some quilted cotton printed with poppies and cornflowers (an unused placemat, I believe) and made a few pouches and bags from it for my online shop... there's something about that print I really love. I suppose it's the big and beautiful poppies.

+ + + + + + + +

Thanks to Teresa, who this week featured me on her blog The Broken Pie. The post is an interview we did a while back about food, where I admit I am a recipe-follower and somewhat boring ('is there enough bread and fruit for the kids to take for their school lunch?') type of food-person, which may not be what Teresa had in mind when she asked me to be part of her 'Creatives in the Kitchen' series!

In the photo above you can see a lemon loaf made from a recipe in my friend Nicola's book The Homegrown Kitchen which remains a favourite around here. 

+ + + + + + + 

In book news, I've just finished the novel that follows on from Life After Life that I wrote about here. I loved Kate Atkinson's A God in Ruins even more - it was one of those reading experiences where you feel bereft at the end. One warning though - if you haven't read it and would like to, don't read the Wikipedia page about it until you've finished, because it has spoilers. 

As I've had a few embroidery projects to complete, I've listened to the audiobook for Caitlin Moran's How to Build a Girl and Mindy Kaling's Why Not Me which are very different and similar at the same time and I loved them both.

Have you read anything good lately?

= = = = = = = = = 

striped socks and 'the web' magazine

I knitted some colourful rainbow-striped socks over the new year - much of the work was done while camping, in fact. Even though I don't usually choose bright colours for the things I make, I really enjoyed making these, especially the way the stripes look a bit like they've been coloured in with a crayon. The yarn is Zwerger Garn Opal self-striping, colour #9377 and I think these will be very cheering in the grey of winter.

Last week in a secondhand shop I found a stack of old magazines called The Web, which was the quarterly textile crafts journal of the NZ Spinning, Weaving and Woolcrafts Society (now Creative Fibre, I think).

The issues I found ranged from 1981 until 1993 but it appears the Society was established in 1969. I don't know how many issues of The Web were produced, but I've so enjoyed reading these issues, and they give a real insight into the crafting community before a different type of 'web' changed it forever.

Each issue includes weaving, knitting and macrame patterns from readers. These are for toys and shawls as well as practical items such as horse blankets and garments for amputees. There are also recipes for natural dyeing, instructions for building wooden looms and winders, poems about making things and community news.

One of the best things is the 'letters to the editor' section which is rather lively and occasionally quite harsh. One letter implores society members to remember to 'always do their best work' in case tourists see sloppy handwork and judge us to be a nation of mediocre crafters. 

+ + + + + + + + 

There was one small article I thought quite beautiful, here it is (slightly abridged):

Spinning Hands, by Joy Garard.

I wonder if someone showed me my hands detached from my body, whether I would recognise them as mine, and yet they have been busy in front of my eyes all my life.

Such a confused thing the brain is, but then I just sit here all day now since I have come to Resthaven. The only thing I have in here that is private to me are my thoughts, and sometimes I speak them aloud by mistake. I don't mean to, but some days no-one talks to you at all. Oh the nurses say loudly, "Here's your dinner, luv," but they do not really want to talk to you. They are very kind though.

I wish I could talk about the future, but I do not expect to have a very interesting one - I haven't made any plans!

How I wish my days were still busy like they used to be. The children young and needing attention, friends popping in for a chat or a day at the beach. I was filled with life and enthusiasm for cooking, gardening, holidays, making love, eating, going out, staying out late. 

Now I just doze and think, and hope someone comes to visit me. They do now and again.

"Hello, Mum" said my daughter's voice. "Just brought your spinning wheel and some carded wool around to see if youfeel like spinning some wool for me so I can knit Joshua and Jacob each a jersey."

"Put the wheel right here so I can start on it while we chat." My hands reach eagerly for the lovely, soft carded wool. Oh bliss, a job to do!

Yes, these hands are mine and they still know how to spin and I would know them anywhere.

+ + + + + + + + + 

projects finished and begun

Hello! Somehow it's now February, and so the year really has properly begun. In this post I wanted to show you a few things completed recently, and one just begun. 

= = (from top) = =

+ + I found a patchwork panel piece in a secondhand shop, and had to rescue it. It's been beautifully stitched by hand in pink and green cotton in a complicated star design. I sewed it into a cushion cover for maximum display purposes. When I posted it on Insta the same day, a kind person posted a comment with a link to Hmong reverse applique designs. Really good to have some clue as to its provenance, although I'm still not sure how such a carefully-sewn piece ended up in a box in a Kilbirnie op shop.

* * I made myself this grey linen dress to wear over the hot days of summer (of which there have been quite a few this year). I drafted the pattern myself (I think it could still use a few tweaks though) and used milled linen fabric from The Fabric Store. The best part about the dress is its roomy side pockets - i can't imagine making clothes without them now!

= = Wrapping orders and birthday presents recently has been more fun because i made a giant stack of small cards with pressed flowers (and clear seal on top.) Pressed flowers forever!

^ ^ In the last photo you can see some beautiful yarn I bought from my friend Nikki's shop, Dark Harbour. This was a Christmas present to myself and I finally case a new pair of socks on with it this weekend. The colourway is called 'Rare and Exotic Beast.' Perfect!