tiny happy

deep autumn

It feels like deepest autumn: a turning point before winter properly sets in. I hope you're keeping warm and well, wherever you are!

Here are a few images from the past fortnight here at my place. Our restrictions are being lifted and we're able to see small friends and wider family again. It's lovely to see faces and remember what it's like to have dinner with people outside of our immediate bubble. Hard to imagine we'll take it for granted for a while.

I've been gradually tidying things up in the garden, with the idea of 'putting it to rest' over the wintertime. I do hope to plant rocket, silverbeet, spring onions and some other salad greens in the sunniest spot to keep us in some fresh things over winter. I quite enjoy the autumnal jobs in the garden: trimming away spent plants and sweeping, washing out terracotta pots and stacking them in the shed until spring.

My friend Beth came to visit and she brought with her a giant bundle of bay leaves. They're so pretty, hanging up to dry. 

I ordered a copy of Bernadine Evaristo's Girl, Woman, Other (along with a good number of children's books as gifts for my small nieces) and it's the perfect autumn read so far.

My autumnal music of choice this week is the new album by Sufjan Stevens: Aporia (made with Lowell Brams). Ever-shifting and dancing soundscapes, a sonic tonic.

Next week I'll move my home office set-up to the actual office, in the city. I've been thinking about making a few new office clothes and started with a couple of tops from the Wiksten Shift Dress pattern. It's a great design - and so easy to make! It's also comfortable and loose-fitting, which is how I like my clothes for the most part.

Above you can see one of the tops I made, which I cut from a light brown seersucker cotton. I also made one from dark green linen. I plan to wear them with these Merchant & Mills pants (on my sewing list for this weekend - will report back!)

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jenny's cake + a new colour scheme

In the first photo above you can see my new plant friend. A beautiful ficus in a pot - a treat from my favourite local shop Next Stop Earth, bought to celebrate leaving my suburb for the first time in a while. I posted the same picture on Instagram, and a friend wrote that she had bought a similar-sized ficus a few years back, and now it was taller than her! I'm excited to see what will become of ours - I hope I can keep it healthy and happy.

In my last post I mentioned my new favourite cake, made from a recipe tucked into a hand-written letter from my friend Jenny. She kindly agreed to let me share it here, in case you feel like making it too! I like it because it has a lovely light texture and it's properly spicy and fruity. It's the best thing to eat with a cup of strong coffee on the side, for morning tea. It's also great to take on a hike or picnic, it probably keeps for ages in a tin and you can change up the fruit and spices according to what you have in the cupboard.

Jenny's fruit cake 

Simmer together for 10 mins:

175 grams butter
200 grams brown sugar
750 grams of mixed dried fruit (I usually use a combination of sultanas, mixed peel, currants, dried cranberries and dried cherries)
Grated rind and juice of one orange, and one lemon
100 mls brandy or black tea

Cool, then mix in:

85 grams of chopped toasted nuts
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
85 grams ground almonds
200 grams plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp each of cinnamon + mixed spice
1/2 tsp each of vanilla, almond extract and rosewater

Bake in a 20cm round tin lined with 2 layers of baking paper at 130 degrees Celcius for 2 hours, or until brown.

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In non-cake related news, I decided to start a new knitting project inspired by our shower curtain. I know, shower curtains are not exactly the stuff of mood boards, but I love the colours on ours (which, incidentally, cost $10 from the Warehouse last year). Every morning I look at the colours and wonder how I could use them in some sort of project. I had a look through my yarn stash and found some aligning colours, and settled on the Vertices Unite pattern by Stephen West. (Here are my notes so far).

I've loved working on it so far - and the colours really do bring me joy. 

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Last week I watched the newish TV series Normal People - have you seen it? I loved the book when I read it last year, but I must admit that i like the TV adaptation even more, and found it emotionally true to that age and stage of life (late teens - early 20s) and romantic of course. There's a Spotify playlist to listen to if you miss Marianne and Connell and their world! I've been listening to it while gardening.

I hope you're doing ok, and the stay-home life is manageable wherever you are. I'm missing people, mostly - my wider family and friends. And feeling so sad when I read the world news. I do hope you are well and keeping your spirits up.

See you again very soon,

M XX

a bunny and other comforts

Kia ora! How has your week been? It's stormy and cold here this evening - it has been for a while. Wintry weather makes it easier to stay at home I think - and harder, at the same time. Lockdown life is a bit darker when the days are short and the skies are gloomy. I hope you're keeping warm and well wherever you are.

One of my nieces had a birthday last month, and i wasn't able to send her a gift or go to her party due to the lockdown. But I made her a bunny instead and today I was able to send it on its way to her in the South Island. I used a ball of grey alpaca yarn and this pattern, which is called Bunny Odile and designed by Cinthia Vallet.

If you need a fun and super engaging project, I recommend it wholeheartedly! Even though it was a bit fiddly to make (the entire bunny is worked on a 2.5mm circular needle, and constructed as you go, with no seams to speak of) the pattern is so well thought-out and described that it is quite simple to knit. 

Once I'd finished the bunny, I made her a wee dress to wear from some leftover sock yarn. The pattern comes with a whole wardrobe of clothes to make for your bunny, including button-up one-piece pajamas, a textured jumper, and even tiny socks! Maybe I will make some more clothes if my niece enjoys playing with her bunny.

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A little while ago, my friend Jenny (who is a wonderful cook) wrote me a letter and included her favourite fruit cake recipe and since then I've made it quite a few times and it gets eaten up quickly around here! Jenny said she adapted her recipe from a Christmas cake on the BBC website - I wonder if it's this one? Her version uses half the quantities and a cup of black tea, some rosewater and almond extract instead of the alcohol - but I will try the BBC one at Christmas time to spice it up, literally!

A slab of Jenny's fruit cake with black coffee at morning tea time really has been lighting up my days lately. I'll ask her if i can share her magical recipe here on the blog soon, because i think you'd like it too.

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And in other news, I finally worked the border on my hexagon quilt. After some indecision, I decided to hand-applique the quilt top to 5" strips of grey linen. I had considered just trimming down the hexagons and attaching the border by machine, but I'm glad I went with the hand-sewn option as it's more in keeping with the style. And it adds a little more size to the quilt top, too.

Over the past week, I read Ten Minutes and Thirty-Eight Seconds in This Strange World, by Elif Shafak. I really enjoyed it - heartbreaking though it was. But it was also a welcome journey to Turkey, a country I would love to visit one day even if the likelihood of that is far into the future. The heroine of the story, Tequila Leila, is dead at the beginning of the book, and the story traces her journey from birth. 

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And finally, here's a song from my early teenage years that's still a comfort: Kare Kare, by Crowded House. It's about this place; a beauty.