Lately, when the days have been feeling full, and our little townhouse is noisy with the sound of trucks and cars and people going past the front door, I've been dreaming of a small, wooden house tucked under the pine trees on the hill. With just the sound of cicadas and birds overhead.
I made this embroidery on linen and illustrated some creamy ceramic cups to match. Potential furnishings for my imaginary pine-house, perhaps. Do you have an imaginary house somewhere?
the view out my window is just like that branch, alas, no hills in sight…
my tiny imaginary house is dug into a hill, facing the sun. inside, i hang my baskets of yarn from the roots that drape through the ceiling. maybe your house is upstairs? 😉
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I really need to buy one of those ceramic paint pens. I love those cups!
I often dream of a quiet little house in the forest, where the only thing we can hear and see are animals.
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We must be neighbors. I often think of a little writing bungalow on a hillside, surrounded by the woods, a stream trickling by, great trails for walking and hiking and sunlight filtering through the windows. Nothing to do but write, daydream, sip hot tea, and read poetry.
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I once visited a friend of a friend in her North Yorkshire workman’s cottage – across the moors from where the Brontes lived – and, um, yes. Leaving aside the fact that the everyday dishes there were a Bunnykins set, it was definitely dreamy, if a bit barren in the tree department. But when I think of my real dream house it’s got to be one of the ones I drew over and over when I was little – a house inside a tree!
Love that embroidery and your new cups, as always :^)
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Since visiting Tasmania (almost 3 years ago), I have yearned for a cabin in the bush.
Although looking at some of your scenery shots of New Zealand have me wanting to visit and holiday.
Caroline
Australia
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As I read this I am listening to the cicadas and a pair of beautiful Tui’s in the bottle brush outside my window. I live in a suburb by the beach on Auckland’s North Shore, but luckily am tucked away in a quiet leafy cul-de-sac. I hope you find your bush cabin one day 🙂
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I do! My imaginary house has a pond behind it and backs up to acres and acres of forest. And there are animals that live out back; beavers in the pond, woodpeckers in the trees. I haven’t thought about what the house actually looks like though!
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Mine is a big, creaky old farmhouse back home in Nova Scotia. Near the ocean, but tucked into the woods. Herbs hanging to dry in the conservatory, an attic to work out of, and a big pair of hip-waders for exploring the tide pools. sigh
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food for my soul, these pines. thank you.
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Love the embroidery
I live in the woods. Interestingly, sometimes I wish I lived closer to town so I could walk to get coffee or see friends. I guess there are pluses and minuses to any place you are!
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oh yes! i have an imaginary cob house! i love that you are furnishing yours!
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a place by the sea would be my ideal – (of course surrounded by pines :-)) – but days filled with exploring the beach, out on the boat fishing, etc – all sounds good to me:-))
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I love all of your embroidery, but I mostly love your pine branches. They’re perfect.
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of course but it keeps changing depending on the season
this week it has been an igloo or quinzee in the far north where the northern lights put on a free show nightly
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definitely a house on the edge of a high cliff, overlooking the sea.
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The embroidery and cups are lovely.
I would love to live in a log cabin.
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Oh, yes, I have an imaginary house. More of a cottage, really. Perfect light, wood plank floors, a window over the kitchen sink that looks out upon the kitchen garden. It is cozy, comfortable, quiet, peaceful, and there is a hammock outside between two trees.
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this is so simply delightful =]
i don’t particularly have an imaginary house so much as an imaginary room. in an attic somewhere. where it’s quiet but outside of my window is a busy neighborhood.
something like that.
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I wish for a worker’s cottage (iron roof is essential – I want to hear the rain whilst in bed), with hand-made quilts on the beds, a fragrant herb garden, a beehive and a “back-country”, wild trout-filled river within walking distance from the front door.
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Oh yes– a small, wooden house on Newfoundland. I’d get to drink tea, wear wool, have a view of the ocean, and read a whole lot. I’d probably write letters and make dainty paper things too. So glad you asked.
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You could wear wool now and pretend! : )
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The clouds in the trees like that are my favorite sight. My dream house would have a view like that.
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Sure do! Mine is more of a room, made from a giant bubble, suspended, magically, in a beautiful forest, with rain all around. Rain drops and moisture surround the bubble, and the sounds of the raindrops and the forest, but it is cosy inside my magical bubble! Hehehe! I love my imagination! :-).*
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Mmm, my imaginary house is very small and quiet, close to nature & there’s a garden. No traffic, off the grid, there are animals, there’s water & our family would flourish from the ground up.
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Such pretty prose and incredible creativity blooming.
My dream house is an old weatherboard cottage in some green, green hinterland. Nestled amidst some hills, surrounded by a dishevelled English garden, with a few wandering cows, and lots of chickens. Maybe a potty calf too. Yep a potty calf.
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Oh how I love those cups, you should have been a ceramic designer. My little house would be beach side, where I could hear the waves crashing and wet my feet whenever I pleased all with a well stocked garden so I never had to leave (except maybe to vist some op shops!)
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What a lovely thought 🙂
I think mine would be a little timber cottage with a rambly garden and an old overgrown orchard, lots of little rooms and vintage mismatched furniture and crockery.
It would be a short walk through dunes and scrub and over a little freshwater creek to the beach with rock pools at one end and a high headland at the other. Yes, that would do it!
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Your pine tree embroideries are some of my favorites. Some (low) times I wonder whether my imaginary house shouldn’t be in the city:)
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I have a very similar dream…getting away from it all.
I think these are my favourite images you have used on the pots and the embroidery. Love them both.
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Your embroidery is so beautiful!! I love the two cups!
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I loved this question and posted about my house. XX
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Well, not entirely, as I do love our home as it is. But every time I see a tree house I imagine it must be such fun to sit there up above the world, watching life go by. The kind of tree house I imagine is just like the one featured in “Sense & Sensibility” film – it is the perfect tree house!!
I love your cups and embroidery,
D x
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Awww, you’ve done it again! I think we must share similar landscape values, because you always say such lovely things that send me off on wonderful nostalgia trips. I love reading your blog so much.
We actually had a little house between Reefton and Murchison that really was tucked beneath a hill covered in pine trees. We went there every summer when I was a kid and it means that to this day the smell of sunshine and pine sap is always my quintessential summer smell. There are old fossils sitting on the kitchen window and out the window there are some lambs playing ‘king of the castle’ on a big rock in the back paddock. And yes, the cloud always hangs low 🙂
Perfect. Perfect. Perfect.
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lovely melissa!
my dreamhouse is a cottage in the countryside, far from towns and people. with fields surrounding it and a big garden full of flowers of all kind and vegetables and fruit trees. a place where my children could play freely without risking to get hit by a car or such.
oh i could go on and on… i truly hope it can become reality one day. 🙂
x
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hi jenn,
that little house near reefton sounds amazing… i will look out for it next time im going that way…
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Denise at Chez Danisse was kind enough to direct me this way… and I am so glad she did..!
I’m more of a city person and I love to be able to walk places – stores, friends’ homes… So, my present fantasy is to simply find a smaller cottage in our neighborhood…
But if I were to completely let go and allowed myself to dream, my fantasy would involve a small cottage tucked away in a little mountain town, with long-range views and a little garden that would be just the right size so as not to overwhelm me. Small. I’m craving cozy and small-scaled… I am craving a simpler, more efficient life, in some ways…
-maria
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thank you maria- i like the sound of your fantasy-house, very much. like you, im rather a city-person, too.. for simplicity and convenience-walking reasons.
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i know just the one! 🙂
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that sounds lovely. especially the kitchen window…
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You should check out this beautiful pine tree inspired jewellery http://www.folksy.com/shops/WOLLIES
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What I love about pine trees are their relaxing aroma.
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tiny happy 
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