My little scissors have been busy again, ever since reading about Mary Delaney and her Paper Garden.  These collages on black card were cut from the pages of an old magazine. They were very enjoyable to make late one evening, and I must admit that they indulge any OCD tendencies whilst providing convenient procrastination from…

I don't really understand why citrus trees come into fruit in winter, but in any case, we are enjoying our little mandarin tree right now. And the lemons, of course. My Dad came to visit and brought some limes from his orchard, so we are doing very well, citrus-wise. We went to the christening service…

There's been a slow burgeoning outside and pale blossoms are starting to bud here and there. To celebrate this exciting new growth, I cracked out the basket of embroidery yarns I was given in Norway and did a bit of free-form embroidery onto pieces of old wool fabric (remnants from coats, I believe.) And then…

I've been reading The Paper Garden, by Molly Peacock, which details the life and art of Mary Delaney, who made intricate botanical collages from coloured paper in the 1770s. The book is beautifully written, and there are quite a few coloured plates of her work, which inspired me to try a bit of collage myself.…

The little one got a chance to bust out her spring blouse (the one I made back here) when we had a bit of sunshine on the weekend. And those beautiful spring flowers were a gift from my sister-in-law (she also gave the kids a bunch for their own room- such a nice idea!) Basically…

I had to adjust a gorgeous old velveteen skirt to fit better and, with the strip I had left over, I made this little pen case and patched K's favourite jeans. She is very much a jeans-and-hoody girl these days, but her jeans are always getting holes in the knees so hopefully these thick, velveteen…

We stayed in an alpine hut over the weekend, and the kids did some skiing. I loved the shape of the mountains. I spent quite a lot of time staring at those outlines (I'm not a skiier, but I liked knitting and watching.)  I was thinking that some home baking would have been a good…

All this cold winter weather made me think of wool embroidery, so I worked some anemone-type flowers onto some vintage wool fabric I had lying around, and voila- the result was this bag and matching case. It was rather therapeutic to work by the heater while looking out the window at the wind and rain.…