Happy Friday! The sun is shining here. I found a box of my ceramic paints buried deep in the craft cupboard, underneath felt tip pens and paintbrushes. And painted these two cups, perfect for morning coffee time. Soundtrack: Waking Light Have a lovely weekend.

This is something I made for someone I admire- a politician who has been having a rough time of it lately. MT works for issues I deeply care about (namely child poverty and conservation in our fine land) and last year, when reading the newspaper, I saw a photo of her crocheting in Parliament. Tom crosses…

  I planted a rose bush when we were first moved into this house, and on the weekend I cut my first flower from it. Something small, but precious.  Some things from the weekend- – I saw the play Pasefika at the NZ Arts Festival (now I've been reading about Baudelaire, Akaroa and the French artist Charles…

Struck by the uncharacteristic warmth and absence of wind last night, we bundled everyone into the car for dinner on a hill above the city. Other people had the same idea- I spotted an older couple sitting on camp chairs eating a three course meal with wine glasses and all.  When you are above the…

We went to a wedding last week for a sweet young couple. They like retro stuff and are just getting started on making their home together. So, for a wedding gift, we decided to find them a vintage armchair and Tom spotted this one at a second-hand store one day last month. After a bit…

These are some of the grey-on-white/white-on-grey embroideries I've been doing lately. There's something soothing about monochrome, I think. I sewed the work up into pouches for my neglected etsy shop, along with a few other things.  I use one of these linen pouches to tote my knitting within my work satchel. It's always a good…

Hope you're having a love-filled February the 14th, even if you're not into the Valentine's thing.  This pottery wall-vase was given to us by Tom's Mum- it's the perfect thing for outside the laundry, I think. And especially nice now there are some flowers in the garden to grace it. My Valentine's celebrations will consist…

– An old, painted-wood shelf is happily gracing the kitchen wall and looking after favourite coffee cups and tins of tea. I had grand plans of painting the wall, building a special unit, and more, but in the end practicality won and this shelf is doing a lovely job taking care of things. Kitchen work…

– Bought an old, worn blanket at a fundraising flea market- it's a traditional, cream wool one with blue and yellow stripes along the edges. I plan to sew it into draught stoppers for our big old windows (the idea comes from this book by Lotta Jansdotter) – This is some coriander I grew. Completely…

Hope you have a great weekend!