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.
tiny happy 
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