tiny happy

Is there anything nicer than a fresh stack of library books waiting on the bedside table? As if i needed an excuse to go to bed early with a cup of tea. 

I spent last Sunday afternoon at the library, and when I got home I realised all the books I'd borrowed featured plants, trees and flowers of some sort. It must nearly be spring! I've started reading Sleeping Letters and Losing Eden: Why Our Minds Need the Wild – both good reads so far!

I'm lucky enough to have four beautiful hellebore plants in our small flower bed. This is their month to shine! Unlike most plants, they seem to enjoy living our garden – perhaps they can tolerate the wind better than most, and they don't seem to mind benign neglect either! 

I wanted to show you my Virginia sweater – a project I finished a couple of months ago but realised I never wrote about here. Virginia is a pattern from an older issue of Laine magazine, and I knitted my version from some yarn I hand-dyed with my Mum over the summer holiday. We were just playing with colour, really, and ended up with this beautiful mottled plum juice/earthy colour with lots of variegation. 

I like my finished jumper but regret not making a slightly larger size – I didn't want to run out of yarn so picked the smallest size I thought I could fit – and the boat neckline is not my absolute favourite. But it's a nice light layer and I enjoy wearing the rich colour. There are some more details about it on my Ravelry project page here.

+ + + + + + + + +

Do you like lemon shortcake? I love it. Recently, my boss, who is very generous and a wonderful baker, brought in a batch of her lemon shortcake for morning tea. I asked her for the recipe and had to make it immediately! It's an Alison Holst recipe, with a soft shortcake base, lemony custard and then a sort of crumble topping made from the base mixture baked on top. You can find it online here, if you fancy making some too.

= = = = = = = = = 

Something else you might like (while eating lemon cake and sipping coffee, perhaps?) is this online exhibition of 'craftivist' art, taken from a recent Australian exhibition. From the intro:

Craft is often dismissed as low art, a hobby or women’s work. But across the centuries, even before the term craftivism was given in 2003 to the practice of using traditional handicrafts for political purposes, the assumptions about its benign and gendered nature have been subverted and challenged by makers in all mediums. Craftivism is just one element of She Persists, the National Gallery of Victoria’s new project exploring the intersections of art, gender and protest. A book and online audiovisual experience, She Persists showcases women’s contribution to art and design from the 17th to 21st centuries.

I hope you have a lovely week ahead. See you again soon,
M