tiny happy

So many treasures to share with you in this post! It was my birthday recently and because I'm very spoiled I received some beautiful gifts, some of which I've shared above because I think you'd love them too. 

My friend A gave me a beautiful wee bud vase by Wellington ceramicist Wundaire. The design is called Fleur, which just happens to be my middle name and the colours in the ceramic are derived from plant dyes, I think! I love it and it was the perfect home for the last freesia of the season. My sister Tamsin sent me the most beautiful little suncatcher for our kitchen window. These are made by Hydrangea Ranger in Auckland. Aren't they beautiful? (As an aside, I love all things HR and have bought many sets of earrings from her for gifts!)

Do you know the Shetland Wool Adventure journals? I've admired them on Insta but not actually leafed through one of them until Arlo and Kee included issue #3 in my birthday gift. It's a beautiful wee book, with lots of knitting patterns that I'm keen to cast on. You can see all six here on this Ravelry page. I think I'll start with the 'Blosta Hat' (pictured above) – in hopefully exactly those colours!

Last year, I discovered that my whānau on my mum's side has (distant) Shetland Island heritage. Mum's great-grandmother was from born on Fair Isle into the Eunson family, and moved to London as a young woman, probably the first in her family to leave the island permanently. As knitters, it was an exciting discovery! Especially for Mum and I. She had known of Orkney ancestry for a long time, but not specific details. I'd love to learn more about this side of our family sometime, and of course, a long-term dream would be a Shetland trip!

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In the last two pictures above, you can see a bit of patchwork I've been doing. I couldn't close the lid of my fabric leftover box (and believe me, it's a big box) so I decided to pull out some pieces and make a quilt top. I settled on a simple nine-patch design and chose only solid colour fabrics, some of which are dyed with avocado and other plants. It's currently king-sized but I might trim it down a bit to make the next steps a bit easier to manage! 

I do love the way the solid bright colours look together – they almost sing to each other. It would make a great quilt for our bed this summer.

I still love to experiment with cyanotype printing on the occasional sunny weekend day! I've included a snap of some cards I made recently for a friend. The exposure wasn't super successful because the sun went behind a cloud as soon as I took the prints outside. I used watercolour paint to bright them up instead.

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In truth, I haven't been finding as much time and energy for my making practice as I usually do. It's mostly to do with having work and other commitments that are taking up lots of space in my mind! But I'm hoping that with the longer days ahead and a bit of time off over summer, I will get back into it. I've no shortage of projects in mind! Some plans include:

– Finishing the nine-patch quilt, which will involve some simple hand quilting and binding the edge. 

– Knitting up a linen top of some sort for summer (I have some of this yarn in a soft green, and am thinking about the Tegna pattern for it)

– Making some Christmas/summer gifts for friends and family. I still haven't decided what, exactly! Will report back soon…

I'd love to know what's keeping you busy and inspired these days!

Lots of love, 
M