tiny happy

It's been such a good while since I wrote here, some of these things to share are from the past two months. I hope you don't mind! They include some autumnal scenes – our kitchen early one morning as I got ready for work. That golden light of autumn, I'll never get tired of it.

And some small things I've been working on lately:

• Autumnal bouquets, made from native shribs and leaves from our garden and the walk into town. I then bought a bunch of hot housed freesias and split them between the leafy bouquets for a bit of colour and scent. Very pleasing…
• Mini Amore cardigan. I knitted this for my workmate who was expecting her first pēpē (baby) and I used the Amore pattern which is a favourite of mine. I like how soft it is, and that it doesn't have any hard seams which I think is important for a baby cardigan. It also has a nice wide neckline, unlike many newborn patterns. You can find my Ravelry notes and a pattern link here on Ravelry.
• A knitted guinea pig! This was a fun and comforting project to work on in the evenings during a bit of a stressful time. The pattern is by Claire Garland and is a bit fiddly to make, but totally worth it I think, and I gave my little guy to my niece.
• I wanted to make a few little gifts to include in some parcels for friends I was putting together. I made lip balm using this recipe and tinted one of the mixtures with a bit of lipstick for extra colour, ooh lala! I also sewed up a batch of good old scrunchies, for which I used some black silk fabric leftover from a dress project – they're super handy things to have.
• My niece Eve has recently moved to Wellington for university. We invited another friend over and had an avocado dye session – we are all knitters so we transformed some undyed sock yarn, embroidery yarn and other threads. And it was good to use up the summer avocados that were taking up lots of space in our freezer! Here are some avocado dyeing notes I wrote up a few years ago, in case you're keen to try it for the first time.

Some good things I've found lately:

A new Crowded House song with a beautiful video (a West Coast Auckland beach dream…)

This wonderful way to wear granny squares – I'm contemplating making it – what do you think?

These fun and colourful patterns – I'm going to make the 'collage gather top' first.

This amazing hand-painted and embroidered quilt (and the whole Insta feed is beautiful)

5 free animal knitting patterns by Claire Garland

This beautiful track by Patrick Watson and La Force (plus cute clip)

Hard times in the world right now, my friends. I hope you are doing ok and finding lots of good things in your days, 

M xx