My letterbox has been a very happy one lately, with the arrival of all sorts of treats from kind readers and friends.  In the first photo above sits the kids' new pencil case- 'Kitty', which they fell in love with at our local craft market, so I was excited to purchase. I love him, too.…

We've been enjoying these velvety yellow tulips on the kitchen table this week. There's nothing quite like that brilliant yellow, is there? I came upon some pieces of coloured cotton velveteen in the second-hand shop- they seemed to be asking me to embroider on them. I made some small purses for today's shop update from…

I took the photo of a valley filled with bare winter trees on a recent walk. I've always loved the sight of naked trees reaching their branches up to the sky, but it's a rare sight here in NZ because so many of our native trees stay green all year long. Those bare branches inspired…

We have a friend from Europe staying for a couple of weeks, and have been busy showing him around natural parts of our district. Yesterday we went walking in the brilliant winter sunshine, and found lots of native plants and birds along the way, including a beautiful yellow bellbird gorging itself on kowhai nectar, and…

I'd never made a whole garment from silk before I made K this little blouse 'for best'. The fabric is a creamy-lemon vintage silk crepe, found and sent to me by my friend Helen. It was just enough to make something small, and I settled on the blouse pattern from this Japanese book. I love…

It was super cold and stormy here yesterday, and everyone in the household made it home early in the afternoon. Of course there are many things that can warm up such a winters' evening, but yesterday the secret was abandoning all set work and chores, lighting the fire and looking through old copies of the…

Thank you for all those messages yesterday! It's pretty amazing to have my very own support team, I appreciate it.  Some new fabric arrived in my letterbox on the weekend, it's the 'climbing trees' print in a linen/cotton canvas that I ordered from Spoonflower, along with some of my other prints. I love this fabric- it's…

I'm honoured to be featured in the latest issue of the NZ magazine Your Home and Garden. My copy just arrived in the post and it was a bit of a thrill to see the pictures of our house that were taken by this clever lady in the summertime. I used 'nearly at home' for the…

Over the weekend I managed to squeeze in a bit of embroidery time, which always makes for a good couple of days, in my opinion anyway. At the moment I'm studying photos and writings about native New Zealand plants and flowers, and hope to work some of them on linen this week. I love the…

A bit more recyling of old linen- this time a grey rose-print tablecloth that had seen better days. I think it is happy with its reincarnation. The hardenbergia is in flower and the sun is out. Wishing you a very happy weekend ahead.