I found this old book at our local book fair, and had to buy it after peeking inside. It's called the Countryside Companion (published 1846 by Odhams Press, London, and edited by Tom Stephenson.) Can you imagine, writing a book, and having each page so beautifully illustrated? The page-borders are populated with swallows and willows,…

Arlo turned eight over the weekend. Here are a few photos from the party we threw for him, which was a 'medieval banquet' with a spot of archery and sword fighting (with flax sticks) on the side. The banquet involved 'bread plates', potatoes and meat on bones and 'wine' in our best goblets. It was…

Here we have my latest wardrobe addition: a tweedy winter dress. I found the vintage fabric online – it's a kind of cotton/wool blend I think, quite thick with a sort of slub/tweed texture. And, because I knew it was a good fit, I used the same pattern as I did for this one. The…

I'm sure I've written about Kate Bush here before, but it's safe to say I'm still quite an ardent fan of her music. Last week I ordered a copy of her latest album, on which she re-works a handful of her old songs, including Deeper Understanding, from 1989. While I was listening to the aforementioned…

Three homely things today: a bit of weeding in the garden (brought the ferns and daisies in with me afterwards), some 'winter branch' embroidery and a feijoa tart. The feijoa trees in my parents' orchard just keep on giving… I think they're into their third month now of harvesting these little beauties. We had about…

Thanks for all your well-wishes for me over the weekend- I had lots of fun at the Auckland Art and Craft Fair, and it was lovely to meet so many blog readers and friends. So thank you for coming to say hello, if you did. It was a busy place, the Aotea Centre, with a…

I got a few of my watercolour paintings made into prints for my stall at the fair this weekend, including these 'bird portraits'. I wanted to have a whole flock of native birds but only ended up painting two: the ruru (morepork) and riroriro (grey warbler.) I chose those birds because they have such great…

I used the wintersweet branches on our mantlepiece as inspiration when designing some new coffee cups. I want to take a few pairs of these with me to Auckland on the weekend for this fair. It's pretty fun to draw over plain ceramic ware- I've been collecting the cream cups for a while on my…

In a post last week, I mentioned that I was enjoying discovering the Art-Nouveau botanical watercolours of C.R. Mackintosh. Then over the weekend, I was kindly sent a collection of his prints by a blog-reader, Jo. Aren't they beautiful? I love the flock of birds emerging from the bouquet in the second photo. Looking through the…

The Handmade symposium was a brilliant event- I had a great time in Wellington over the weekend. It was fun to show groups of students how to make a few items, and help out with a bit of stitching along the way. The best part for me was the obvious delight as a needlebook was…