I'd been eyeing up this blue fabric for a while in the craft shop and finally went and bought it: it's denim-blue with a very fine little herringbone pattern on it. Almost business-suit-like, but not quite. I made a dress for spring, using this pattern- New Look 6774. It's quite a good buy…

    More violets. Because i like them. These are some things I made for my etsy shop this week: some little shoes, and a brass locket with some embroidered flowers inside. I'm feeling distracted today- I don't know why. Might have something to do with drinking too much coffee, or perhaps listening to the…

    I was lucky enough to score a bag of limes from my parents' orchard, and so I made some citrusy tarts to take to a party last weekend. Tom's Mum often makes these, and so I pretty much stole her idea, but they were nowhere near as good. You could say, in fact,…

    Thank you for your emails about the earthquake here in NZ over the weekend. Luckily for us, we were unaffected in our city- but poor Christchurch is in a mess. One very good thing was that the earthquake happened at 4.30am, so the central city was pretty quiet and no lives were lost.…

    I hijacked a couple of other projects and made this garland from some of the yoyos lying on my desk. I'd first made them with the intention of creating a textile necklace like this. Or maybe a belt/sash-type of thing like this one I sewed a few years ago.  But I'm liking the…

    I love forget-me-nots. I saw a big patch of them in my mother's garden the other day, but here in my garden, I've got veronica flowers, which look a little like them, but are more of a weed. I think they also have the name Grey Field Speedwell, which sounds very grand. It's…

    The camellia craze continues around here- the trees outside are still producing many, many flowers which are dropping all over the road and garden and making me slightly crazy. I made a skirt in their honour, from some camellia-print vintage fabric I found at the second-hand shop a while ago. It's got some…

      It was a good weekend. Everything is warming up and coming alive.

      I worked some small embroideries on natural linen yesterday evening- one was inspired by those bold and beautiful camellias growing outside the front door. It's pretty hard to properly capture their flamboyance though- I'll have to keep trying. I sewed some of the embroideries into pincushions to give to friends- backing the…

      I had fun this week making some cushion/pillow covers from vintage linen fabrics I'd been hoarding. I love the way they look all stacked up- so colourful. They're part of my shop update today. The oldest child has also contracted the chicken pox… two weeks later so he's spending some time at…