Just wanted to share these two lovely second-hand finds of mine. The ceramic dish will hold my hair clips or something similar. It's a Johnson Brothers pattern with the finest pinky sea shells and coral. And a weighty tome: Plants and Animals, published 1974 in Prague. I'll scan some pictures in soon. I know you'll…

Hot chocolate season has begun again in our house. It's always a favourite treat, especially for when the kids have friends over after school. I think I've written about this every year so I'm sorry about the repetition. But I also wanted to show off these great new (to me) cups sent by Helen. They're…

Ended up with a bit of a crazy Friday today, rushing from one place to the next. But I did come across this feathery pattern of mine in an old book- I'd been using it as a bookmark. It's a faded watercolour on cream card.  If you're in need of some bright new music, you…

This one has more of a late-summer theme: here I've stitched some favourite botanicals including faithful old clover. I made both this embroidery and yesterday's into small pouches for keeping precious things in, like jewellery or milk teeth. I wish now that I'd stored my kids' milk teeth separately- they've all gotten mixed up in…

This is a small embroidery I did last week while the country was still in drought– lots of dry grass and hardly any mushrooms to be seen, considering it's April. That seems to have changed now- the rain has begun in earnest. Which is a very good thing for everyone, our tiny garden included. If…

This week's pattern was made with watercolour paints in my sketchbook- I guess you could say it's a fanciful imagining of cotton plants, that is, if they grew with indigo blue buds. I like the idea of interlocking branches in a pattern, like a wild botanical tangle. Last weekend I saw Wilco live (my second…

I came across some ageing hydrangeas on a walk recently, and they reminded me of these hairbands that I made a few years ago. Strangely enough, I got a custom order request for a pair of them the same day, so I knew a felt-petal-cutting-session was meant to be. Each headband is made from tiny…

We took the kids to this great restaurant the other day for dinner. We all had roti + dhal and every last lentil was eaten up. I decided that we should make roti breads at home. And then, I decided to employ the children to do this. Arlo's now old enough to do the cooking…

It's that time of year for golden-syrup light pouring through the windows- it's mid-autumn. And therefore time for a little knitting on the needles. I made a hat but about halfway through it became clear there wasn't enough yarn to finish it. So I couldn't remain true to the pattern I was following- I won't…

An autumnal pencil-pattern today, done in my sketchbook on the bus ride home while listening to my new favourite track. The video is even better and features more beautiful Thom Yorke dancing. Wishing you a relaxing weekend, dear reader. See you soon for some autumn knitting, a new website, the easiest and cheapest thing to…