tiny happy

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. He was made by my friend Shelly, who has a stall at the weekly market here and also an etsy shop. She makes truly original and amazing items, and we got to know each other back when I had a little stall there, too. We were market-neighbours. 

The set of cards in the second photo were made by Emily of Millicent Crow. I was lucky enough to win her giveaway a while back for the 'Little Bird' card series. I love them, and am looking forward to sitting down and writing some notes to friends on them, thank you Emily.

And you might have noticed that beautiful yarn up there. It's the softest skein of silk merino lace imaginable, in moody grey and blue colours. Thank you, Jessicah, I'm now anxious to get my knitting needles out…

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 my stitchings. Such tactile loveliness, that velveteen. The rest of the fabric has been put away to make a batch of rabbits for new babies on the scene.

And one more note on velvet- I found this dress on Pinterest a while back- doesn't it look like just the most luxurious, beautiful garment? (although, I'd probably prefer to wear it with shoulder straps).

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 some embroidery with white silk thread that has the impression of a print, but when you look closely, each tree is slightly different.

While I was working on those stitches, I remembered a similar project in my copy of Lena Corwin's beautiful book,  Printing By Hand. She shows how to make a simple stencil on a wall and I've often thought that branch print would look great in our kitchen. Another project to add to the list.

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 a piwakawaka showing off for our cameras. My sketchbook of future embroidery ideas is starting to fill up. 

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 its very old-fashioned and delicate look, and I'm not sure what she has in her wardrobe that could go with it, but to be honest it was just fun for me to sew and dream up.

After school today the sun came out so I let her try it on and air that wintry pale skin for a few minutes. Shortly followed by running back inside for more layers, quick-smart.

The new album from Bon Iver arrived in my letterbox and is now on high rotate on the CD player. It's very beautiful. I think you'd like it.

Have a great weekend.

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 UK Country Living magazine, with special attention being paid to gardening and plants of the warm-weather variety. I do love that magazine, even if at times it seems to describe a world both idyllic and unrealistic. Ah well, surely that's what magazines are about? 

Tom made some tomato soup. It was so delicious and cheering, and made me wonder why we'd forgotten about this simple dish for so long. Here's the recipe in case you're in need of some winter warming.

Tomato soup (adapted from the Vegetarian Adventure, Bishop and Carruthers, 1988.)

3 Tb butter, 2 tins tomatoes (or 850g fresh), 1 tsp brown sugar, chopped herbs (dried or fresh), 1 bay leaf, salt and pepper.

Melt the butter in a pot then add the tomatoes and seasonings given above. Cook for a few minutes.

Tip in 2 1/2 cups of vegetable stock, cover and simmer for 20 minutes.

Cool slightly, remove the bay leaf and blend in a food processor or with a stick blender.

Reheat again, then just before serving, stir in 1/2 cup cream or natural yoghurt. Serve when hot with bread and chopped herbs and more yoghurt.

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 got a great sturdy feel and I think it should be good for lots of projects… I started out with two kid's satchels for my shop update today. Something very pleasing about colourful corduroy too, I reckon.

And, to change the subject dramatically, I'm feeling so happy to be alive today. It's rather shocking how much we take our lives for granted, isn't it?

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 title of this post because i'm learning to feel more comfortable with pictures of myself- especially public ones. I'm sure i'm not the only one who struggles with that though! It was fun to include some of my favourite things in the article- the forest fern quilt made by my Mum, our rocking chair which was made by Tom's Dad, the childrens' toys made by Fliss and Leslie, amongst other things. 

Your Home and Garden is one of my favourite NZ magazines, so it was pretty special to be asked by them- so thank you and welcome to my blog if you're a new visitor.

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 native manuka (sometimes called tea-tree) and we have one outside our front door which is currently dropping pink petal-confetti all over the garden. It's such a useful plant, being anti-bacterial and the honey from the flowers is pretty special stuff. Next on the to-embroider list is the mountain daisy.

In other news, I fell in love with this little video yesterday- a mother robin hard at work. See you tomorrow!

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.