tiny happy

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, owls and waterlilies. The writing itself is sometimes overblown and pompous, and revels in British nationalism but I suppose it is a product of its time and place. I will keep enjoying it for the photography and artwork, for sure.

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 a lot of fun to prepare for together, even if Tom and I did leave it to rather the last minute (ahem, including making the cake an hour before-  thank you, universe, for bought sponge cakes), it poured with rain and I was a tad worried about 11 children in a park with an archery set. But it all went well, Sir Arlo the Brave Knight was pleased, and we don't have to do it for another year. Phew. Happy birthday, little A.

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 only thing I'm not happy about with is the zip. Because I wanted to finish the dress on the same evening that I started it, I used what I could find in my workroom, which was a too-small zipper. It means that I have to breathe in quite deeply in order to squeeze the garment over my body, but it seems to be fine once it's on. One day I will learn patience.

Meanwhile, it's keeping me warm along with winter tights, boots and cardigans.

My recent adventures on Pinterest have been dangerous in the clothes-wanting department. I recently found this little beauty, and this, and lots more here. Despite the danger, it is a really fun place to play around and spend a bit of time.

Hope you have a lovely weekend.

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 track, I realised what a beautiful one it was, and how timely for us right now. In the song, the narrator falls in love with a computer; becomes intoxicated by the alternate world it offers as she/he searches for some deeper understanding and love in their life.

I made a watercolour painting to remind myself of those lyrics- 'love and deeper understanding', and it's now pinned up above our computer. I realised, while writing about it here, that it's completely influenced by the beautiful artwork of Shanna Murray. 

The embroidery I showed yesterday was sewn up into this 'project bag' for my shop update today.

I'm guest-blogging today over at my friend Helen's blog. Thank you for the invitation, H.

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 twenty languishing in the fruit bowl, and then I remembered about the any-kind-of-fruit tart recipe. Should be good for pudding (ours and the neighbours'- gotta love that big recipe.)

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 bit of a crushing crowd at times, and so many lovely things to look at. It's good to get out of my small town, on occasion.

I wanted to show you my latest fabric designs- these ones are called 'climbing trees' and 'planting seeds'. I designed them with children in mind: incorporating tepee tents, birds, ladders… things that my own children love to play with and talk about. The 'climbing trees' print especially was inspired by my son Arlo, who is partial to scaling the camellia tree in our garden and dreams of a giant tree in which to build a hut one day.

My friend K helped me again with ordering my designs and artwork into sensible scale and repeat and she also helped me put together another little coordinating pattern called 'sticks and stones' (you can see it in the last photo above) and a couple of other colourways. She is a wonder with that special design software.

Because I designed the 'climbing trees' print with Arlo in mind, I'd like to make a coat or hooded jacket for him with the tree print as a lining. Or, if that ends up being too ambitious, he might get a pillowcase instead. 🙂

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 calls/songs- you can listen to a little clip on those links if you like. I remember lying in bed at night as a child, listening to the morepork- and trying to stay awake for ten 'more-porks', but I never seemed to be able to.

After some long hours in my sewing room this week, I discovered I was left with many scraps of linen and cotton fabrics. I used them to make these lavender sachets- again for my stall, (I always like to have something small on there) and each one is made from a scrap of linen with some hand-embroidery, backed in cotton lawn and filled with Marlborough lavender from our local market. Hooray for scraps.

Have a great weekend, friends.

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 second-hand shop journeys. 

The recipe for the lemon cookies that you see above was found here, and they are yum! I doubled the measure of lemon and reduced the sugar a bit, and was pleased with them. Our lemon tree is looking quite happy these days, so I'm always looking for lemony recipes. I've made lots of lemon cordial and hot drinks, this favourite slice, lemon cakes and muffins. Do you have a favourite way to use lemons?

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 prints, and having some newly attached to my workroom wall inspired a small watercolour + text + papercut collage of my own. (The last photo, above). I'm going to keep the prints on the wall for longer, though, because I love them.

We're having continual sun-showers here today, and there are tiny wax-eye birds in the flax bush by my window. I love watching them. Have a good Wednesday.

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 finished, or a stitch mastered. Great fun!

I got to meet some wonderful creative people, too. Heleen, Rachelle, Katy, Nin and Gretchen, to name only a few. Thank you to all the organisers, teachers and lovely students who made the event possible. I am looking forward to next years' one already!

On Saturday night, I attended a 'Meet the Makers' party, at which I got to meet Frances, whose jewellery I've admired for ages. She is now also making beautiful objects from wood, and wood combined with other natural materials such as deer antler and silver. She gave me this beautiful, precious drop spindle that she made herself. There's an inlaid piece of silver on one side, and the smooth wood is oak and black maire (for the whorl). I've not succeeded at spinning with a drop spindle before (only on a wheel) so I'm looking forward to trying on this beautiful tool. (My master-spinner mother promises to put it to good use until I do learn). You can see more of Frances' spindles here in her etsy shop which is called Spindles by Sourkraut.