tiny happy

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 actually because there are lots of different pattern parts and you can put them together to make a custom-design dress. To make this dress, I used pattern pieces I+J+L, I believe. I lined the dress in a vintage polka-dot cotton. I love this dress- it fits just perfectly and seems to go with lots of other things I like to wear.

In other news- I answered some questions about Balancing Motherhood over at Dana's blog today- thank you for the invite, Dana!

And, can you believe these freesias I stole from the side of the road? (shh)… ahh, spring.

Wishing you a happy weekend.

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 news updates about Christchurch. Hope you're all okay, down there.

I'm loving this blog by Sarah Laing at the moment- Let Me Be Frank. She is a Frank Sargeson fellow writer-in-residence and mother of three- and her posts speak to me.

I'm still obsessively listening to this album by Sufjan Stevens. It's very good.

Hope you're having a nice Wednesday!

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, that my tarts were extremely 'rustic'. But the filling was really nice, and we've been eating it on toast this week. I made my usual lemon curd recipe, but substituted the 5 lemons with 4 limes, and 2 lemons instead. The result is a little more tart-tasting, and lighter-coloured mixture. 

I really enjoyed this recent post on angry chicken about favourite homemade foods (and her lemon curd in particular) bringing the most joy. And I so agree- I could happily eat lemon curd every morning for the rest of my life.

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. Thanks for your support and concern!

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My youngest sister got engaged recently, and she and her partner had a family party yesterday to celebrate. After traipsing around the shops in town for a morning, I couldn't settle on what to buy them for a gift, so I made this beach blanket for them instead. They don't have a house yet, but they do have a car, and I figured this could live happily in the back seat for impromptu picnics. The design is from this wonderful book, by Amanda Soule. I used vintage bed-sheets and other cottons for the top, and a thick cotton chenille bedspread for the back. It folds up with cotton twill-tape ties to keep it altogether when not in use. 
It's inspired me to make one for us, too, and I even bought a funny old candlewick bedspread for the back. It's lemon-yellow in colour… excellent. I'm getting excited about summer trips to the beach already.

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 simplicity of these blue-and-white handsewn yoyos, stitched at intervals to some cream crochet thread, and strung up in our living room. Somehow cheerful and delicate.

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 first official day of spring here at the bottom of the world. I did a watercolour painting of forget-me-nots to celebrate. And added a pair of forget-me-not embroidered baby shoes to today's shop update, too. Happy spring, or autumn.

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 wool content in it I think, and is soft and a bit drapey. The fabric was formerly a maternity dress from the mid 80's – it had a kind of 'bib' section made from bright plaid cotton and the same plaid was used to trim the puffy shoulders and sleeves and extra ruffles all over the dress. (Needless to say, I didn't feel too bad about cutting it up.) And this skirt I've made is really one of the simplest things possible to sew- it's just two squares, plus square pockets. Just like this I made a few years ago now. Yet quite handy to have in winter, to wear with tights and cardigans. I realised afterwards that I'd just made myself a skirt to match these ones. Oh well.

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 linen with Liberty lawn and filling them with stuffing and a bit of brown rice in the base for weight. And some vintage ric-rac for around the edges, just because.

The title of this post comes from the new Sufjan Stevens EP entitled All the Delighted People. Yet it also relates to embroidery which I find so calming- stitching till one's breath is found. I downloaded the EP this morning after hearing a review of it on National Radio, and am enjoying it very much already. If you go here, you can get it delivered to your computer for only US $5. And it is so worth it. 

Wishing you a happy weekend, friends.

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 home with me. This morning we made hot chocolate from a recipe I've made quite a few times this winter. It's called 'Castillian Hot Chocolate' and I found it in my copy of Vegetarian Epicure 2 by Anna Thomas (published 1978). It originates from Northern Spain and is almost like chocolate pudding. I found the recipe published online here but I adjusted it slightly by adding a fair bit less raw sugar, a bit more cocoa, and less cornflour. Letting it simmer on a low heat and whisking it for a while seems to make it even glossier and more delicious. Arlo calls it 'chocolate soup'.