tiny happy

Thank you for the well-wishes re. the chicken pox! K is feeling much better now, after a quiet weekend. She'll have a few more days home from school yet, though. I've been trying to think of ways to entertain her- so far we've been painting, drawing, watching films and making bead necklaces. I also made these 'big pocket skirts' for her to wear this spring. I used vintage fabric for both: black with little white dots and a grey and pink flowery cotton. They seem to be cheering.

According to her, the best things to keep in one's pockets include, in no particular order: buttons, necklaces, sticks, mandarins, pens and sweets. Sounds good to me.

K is home from school with the chicken pox. Not fun. But we have been finding some ways to distract from the itchiness. So far they've included staring out the window at the birds eating from our bird-feeder and trying to identify which birds they are from a NZ bird book. We think this little one might be a Tauhou (silver-eye.) Whatever it is, it's keen on our bird seed mixture and that makes us very pleased.

We also made a batch of crackers, using this recipe (from 3 years ago on the blog- crazy.) I crumbled a bit of sea salt onto the dough before the last rolling of one trayful, and rolled some caraway seeds into the other half of the dough. It's always good to start the weekend with a full biscuit tin, at least, that's my philosophy.

I bought a set of four matching oak chairs from a second-hand store last summer, and last week I finally got around to recovering them. It was a pretty quick and easy job, I'm not sure why I put it off for so long. The fabric is a cotton canvas that I found in the curtain-making section of Spotlight.

I should have taken a picture of these chairs before I recovered them- they were previously clad in some dark brown, printed velvet which, while being great for life with children as previously discussed (mine like to kneel, stand on, and build huts with them), they were pretty old and dated. I like how they seem lighter and less imposing in the modern fabric.

After lots of rain, the sun is shining so brightly here- making all the wet plants in the garden sparkle. It's time for a walk to the park I think. 

I wanted to make the kids some small bags in which to carry their toothbrushes, etc when they stay the night at their grandparents' or friends' houses. I was thinking about what I could use to make them waterproof when I came across an old plastic tablecloth in the op shop. Do you remember those? I remember Mum used to have them on our kitchen table when we were playing with playdough, or painting, etc. 

So I made some cases and lined them with the plastic material- and they work well. But then I came across a gorgeous old vinyl tablecloth with a print by Vera Neumann on it. I sometimes browse on etsy and ebay for old Vera stuff because I love her designs very much. You can see lots of them here in the Vera Neumann flickr group.

I bought the printed vinyl and made a couple more cases from that. I've lined those ones with a very fine cotton and I figure it would dry quickly if wet things were put inside the case. I'm quite pleased to have found a useful way to recycle that old plastic. I think these cases would be great for camping or travelling. Or for keeping warm, wet facecloths inside for sticky children (another thing my Mum used to do, when we were travelling!) There are a couple in today's shop update.

In other news, I'm very excited about the new Arcade Fire album which has just been released. I've ordered it on cd and will report back very soon. 

A couple of weeks ago at the flea market, I found an amazing old eiderdown- the one in the top picture above. It's made from a silky cotton that is soft with age and has a row of small shell buttons along one edge. I love it very much. After a good wash and airing in the sun, it's now happily living on our mustard yellow sofa. One day I hope we can find a sofa that's not mustard yellow vinyl, but until then the new flea market find is a good cover for it. (And besides, browny-yellow furniture plus jumping children is a match made in heaven.)

There's a lot of yellow in the house today- yellow roses on the kitchen table, some small purses I made from vintage fabrics, and a sprig of daphne in a yellow jug. Have a good Tuesday!

Thank you for entering the competition for the calendar over the weekend. I used the random number generator to pick a winner, and that turned out to be Megan of Mousehouse. Hooray!

The photos above show a few of the things we've been up to at our place over the last week or so: 

-When the children had a 'peaceful day' at home from school we made a bird feeder for our garden. Due to a lack of pine cones and lard (we originally wanted to make a feeder like this or this) we went rather low-tech and used a humble branch, which I tied to a tree outside the kitchen window. Then we mixed up a special paste of peanut butter and bird seed (K proudly did this) and spread it on the branch and waited for hungry birds. Nothing happened for about two days, then a blackbird found it and gobbled all the seeds up. It was very exciting.

– Ciabatta rolls were made early this morning when i discovered I didn't have any bread for the school lunchbox sandwiches. (this happens often because I'm a disorganised mama.) I reached for my trusty bread dough which lives in the back of the fridge, pulled off small hunks then baked them in the oven for about ten minutes. Easier than a quick trip to the supermarket. I love this recipe.

– We made the cress egg-heads. They were the best thing.

A couple of nights ago I made a new cover for our coffee plunger, (as well as one for a friend and one for the shop). The beloved coffee press is something I use every day- I made my first cover for it a few years ago now, and elastic was starting to get a bit tired. This time I used mismatched buttons and a couple of extra layers of wool fabric, and it's doing the job nicely on these cold mornings we've been having. 

In a strange coincidence, the very next morning I received an interesting-looking box from a US publisher on the doorstep. Inside was this 2011 'Sewing Calendar', compiled by Megan Smith and published by Accord Publishing. My little tutorial for this coffee cosy, and one other pattern was published in the calendar but I'd forgotten all about it. 

It's a boxed set featuring lots of different craft projects from around the internet- enough to last you an entire year.

They kindly sent me two copies, so I have one Sewing Calendar to give away here. I'm happy to send it anywhere in the world. If you'd like it, just leave a comment telling me something special you'd like to do next year. 2011 seems kind of far away, doesn't it? But I'm sure it will come around soon enough.

In honour of the beautiful blue skies overhead this week, I made Keira a new blue dress to wear to school. After a bit of experimenting with vintage patterns, I think I finally found a pinafore i'm happy with- it's a combination of a few different designs. It has a zip in the back but if i make it again, I'll leave that out because it's loose enough to be pulled over the head, and I'm all for children getting dressed by themselves.

I used cotton chambray (a kind of lightweight denim) for this and big tortoiseshell buttons. The fabric was originally an unfinished skirt that I found at the op-shop… score.

I like how this dress has a school uniform-y feel to it and K loves the big pockets- lots of room for the treasures she's constantly collecting on her day-to-day business.

I found a couple of old books at our local Recycling Centre/rubbish tip. The covers had done their dash and the pages had all come apart, with lots of scribbles, etc, so I decided to rescue the good parts and made up some notecard sets. They were the most popular thing on my stall at the fair on the weekend, which I wasn't expecting. But they're so fun and quick to make- I just cut the vintage paper and stitch it onto cardstock with my sewing machine. I like how each card is a one-off and rather quirky in its way. Especially that wattle flower set above. The pictures came from a 1960's Australian gardening book. All the plants were photographed in a studio with crazy marbled backgrounds, etc. It begs the question, why?

I've reopened my etsy shop today- and have included some of these vintage paper card sets as well as a few other things. I enjoyed having a few weeks' break from etsy, but am excited to be back. Hope you're having a good Wednesday- the sun is shining so warmly here today.

I was sent a copy of this new publication to review- Cloth magazine, which is published in London four times each year. It's fun to read- with colourful and bright layout and lots of projects to make yourself- from shoulder bags to needlebooks… even a floral-printed bikini which is something I've never thought of sewing before, but might now.

Cloth has quite a few pages of upcoming events, classes, shops, etc that are in the UK, so it's quite localised in that way. But there are also sewing tips and techniques, articles about designers and artists (including Ginny -hi!), and a pattern for a yo-yo necklace (designed by Saints and Pinners) that I've started making. I found some scraps of Liberty lawn and have been obsessively hand-sewing yo-yos in my spare moments. I love the stripy pink and grey version in the magazine.