tiny happy

In lieu of any handmade activity going on around here (have had too many other things to attend to…) I thought I'd show you some happy secondhand things that have come my way lately:

(I'm so grateful we live in a place where secondhand is readily available if we so desire- it just takes a bit of time and effort. But then, so does buying new stuff, don't you think? So if given the choice, I'd choose secondhand every time.)

– A cream party dress with a red and black pattern and tiny fabric buttons down the front. Might have to wait till next summer to wear it, but I'll enjoy looking at it till then and imagining I'm at a sunny picnic in the park with the kids.

– An apple-red wool coat, made in New Zealand back in the day. It has big pockets and a boxy kind of cut. Actually, maybe I could wear this over the summer dress and sit in the park anyway..?

– Some crisp vintage cotton: cream with big grey roses. I can imagine making curtains from this, but they would need to be backed in wool fabric, I think! It's starting to get autumnal in our part of the world.

Here we are, a bit of floral to start this new week. The colourful asters were a happy find when they flowered last week. 

And I found this amazing embroidered linen in an op shop on Friday. I wonder if the embroiderer had also noticed asters growing in the garden? 

Wishing you all the best- it's March already!

X

Happy Friday!

The sun is shining here. I found a box of my ceramic paints buried deep in the craft cupboard, underneath felt tip pens and paintbrushes.

And painted these two cups, perfect for morning coffee time. Soundtrack: Waking Light

Have a lovely weekend.

This is something I made for someone I admire- a politician who has been having a rough time of it lately. MT works for issues I deeply care about (namely child poverty and conservation in our fine land) and last year, when reading the newspaper, I saw a photo of her crocheting in Parliament.

Tom crosses paths with her through his job, and deduced that she didn't have a case in which to keep her handwork. So hopefully this will do the job. It's made from dark grey linen, red silk ribbon and this fabric for the lining. Free-form plant embroidery in white thread.

I planted a rose bush when we were first moved into this house, and on the weekend I cut my first flower from it. Something small, but precious. 

Some things from the weekend-

– I saw the play Pasefika at the NZ Arts Festival (now I've been reading about Baudelaire, Akaroa and the French artist Charles Meryon),

– Reading Wanderlust by Rebecca Solnit– all about the history of walking,

– finished watching this series, about journalism at the BBC in the 1950s (spies and beautiful set design),

– eating stewed rhubarb, sweetcorn and rocket salad from our garden (very exciting)

I hope you had a good weekend too, dear readers.

Struck by the uncharacteristic warmth and absence of wind last night, we bundled everyone into the car for dinner on a hill above the city. Other people had the same idea- I spotted an older couple sitting on camp chairs eating a three course meal with wine glasses and all. 

When you are above the hustle and bustle and looking out for specific places ('there's my school, that's mama's office, that's where I play soccer', etc) you get an entirely different take on the whole place.

And all the while, the cicadas screech in the trees. Quite beautiful.

In the photo above, you can see the new addition to our family. Tom's cousin R has been living with us since the new year. We built a little sleep-out for her over the summer, and she is studying her last year of high school far away from her home in northern Germany. 

I like seeing the city (and in some ways, our culture) anew through her eyes.

We went to a wedding last week for a sweet young couple. They like retro stuff and are just getting started on making their home together. So, for a wedding gift, we decided to find them a vintage armchair and Tom spotted this one at a second-hand store one day last month. After a bit of TLC and a new cushion (made using my favourite Finnish/Japanese linen print), we delivered the armchair to their house. I hope it's at home in a sunny corner beside a pile of books.

These are some of the grey-on-white/white-on-grey embroideries I've been doing lately. There's something soothing about monochrome, I think. I sewed the work up into pouches for my neglected etsy shop, along with a few other things. 

I use one of these linen pouches to tote my knitting within my work satchel. It's always a good feeling to reach inside and find something with very small stitches, very 'handmade', waiting there.

Today's song: MYTH, Beach House.

Hope you're having a love-filled February the 14th, even if you're not into the Valentine's thing. 

This pottery wall-vase was given to us by Tom's Mum- it's the perfect thing for outside the laundry, I think. And especially nice now there are some flowers in the garden to grace it.

My Valentine's celebrations will consist of a glass of wine and a movie with Tom later tonight. I made a new cushion for the family couch, from some William Morris-y linen, which is kind of romantic, in a way, I guess? Everyone likes to sit on the couch and read books.

I'll also make dinner for everyone when they get home. That thought reminds me of a love poem by Carol Ann Duffy. It starts:

Not a red rose or a satin heart.

I give you an onion.

It is a moon wrapped in brown paper…

– An old, painted-wood shelf is happily gracing the kitchen wall and looking after favourite coffee cups and tins of tea. I had grand plans of painting the wall, building a special unit, and more, but in the end practicality won and this shelf is doing a lovely job taking care of things. Kitchen work can wait till next year, or the year after, perhaps…

– And here is the sun shining through the window. Lemony chrysanthemums from here and an old 'Villeroy and Boch' jug from the op-shop down the road. It's been broken then glued up but I still love it.