– Bought an old, worn blanket at a fundraising flea market- it's a traditional, cream wool one with blue and yellow stripes along the edges. I plan to sew it into draught stoppers for our big old windows (the idea comes from this book by Lotta Jansdotter)
– This is some coriander I grew. Completely gone to seed! It's so beautiful- fine lace flowers with feathery leaves.
– Happy new week, dear readers.
Hope you have a great weekend!
I made a handy thing over the weekend: a little fold-out bag for grocery shopping. My current schedule involves buying milk and bread on the way home from work, and carrying them home on the bus. But I often forget to bring a bag with me. This new one neatly folds into a little parcel and can sit at the bottom of my work satchel, along with the notebook and sunglasses. I don't think this idea/design is at all original, but it works for me.
I used some vintage cotton: lined with kimono lining. Good for lightness and rollability.
I found this tiny book, published in 1957, at a South Island flea market on our holiday. The design and illustrations are really great- and there is a lot of practical information about different plants – I am excited to order some seeds and get some of them started in our garden.
Reading the preface made me smile, though.
"This book is intended to help the home gardener to choose seeds and plants for the beds and borders in his garden set aside for flowers. With due attention to the time of flowering, it should enable his wife to keep the bowls and vases in the house filled with cut flowers through most of the year. It will also help him and his family to identify the flowers seen in parks on their walks abroad."
You didn't see me I was falling apart
I was a white girl in a crowd of white girls in the park
You didn't see me I was falling apart
I was a television version of a person with a broken heart
– 'Pink Rabbits', The National (a great song to listen to through the headphones while out walking, in case you're looking for one.)
This is a dress I made to wear to work this year. I used the same pattern as this one, because I like the fit and pockets and it was already sitting on my desk, cut out, from last time (might as well admit it.)
For this dress I used a drapey kind of linen/cotton in a dark purple, grape sort of colour. The pockets and bodice lining is made from a fine cotton lawn in a foresty green print that I've loved for a long time. And it's always good to have a secret happy lining inside a plain garment.
Some years ago, I sewed a dress from this piece of green fabric but I can't find the link to that post anymore (archives getting so big!)
I liked wearing the green dress (a simple tunic style) but one day I had the realisation that, when paired with tights and a belt, it looked eerily similar to a Peter Pan costume and after that I didn't feel like wearing it so often. So I cut it up and used the fabric for this dress, which I'm likely to wear without fear of channelling a book character.
Three old soda bottles arrived in my letterbox from Kelly (after this post) and they boast that lovely thick glass and interesting texture like that first one I dug out from the side of the road. Tom's Mum, Clare, stayed with us last week and bought red gladioli to display in each bottle. Elegant, non?
One bottle has the faded label: JUCY and another says 'This bottle is the property of Thomson Lewis and Co Ltd, Artesian Water, Wellington, Petone & Wanganui.
I'm wishing for a return of the days when we sent food packaging back to the factory for re-use.
We have a new family table. This is a piece that was constructed by Tom and his Dad (who is a fine furniture designer and maker) in his workshop over the summer holiday. A few years ago, with such a table in mind, the pair selected and put aside some elm planks. They started designing the table over Christmas, Dave constructed and finished it and yesterday Tom's Mum brought it with her to Wellington and some kind, strong friends, helped carry it up to the house.
It's solid, smooth, and has a beautiful grain. We'll be able to have big dinner parties and all sit at the same table. There's room for all the family to sit around and work on their own projects. After owning 'characterful', op-shopped tables for about 12 years, I still can't believe it's ours.
Over the summer holiday, we spent a day at my sister's farmlet, an hour's drive away from town. Her family home is a small wooden cottage that was a public-school-dental-clinic in a former life.
Together with her husband and four daughters, she takes care of a wide variety of farm animals and birds. She also plays in folk music bands and teaches the violin to local kids. But her garden is the thing I most like to inspect when I visit.
There are always new trees, flowers, shrubs and herbs to ask her about, and she grows them all from cuttings and by collecting heirloom-plant seeds from her friends' gardens. Each season she digs up a new bit of ground to plant things in, so the vegetable patch is a big, wonderful tangle of this and that.
These beauties are hidden wallpapers at my family's beach house. In the 1970s, my grandparents built the house and wallpapered every room and cupboard with bright prints (There were also curtains with different prints but they are long gone now.) Most of the house was painted in neutral colours in the 90s, but inside the cupboards, you can see the archeological remains of groovy wallpaper.
tiny happy 