tiny happy

This week I've been finishing these little embroidery needlecases, or I suppose embroidery cases, as I've been dreaming of adding in pockets they could include for little scissors, threads, etc. Maybe my next batch will have those.

This lot of ten is to take along to the next Craft 2.0 fair, which will be at the St James Theatre in downtown Wellington on November 3rd. I really enjoy making them, but they do take me a succession of evenings- first I cut them out, then embroider them, lastly machine sew them together. Then another week of evenings to handsew the fasteners on, etc. 

This time I felt like doing some geometrical, sampler-style embroidery. I'm not a very geometrical person, so there are some rather wonky crosses and dashes. That's the way I like it though.

I bought Tom this new Jens Lekman album- I Know What Love Isn't, as he is a big JL fan. The album is a beautiful piece of genius pop writing, in my opinion, especially this track. 

Now the weather is getting warmer I've been trying to mix it up a bit with the evening meals. My goal is to try some new salads and vegetable dishes but here are two I've been making quite often. I will try and find another two favourites to post here next week.

The first salad is a very easy and much loved one in this family (although the kids still aren't completely sure that raw beetroot is something they should have to eat.)

It consists of one grated raw beetroot, a couple of grated carrots, toasted sunflower seeds, chopped mint leaves from the garden and a dressing of natural yoghurt mixed with lemon juice, salt and pepper. 

The second salad is just a bowlful of leaves (I use baby spinach, rocket and mesclun from the garden), just-cooked brown lentils, pieces of roasted pumpkin and crumbled feta cheese. I usually make some sort of lemon juice/olive oil dressing for this one.

Do you have a favourite salad right now? I'd love to read your suggestions.

Thank you for entering the giveaway in the last post. I drew a random number for the book and it worked out to be Rach's entry. So well done R, I will pop it into the post for you.

I've been noticing the lime-green here today. It's pretty grey outside, so limes will be made into a cake for the weekend, I think. 

The last photo above shows a page from my latest favourite graphic novel: The Wrong Place, by Belgian artist Brecht Evens.The book features a poignant story but most stunning are the watercolour illustrations. Definitely inspiration to get out the paints, I think.

Enjoy your weekend.

I was honoured a while back when Jennifer Forest interviewed me for her book Crafty Girls Talk, which is fresh off the press this month (you can read more about it here.) The book is like a craft group on paper- in it, Jennifer chats to 20 different crafty women about their work and inspirations, and includes many photos too. It's a lovely collection, and she kindly sent me an extra copy for one of you to keep, dear readers.

Would you like the extra copy for your craft book collection? Just leave a comment below and I will draw a winner at the end of the week.

It's been a quiet Sunday around here so far, it's cool and dark inside our old house but the sun is shining outside. I've been reading this book in the sun with my childhood quilt (made by Mum many years ago but still used every day.) And I found an old piece of embroidery I did when I was first getting into free-form stitching, and made it into a useful case. 

Other tame Sunday activities include washing, drawing, walking and movie-going (later on.)

– In music news, have you seen this video – Who by St Vincent and David Byrne, from their brilliant and quirky new album.

These tiny botanicals were found on a recent walk home, and I was inspired to make them into pins because I had just been to this store and stocked up on wool felt in purple, yellow, green and red. 

The pins were a lot of fun to make- sort of like miniature textile collages inspired by the real thing- and I like that they are a tiny pop of colour on my (typically grey) spring cardigans.

My friend Helen reminded me about Etsy's video channel– it's a collection of artist profiles beautifully made and I think you'll find it inspiring, if you haven't seen it already.

Hope your weekend is a fun one!

I've been making things to send to Japan for a while now, to a little design store called Tapiiri which is located in a forest in Yamanashi. I had a bit of free time yesterday so I managed to finish this latest order for Sayaka, who runs Tapiiri. An autumn-winter coat, and some wool embroidered cases. 

I love the idea of my handmade things being so far away and in a place so different from here. I hope I can visit Sayaka's small cafe some time soon.

How is your Tuesday so far? Today I am dreaming of making a flying-geese-block quilt (like this or this) from all my fabric scraps. It probably won't happen anytime soon, but I will dream nevertheless.

I made this amazing chocolate and apricot fudge cake as a school fundraiser, and we had enough left over to take a few pieces on a beach walk today (it turned out to be a handy bribe and distraction when someone small cut their foot on a sharp rock so for that alone it was worth it.)

The recipe came from the local newspaper and Kalamata Deli, but I have discovered it here since- so you could make it too, if you feel so inclined. I halved the recipe and it still made a huge amount. We dissect the newspaper at journalism school each morning, and finding this recipe was a bright spot in amongst a lot of less-chocolately news. 

Also this week, we were sent a copy of this beautiful little book: Violet Mackerel's Brilliant Plot, by the author herself, Anna Branford. K and I both read it and loved it. I will now be on the lookout for other books in the Violet series. She reminds me a little of the small girl who lives at our place, so thank you Anna for thinking of us.

Hope you've had a great weekend and are feeling fortified for the new week ahead.

I had to recycle my marigold photo for this post, as the plants have been drying out for a while and there are no flowers in sight. I collected their seeds while digging over the garden and this is the result: a heap of organic seeds ready to be dispatched to gardening friends and family. I used small brown 'wage' envelopes (left over from previous years!) and decorated each with watercolour illustrations. 

Can't wait to plant some new things- probably just practical stuff like salad greens and maybe some beetroot, my favourite vegetable of all time.

My small piece of escapism arrived today in the form of Liivia's blog – do you know it? It's beautiful, and I was imagining I was standing at this window, looking out.