tiny happy

This is a small outfit I made for baby girl born last month. The cardigan is a tiny little knitted one I found second-hand. I changed the buttons to brown coconut-shell ones, and did a bit of embroidery on the front. A tiny re-vamp. And the pants are made from stretchy stripy cotton and feature lots of room for cloth-nappies. I dug out an old pattern I used to make many such pairs back when the kids were babies.

And the first photo is not really related, but I just liked those watery reflections. The fishpond was one I walked past when visiting the Islands- the fish were swimming happily in the warm.

Happy Thursday to you!

I noticed a bit of a mustard-yellow theme going on in today's shop update– I think I must be trying to warm up somehow and thinking golden thoughts. We have old-fashioned printed yellow roses and little gold embroideries- including one I stitched on Mother's Day because the kids gave me a little bottle filled with daisies from the lawn. So, a daisy-pouch was made from the piece, which was stitched onto an old tea-stained mat with a crocheted corner.

Hope you are keeping warm and dry, wherever you are.

Local friends: I will be here on Friday evening, giving a workshop on making bags from 6.15pm till 7. At 7 Fifi Colston will take over and teach a session based on her vintage fabric ideas and creativity. Each session costs $8, and the proceeds will be going to Mary Potter Hospice, and I hear that workshop participants will be given a free pack of vintage fabrics to get them started. Then the next morning you can come along to the Fabricabrac sale to buy lots of lovely vintage sewing stuff. Hooray!

This morning I joined in with a small community craft group and had a great time hanging out with some new women and preschoolers. One of the women, Rachelle, is organising The Great Sock Money Challenge, which is a special mission that involves sewing up enough characterful sock monkeys to give to sick children in NZ hospitals.

I didn't blog about it at the time, but Keira was in hospital with a crazy surprise illness last year (luckily, it was short-lived) and I know that she would have really loved one of these monkeys to join her on her hospital adventures getting blood tests, seeing specialists, etc.

I love R's monkeys and am thinking I might buy a few pairs of socks as my contribution to the project, because I love the way she puts colours together. If you want to find out more about the Challenge, there is a facebook page here or you can read this post. 

Hope your Tuesday was a good one- see you tomorrow!

Happy Mother's Day for yesterday, if you observed it. It's pretty nice, I think, to have a day set aside for acknowledging everyone who looks after others, even if it's not just 'mothers'. I was given this stem of cream orchids from my family- don't you just love their waxy vanilla petals, speckled with pink?

I did, quite a lot, so I painted this portrait of them.

Happy new week!

I spent some of today sewing at the machine. I've made some clothes for friends' children- some warm winter things such as corduroy pants and skirts. Plus a crossover cardigan from some recycled cashmere I was lucky to find in the second-hand shop, and some Liberty lawn-type cotton that I made bias trim from. It was originally in the form of a half-finished giant skirt that I suspect was an abandoned school sewing project. I had many of those myself, back in the day, so it's nice to be able to liberate someone else's sewing shame.

I bought a copy of The Same As Yes when I was in town the other day, and have been unable to stop thinking about the poems ever since (the title of this post borrows a line from one of them.) Joan Fleming lives and works here in Wellington and Golden Bay. I find that after reading these words, everything looks different: carpet, pegs, a woven basket, a dressing gown. (My notebook was beautifully hand-printed by Jill.)

Have a lovely weekend- see you again on Monday.

Here is some leafy green goodness from our holiday as an antidote for the cold rainy weather here. Looking at those leafy scenes from the island are nearly enough to warm me up, but I think the heater is also in order. I made a couple of things for today's shop update from some Japanese leaf-print linen that I'd been hoarding for a while- a cushion cover and some little shoes. 

And here is a song for you with some good rainy imagery to suit the day. 

Here are a few photos of the island wedding of my brother, T and his partner S. The flowers in the bouquets and decorations were pretty gorgeous and the scent was amazing- there were frangipani, bougainvillea, gardenia, oleander and hibiscus stems and extras for our hair, too. The actual ceremony took place in a little clearing by the beach under an archway woven with banana palms and tropical flowers. And directly behind the arch was a wild dog, just hanging out and watching us. Of course, now I wish I took more photos, but I got distracted. That's how it always is. Aren't those colours divine?

We arrived home from our holiday on the weekend and I must admit that the Wellington climate came as a shock- it was so warm on our island.  What a beautiful place- at the information centre there was a brochure advising us to take off our watches and instead observe 'island time', and there was indeed a relaxed and easygoing atmosphere there. Being 'winter', the warmth was just right for us without being too overwhelming, and we could still go swimming and snorkeling every day. Our beds had only one cotton tivaevae cover, and that was plenty. 

I hope you had a great week too. I'm thinking I might share a few more sets of island and wedding photos over the next few days as I get back into things around here. 

Oh, and thank you for the bronze medal that I found when I got home! You are all the best.

We are going away for a week – just K and I. My brother is getting married on this tropical island and K is going to be a flowergirl, so we're dusting off the passports and flying out tomorrow.

Her older brother is flying away too, on his first unaccompanied trip, which he is very excited and proud about. He will visit his grandparents in the South Island. And poor Tom will stay in the city to work.

I made us all some new bags to take on the planes with us- I figured I'd need something roomy to schlep books, pens, snacks, etc with us all the way to another country. The kids are quite keen on taking their own stuff these days which is great, so I sewed them up these little messenger bags. They're made from sturdy denim, and they chose the flap fabric themselves- K's is a happy cotton print and A's is a robot-print linen from Japan. He has already filled his up with many books, his pocket money and enough comic-drawing supplies to last a week. 

So i'll be having a week-long blog break while I visit my first Pacific Island- but will be sure to report back next week, hopefully with tales of swimming, snorkelling and cocktails. Have a great week yourself!

I had two lucky second-hand finds: an old piece of hand-embroidered linen that was just asking to be made into some baby shoes (I haven't made any of these in ages- I'd almost forgotten how but not quite.)

The other find was an old Japanese painting on cardboard which is currently cheering up the hallway. 

Have you heard the new M. Ward album? It's on heavy rotation around here- especially this great song.