tiny happy

A handful of cuttings from the garden inspired some wool embroidery today.

I hope you're having a good Tuesday, too. 

I found this great little craft book, Lovely Things To Make For Girls of Slender Means by Eithne Farry, at the library the other day. It is divided into 4 chapters of projects that reflect the seasons of the year, and in the Summer chaper (along with designs for a kaftan, a necklace made from wooden chip-forks and a floppy sunhat) I found this project for making fabric roses. 

Just for fun over the weekend, I made a big red rose according to Eithne's directions from some scraps of red silk fabric, as a pin for my favourite dress.

The book itself has a really light and fun feel to it, and is very creative without getting too stuck on technical sewing patterns or instructions- the reader is encouraged to lighten up and experiment. 

When I have another long and lonely evening in front of me, I'll give her dress design a go, and make enough roses in matching fabric to sew all over the front, as you can see in the picture above.

I made this rabbit for my baby nephew Leo, who turns one tomorrow. He and his sister live on a farm, so are more likely than I am to see a live rabbit in their garden. Leo is one of those beautifully squishy, jolly babies and I'm looking forward to seeing him tomorrow.

I wanted his soft rabbit to have an old-fashioned feel, so I used light brown linen for the body (and a bit of 'climbing trees' print for the underside of the ears) and hand embroidery for the face. He also has rather skinny, lumpy arms and legs and perhaps what you might say is a slightly creepy look about him. Such is the fate of my handmade toys, I'm afraid.

Also in rabbit-news, I carved out this stamp to use for his wrapping-paper, and while I was stamping things, I made these linen lavender sachets for his drawer, too. Can't have enough rabbits around, I say.

It's feeling very springy here today, Nick Cave is on the stereo, the sun is shining and I keep looking out of the window at all the potential gardening to be done. Enjoy your weekend!

A few weeks ago a friend and I went to hear Alexa Johnston speak about her new book, 'What's for Pudding' which is fresh in the bookshops now (I wrote about her other great baking books here.) She was a very interesting woman and so passionate about food, but one of my favourite things she talked about was the happiness factor of food, in particular puddings. She pointed out that technically, puddings are not nutritionally essential for our bodies, but the joy of sharing them together as friends or family and forming good memories around such foods is a pretty joyful business. 

That made me think about food within my own family and what we like to eat. One of our favourite puddings is apple galette, maybe because it is quite a simple and quick pie to make (and I love rolling out pastry), or maybe because the ingredients always seem to be in the house. I made one for my grandmother today, (she is recovering from a long illness and loves comfort food a lot- I must get it from somewhere!) and so I thought I'd share the recipe here, too. It's also very good with apricots or peaches inside, if you're lucky enough to have them around and is equally good hot for pudding with cream or icecream as it is cut cold in slices for afternoon tea.

Apple galette

2-3 Granny Smith apples (or other fruit)

handful of blackcurrants (or other berries)

1-2 Tb flour

1-2 Tb raw sugar

75 grams butter, chopped into smallish pieces

1 heaped cup plain flour

1/2 cup cold water

First, make the pastry by cutting the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Then with a spoon, stir in the cold water a little at a time until you have a dough. Turn out onto a floured bench and knead lightly. Set aside to rest for a minute.

Peel and slice the apples thinly and place them in a bowl with the small amount of flour and sugar. Stir until coated. Roll the pastry out thinly so it will cover your baking tray. Sprinkle tray with flour then place the sheet of thin pastry on top. Pile the apples into the middle, add the berries if you like them then simply fold the excess pastry around the apples to form an open sort of pie. You can brush the pastry with milk if you like. Bake at 200 degrees celcius for about 15-20 minutes or until golden.

Inspired by a mixed assortment of flowers from the garden this week, I have been doing a bit of wool embroidery. It's quite a thrill to have things pop up in the garden that I planted the seed for a year ago…. my current favourite is honeywort (cerinthe) which you can see better in the second photo above. The bees seem to be impressed with that one too. 

The wool embroidery from the other day was turned into these simple tote bags for today's shop update.

I hope your Wednesday is a good one so far. Today is the birthday of my oldest ever friend, A-L who I first met when we were 6, I believe. She lives in the Northern Hemisphere now but her birthday always reminds me of spring colours like these. Happy birthday A!

One rainy Saturday afternoon recently, the kids helped me make this wildly striped sock monkey. He was inspired by an old blue-and-grey one of Keira's that she'd found in an opshop.

Our sock monkey suffers from a rather dated colour scheme, but we were limited in our sock choices. He was great fun to make- sewn by hand, button-eyes painstakingly chosen by our friend next door, and wonkily stuffed with legs of two slightly differering lengths. Perfect.

(You can find lots of instructions for making monkeys from your old socks online, but this tutorial looks quite good. I also found these beautiful sock animals, all in one colour, here on Pinterest.

The viburnum tree is my favourite in our garden, and it's happily flowering now it's springtime. At this time of year the tree really seems to resemble a mass of giant white pom-poms but they don't last for long, so I thought I should capture them on linen while I could.

I hope you've had a good weekend. It was a quiet one here, but I'm looking forward to a new, healthy week! And speaking of flowers, have you seen the blog Saipua? Everytime I go there it makes me want to pack up and become a florist, even if it's just so I can order in an industrial-sized lot of porcelain berries. 

These little pansy or viola flowers are popping up in the garden this week, showing their cheerful faces and not seeming to mind the spring rain. I'm starting to feel better after nearly a week with the 'flu, which I don't recommend to anyone. Seriously. But something that did help was sitting very still, calmly working some free-form wool embroidery. 

If you're in the South Island of NZ, you might like to check out this fantastic project, NZ on Screen. My friend Anna, in conjunction with the Real NZ Festival, is taking a souped-up caravan around the country, parking it in small towns and showing a selection of NZ feature film, short film and television. You can click here to see the South Island schedule. I'm looking forward to checking it out this weekend.

I discovered the work of British textile designer Lisa Stickley sometime last year, and since then have become an admirer of her beautiful style. I ordered her first craft book, Made At Home last month and have been enjoying flicking through it- there are great instructions for a roman blind that I want to try (having tried to sew one before, and horribly failed) as well as cushions with piped edging, and a smart apron. The projects are probably aimed at beginner-sewers, but why I really bought the book was for its styling: the fabrics and furnishings used in the photos are really gorgeous. Very old-fashioned British, but without being overly floral or twee. (I'm guessing that the rooms shown belong to Lisa herself: you can read more about her London home here.)

It will be poppy season here soon- I found lots of baby plants springing up in the garden last week. I made a poppy stamp by carving it from an eraser, and used it to make these lavender sachets for a friends' birthday. The poppy stamp was used to print loose-weave linen (so lots of lavender scent can escape) and then I backed them with cotton lawn. Is there a better scent in the world? I think not.