It's been ages....

Yes it has been a wee while since I updated my blog! I have been so busy that I have only spent about 4 sessions on the computer since the last time. And only to check a few e-mails and blogs I read, with a quick cup of tea. There has even been a 2 week school holiday in that time. I didn't go anywhere, except to see family in Napier and to my stall once a fortnight at the craft market.

I have been tidying up and re-arranging, yes I even threw stuff out and a few bags full went to thrift shops.

My darling spotted a lovely chest of drawers in the Salvation Army store. It has 9 deep drawers, with brass corners and handles. I cleaned it thoroughly and repainted all the drawer fronts in a matching white. Then re-sanded slightly, because it got too pristine. Now it doesn't look so perfect. Even though it is perfect for storing all my paints, glues, paper crafts, altered books and stacks of labelled magazine clippings for collages. It took me most of the holidays to sort through everything, which was spread in 3 different places in the house.

And now everything is totally organized in one place. I even have 1 drawer for beads. Amazingly I still have 1 drawer empty. Don't know how that happened...

Even my painting table is clear and can be used again. Such a great feeling!

Costs: nz$30 for the cupboard and $15 for the paint. Stress levels: minimal!

This is what the area looked like before.... With stacks of vintage books on the ground.

It also means that I suddenly have empty spaces in other areas of our house, which can now store other messy stacks in it, now all sorted as well.

It must be spring.. I'm sure I did something like this last year. And, this time my studio is all use-able and clean again too.
My favourite 3 trees in our garden. Silverbirches. They are about 12/13 years old. And my tree-loving bloke reckons they are about 10 to 12 metres high now. They love our good soil, and I love their white bark and the rustle they make in the breeze. Our garden isn't just on the ground but has different levels upwards.

The first flush of green!! Love love love springtime!

Unfortunately we have had many rainy weekends in which no outside work could be done, but the new daylight-saving hours are really helping, when my man comes home from work.

The sanding and painting is really coming along nicely.

As you can see, many years ago our house used to be white with blue. Even though it was the same colour as the summer sky, we are sticking to the butter-yellow with greens scheme.

It just feels friendlier somehow.

Quakes, and more cheerful things!

First I think an update, on what is on our minds here in New Zealand this week. On Saturday morning the 4th Sept there was a major earthquake (7.1 Magnitude on the Richter Scale) in Christchurch, South Island. And although that lies a whole days travel away from Hastings, our father(-in-law) lives there and we know the city. Incredibly no-one died , although some were wounded by falling glass and chimneys. And one fatal heart attack.

This lovely city has some beautiful early 20th century stone buildings with a particular character; these however have been severely damaged, some destroyed and others need to be pulled down. Many homes also have been declared unfit for living. Roads have cracked and sewer and water pipes broke under the roads.

It sounds however as if all emergency and civil defence systems operated in an organized and as prompt as possible fashion. The army is helping, city council workers and neighbours help each other. At the moment a voluntary 1000 strong student force is helping to clear peoples' properties from the wet sand silt that came up out of the ground through cracks in concrete and gardens within minutes.

But all this sounds deceptive; you see, when there is a major earthquake, you get aftershocks. A lot of them, some big, some hardly noticeable. Some big enough to get people running for safety (under a table for example). Some cause more damage to already weakened structures.

But the biggest damage it seems, is to peoples nerves. No-one is getting good sleep, everyone is on edge and especially children are traumatized .

To give you an idea of the amount of tremors that have hit Christchurch since Saturday morning click on this link christchurch quakemap . The larger the circles, the bigger the Magnitude which comes up on the right hand side. The colour of the circles tells you how deep they were, and the quakes timespan is shown by how long the circle stays on screen. There is a stopwatch of the passing days in the right hand corner.

Usually you would hardly feel a 3.5 Magnitude, but of course it depends on how deep it is or if it's right under you. For example the 7.1 in Christchurch woke up our daughter in Wellington.

On Tuesday and today we have had a few quakes ourselves here in the Bay. Today there were 3, but we didn't feel 2 of them. I happened to feel the one on Tuesday, I was sitting still in the classroom, but the rest of the children were too busy in the room to notice . So the teacher and I just looked at each other, took a breath and carried on with our reading groups. Today there was a 5.3M at 20 past 4 and I certainly noticed that one with my youngest. You hear the house creak, you intake a breath and tense your muscles for the jump under the door post, you raise an eyebrow to each other.Is it going to get sharper or is this rolling "it"...? You look around to see the lamp and plants swaying gently, today I caught our gate moving back and forwards. We stayed in our seats and talked to each other and continued watching a programme on t.v. That's life here!

I wish all in Christchurch restful nights and much strength in the coming weeks, when the rebuilding starts gathering force!

Some crocheted slippers for the Uni-daughter. I saw a tiny picture in some old magazine and thought; I can do that! And not for $69 ...

I got some old handspun, which had yellow stains in it, that sometimes happens to sheeps' wool. Crocheted them up 2 at a time, so I could do the same to each slipper, since I had no pattern. Then I threw them in the pot of fresh beetroots that I was cooking, thinking I could dye them a lovely pink. Silly me, I forgot natural dyes don't quite work like that....

They came out a sickly shade of greeny-tinged dirty yellow. (The beetroots were o.k.)

Now what... I still had a bottle of Jamaican-Lime cordial in back of the cupboard, sugar-free. It was quite old and had gone a light green, so I added a few drops of green food-colouring to the pan of water and cordial. Then added the slippers, and simmered for half an hour. Nearly all the colour was gone out of the pan, into the slippers. Pow! Funky green!!

After rinsing and using a bit of softener, and drying, of course, I added an edge and flower of bright pink. They fitted exactly and she loved them. Apparently they are just right for going down to breakfast with, in her hostel dining room.

Here another gorgeous bouquet made by our youngest girl. She gathered the flowers herself from the neighbourhood. Not many flowers around yet at this time of year. And there has been so much rain lately!.. Right now it's pouring down again, already for 2 days on and off.

The ground is saturated and can't absorb the water properly.

Recently I have learned how to make books from scratch at my local book-arts club. We did some soft-cover books with stitched spines. The book on the left has an open spine. I used drawing paper so that they can be used as sketch books. And the covers have had vintage curtain material glued onto them. The spines and "signatures" are stitched together with linen threads and the book on the right has glass beads as well.
They turned out sweet and floral and very feminine. They are not perfect but good enough for me.

I'm so happy with what we have , in so many ways.......

Busy People and a bout of Bronchitis.

Last week I just commented to a friend at work how I had still managed not to get a cold, and we both touched wood. By 4pm I had a sore throat and was getting a sniffle. The next morning my nose was like a tap, my throat was sandpaper, and my belly was complaining. But I went to a morning course in maths for primary school teacher-aides. By the evening I was coughing and had a nasty headache. I started my inhaler. Please don't let it turn into bronchitis...

2 days of lots of sleeping and slight temperatures followed, the coughing seemed under control. It got worse over the weekend (always on the weekend), and my doctor declared me still unfit for work on Monday; bronchitis, yet again. So tiring those coughing fits... sick of it!

But some of my family-members have been busy people lately. Here's my bloke giving the flowering cherry a bit of a trim. Some big branches are causing too much shadow on the vege-patch in the summer, so out came the chainsaw and chaps. It filled up the whole trailer!

And he put up some scaffolding loaned from a friend. Some of the planks underneath the roof need replacing, before the birds start nesting again.

Our youngest has started a course in floral art, and she is loving it. She likes to work with her hands. Her paternal grandfather, Opa L. is good at this too , and also her maternal grandmother, Oma M. She was a member of her local floral art club and won many prizes.

A big table piece, the only spot we could have it for a week.
I like this too with all the pink lillies and purple orchids. I am very impressed with my 16 year old finding different options in life !
I don't have the energy at the moment to do anything big. I am just pleased to re-read some of my favourite magazines. And dream about a clutter free home (yeah right!) and new projects to make.
When I buy home magazines, I usually go for the spring and summer editions. The winter decors always look too dark here in Hawkes' Bay.

In the last holidays I made myself a necklace. The idea for it had already been spooking around in the back of my head for more than a year. I have been influenced and inspired by reading Nina Bagley's blog Ornamental. But I can't just copy someone else's work ofcourse. And I don't really have all her skills in metal working either, so I had to find my own way of including words. Words that I like.

I taught myself to play with silver wire and pliers, and putting on hooks and closures etc.

I included jade and handmade porcelain and shell beads, silk ribbon and fancy yarn, and an acorn cup to make it look like a nest. I cut the word "forest" from an old book.

I like wearing it and it hangs well. Now I have more ideas (ofcourse) for different colour schemes or seasons or natural scenery.

It just never stops. Which makes me very happy!

It's a Wrap! and another Old Lady.

This is my other Old Lady in the hallway. She's in better condition and works very smoothly and silently. It has a hand crank on the side, so cute. According to her serial number, she has also been made in Scotland and is from 1945.

Beautifully decorated with golden swirls, very stylish. Again the machine comes away from the wooden base to store things underneath, but it also has a little compartment under the wheel with a lid. I have never sewn with it, so I don't know if it does other stitches than straight stitch. I doubt it. I think it used to have a little motor attached(in a very ugly way) but that has been taken off.

Another shank-plate from a third singer , in extremely bad shape. I don't have that one anymore, it was dumped years and years ago. This was the only bit that was still nice. I have used it as a pendant around my neck a few times in the past. It has a handy hole in it.

I am part of a group of felters that come together so now and then. So far we are an informal group ( I hate committee meetings etc.) that just pay a few dollars for the use of the hall, the coffee and tea, have a great productive day together, share gossip and ideas, and go home again. Lately we have been meeting in a new place, and they want to meet twice a month. 2 Weeks ago I 've managed to be productive and made this lovely wrap.

The wool has been "nuno"-felted onto a forest-green organza fabric. Because the fabric is sheer and has an open weave , the wool fibres have travelled through the organza, shrunk and "grabbed" the fabric. The fabric doesn't shrink along with the wool, so it starts to wrinkle up, giving it a very tactile texture. It feels quite elastic.
It is still featherlight, but warmer with the folds and bubbles and merino wool.

I made it in 1 day, and though I explained it in a few sentences, it was serious hard work.

It took much rolling in blinds with hot soapy water, and rubbing, and bending over and in the end picking up and slapping down again.

For a while I didn't think it was going to "take"; the wool was lifting off the organza and felting to itself. A bit of a panicky moment, since I had already worked on it for a good number of hours. But with patience and gentle coaching it came right.

Yes I was sore the next day, especially my arms. But I was very pleased. This is how a well felted nuno piece should look. In my eyes....

You can see how thin the fabric is. The wool was laid on in one continuous long winding squiggle . The colours change from greens to rusty orange and a little silk is included.

Our eldest, home for mid-term break , is modeling the wrap. Thanks honey!

Check out the daffodils in the background. And the apricot blossoms came out yesterday. The doors could be left open today. Spring is getting very near!!!

My old machine and my new wool.

So I have had a go at making fancy yarns. I made one little skein with blues and silver, and the other with blues, silver and sea-greens. The blue skein has little nubs or cocoons added to it with white silk and silver fibres and is plied with a thin handspun blue merino.

The sea-green one has mint coloured silk nubs added, and was plied with a commercially spun blue-green wool thread.

Making the little nubs was tricky at first, I had to stop and break off the unspun wool, then wind on the silk from a different angle, then put on the blue sliver again, and half a metre or so later do it all over again. But fun!! And I love the results. Each ball of wool is only about 50 grams or so, you could use it for a decorative touch.

Last weekend I had my first Napier Craft Market stall, hopefully the first of many. I offered them for sale, however I sold 2 balls of 100gr plain yarn in maroon and purply-blue.

I have recently read 2 other blogs in which the lovely writers wrote about their sewing machines. So I thought I'd introduce one of mine. This old lady sits in my hallway, and is just for looking at. I don't know the model name, but I do know the serial number. And I have found out that she was made in 1933, and came all the way from Scotland.
All her decorations are quite Egyptian looking, in a stylized art deco way, which was very popular in the thirties. There are even winged scarab beetles in the middle , with a dung ball!

This highly decorative (and slightly rusty) metal plate unscrews to reveal a hole in the shank, so you can get to the inner workings of the machine.

Not a single bit of this machine has been left un-decorated! I'm sorry, but todays machines just look cheap and nasty compared to this. Although somewhat easier to carry....
Yes you can open the box by lifting the machine sideways like a lid. You can store attachments underneath. It moves quite smoothly still, and apparantly today's needles fit on.

Considering my daughter's laptop is now so ancient ( 5 years...!) that they have stopped making power supplies for it( it blew up, so no more power for the machine), there is something to be said for machines that can still be made to work after 80 years of service.

I can attach this machine to my singer treadle table and use footpower to make it go.

Brilliant...

Where I Spin You A Yarn.

It is definitely still winter, and although we don't get snow here in Hawke's Bay, and even though sometimes we can actually sit outside with our lunch, to catch some sunrays for making vitamin d, that southerly wind is so icy cold! There is no landmass between Antarctica and us to warm up the air.

Combined with the bucket loads of rain we are having this winter, at times it is perfectly miserable... I am missing our eldest girl, and I miss my 2 mums terribly at the moment. So for me the best way of getting past that feeling is to make new things, try new techniques.

I have been getting back into spinning lately. Always a good winter past-time.

Here is a little "yarn"(story) with pictures about some rainbow dyed wool, which I had bought in the past at the Christchurch art centre.

They sold it like this all tied into a wonderful knot. It was about 120 gram of merino wool. Now how to keep the colours flowing from one to another without them becoming muddy and how to get the colours to repeat in the yarn.....
Half the length of the sliver (or roving) of wool had quite different colours, so I split the sliver in half . Then I split each sliver lengthways in 4 thinner slivers.

I made sure that I could start each bit of sliver at the same end (at the blue end in the top 4 and at the yellowy-brown end in the bottom 4).

In this way I would spin 1 from the top row, 1 from the bottom row, 1 from the top row ,etc. so that the colours would keep repeating in the continuous yarn.
Here an action photo (excuse the blurriness ) of my hands and feet at work. I bought myself a lovely hook (to pull the yarn through the hole) many years ago. It is made of the tip of a deer antler and it fits very comfortably in my hand with it's natural curve. From the same wool supply shop in Christchurch.
Here you can see the bobbin filling up with the coloured "single" yarn. Just imagine you can hear soft whirring and purring sounds.

This is my first spinning-wheel, I bought her secondhand when I first learned to spin about 13 years ago.

Ma-L came with me to check that nothing was missing on the machine and the wheel wasn't warped. She then taught me (and 2 girlfriends as well) how to spin, with a great deal of laughter and giggling. This wheel is an Ashford "Traditional"and (after checking their website) was probably made between 1965 and 1967. (So was I!)

I named her Gertrude and she needs lots of love and oil. She can be a little stubborn sometimes, and I need to growl her, when she won't take up the yarn properly.

I have 4 spinning-wheels, all from the Ashford company.
So back to my yarn; here is some of it , now plied together with a commercial thin wool yarn. When you ply the single with another yarn, the yarn has to go back through the wheel for a second time at the same time as another thread. They wrap around each other making a stronger yarn. This time the wheel goes in the opposite direction then when you spun the single yarn.

In spinning terms a 2-ply yarn simply means 2 threads together. You can actually ply lots of yarns together getting different effects.

I used a commercial wool this time to make the 120 grams go further. By combining the colours with white wool the overall colour is lighter and more pastel.

After having plied 2 normal bobbins full unto a "jumbo"bobbin, I leave it to sit overnight. This helps to settle the wool into it's new shape.

The next day I wind it off the bobbin, which is slotted on a "Lazy Kate"(don't you just love all the technical terms...?) onto a "Niddy-Noddy" (hahaha!) to form a hank of wool.

I tie the yarn loosely together in about 4 places and now comes the test when I take the hank off the niddy-noddy. Will it hang still and loose, or will it twist onto itself, due to overspinning or over-plying.

Not bad, you can see there is a slight twist towards the bottom of the hank . When the wool is in a hank it is easier to wash. This wool was already dyed , so it wasn't dirty, but washing sets the twist.
After washing gently by hand I whip the hank through the air a couple of times to stretch the fibres and then hang to dry over a stick, partly in the shade. Pegs leave squeeze marks in the yarn. After this is dry I wind it into a ball with my ball-winder.

So how many times did the fibres go through my hands during this process...? Spinning, plying, niddy-noddy-ing, washing, and ball-winding. That's why handspun yarn ought to be more expensive than commercial yarn. It is totally labour-intensive.

I wonder if New-Zealand is one of the only countries where you can find all these wooly gadgets in 2nd-hand-shops...

Comforts and Creations.

In the last 3 weeks I have had a holiday from my schooljob, and made some new things.

I also did some things that were new for me; such as watching a whole game of rugby with a crowd of people at a party. Yes the All Blacks won! Although I missed the haka, which I always find thrilling.

I also got up early to watch the last football/soccer game of the World Cup. My brother had invited a whole bunch of Dutchies, 2nd generation Dutchies and hanger-ons to have breakfast at his place. We had much fun with many pancakes, croissants and cups of coffee to help us through the sad ending...

That evening we ate orange food, not just to cheer up, but because it is winter comfort food. Stamppot with carrots, parsnips, potatoes and onions mashed together, and a big rookworst to divide up. Luckily I can get a very authentic sausage in the local supermarket here.

These are my new vintage papers packs. I have far too many ancient books than is good for me, and so I will share all those wonderful old illustrations and texts with others. So the first one has gone up for sale in my elmtree shop.

Here are some of the illustrated pages. People can use them for collages and other art.

I am even putting in an old sewing pattern pack, music sheets, old atlas pages, foreign language and encyclopaedia pages, shorthand, medical and maths books, chess instructions etc. ranging from early 1900's to the 1980's. At least 40 different papers go into the packs.

And while we're on the theme; another lot of dutch bunting went up for sale again too.

And now life is back into gear, no more holiday-mode, everyone back to work and learning.

Holidays are never long enough, so weird...

Winter but warm and dry!

Dare I show our girls busy at work with chores? I think so, it is so nice to see them earnestly doing their household jobs. Our youngest is enjoying cooking so now and then, and our eldest needs extra money, being a poor broke student. And yes you can see my mess in the background; piles of ancient books destined for ripping apart for use in art, and the piles of vintage fabrics. This is not a showhome....

This is a real home, one that got a new roof!

We think this house was built in 1937 and that was the original roof. Most houses here have corrugated iron . With a bit of builders' paper underneath it. We insulated it when we moved in 13 years ago, and the amount of birds' nests that were taken out this time obviously helped a lot for the warmth....!

Lots of wooden planking needed replacing as well. The roofers managed to do it in the 2 days that it did not rain. We are having a very wet winter.
It was a pretty noisy 2 days, and lots of dust came down in the living room where we have the original wooden slatted ceiling. But we were far too excited to let that bother us!
Here you can see why some of the wood needed replacing!! Rotten and worm holes.

And we are an old-fashioned family that still has family meals around the table most nights. No we can't see the t.v. from there very easily. Often friends join us, usually much hilarity is had when we have a table full of teenagers. Basically at a dutch table everyone dishes up themselves, that's why there are pans at the table, in case you are wondering.

Yup, it is that time of the evening: tummies full and a roaring fire. Fox in his box, Dana pretending she hadn't noticed she is actually touching De-ja-vu, and and he is trying to hog as much space as he can.

All is well with the world!