Acorn necklaces.

We have had a proper rainy weekend. I mean the soil actually got soaked and there was stormy coldness and fire roaring and everything. 

We all spent much time at home ; watching movies and the girls did assignments and cleaned rooms , and Mr. chopped too much wood and got sore. And I made 4 necklaces out of felted merino wool  and acorn caps. They have some small beads added , for the rest I kept it simple (k.i.s.) . And I am very pleased with the results , so I have decided to keep one for myself , and sell the others. 

Although it was a bit of a tense weekend , with our youngest giving us a few more gray hair , it was also a pleasant ending to the week. With much talking thank goodness. 

I don't think anyone would like to repeat their teenage years , it's not easy for some.

 Hopefully with plenty of love/communication our acorns will grow into firm trees.

I'm quite convinced of that.

Birds and Finds galore.

I do love Autumn! We have quite a few trees on our property , and most of them decidious , so lots of colour and change of scenery and light and shadow. And wheelbarrows full of leaves. Some people hate that so much , they'd rather not have trees at all. How sad... Just think of it as free compost! Which is exactly what we do with them; food for the worms, and next season food for us , after we grow some more veges in it. 

We still haven't had much rain. It's been wet but nothing got soaked right into the ground. 

2 Small frosts , my paprika's are still growing , and they've even gotten new flowers!

While the man of the house was busy raking the leaves , the fantail showed up. Hoping for some insects to be disturbed , so he could go and catch them in mid-air. It is actually really hard to get a fantail photo , they are so busy busy, never sit still for more than 5 seconds. Squeeking and peeping to himself the whole time!  Usually he comes everyday , sometimes with a friend. 

 A group of wax-eyes come through our garden daily as well. They are about a third smaller than a sparrow , and they look up and down and under all the twigs and leaves for pesty little insects. They also eat berries. They are good little birds to have visiting your garden , but you won't see them much , unless you have some shelter . Like trees.
I visited an out-of-the-way opshop on the weekend , I don't go there very often . It is an old fashioned messy place full of boxes and baskets, that you have to rummage through.  I got just a brilliant score this day. A retro tablecloth , destined for cutting up. A sweet apron , it's reversible! Aqua-blue gingham with little roses, yummie! Cute white flower buttons and a reproduction Pear's Soap tea towel in linen. An old dressmaking pattern of a girl's frilly frock. And a classic 50's owl tea cosy. I put that aside at first. Then a little boy played with it , thought it was a hat. I then decided I wanted it. But I couldn't find it anymore. When it came time to pay I asked the ladies behind the counter if they had sold it. No they hadn't , so they looked for it with me. It turned up in the box of shorts , ofcourse....

Our oldest daughter , who is starting to gather things together for when she leaves home , immediately requested it!  Totally cool, mum! 
Some very sweet satin like fabric with tiny sprays of flowers. And an offcut of curtain fabric with blue bows and pink flowers. That should be good for a small bag , or romantic coathangers.

 A fifties scarf with red camellias. I have several good ideas for those kind of scarves. Sometimes they come in very sombre colours , so I only buy light colours now.

Some more old patterns , just because I liked the pictures , and 2 button cards.
And a deliciously hand embroidered semco-pattern apron. I'd say from the Fifties. When the maker wore this , did she feel as glamorous as the lady in the evening gown on the front? I couldn't believe it only cost me a dollar! Whomever she was , it wasn't her first embroidery project. Neat and even stitches , the cloth hasn't been pulled while making the satin stitch roses. Oh it's worthy of being in Rosemary McCleods' book "Thrift to Fantasy".
                                                           Gorgeous!!

I think this is an tennis racket straightener , when they were still made of wood. I thought I could use it to clamp art work in it after glueing.

 I drove past a jumble sale on the way home from the opshop. Had to stop ofcourse. Found some jewellery for 50 cents.  It's sterling silver...
In a very disgusting state. Black and dull. One way of cleaning silver minus the chemicals , is to use an old toothbrush and tooth paste. That's multi action on a different level! It's also very safe for cleaning silver that goes in your mouth , like spoons and silver cups.
Here some more jewellery that I have rescued over the years. Pretty and shiny!

Glowworm caves in a box.

I work part-time as a teacher-aide at a local primary school. A day by day , ever changing kind of job , very enjoyable , lots of small rewards. Never dull! The topic in class at the moment is native animals and environment , with glowworms as the main example. So I thought back to the times when I had visited the Waitomo Caves , how fairytale they are. Lots of the children haven't been there yet , so I suddenly got inspiration to get them there . Kind of.

I made an old fashioned Diorama out of a shoebox.  With 2 peepholes. Here it is without the lid on.    
And now with the lid on. The lid has a piece of purple cellophane glued over a "skylight"window. This way it looks dark , like in the caves , but you can still see something. When you cover that up too and your eyes adjust to the darkness , you will see little pinpoints of lights; the glowworms. My eldest daughter has glow-in -the-dark nailpolish.   I couldn't make a picture of that however , sorry.
Here she is demonstrating how you use the diorama .   Everyone loved it and quite a few people remembered making them , when they were a child. I made quite a few , Mum used to help. Often in the Autumn we would collect toadstools and acorns and mosses and we would put those in a seasonal diorama (or kijkdoos=lookingbox) with a few plastic animals. I used to have a little red riding hood and wolf as well .Then I would take it to our neighbours and they would pay 5 cents or a lolly for seeing the show. 
Lots of teachers wanted to have a look. I should have charged them , lol!

And it's so simple. Aluminium foil on the bottom , then purple cellophane for the water. 4 layers of theatrical rock walls from cardboard and paint. Many spots of that nail polish. I added a cut-out picture of a little boat. and sewed on lots of threads onto the stalagtites , then put glue on them and dipped them into tiny glass beads  , which are used for stamping and scrap booking decoration. A bit fiddly , but those threads are supposed to be the sticky silk from the glowworms. In real life they catch insects with them and gobble them up. 

O.k. it's not to scale , but the kids just loved it and had never seen anything like it. I did have to explain that there were no real life glowworms in the box .  Some immediately figured out, that it wouldn't be too hard to make one of their own with other things in it.  Brilliant. I hope they will! 

Brewing new ideas.

I have had a brand new idea , and I am using all the old fabrics I have that are even slightly Dutch looking. So a concoction of red, white and blue , with a touch of orange on top. What else would I do with all those folksy farmers' hankies or bandannas. You will find out later....!

This week The Netherlands has been a little in the news here in NZ with that shocking attack on the Royal Family , killing innocent bystanders. We only got 1 minute of detail , but I found out more through the web. And although I have been here nearly 29 years , I still consider Queen Beatrix to be my queen , not distant (in more ways than 1) Elizabeth. What a horrid act!

And on such a festive occasion too. So sad..
Well , I've even done a little bit of felting lately , with merino and fine silk tissue . And I've made some lovely flower brooches and hairclips. They needed a bit of glitz , so I got out my jar of what I call my "sparklies" buttons. All clear vintage glass buttons , some with small  diamanties embedded into them. Their ages range from the 1920's to fairly recent , and this pile represents about 10 years of hoarding.  Just delicious!!
It just makes me so happy when I find a good button....I don't need a sports car or a luxurious house or expensive fashion. Give me a rainy afternoon with half an hour in a small opshop , rummaging through a box of dusty buttons , with just one lovely shiny button from long ago , and I'll be smiling all day!  And look how many times I've been smiling already.  You haven't even seen all the other coloured buttons I have stored in their jars.....
It is May and still we have not had any frosts. For those of you reading this in Holland , it is like your October here. And this time our summer weather started in September , that's like your March. We have had summer now for 8 months, in this provence that is. Crazy ...We have had about 25mm of rain in April though (whoop-tee-doo... as if that is going to do anything for the farmers around here!),  and had the fire on several times. 

My paprikas or bell peppers just keep on going. But it was time to harvest the last ones ,  because it is getting too cold for them to grow any larger or redder. I left just a few on the plants that looked they were going to change to red . I have cut them all up on the weekend and froze them into portions , so that I can just throw them into a sauce or stirfry in the wintertime.  They had just a few nibbles from snails but that doesn't bother me ; you just cut around it. We don't spray our veges except with a liquid seaweed extract for a nutrient boost ,

it seems to work just fine .

News from February in April!

This is an update about the Art Deco Weekend in February. Is it really April already?! Scary...

 My neighbouring town of Napier , 20 mins driving away , has a yearly Art Deco Weekend. Most of the inner city was re-built in the early 1930's in Art Deco architectural style. On the 3d of February 1931 there was a severe earthquake that just about flattened all of the brick and stone houses in Napier and Hastings. Killed quite a few people , and the following fires caused more mayhem.  Somewhere in the late 1980's I think ,the city realized it had an untapped tourist attraction in its midst. Building owners were encouraged to take off the boardings covering up the original shop facades and repaint in original colours. Any new buildings went up in the art deco style. And now the whole week is crammed full of fun events , many free public access, and people travel from overseas to attend. There are dances and costume competitions and jazz performances  and dinners , vintage car rallies and a real wedding in style. What I like to go to is the Great Gadsby Picnic by the seafront. It is free , and people come to look at each other and show off.  Even if you don't attend as a picnic-er , people still dress up anyway , really adding to the city's atmosphere. It is usually a hot day with  a bright blue sky , against which the 

biplanes'  display of loop-e-de-loops right above the picnic and town , is quite spectacular.
So here are my eldest and I in our art deco get up. She is wearing a vintage 30's shirt with glass buttons . And I my handmade felt cloche hat .

From town we stroll to the beachfront.
Here is a jolly party having lunch. Love the ladies' parasols , very needed in ozone hole New Zealand.  Cucumber sandwiches anyone?
I just had to snap this 3-some. Rather dashing  , eh what!
The owners of this picnic set just loved the pink and green pressed glasswear. So summery!
One way of take-along entertainment. Some people also bring a maid or a butler , and if you 're really posh ;  both of course.
And your best china and silverwear!
And second choice also ; it is about showing off one's best finds!

Now for some gardening and more homely things.
I'm not very good at growing courgettes , but am brilliant at really whopping marrows! Just plant and forget to check... These were all processed in my pasta sauce , you just grate those marrows into the sauce , it helps to thicken it and takes on the flavour of  the sauce , and adds extra fibre and vitamins. Then when I open a jar in the winter , all I add is cheese sauce and meat and pour over  the pasta.  Homegrown summer veges!

Fossickers' Booty.

A bit of  opshopping in the last weeks of the holidays , all by myself  , is always an indulgent feeling. No-one saying things like; "can we go now..!" Or (always a killer) "what will you do with that? " 

Do you have to do something  with it?

 Is there a committee that needs a report on one's purchases' use and sensibility  ?

What if I just like to look at it and feel it so now and then.

Or simply marvel at something from a bygone era , and wonder who she was who made it...

So here some flowery cottons from 30 years ago. They go marvelously well with the polka dots in yellow and brown.

 And how can I go past these shoe stretchers, especially the ones with the little flowers on it. Maybe I will get bunions later in life and thank my lucky stars that I had the wisdom and fore-sight to stock up on these un-fashionable gadgets.  
  And I simply fell on to this apron after I saw someone else hold it up and put it down again.

What gorgeous scraps she used , and laid out quite balanced. There is only one stain in the pocket; she probably grabbed her hanky when her fingers were covered in gravy.  

All the seams have been embroidered with coloured floss in either a herringbone or a fly stitch.

And the whole apron is actually lined! Yes ,with an old flour bag , Oamaru flour with a snowdrop emblem. It is the back of the fabric with the printing showing through.

 Did she use it a lot? She took so much care with her stitching , was it for serving up the Sunday roast? She liked blue , then , so long ago.
  

  7 little Beatrix Potter books were staring at me in the ( oh my gosh!) free box at my local St.Vincent de Paul op-shop. Yes they were well loved , and the spines were pretty tatty. But how gorgeous each page...

If anything I could make some nice postcard out of them.  Although the strange Mrs. Tiggywinkle is my fave , I do have a weak spot for the handsome Jeremy Fisher.

 The back ground material?  It is a plastic  sheet with pictures of painting cats. I'm positive it's the "colour kittens" from the little golden books series. 

It must have been quite a durable plastic , since there isn't a crack in it. What could I make with it...? It was 50 cents , lol!
After some young guests had stayed the night , I suddenly realized that I was pretty short on flat single sheets. I have plenty of fitted ones that I got from my Mum . She also gave me 2 old fashioned pure cotton ones years ago , with embroidered ribbon at the top. Heavy , close woven

good quality from the beginning of her marriage , still in great nick after hundreds of washes (in front loaders may I add). 

That's what I wanted! In the beginning of my marriage or flatting I certainly couldn't afford those , and just kept replacing the cheap flimsy pollycotton sheets every few years. They look great until you wash the starch out of them. 

Sometimes you could find the old heavy ones in opshops.  So I went out expressly to search for them. And in the second op-shop that day (the Cranford hospice shop) I hit the jackpot! 2 identical single flat sheets with 2 matching pillowslips each , still in their plastic cellophane wraps! Never slept under!

The glue of the label has left a slight stain after 30 years in someone's cupboard, but this does not bother me . In the next shop ( red cross) I found another 2 sheets , white and peach , used this time but clean.

Yeah and a crocheted doily , just because it was super sweet.  I spend $20 in all. 4 percale sheets and pillowslips, great. And a new teacup for myself ; Maxwell & Williams no less.

So write that up in your usefulness committee report !

Past Creations.

Just to show you that so now and then I actually do go into my lovely studio and make stuff! These I made end last year , I love the idea of bunting , it is great for parties ; kids or grown-ups. Or to just decorate your porch or rooms. I've seen some very simple examples where only one piece of fabric is used , and no seams. I'm not sure how long those would last flapping in the wind. So mine have 2 sides , sometimes the same , sometimes not ; depending how my Muse whispers to me . ( She floats above me in the studio , I'll show her one day )

The little flags above are made with what I call Green Garden fabrics from my stash. All recycled ofcourse , including the ribbon.
 And these are made from checks and stripes and bright colours. No pink so that it can work for any child.  I personally hate it that some colours have become gender loaded. Retail clothing  stores sometimes seem to push that whole issue , in which one section is pink overload and the other side is navy, green and brownish. We used to find it difficult to find girl's clothes that didn't have pink and hearts or otherwise a glittery princessy slogan on it. My girls hated it and still do. Often we got shorts and shirts from the boy's department. They have never liked being pushed into an assigned role. It makes me feel very proud of their attitude!
That's not to say I don't like pink. I do. It just isn't my uniform. Here is a super feminine shabby chique bunting , using 70's sheets , 60's and 50's tablecloths , and gorgeous hand embroidered doilies . It sold within a week! I like putting all the colours together , but it takes ages on deciding which fabrics to use.  I like  to make them between 3 and 4 metres long , that gives more scope for decorating.
This was made on seeing a tiny picture in junkmail. So I grabbed my hook and rescued yarn and away I went. I felted it afterwards in the washing machine to make it stiffer and sturdier. I keep thinking of Little Red Ridinghood when I was working on it. It is just a small handbag size, but a pleasing shape.
Another pleasing shape is this bucket bag. This time I did use a pattern and rescued acrylic yarn for strength. It has a round bottom. I loved making the flowers. Plenty of space in this one.

Crochet is a lovely thing to do while watching something on tv or waiting for an appointment. It is very portable as well. There is something soothing in the repetition of the stitches and the feeling of the fibre in your hands. And although you are working away , you actually get more and more  relaxed . 

I wish you happy Summer's days ahead! 

Lazy Summer Days...

A few days after Christmas our family foursome went on a holiday to York Bay , which is on the other side of Wellington Harbour. We were being luxurious this year and rented a cottage for a whole week. Thank goodness for my job... We planned on doing a bit of shopping , reading books ,eating easy meals , no obligations to anyone and relaxing. It worked brilliantly! I spend my pocket money on secondhand clothes; very good outlets in Wellington , mainly Rebound. I have a whole new wardrobe ,including 7 shirts and tops , 4 gorgeous floaty skirts , one of them silk , hush puppy shoes , 2 handbags and a green beret. Also a pair of glasses , the frame of which suits me very well , so I'm going to have new prescription lenses put in them. That should save us 100's of dollars.  So all those items for about 110 dollars, I am well pleased with how I used my yearly xmas money.  Also found a felting book second hand.  We twice had a really good look around the Cuba street shops , some really imaginative boutiques and both the girls spend some of their money there. We ate in cafe's and an Indian Restaurant. We used the train and the bus service to get into Wellington , so no parking hassles. 

 And that is me in the outside bath , which had piped hot water from the house. I watched the sunset from there while 2 tuis fed their young in the nest above me in the trees. Absolute magic!!
We had marvelous views from our little house on the hill. The weather was great most of the week , one night of rain and high winds was all. Lovely sunsets in the west. Since we live on the East coast , this was wonderful to watch.
A large deck was on one side of the the cottage , which had every thing we needed ; bedding, basic cooking stuffs , cd-player with a drawer full of music , tv , woodburner , and a fantastic shower , washingmachine, comfy furniture. We'd love to come back. My brother and his wife came over one evening to catch up , and we had fish and chips together on the deck.
Wellington does look so good on sunny days! You can tell it is windy though by the way the trees are bend over. My love had 3 weeks off work in all , something he hasn't had for a couple of years due to him having changed jobs a few times. So he enjoyed himself  , I loved having him home all that time. 
Back home we went to the local auction house for a morning , and I "won" a cardboard box full of haberdashery , I never have to buy ric-rac or embroidered braiding again...!

Lush Summer Garden.

Some gardening news now. This is our front vegie patch .When my love and I look at this we both feel very satisfied with how this is going. Those worms sure are little miracle critters ; they just made the best compost. Every spade full was positively crawling with them. Those potatoes on the left; they came up by themselves , from the eyes in the peelings I threw out . So we left them ; to see how they go. I understand that we shouldn't use the eyes from the new potatoes again , since you lose some of the disease resistance in the next generation. The other potatoes we are growing are from seed potatoes, and they are growing in a stack of old tires down the back. Just look how everything has just shot up compared to the beginning of the garden in the picture below!
The one thing we are not growing is cauliflower , they are actually quite tricky without spraying poison , and have turned full of beasties and rot in the past. And the soil is actually to rich for growing carrots in , we found last year. They stayed very short  , the roots didn't need to go down far to find nutrients.
These  are our climbing beans. We got the original handful of beans off a friend about 5 years ago , we have no idea what they are , but each year we keep a few seeds and plant them again . They are very tasty , prolific ,and no strings ,no matter how long we left them on the vine . We also grow yellow butter beans, dwarfbeans and purple beans.
The tomatoes are doing their thing , lots of different varieties. I hope I will have enough to make pasta sauce , which will include courgettes , basil , chives and paprikas or bell peppers.
And the snowpeas I got from my father's partner. I was actually ready to pull them out ,when they just grew and grew without any flowers. I was afraid that she had taken seed off a hybrid plant , which the next time is infertile. She is Thai and her english isn't very good , and explaining about hybrids is kind of complicated.  However after we went on holiday for a week and coming back there were suddenly flowers and peas! Great for in the stirfry or boiled quickly. Yum.