Twenty Cent Mixture

Christmas Ornament Swap

2010-10-04T10:17:00.003+13:00

Yes, well, ahem. Didn't mean to neglect the blog for quite so long. But, as you may have guessed, my career change has been a lot more demanding on my spare time (previously crafting and blogging time) than I expected. Hence the lack of posts. Didn't really think you wanted to hear about how my weekends were taken up with planning and marking and writing reports.

Anyhoo, a few people have emailed me to see if I was going to run a Christmas Ornament Swap this year. Unfortunately, I can't see myself having time for that, however, the lovely Dione of Sew Funky has offered to run it this year, so you can go over here to her blog and sign yourself up for some Christmas crafty goodness.

I hope to try and post semi-regularly here, but I'm not making any promises. Maybe once my end-of-year reports are written in mid-November...

Anticipation

2010-01-25T20:56:00.004+13:00

I realised last week that I've never posted about the fact that I have a teaching job for this year. In October last year amongst the rush of exams and assignments, I had an interview and was offered a job at the school I went to for my second teaching placement. I was really pleased to have gotten a job at that school because I'd enjoyed my time there immensely and was impressed by the facilities and the supportive staff. My contract has been signed, my teacher registration finalised as of last week, and in about eight days I'll be introducing myself to my first class of year three children. I'm really excited and scared stiff at the same time. It's finally almost here - what I studied for so hard last year!

Last week I spent most days in my classroom (I love saying "my classroom"), setting up wall displays and deciding where the furniture will go. I thought the reading corner looked a little tired and needed jazzing up a bit, so I made some new floor-cushion covers with denim and some bright fabric from my stash.

Much nicer I think! This week's jobs are to finalise my planning so I'll be well-prepared on my first day and have no excuse to be nervous.

Triangle quilt

2010-01-18T21:06:00.002+13:00

Remember this?

And this?

Well, it's finally, finally finished...

I explained the origins of this quilt here. The short version is that I bought some quilt pieces in an online auction and then decided to sew my first quilt without a pattern or a plan. Despite the wonky triangles and the uneven quilting, I'm pretty pleased with it, and the handmade-ness just adds to the character I reckon. It's been sitting waiting for me to find the perfect binding fabric for about (*ahem*) 6 months, but over the Christmas break I decided it needed to be finished right then and there, and so had to settle for the beige spot fabric I had in my stash. The binding is machine and hand-stitched and I used this great tutorial to create the mitred corners.

I had been considering using a vintage sheet to back it, but then I found a cute light blue floral on sale at Spotlight and thought it would work well with the rest of the fabrics. The white cotton is left over from our wedding eight years ago - we got married in a forest clearing in Rotorua, and I walked down an "aisle" of white cotton fabric. Now the cotton is in my craft stash to be used in special projects.

The finished size is around 1.2 by 1.4 metres. Perfect for keeping your legs warm while watching TV. And it's come in handy in the cold snap we've had over the last week or so in Wellington.

First harvest

2010-01-02T18:05:00.001+13:00

Kale, spinach, baby beetroot and baby carrots from our vege garden.

Ornament swap roundup and Merry Christmas

2009-12-23T13:20:00.003+13:00

I thought it was time to post a collage of all the wonderful ornaments I've received in this year's swap. Above are the ornaments from my group. The owl is from Lily's Make Believe, the knitted star is from Melly Muse, the Christmas purse is from Seven Stitches, the sequinned Christmas pudding is from Miss Millie and the embroidered heart and patchwork flower (actually a brooch that I'm hanging on the tree for now) are from NZFloss.

I've also received a few "bonus" ornaments from people to thank me for organising the swap. A collage of those is below. The pink bird is from Norma Tika, the blue bird is from Therese who lives in Palmerston North and the two knitted ornaments are from Minimiss. In addition, Cat Taylor sent me a lovely recycled paper garland which is currently adorning our mantelpiece.

Thanks ladies for the wonderful ornaments! It was fun receiving all those parcels and getting a little surprise everytime I opened one. My tree is looking very festive and full of ornaments this year. The handmade ones don't quite out-number the bought ones yet, but they're getting close.

You can see more handmade ornament goodness in the ornament swap Flickr group.

I've got a few things on the Christmas to-do list still to complete, so I'll be starting my Christmas break from the computer today. Wishing you all a happy Christmas and best wishes for 2010!

Christmas craft

2009-12-17T08:02:00.004+13:00

If anyone is still in the mood for Christmas crafts, there are a lot of tutorials and templates being posted in blogland. Here are a few I've favourited:

- 3D globe ornament made from recycled magazine pages at How About Orange.
- Another paper ball ornament from Design*Sponge
- Gingerbread houses made from milk cartons at Maya*Made
- Advent calendar made from cardboard tubes at Maya*Made (a bit late for this year, but maybe next year)
- Paper pieced patchwork ornaments at Petite Purls
- Circular Christmas Cloth Napkins at Craft Sanity
- Dragon Boat wrapped thread ornaments at Craft Sanity (video also here)
- Kiwiana gift tags at Simone Quentin de Manson
- Paper bow from recycled gift wrap at Momfetti
- Felt mitten ornament pattern from Oliver + S
- Easy Christmas Card ideas from Kids Craft Weekly (I've saved this to use with my class next year)
- Embroidered felt tree ornament from ghostmyst (she made these for last year's swap and then generously provided a tutorial)
- Crochet star ornaments from Odd Pear
- Simple knitted mini stocking ornaments from Little Cotton Rabbits

I don't think I'll get through all of these this year, but I'm going to try some of the simple ornament ideas in the next couple of days. I'll let you know how I get on...

Green

2009-12-15T12:06:00.003+13:00

Although it has been unseasonably wet recently, I think it has at least been good for the garden. It's just exploded with green in the last week or so.

We moved our vegetable garden to a much sunnier spot in the backyard this year and it seems to have paid off. The raised garden beds are slot-together ones that we bought off TradeMe and they have been fabulous - much easier than building your own beds (at least for DIY-incompetents like us!).

In the bed in the front of the photo there's various lettuces and herbs, baby carrots, baby beetroot, kale, capsicum and wild strawberries. In the far bed I've planted beans, more capsicum, zucchini, tomatoes and a big 'ole rhubarb that I got from my Mum. The rhubarb is one that my Poppa grew from seed when my Mum was a baby. Various family members have kept it going for 50-odd years and now it's in my garden as well as my Mum's. Poppa swears it is a much better variety than the ones you can get from the garden centre today. And by the way it is taking over the garden (see below), I'd have to agree!

This year I've also planted potatoes in plastic grow-bags, an idea that I think I first saw on Jamie at Home. You roll the sides of the bag right down when you first plant the seed potatoes, and as they grow, you roll up the sides of the bag and add more soil - much easier than mounding up the soil around them in an ordinary bed.

I'm looking forward to harvesting some homegrown veges for Christmas dinner this year.

Handmade holidays

2009-12-13T13:42:00.007+13:00

The ornament swap was featured in a lovely article in yesterday's Dominion Post. Kimberley was writing a story about handmade ornaments and asked me if she could write about the ornament swap. It's great to see craft getting more and more of a profile in mainstream media. The craft revolution is gaining ground!
Here is a photo of the article. Click here to open a larger version that will allow you to read it on screen (use the magnifying glass button). Special thanks to Helen and Miss Smith, whose ornaments from last year's swap feature in the pictures, and to Kimberley of course, for including the swap in her story.
Edit: thanks to those of you who let me know you couldn't see the version on Flickr. It appears that if you are not a Flickr member, you can't see the large versions. Grrr. I hopefully have resolved the issue now by using Picasa web albums to host the large version.

Christmas Matryoshkas

2009-12-11T08:25:00.003+13:00

My ornament swap group should have received their ornaments by now, so I think it's safe to write about what I made this year. Way before I announced the swap, I'd decided to make little Matryoshkas, but I didn't really know how I'd make them. I toyed with the idea of knitting them, but sewing seemed much easier. I tried out a couple of ideas using felt, but they didn't quite look like I wanted. Then I stumbled across a pattern in a book from the library called Sew Pretty Christmas Homestyle. The pattern in the book was for little stuffed dolls to sit on a shelf, but I modified them to hang on a tree. I also significantly changed the method of construction to make them a bit easier to put together. I think they turned out pretty well.

I used craft cotton for the main parts of the dolls and felt, embroidery thread and seedbeads for their faces.

I also made some little gift bags to package them in. The bags and tags are made from brown paper (reused from packaging) and decorated with pieces of paper doily that I painted.

I've started receiving some ornaments in the post and they are fantastic! I'll do a blog post next week with pictures of all of them. In the meantime, check out the wonderful ornaments already in the flickr group for the swap.

Cuteness for the kitchen

2009-12-06T15:32:00.002+13:00

I picked up those Matryoshka measuring cups this week at Wanda Harland in Petone. I went into the shop looking for a birthday present for a friend and ended up buying a present for myself as well. Each half doll is a different sized measuring cup. As well as the standard 1 cup, 1/2 cup, 1/3 cup and 1/4 cup, the set includes 2/3 and 3/4 sized measures which is pretty handy. They can be nested to save space, but I like the look of the three of them sitting on my kitchen windowsill. And in case you're wondering, that's Molly the cat making an unplanned cameo in the background.

Christmas Mince Pies

2009-12-05T19:43:00.002+13:00

One non-vegan Christmas treat I missed last year was Fruit Mince Pies. My nana used to make the scrummiest made-from-scratch mince pies, but of course the pastry was full of butter and the fruit mince probably contained suet. This year I decided to try and make a vegan version, and was pretty happy with the result:

I used a super simple Alison Holst fruit mince recipe that contained dried fruit, apples, spices and brandy - all whizzed up in the food processor. For the sweet shortcrust pastry, I used this recipe, also made in the food processor. I used normal and mini muffin tins to make the two different sizes. They're not quite as buttery in flavour as I remember my nana's ones, but still pretty delicious. And great for an afternoon pre-Christmas treat along with a hot chocolate. And no, I did not eat all four by myself...

Vegan Truffles!

2009-12-01T21:06:00.003+13:00

Now these are seriously more-ish. And all they contain is chocolate, cashew nuts and water, plus icing sugar to coat. How's that for easy? Back in my non-vegan days I made similar truffles using cream, butter and chocolate and I honestly think these taste just as good, if not better. The recipe is here at Vegan Zest for Life (another great NZ vegan blog), and the only real kitchen equipment requirement is a grunty food processor or blender to ensure you get the cashews and water blended really smoothly. I made a one-third batch to try out the recipe and I used my favourite dark chocolate, Whittaker's Dark Ghana, which, with 72% cocoa mass, turned out to be too rich. Next time I'll use their Bittersweet Dark chocolate (only 47% cocoa mass) and maybe add some flavourings (mint or orange maybe) and try out some different coatings (chopped nuts, chocolate hail, coconut). I can see this being a great go-to recipe for Christmas thank-you gifts this year.

Another Craft2.0 next week

2009-11-26T16:48:00.002+13:00

If you've got people left to buy for on your Christmas list, go along to Craft2.0 in Lower Hutt next Thursday night. Sounds like it will be a good night, with live music on at the same time.

Nice view

2009-11-23T09:56:00.004+13:00

A couple of weeks ago, we went for a walk in the area behind Day's Bay, out on the way to Eastbourne. Our walking guidebook said the walk was 5km, "steep in some parts" and would take 2 - 2 1/2 hours. "Pffft, whatever", we said, "those guidebook times are written for people who stop to have a rest and eat some scroggin every 10 minutes. Surely we can do 5km much faster than that." Boy were we wrong. You see, we should have interpreted "steep in some parts" to be "there is a very long, very steep, sometimes scrambling climb to the top of the ridge". This ridge runs behind Eastbourne and the neighbouring bays, and eventually becomes the Wainui Hill. Here is Alex having a rest on a park bench we came across about half-way up the climb to the top. A great place to take in the view and catch your breath. That's Wellington city in the distance and Matiu-Somes Island in the harbour off to the left.

Oh, and our final time? Two hours, ten minutes. Next time we will believe the guidebook...

New Bibs and Tag Blankets

2009-11-07T12:40:00.002+13:00

I managed to snatch some time last week during exam study to do a wee bit of sewing for a much-needed update to my Felt shop. New bibs and tag blankets now online.

Handmade Christmas ornament swap for 2009

2009-10-25T09:00:00.003+13:00

Edit: Sign-ups now closed. Thanks for all the interest! We have 56 participants this year. You should have an email with the details of your group by Sunday night.
***********************************************************************

Last year I ran a handmade Christmas ornament swap for kiwi participants. I had been wanting to participate in some of the US-based swaps, but the cost of international postage had put me off. The swap ended up being quite successful and I have decided to organise it again.

Here are the guidelines:

1. Sign-up by sending me an email to twentycentmixture at gmail dot com. You need to include your name and snail mail address, plus your blog if you have one. Signups will close on Friday 6th November. Sorry, but to limit postage costs, this swap will only be open to New Zealand residents.

2. I will assign you into a small group of 6-7 people and send you the addresses of everyone in your group. I will not send your address to anyone else.

3. You need to come up with an ornament design that you can easily replicate – it can be crafted however you like (knit, sew, crochet, embroider, print, gocco, paint etc), but it must be handmade (you can use a sewing machine though!).

4. Make enough ornaments for your group, and post one ornament to each person by Friday 11th December.

5. Sit back and wait to receive some wonderful handmade ornaments in the post just in time for Christmas.

If you need some inspiration for ideas, have a browse through the flickr groups for last year's NZ swap and the 2008 US swap.

Craft2.0 this Saturday

2009-10-22T20:28:00.005+13:00

If you're in search of some crafty goodness this weekend, Craft2.o is on again in Lower Hutt. Details are below. Judging by the sneak peaks people have posted on Flickr, the email discussions on the Craft2.0 mailing list and the conversations on Facebook, it sounds like it's going to be a cracker. I'm not doing a stall this time, but I am definitely going along for a spot of shopping and a catch-up with some bloggy people. First 100 people through the door get a free goodie bag.

P.S. I'm planning on running the handmade Christmas ornament swap again this year. Stay tuned for details of how to sign up in the next few days.

Weekend fun

2009-10-20T09:18:00.003+13:00

We had a weekend away visiting my family for my niece's first birthday party. Much fun was had, including:

Decorating (vegan) cupcakes and an elephant birthday cake:

Watching this little cutie enjoy her birthday party:

Having some Aunty-Niece bonding time:

Peggy Squares for Samoa

2009-10-09T15:32:00.009+13:00

I've been at a bit of a loose end recently when it comes to crafting. I'm in the middle of a large assessment round - 3 major assignments followed by 3 exams - so I don't want to start any major new projects, yet I need something to help me wind down when I've got a few precious moments of down-time. I got an email today from Knit World that suggested the perfect simple no-brainer project that also helps a worthwhile cause - peggy squares for Samoa.

Apparently Knit World are running a nationwide appeal to knit peggy squares to make blankets for those in Samoa affected by the recent Tsunami. A shipping container has been organised to go to Samoa at the end of October. Knit World are trying to get as many blankets knitted before then to go on that container.

Instructions for a 20cm x 20cm peggy square: Using Double Knit Yarn and 5.00mm needles cast on 35 stitches and knit in garter stitch for 20cm. Cast off leaving a long length of yarn to sew up. If you are knitting more than one peggy square, just knit a long strip to save on sewing up.

Peggy squares can be dropped off at any Knit World shop. If you don't live near a Knit World shop, I'm happy for you to post completed squares to me and I'll drop them off to my nearest store. Just email me to arrange.

Today I am One or, my first veganniversary

2009-10-01T08:23:00.004+13:00

Today is world vegetarian day. It is also a year since Alex and I started our new vegan lifestyle. We had been vegetarian for 3 1/2 years at that stage, but I was still a bit daunted by the full switch to veganism. How would I bake without eggs, milk or butter? Where would our protein come from? How would I survive a life without cheese? And most importantly, could I still eat chocolate?

In the end, it has been so much easier than I expected. It is one of the best decisions I have ever made and I couldn't be happier about it. Yes, I do miss some foods, but not as much as I had expected. And the peace of mind that comes with this new lifestyle far outweighs any cravings I might have for dairy products or eggs.

This year we have discovered some wonderful new foods that we might otherwise never have tried. Quinoa, kale, buckwheat, tempeh and agave nectar are just some of our new staples, and we are continuing to discover new foods. I have learnt how to bake without eggs or dairy (including making the most delicious vegan cupcakes from this book), cook beans from scratch (much cheaper than the canned ones), make a pizza without cheese (not as weird as it sounds) and make my own soy yoghurt. And I have discovered that, yes, I CAN still have dark chocolate (Whittakers and Richfields have the best ranges for vegans).

Below are a couple of favourite easy recipes that now often feature on our weekly menu.

If any of you are considering a vegan lifestyle, or want to know what is so bad about dairy and eggs, I encourage you to check out the wonderful podcast Vegetarian Food for Thought, which played a significant role in our decision to become vegan. There are also some vegan FAQs here.

Baked Tofu
We mostly eat this in sandwiches, but you could also have it diced in a salad, in a stir-fry or even in sushi.

Marinade
Shake the following together in a screw topped jar:
2 tbsp maple syrup or agave nectar (you can get agave in Wgtn at Commonsense Organics)
1 tbsp white vinegar
1/4 cup dark soy sauce
2 tbsp tomato sauce
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp liquid smoke (see note below)

Preheat your oven to 220 degC. Slice your tofu (I use Hings brand extra firm tofu in the 250g packs - this gives about 10 slices) into slices about 5mm thick.

Spray an oven proof dish lightly with oil (make sure the dish is big enough to fit the tofu slices). Lay the tofu slices in the dish and pour over about 1/3 of the marinade. Use a pastry brush or your hands to spread the marinade around and ensure the tofu is covered on both sides. If you have time, leave the tofu to sit in the marinade for about 10 mins (optional step).

Bake for approx 20 mins, turning over the slices halfway through cooking. When cooled the tofu should should be chewy but not crispy. Great for sandwiches. The marinade makes enough for about 3 batches and keeps in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.

**A note about liquid smoke - this gives a great smoked flavour to dishes. It is really concentrated, so you only need a very small amount. I bought mine online from Nelson Naturally.

Easy Bean Salad

In a medium-sized bowl, mix together:
330g can mixed beans (or the equivalent of home-cooked beans)
1/2 small red onion, diced
3 tbsp water
2-3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
3 tbsp white wine vinegar
1/2 tsp ground cumin
salt and pepper to taste

Great as a side dish for dinner, or by itself for lunch. You can also add diced capsicum or celery if you wish.

Jackson Pollock, kids-style

2009-09-27T13:45:00.003+13:00

I promised to share some art that I did with the kids while I was on placement. The year 4 class (8-9 year olds) was doing a unit on art while I was there, so I did some lessons where they discussed their reactions to a range of famous paintings. We also did some brainstorming around topics like "What is art?", "Why do people create art?" , "What types of art do you know?" and so on. I was really surprised at some of their answers and their reactions to the paintings were quite insightful.
My Associate Teacher also did some lessons about several famous artists and then allowed the class to make their own artwork in the style of the artist. Here are some pictures from the Jackson Pollock lesson. The kids first watched this video showing how Jackson Pollock painted. They then looked at a few examples of his artworks and we discussed them. Finally they planned and created their own masterpiece. The kids had a lot of fun dribbling and flicking the paint and finished pieces looked fantastic once they were mounted. I will definitely be trying this idea with my own class at some point.

Art for all

2009-09-23T19:08:00.003+12:00

If you haven't discovered it yet, you must visit Feed Your Soul. Each week you can download art prints from up and coming artists for free! Print one out, frame it and smile at your new piece of art. This is one of my faves, by artist Sarah Golden.

Long time...

2009-09-06T12:07:00.003+12:00

It has been a full-on couple of months here at casa 20c mixture. After our holiday in Auckland, Alex started a new job that is keeping him busy and I have been occupied with assignments and teaching. I'm currently in the middle of another 7 week teaching placement at a primary school in Lower Hutt. This time I had to plan and teach several weeks of classes, which has been both exhausting and rewarding. I have had a lot of late nights up preparing resources and polishing lesson plans, and broken sleep worrying about how it will go. Thankfully my preparation paid off and the last three weeks have gone relatively smoothly, albeit with the help of strong cups of coffee at lunchtime to get me through the afternoon.
The final two weeks of my placement will be a lot quieter, as I'll be sharing the teaching with the classroom teacher, meaning I'll hopefully get more time for crafting and gardening (I still haven't planted the new vege garden).
I'm hoping to get back into posting more regularly now that this current busy period is over. I've taught a few art lessons with my class and they have done some great work that I'd like to share. I've also got some plans for new designs for my online shop that have been brewing in my head and need to be sewn up. In the meantime, here is my first FO in a very long time, a soft knitted ball for my niece. The pattern is from Knitted Toys by Zoe Mellor. A simple pattern made up of six separate sections, which required a lot of sewing up at the end, but I think the finished product was worth it.

Happy stripes

2009-07-02T10:16:00.002+12:00

I managed to finish the stripy socks while we were in Auckland. I love how the Wendy Happy bamboo yarn knitted up. They are soft and silky and the bright stripes make me smile.

I used the Universal Toe-Up Sock Formula Knitty pattern (Ravelry link here), which I highly recommend, especially if you have irregular-sized feet (mine are quite wide). You measure your feet first and then plug the numbers into the pattern to make custom-sized socks especially for you! The toe-up method (using a crochet/provisional cast-on) means you can try them on as you go to ensure that they really are going to fit. For the cast-off at the top I used a stretchy sewn cast-off method that was recommended on Ravelry. It is from Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitters Almanac and there is a video here showing how to do it. Very useful bind-off for areas where you need stretch, like the ends of sleeves or tops of socks.

Sale time

2009-06-30T17:31:00.002+12:00

It's time for an update of my Felt shop. That means a winter sale is in order. There is at least 20% off everything - bibs, baby shoes, baby tshirts and bags. Check it out here.

Home again

2009-06-30T13:47:00.004+12:00

I'm back from a lovely week away in Auckland. I've never really spent any time as a tourist in Auckland, and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Normally I'm intimidated by the size of the city and all the crowds, but we went armed with a GPS for the rental car which helped with the navigation, plus holidaying in winter meant the crowds weren't too bad. There were only two other people at Karekare beach when we visited, so it almost felt like we had it to ourselves. We also made lots of time for relaxing (reading for him, knitting and reading for me) and I really feel like my batteries have been recharged. This week Alex is back at work and I have two weeks of holidays remaining. The to-do list is getting longer almost by the hour - just how much can I fit into two weeks? Yesterday I made two batches of jam (feijoa and plum) and a double batch of pasta sauce. Today I'm trying to sort out some new things for my Felt store. I'll be back tomorrow with some crafting photos.

In the meantime, here are some favourite photos from our week away.

Rangitoto island, taken from a harbour cruise boat. It is such a lovely symmetrical shape, and it really dominates the horizon.

Piha beach. I loved the dark sand and how the seaspray was making the air all misty looking. The surf was pretty good that day - there were a few surfers braving the cold to catch some waves.

Piha beach - Lion Rock. This photo was taken just before the previous one, but the beach doesn't look nearly so moody.

PS - the new banner up there is also a holiday photo - the remains of my coffee at Kokako, a lovely organic vegetarian cafe on Parnell Road.

On holiday

2009-06-19T17:17:00.002+12:00

My last exam finished yesterday. In the 24 hours or so since then I have been embracing being on holiday free from the pressures of studying. Last night I knitted in front of the TV - what a novelty! Today I went for a run, sewed something for me (rather than a wholesale order), had a haircut and baked some cupcakes. Bliss. Now if I could only find a job that paid me to knit, sew and bake...

We are off to Auckland for a week tomorrow, but once we're back I'm hoping to be blogging a bit more frequently. And will hopefully have some crafty things to share too.

And totally unrelated, here's a photo of my latest wholesale order - some corduroy winter baby pinafores for Found My Way in Invercargill. I'm quite pleased with how they turned out - I think I might have to make some more for my Felt shop.

The "It's all about me" meme

2009-06-11T12:09:00.003+12:00

The lovely Megan tagged me for this meme. It's all about me...

What is your current obsession?
Finding time to craft amongst the studying, finding the perfect pair of vegan red winter boots, winter pinafores, vegan cupcakes

What are you wearing today?
Well, I’m at home revising for my exams, and not planning to go out until the end of the day, so it’s jeans, a grey long-sleeved top and a blue hoodie. Accessorised with navy slippers. Nice.

What's for dinner?
Pasta, home-made tomato sauce and olives, artichokes and eggplant. Yum!

What would you eat for your last meal?
Ooh, that’s a hard question. It would have to involve pinot noir, lemon tart and Whitakkers Dark Ghana chocolate....

What's the last thing you bought?
Ummm, probably a coffee at uni yesterday. I gave up caffeine a few months ago and I’m quite proud of my complicated coffee order – “I’ve have a soy decaff flat white thanks”

What are you listening to right now?
Wax-eyes chirping in our olive tree and the swish of the washing machine

What do you think of the person who tagged you?
I’ve never met Megan, but I really enjoy reading her blog. She’s bravely facing some tough things at the moment and I admire her for it. I’m also jealous that she moved to the provinces from Wellington and is living the country life – one of my dreams.

If you could have a house totally paid for, fully furnished anywhere in the world, where would you like it to be?
Given that I’m reading Under the Tuscan Sun, and obsessed with Italy at the moment, it would have to be an old house in rural Tuscany with a massive vege garden and loads of fruit trees – I’d love to be able to grow all the ingredients for a ratatouille in my own backyard.

If you could go anywhere in the world for the next hour, where would you go?
Mood fabrics in New York. With a limitless credit card of course.
Or failing that, somewhere sunny and warm – a cocktail on the beach in Rarotonga sounds pretty good right now.

Which language do you want to learn?
Well, I should know French and Italian, since I studied them at uni, but I’ve been pretty slack at keeping up my fluency. So, either of those would be good. Plus Māori.

What's your favorite quote (for now)?
At the moment I really like a couple of lines from a W.B. Yeats poem called He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
“I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.”

What is your favorite colour?
Red, red and more red.

What is your favorite piece of clothing in your own wardrobe?
A millefiore glass pendant I bought in Venice and a gorgeous red a-line skirt from Widdess in Ponsonby.

What is your dream job?
Ummm, well I’m really looking forward to being a teacher in my own classroom next year. And considering I quit my last job to go back to uni and train to be a teacher, I guess that must be my dream?

What's your favourite magazine?
I don’t tend to buy magazines much, but I have been subscribing to the wonderful World Sweet World the last few months. Frankie is also quite good – I like that it combines fashion, craft, music and books. I get my guilty gossip-fix at the hairdressers when I make a beeline for Marie Claire.

If you had £100 now, what would you spend it on?
So, about $300 NZD? A new hairdryer (my current one is going to die any day now), a pair of fantastically flattering jeans (the perfect pair exist, I just know it) and spend anything leftover at Borders on craft books.

Describe your personal style?
Oooh, that’s a tricky one – now that I’m a student, it’s jeans and cardies mostly. And the occasional skirt and boots. Maybe I could call it student chic?

What are you going to do after this?
Hang up the washing and then study for my English exam.

What are your favourite films?
I have two types of favourite films – the ones I consider acceptable to admit to, like Donnie Darko, Juno, Eagle vs Shark, Garden State, The Princess Bride. And then the cheesy ones that I’ve watched over and over and are not exactly high art but I love them anyway, like Dirty Dancing, Notting Hill and Grease

What's your favourite fruit?
Feijoas, berries and golden queen peaches

What inspires you?
New Zealand landscapes, native trees, young children, people living the life they love, books, creative people

Your favourite books?
The Blind Assassin, Oryx and Crake, Jane Eyre, Pride & Prejudice, The Eyre Affair

Do you collect anything?
Blue pottery mugs, buttons, fabric, cheesy fridge magnets from our travels

What are you currently reading?
Under the Tuscan Sun, The BFG (it’s research for my exam, honestly)

Go to your book shelf, take down the first book with a red spine you see, turn to page 26 and type out the first line:
"We are very grateful indeed to Mr Grundy, Mr Attery Squash, the Blue Baboon, Mr Pobble, Lola Vavoom and of course the Dong, who so generously agreed to entertain us with his luminous nose”
It’s from The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde

What makes you follow a blog?
I follow blogs that inspire me, that make me laugh, that let me get to know the person behind the blog.

The rules:
1. Respond and rework; answer the questions on your blog, replace one question that you dislike with a question of your invention, add one more question of your own.
2. Tag eight other people.

It seems like almost everyone on my blogroll has been tagged for this already, but if you haven't been, consider yourself tagged.

The perfect winter weekend lunch

2009-05-19T18:07:00.001+12:00

Delicious thick, hearty barley and lentil soup from this recipe, accompanied by homemade crusty rolls. The perfect antidote to wild winter weather outside.

Stripy socks

2009-05-14T07:31:00.002+12:00

The drive to Rotorua for the marathon gave me an excuse for some guilt-free crafting. Reading in the car makes me feel sick, so I couldn't do any coursework. But, for some reason, I CAN knit in the car. Yay! I planned to start these socks as soon as we left Wellington, but they are knit from the toe-up and I didn't know how to do a crochet cast-on. Google saved the day once we got to my Mum's house and I was able to start these up there and do some knitting on the way home.

The yarn is Wendy Happy, a new sock yarn made from bamboo and nylon. I was so happy to find a reasonably priced vegan yarn that is specifically designed for socks. Plus, Knit World in Lower Hutt (my closest yarn store) has started stocking it. The yarn is really soft and silky and is knitting up nicely. It comes in several colourways, all named after signs of the zodiac, that produce different pattern effects. This colourway is capricorn. I think they're going to look really cute worn with my mary-janes.

Marathon effort

2009-05-05T07:44:00.002+12:00

Alex ran his first marathon in Rotorua on Saturday. I was the support crew, following him for some of the way on the back of my Dad's motorbike.

Here he is (well, the back of his head anyway) crossing the line in a great time of just under 3 hours 20 mins.

I'm proud of you my love.

New toy

2009-04-24T17:17:00.003+12:00

When I blogged about my birthday a couple of weeks ago, I forgot to mention the birthday present I bought myself. It might not look like much, but it made me happy:

My very own almost-power-tool - a brand-new snap setter from Greenbeans! After borrowing snap setters from other people, I finally shelled out for one of my own. The greenbeans site sells them for putting snaps in modern cloth nappies, but I've discovered they're great for easily putting snaps in the bibs and pinafores I sell. And I'm sure there are a whole lot more uses yet to be discovered...

By the way, those piles of bibs in the photo are for my first wholesale orders. They're now making their way to Found My Way in Invercargill and Rockabye Baby in Ashburton. I've added a stockists list over on the right hand side there ---> and I'll hopefully add more shops to it in the coming few months.

Happy Monday

2009-04-20T08:31:00.003+12:00

I enjoyed the fabric fair on Saturday - the whole stash up there set me back about $20. Looking at the picture, my inner magpie was obviously drawn to stripes, spots, ric-rac and blue and green that day. Most of the cotton pieces are over 1 metre and a couple of them are over 2 metres. I really like the white and red floral - a skirt for next summer perhaps?

Despite my big crafting plans for the school holidays, I've not managed to achieve much in the first week. I caught a nasty head cold last week (just after I'd gotten over the last one), and I didn't feel like doing a whole lot of anything for a few days. I've also been working on a couple of wholesale orders of bibs and tshirts for some shops in the South Island (exciting - somehow selling in shops seems much more glamorous than selling online!), so my personal crafting has been put on hold.

I have managed to fulfill one of my aims for the holidays though - running every day. I'm planning to run a 10km event in June and am way out of practice. The holidays seemed like a good time to kickstart my training. I really questioned my sanity this morning though, when I was out running in the rain, in a strong southerly...

Fabric-a-brac

2009-04-16T14:52:00.003+12:00

I tell you, I think crafty people have some of the coolest ideas. Here's one I've just discovered - fabric-a-brac. A craft fair dedicated to selling fabric, buttons, trims and patterns. Sellers get to clear out their stashes, buyers get to score some crafty bargains.

It's this Saturday, 18th April from 12-4 in the Brooklyn Community Centre, 18 Harrison St, Brooklyn. I can't wait!

Easter Brunch

2009-04-15T17:45:00.003+12:00

We were all set to go out for brunch on Monday, until I thought to check that our favourite cafe was open. Unfortunately they were closed for the Easter weekend. Instead I whipped up some french toast at home, using the great recipe in Vegan with a Vengeance. I served it with berries (reheated from frozen), banana, soy yoghurt and agave nectar. Yummo! Critical brunch tragedy averted.

Craft2.0 this Saturday

2009-04-09T17:08:00.002+12:00

If you're staying in Welly, or coming to the capital for your Easter break, don't forget to head out to Lower Hutt on Saturday morning and check out Craft2.0 at the New Dowse. There will be lots of crafty goodness for sale plus some hands-on activities too. Check out all the details and read some profiles of the sellers here.

31

2009-04-08T20:37:00.003+12:00

I've been out on teaching experience in a primary school for the last 3 weeks, hence the lack of posts, but today I had a day at home to try and shake off the cold I've had for a couple of days. It just so happened that today was also my birthday. I felt better by this afternoon so I managed to cook a celebratory dinner - ratatouille on quinoa and chocolate cupcakes for two. Washed down with a glass or two of bubbly of course.

Looking forward to the school holidays and some long-awaited crafting time.

We are learning to knit

2009-03-13T16:49:00.004+13:00

Gosh, it has been two weeks since I posted. I am buried in assignments and coursework and I don't think it's going to let up anytime soon. Suffice to say, I'm not getting much crafting done these days. But I'm getting my craft fix where I can. One of my assignments for this week was to design and deliver a 10 minute lesson to a small group of my peers. We could chose anything we liked. I taught my group to knit. The knitting army has hopefully grown by three new members...

Quilt top finished

2009-02-27T18:43:00.002+13:00

This has been sitting in the to-do pile for far too long. Earlier this week I finally dug it out and realised that I only had to sew the strips of triangles together and add a border for the top to be finished.

This quilt came to me in pieces via a Trade Me auction (and the person I bought it from told me she had bought them at an op-shop) - the pieces were already cut out and I had to try and figure out what pattern was intended. In the end I opted for large triangles, with lots of white in between. The white fabric also has a history - it played a part in our wedding 7 years ago. We got married in a forest clearing in Rotorua and I walked down an "aisle" of white fabric strewn with rose petals. I'm slowly using the 20m or so of white cotton in my craft projects.

In retrospect, triangles were not an easy choice for a first quilt - it is really difficult to line up the triangles with each other without loosing the points in the seam allowance. There are rather a lot of truncated triangles in this quilt, but I think it just adds to the charm...

Next up, backing and quilting. I think that in keeping with the thrifted/re-used theme, I should really back it with a vintage sheet. The hunt is on for the perfect sheet to use.

Shop updated

2009-02-24T09:29:00.004+13:00

I have just updated the 20cmixture felt shop with some new bib prints and a couple of pinafore dresses.

Raindrops on roses

2009-02-20T16:58:00.002+13:00

It has been pouring with heavy rain for most of the day here, but I managed to snap these photos of our rose bush during one of the few spells when the rain stopped. It was only later that I made the Sound of Music connection.

Where oh where has my blogging time gone?

2009-02-10T16:48:00.005+13:00

Sorry about the length between posts. I'm still working out when I'll get time to craft and blog while being a full-time student (I'm actually doing the readings and going over my notes this time, unlike the first time I went to University, when studying was secondary to socialising, ahem...). I know it is possible to do both, because there are some amazing bloggers out there who are managing to craft, blog about it, take care of their children and sometimes even go to work. I just need to find the right balance for me.

We spent the long weekend in Rotorua celebrating my grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary - a stellar achievement if you ask me. Congratulations again, Nana and Poppa, you are an inspiration to the whole family. I also got to have more cuddles with my 4-month-old niece who I swear is getting cuter by the day.

While in Rotorua I caught up with a friend who is due to give birth to a little girl in a few weeks. I sacrificed some of my study time to knit the baby a matching set for winter.

Booties and hat knitted in bamboo-cotton blend yarn. Booties pattern can be found here (or here on Ravelry). More details on modifications etc on my Ravelry page.

I managed to get some sewing done today. I should be able to update my shop with some new items on Friday.

Pink and red

2009-02-03T17:06:00.006+13:00

It was only when I finished sewing today that I realised I had a colour theme going. Pink and red together used to be a no-no when I was at primary school in the 80s. But I do love how they look together...

New skirt

My favourite almost-falling-apart pj pants - now with new waistband

Fabrics to cut out for baby dresses for the shop

Edited to add: for those of you that are interested, yes I did make the skirt. The pattern was drafted by me at a pattern-making course I went to. Fabric is "nouveau bouquet gold" from Anna Maria Horner's wonderful Drawing Room collection. I bought it at Juniper Gallery in Newtown a couple of months ago.

Tear-water tea

2009-02-02T16:49:00.008+13:00

A couple of weeks ago I happened to catch the childrens books Saturday morning segment on National Radio and Kate de Goldi was talking about Arnold Lobel (click here to download the podcast of the segment). I didn't recognise Arnold Lobel's name, but during the segment she read out a wonderful sounding book called Tear-water tea, which Alex remembered from his childhood. In the story Owl thinks of lots of sad things so that he can fill his teapot with tears. Things like pencils that are too short to use, mornings that no-one will see because they are still asleep, spoons that have fallen behind the stove and are never seen again, and songs that cannot be sung because the words have been forgotten. The quirkiness of the story and the things that Owl found really sad appealed to me, and I decided to search out a few more Arnold Lobel books. In my internet searching I discovered that he was actually quite a prolific author and wrote a lot of the "I Can Read" series of books (including the Frog and Toad stories, which I had as a child).

I managed to track down a second-hand copy of Owl at Home, that includes Tear-water tea, and another couple of Arnold Lobel books and I thought I'd share some pages with you. The stories are actually quite funny and appealed to me as an adult reader (very important I think - reading out loud to children is much more enjoyable if the adult likes the story too). These are going to go in my growing collection of books for my future primary school classroom.

Pattern Review - a great sewing resource

2009-01-29T12:31:00.006+13:00

I have a much better hit rate when I sew from patterns than when I make up patterns from scratch, but I still get a bit overwhelmed when I'm in the fabric store and I'm trying to choose a pattern to buy, especially a pattern to make a garment for me. It's hard to know from the pictures in the big pattern books which designs fit well or have good instructions. And when they cost upwards of $10 each, I'd rather not fork out for too many duds! That's where I've found that Pattern Review really helps. It is kind of like a Ravelry for sewing patterns. There is a searchable database of patterns and when people make up a garment from a pattern they can post pictures of the finished product and write a review. It can really help you narrow down just which cross-over top pattern or A-line skirt pattern is going to turn out how you want it.

Just last week Pattern Review did a round-up of their most popular patterns of 2008. Read the list here and join up to become a member (it's free!) and get on their mailing list here.

What other resources do you know of that can help us crafters pick out the gems in a sea of patterns?

Baking

2009-01-25T09:03:00.002+13:00

Studying is eating into my crafting time at the moment, but I'm still finding time to bake...

.
Oat, raisin and chocolate cookies, recipe adapted from The Joy of Vegan Baking

Chocolate cupcakes. Cupcake recipe taken from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World (recipe is online here). Icing recipe from The Joy of Vegan Baking

Long time, no see

2009-01-17T21:46:00.002+13:00

Blue sky on Christmas Day in Greytown

I think that must be my longest break between posts, apart from when we went to Europe last June. Unfortunately I don't have much to show for it. We've been spending most of our free time finishing up the prep for painting the house (sanding..ugh) and then on Thursday we got to finally start painting. We're about halfway done now, but the weather isn't looking great for the next few days so I doubt we'll be finished by the time I start my classes at teachers' college next Tuesday.

I finished up at work earlier in the week. I'd been there for almost 5 years and it feels a little strange to think I won't be going back again. But it really feels like the right decision and I'm looking forward to the new challenge of being a student again. We bought movie tickets today and I got a student discount - woohoo!

Not much crafting has been done in the past few days - after a day of painting all I've wanted to do is vege out on the couch. I did get to watch a couple of great dramas on TV though. I recorded Lost in Austen when it was on TV a couple of weeks ago and watched it earlier in the week. The premise is that a modern London girl switches places with Elizabeth Bennet. I wasn't sure what it would be like, but I really enjoyed it. If you like Pride and Prejudice and the BBC adaptation (Colin Firth as Darcy), I'd highly recommend it.

Tonight we also finally saw Lars and the Real Girl. It was classified as a comedy at our video store, but it's definitely more of a drama. It's a very sweet story and Ryan Gosling was really good. Another one to watch if you haven't yet.

New Year crafting

2009-01-06T21:10:00.004+13:00

Happy 2009! Hopefully most of you are still enjoying your Christmas break. I cut my holiday short this year and went back to work on Monday since I'm finishing up for good next week. From next Tuesday I'll be an unemployed student for the first time since 1999. I've been accepted into the postgrad primary teaching course at Victoria and I start in a couple of weeks' time. I can't wait!

I promised some finished knitting projects in my last post, and here they are - my first pair of socks and another stripy baby hat.

The socks are knitted using this great pattern and soy yarn (I've christened them my "tofu socks"). This was my first attempt at using vegan yarn - it knitted up really soft, but the yarn was pretty splitty because it has a lot of strands and is loosely plied. I'm not sure what you can do to stop this as I'm guessing that a tighter ply (if that is the right technical term) would lessen the soft smooshy feel of the finished product. Anyway, I'm happy with how they turned out. I would highly recommend the pattern for first time sock knitters - it has a great short row tutorial to show you how to shape the heel and the toe. The only tricky bit is doing the kitchener stitch on the toe, but after consulting my knit aid book, I managed to fumble my way through that OK, with a minimum of swearing and ripping out.

This hat is another in the series of stripy baby hats I've made from the wonderfully soft Merino et Soie yarn. This was sitting almost finished in my knitting bag for a couple of months, and I finally got around to seaming it up. It's the last one I'll make using wool I think - I'm trying to use vegan yarns from now on. I'm not sure who it will go to, but our friends just keep on having babies, so I'm sure I'll find someone to give it to.

And finally, here is a picture of my beautiful niece Ella modelling one of the dresses I made her for Christmas. I was worried that they might be too big, but apparently they fit perfectly!

Checking In

2008-12-30T16:46:00.002+13:00

I'm back from a few days away for Christmas. We stayed in a lovely little cottage in Greytown in the Wairarapa. It was lovely and private, with tame chickens roaming in the garden. Apart from Christmas Eve, the weather was perfect and we were able to fit in a couple of runs in Greytown park plus visits to the Putangirua Pinnacles, Cape Palliser lighthouse and Mt Bruce wildlife centre. Plus plenty of lazing around, eating, knitting and board games of course.

I won't be blogging much in the next few days as we are trying to paint the outside of our house while the weather is nice (a much bigger job than I'd expected, but it will be good to get it done). I'll be back in the New Year to share some finished knitting projects. I hope you're enjoying your Christmas break, perhaps getting some crafting done and keeping cool or warm wherever you are.

Berry tart

2008-12-23T07:27:00.002+13:00

One of the things I love about this time of year is the fruit - berries, stonefruit, melons. Yum! I must investigate planting some berries in our garden so we can have homegrown ones next year. The berries above just came from the supermarket, but they made a rather nice vegan fruit tart. We had some friends over on Saturday night for a pre-Christmas get-together and I made the tart for dessert. Recipe once again was from The Joy of Vegan Baking.

We are off to the Wairarapa tomorrow for a relaxing, quiet Christmas by ourselves. Normally on Christmas Eve we are packing up the car and making the long slow drive up the country to my family in Rotorua. This year we thought it would be nice to have some time away together close to home before the rush of study and work starts again in early January. I'll be taking a blog break at the same time. Merry Christmas to you and yours. See you in a couple of weeks.

PS: totally unrelated, but I think this must be the coolest thing I've seen this week

Ornament Swap Roundup

2008-12-22T07:49:00.004+13:00

Some of you may have already seen these in the flickr pool, but I wanted to share them here as well. I've now received all the ornaments from my swap group, plus a few extras:

Above are the ornaments from my group: Robot from Jenny, Angel from Helen, Flower from Jessicah, Bauble from Nikki, Owlaments and Stocking from Dione and Pohutukawa made by me. Thanks ladies, they are lovely! Also special thanks to Jessicah for including some vegan chocolate (mmm Whittaker's dark, my favourite) and vintage buttons in her parcel. And to Dione for filling her knitted stocking with more vintage buttons!

I also received some bonus ornaments to thank me for organising the swap - these gorgeous snowflakes from Marrianne and cute little present from Mel. Aww guys, thanks so much!

You are a talented bunch - my tree is full of handmade loveliness! Thanks also to everyone who participated. In the end I had 38 people sign up - way more than I expected. Since it went so well this time, I'm planning on running the swap again next year.

The flickr pool is looking great. If you haven't yet uploaded any photos of your ornaments, please do, so that we can all admire them. And if you participated but aren't on flickr, please feel free to email me a photo of your ornaments and I'll post it on the group so we can all share in the Christmas crafty goodness.

Baby Dresses

2008-12-17T07:44:00.003+13:00

I made a couple of dresses for my cute niece for Christmas. She'll be 2 1/2 months on Christmas day so I made what I thought was the 3-6 month size, but they still look huge. I think she'll have to grow into them...

I really like these styles of dress. Once they are too short to be dresses anymore they can be worn as tunic tops. They are both different views of Butterick 4784, dated 1987. I picked up the pattern from the op-shop for 50c a few months ago. The yellow strawberry dress is made from Japanese fabric that a friend brought back for me from Kyoto. The tulips fabric was on the sale table at Spotlight a few weeks ago (I love $4/m fabric!). Because I already had the fabric in my stash, the only thing I needed to buy was the cute lime green buttons for the tulip dress. Apologies for the bad light in the photos. I took these at night just before I wrapped them up.

The strawberry dress, with all that homemade bias, was a bit fiddly to make, but I whipped up the tulip one pretty quickly. I'm planning to slightly tweak the pattern and then make some more of the tulip style ones and put them up in the shop in early January.

I've now received all of my ornaments for the swap, plus a few bonus ones. Pictures tomorrow.

First sale

2008-12-11T07:59:00.003+13:00

I made my first sale in my felt store yesterday! You should have seen me - I was so excited you'd think I'd won Lotto.

To celebrate, I've uploaded the last of my current stock to the shop: some appliqued baby tshirts (some of which match the shoes and bibs already for sale), and a couple of cosmetic bags/small purses.

I'm working on a few new design ideas at the moment, but with the rush of Christmas, I don't think I'll be updating the store again until early January.

Recovered

2008-12-08T09:50:00.004+13:00

Thanks for the offers of help to try and revive our external hard-drive. The blogworld really came to my rescue this time. Thanks to Steph's very talented boyfriend Dave, our photos have been recovered, mostly unharmed and a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. We have learnt our lesson and now have copies on our new external hard-drive plus two sets of backups on DVD (one set now kept at Alex's work). I really believed we had lost most of our photos from the last two years. As well as the holiday snaps, photos from family get-togethers and photos of our beloved moggie Frank who died 18 months ago, I'm also pleased to have all my random craft and garden photos back. Like the one above, taken in our garden a couple of years ago.

Christmas ornaments

2008-12-05T10:14:00.006+13:00

I think everyone in my group has received their ornaments, so it's safe to post a picture of what I made for the handmade ornament swap.

I decided to go with Pohutukawa flowers since they symbolise Christmas to me in New Zealand. For anyone reading this from overseas, the pohutukawa is a native New Zealand tree that grows by the sea and flowers in December. It is known as the New Zealand Christmas tree. I noticed last weekend that a few trees are already flowering on Petone beach, and the one in our backyard is about to start flowering. I love how the crimson red stamens (or are they petals?) end up strewn about our lawn.

The ornaments are hand-stitched from felt and some ribbon I picked up in London in June. I had to re-teach myself blanket stitch to make these, so some of the stitching is a bit wonky, but it adds to the charm I think. I made the bags the ornaments were wrapped in with paper that I'd potato stamped. I don't think I've done potato stamping since I was a child! It was a lot of fun and in addition to the brown paper, I also stamped some plain calico that I'm planning to use for another project.

Once I've received all my ornaments, I'll post a picture of them together. I've received three so far and they are fantastic!

Unrelated, does anyone have a recommendation for a file recovery specialist in Wellington? Our not-quite-two-year-old external hard-drive chose yesterday as its day to die and we have some photos on there that are not stored anywhere else. We do have quite a few stored on DVDs and printouts of some, but there are still a lot that I had yet to back-up. Any recommendations for experts who can help would be appreciated! And if any of you have photos that are not backed up, my advice would be to burn them to DVDs right now. I felt sick when I realised we might have lost our photos.

At Long Last

2008-12-03T09:50:00.004+13:00

Bing-bong! Attention blog readers. The Twenty Cent Mixture Shop is now open for business.

Yes, that's right. After months of talking about it, I actually got round to listing some of my craft for sale online. I've opted to go with felt rather than etsy, due mainly to the bad state of the NZ dollar against the US dollar at present, plus I figured most buyers would be NZ-based. I'm currently sorting out the process for international buyers.

I'll be listing more items in the next few days, but at the moment there are baby shoes (all the pairs in the photo above are for sale), bibs and a couple of bags in there. Go on, have a nosey, you know you want to!

Vegan Carrot Muffins

2008-11-27T19:06:00.003+13:00

I'm still learning about vegan baking, and to help me get some practice, I've been whipping up batches of muffins at the weekend that we can freeze and then Alex can take them to work in his lunch. I am hopeless with baking and if it is there I will just snack on it until it's gone, so it's great I have someone else who will happily eat the spoils of my experiments in the kitchen.

These carrot cake muffins are my latest effort and I think they turned out pretty well. They are quite dense and the vegan cream cheese icing is very similar to the dairy version I used to make. The recipe is adapted from The Joy of Vegan Baking by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau. If you are interested in vegan baking or baking for those who are intolerant to eggs or dairy, I can highly recommend this book. It has a lot of great basics such as breads, cakes, muffins and cookies plus more dessert-y things like pies, mousses, puddings and cheesecakes. I finally bought my own copy last week after renewing a copy from our local library several times.

The recipe below is the one I used and is slightly adapted from the one in the book, but you could probably use your favourite carrot cake recipe and just replace the eggs with either egg replacer or ground flaxseeds/linseeds (for each egg you replace whisk 1 tablespoon of ground flaxseeds with 3 tablespoons of water in a blender or food processor until the mixture is thick and creamy).

Vegan Carrot Cake Muffins
3 tbsp ground flaxseeds/linseeds (I buy my linseeds from Commonsense Organics and grind them myself in a coffee grinder I use for spices etc)
1/2 cup water
2/3 cup oil
1 1/2 cups grated carrot
3/4 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
3/4 cup raisins or sultanas
1 1/3 cups white flour
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground allspice

1. Preheat oven to 180 deg C. Grease your muffin tin (this recipe made 12 standard size muffins).
2. In a blender or food processor, whip together the flaxseed and water until thick and creamy. Transfer this to a medium-sized bowl and add the carrots, raisins/sultanas and walnuts if using. Mix together.
3. In a larger bowl, sift together the dry ingredients and mix well. Add the wet mixture to the dry ingredients and mix well. Batter will be quite thick.
4. Scoop batter into muffin tins. Bake 25-30 mins. Let cool in pan then remove to cooling racks. Once cool, ice with cream cheese icing.

Vegan Cream Cheese Icing
250g soy cream cheese (I used Kings brand from Commonsense Organics)
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup sifted icing sugar

Combine all ingredients in a food processor or mixer until smooth and creamy. Enough to ice 12 muffins.

And while we're on the topic of vegan baking, I just today discovered that Desserts magazine published an entire issue devoted to vegan desserts, and the magazine is free to view or download here. Beware - the pictures of desserts may cause drooling on keyboard!

Garden happenings

2008-11-24T07:49:00.004+13:00

With the spring weather has come a few changes in the garden. The most exciting for me was spotting the first flower on our young passionfruit vine (planted in mid-2007) last week. I'm looking forward to a small crop of fruit in the new year.

The peas are also starting to flower and the tomato plants, bean vines and leafy greens (silverbeet, spinach, kale, rocket, mizuna, pak choy) are coming along nicely. I'm hoping for a good crop of summer veges this year.

Crafting for a cause

2008-11-20T19:19:00.004+13:00

These newborn caps are for the Caps to Cap-Haitien Project, organised by Mama to Mama. The caps are for newborns and will be included in safe birthing kits to be distributed by traditional birthing attendants in Northern Haiti.

Amanda of Soule Mama set up Mama to Mama to promote simple ways that us crafty people can use our skills to improve the lives of others. The newborn cap project is the first Mama to Mama project. If you'd like to learn more or get involved, you can read about the project and find the pattern for the caps here. The caps are easy to make and are meant to be made from old tshirts, so it's a good way to recycle/repurpose and spread some handmade love at the same time. The project is also asking for cotton receiving blankets. Instructions are on the same site. The caps and blankets are due in Maine, USA by 10th December.

Couple of things

2008-11-18T17:31:00.003+13:00

I've got a bit of a cold this week, and am suffering from brain fog, so the best I can manage today is a list of random items sorry...

1. The winner of the tote bag in my one year blogiversary giveaway is Lucy from Speckled Egg. Congratulations! I've only been reading Lucy's great blog for a few weeks (since she signed up for the ornament swap) but I'm really enjoying reading about all the wonderful stuff she makes - including making soap last week! And she is so organised she's even finished her ornaments for the swap already. I'm seriously behind, but I'm hoping to make some progress next week on my ornaments.

2. I have been wearing the wonderful red beads in the photo above almost constantly since I got them on Sunday. I received the necklace in a swap I did with the lovely Kimberley of Special K. I made her some baby shoes for her cute little boy Harper and in return I choose one of her scrummy necklaces. Thanks K, I love it!

3. The Big Schwop is happening again in Wellington on the 29th November. This is your chance to clear your wardrobe of clothes you aren't wearing and score yourself some cool new things. Spaces are limited to 300 schwoppers, so make sure you sign up on the website so you don't miss out.

4. My few days away in Melbourne were great. The wedding itself was in Torquay and I didn't get time to visit any craft places this time, though I did manage to get to Vegan Wares for some new shoes. And I discovered a cool organic cafe/deli that serves scrummy vegan food, right in the CBD - details to come in another post.

Hope you're all having a good week!

Happy Blogiversary

2008-11-09T20:30:00.003+13:00

I realised a little while ago that my blog turned 1 at the start of October. I think a belated giveaway to celebrate is in order.

This tote is made from black cotton drill and red Matroyska print Japanese craft cotton and is lined with a soft grey cotton poplin. It measures approx 16" by 13" and the handles are 18" long. I really like this size of bag for shopping, library books or just carting around your essentials.

To win it, leave a comment on this post by Friday 14th November. I'm taking a bit of a blog break this week to go to Melbourne for my brother-in-law's wedding. I'll be back on board next week to announce the winner of the tote bag.

Edited to add: I sent out the group details for the ornament swap on Sunday night around 8.15pm. If you have signed up and not yet received an email from me, please check your spam folder as I have heard that my emails are getting filtered for some people.

Strawberries for jam

2008-11-08T08:53:00.002+13:00

Don't these look delicious? Strawberries are at their best at the moment and I picked some up on special to make a batch of jam. They looked so lovely that I couldn't resist doing a photo shoot before I chopped them up.

Thanks for all the interest in the ornament swap. I will be collating the groups today and should hopefully be able to email you your group details tomorrow. If you have signed up by sending me an email with your address details and you do not get an email from me with your group details by Tuesday, then please contact me.

A red robot

2008-11-04T09:00:00.005+13:00

A few weeks ago I had an email from the lovely and clever Miss Smith asking if I wanted to swap some of my baby shoes for one of her robots. I have been coveting her wonderful robots for a while now and so I jumped at the chance to do my first ever "proper" swap. I asked for a red robot that could keep me company while I'm sewing and I've been eagerly awaiting his arrival.

Yesterday a parcel arrived in the post, along with a note of introduction for Mr Red:

And true to his programming, last night I found him diligently rethreading my overlocker:

And this morning, he'd gotten up early to warm my teacup:

Thanks Miss Smith, he is wonderful! I think I'm going to enjoy having a robot in the house...

Kiwi Handmade Christmas Ornament Swap

2008-10-30T17:22:00.005+13:00

For the last few years, a couple of craft bloggers in the US have run a huge handmade Christmas ornament swap. I found out about it too late to participate last year and have been thinking about signing up this year, but the cost of international postage has made me a bit reluctant to join in.

I mentioned this to Nikki last week at the Juniper craft night and she suggested I should run a New Zealand based swap instead. I’m hoping that there are some more of you out there who love handmade ornaments as much as me and want to participate.

Here are the guidelines:

1. Sign-up by sending me an email to luubeeluu at gmail dot com. You need to include your name and snail mail address, plus your blog if you have one. Signups will close on Friday 7th November. Sorry, but to limit postage costs, this swap will only be open to New Zealand residents.

2. I will assign you into a small group of 6-8 people and send you the addresses of everyone in your group. I will not send your address to anyone else.

3. You need to come up with an ornament design that you can easily replicate – it can be crafted however you like (knit, sew, crochet, embroider, print, gocco, paint etc), but it must be handmade.

4. Make enough ornaments for your group, and post one ornament to each person by Friday 12th December.

5. Sit back and wait to receive some wonderful handmade ornaments in the post just in time for Christmas.

If you need some inspiration for ideas, have a browse through the flickr group for the 2007 US swap.

This is the first swap I've run, so any swap veterans out there please let me know if I've missed anything.

Edit: Sign-ups now closed. Thanks for all the interest. I will email out the details for your group on Sunday 9th November.

Quickfire Craft

2008-10-23T11:47:00.002+13:00

On Sunday I was in need of some quick craft gratification - the sort where you can finish a project in one sitting. And I managed two in just under two hours.

Mum mentioned that my new niece likes to be swaddled, and with the cold weather we've had in the past week or so, I thought a merino wrap would be ideal. I had some jade green really soft merino knit in my stash leftover from another project. After consulting with another friend about the ideal size for baby wraps, I cut it into a square approx 100cm on each side. I used a dinnerplate as a template for the rounded corners, then finished the edges with the overlocker. Done.

And for no other reason except that I wanted to use some of the ribbons I bought overseas earlier in the year, I made a little ribbon tag blanket for her as well. I first heard about these on Craftster. Apparently babies like to play with the ribbon tags. I choose velvet, grosgrain and satin ribbons plus some ric-rac so there are a variety of textures. The main part of the blanket measures approx 30cm square. I think it turned out rather cute, don't you?

While we're on the subject, I just have to mention the new Dad present I got my brother - a CD of lullabies incorporating the tunes from Metallica songs (yes really). It appealed to the former teenage bogan in me and I've been waiting to buy it for someone who will appreciate it. I think it will go down well. And who knows, maybe the baby will like it too.

Yum

2008-10-22T09:53:00.002+13:00

I've got a few crafty things to show you later in the week, but I couldn't resist sharing this photo of our dinner last night. I made a spinach-basil-walnut pesto (minus the parmesan) and stirred it through cooked pasta, potatoes and peas. It looked so nice and tasted delicious. The recipe was adapted from a great cookbook called Vegan Italiano. The original recipe called for green beans rather than peas, and linguine rather than spirals, but I think my version worked quite well. There's some pesto leftover which I think I'll use in a salad later in the week.

I've just realised today that my one-year blogiversary came and went a couple of weeks ago. Stay tuned for a belated giveaway celebration sometime next week.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

2008-10-20T07:30:00.003+13:00

The pile of library books on my bedside table show what I've been occupied with lately.

First of all, I've made a decision to go back to university next January and study for a Post Graduate Diploma in Primary Teaching (one year full-time). Teaching has always been something that I've thought about doing "at some stage". My mother is a primary school teacher, so I've been around teachers a lot and I have always enjoyed working with children. I've been wanting a change from my current job for a wee while now, and this is the ideal time to go back to full-time study, before we have children of our own. I'm going into it with my eyes open hopefully - I spent some time in my mother's classroom a few months ago and I've also been training as a Brownie (young girl guides) leader since August, so I know I'm comfortable with larger groups of children. It's a big change for me, but it's exciting too and I'm really looking forward to it.

The other big change in our lives in the last few weeks is that Alex and I have decided to make the shift from being vegetarian to going fully vegan. It's not something I ever thought I would do - it always seemed too hard to give up dairy, but I've discovered it's a lot easier than you'd think. In the past few months we've been listening to a wonderful podcast called Vegetarian Food for Thought (which I found out about through a Ravelry group forum - everything leads back to craft I tell you), which played a big role in our decision to change. Each episode of the podcast addresses different topics related to being vegetarian/vegan, including favourite foods, nutrition, cooking and animal rights. I'd highly recommend the podcast to anyone who is curious about these issues. The woman who presents it, Colleen Patrick-Godreau, is very articulate and passionate about her cause without being preachy and makes you feel like you can make a difference. Having said that, it still took us a few months of listening to the podcast, reading books about nutrition and food ethics, and some serious thought before we made the change a few weeks ago. So far it is going great. We're trying lots of new foods and I'm currently relearning how to bake without eggs or dairy (again, much easier than you'd think). I'll keep you posted on progress and post some photos in the coming weeks.

Just call me Aunty Lou

2008-10-16T18:45:00.003+13:00

My gorgeous niece Ella arrived safe and sound yesterday afternoon.

I'm looking forward to some cuddles when we go up to Rotorua to visit her in a couple of weeks.

Craft2.0 sum-up

2008-10-13T11:15:00.006+13:00

Yay - it's over! I had a great time at Craft2.0 on Saturday. Because of the sunny weather there were less people through than at some of the earlier fairs, but I still managed to sell quite a bit of stuff. I do have about half of it left over though (I wanted to have too much rather than not enough), so once I get time to photograph it, the online shop will be opening.

Late nights beforehand meant I was in serious need of caffiene at set-up time, but I brought my crafty helper-fairy (Alex) along to help me and sent him off in search of coffee while I set up my stall. I had a dream the night before that I didn't sell anything all day, but my first sale of a bib, shoes and a tshirt made me feel much better!

Thanks to those of you that came by to say hello (Nikki, Tash, Martha, Rochelle, Kimberley, Sharron). It was nice to catch up and meet some of you in person for the first time. I'll happily do another fair in the future, but not for a while yet. I need time to recover and my sewing machine is suffering from overuse I think - it's making a weird ker-chunk ker-chunk noise that makes me think it's time for a service...

Sneak Peak

2008-10-10T12:30:00.008+13:00

Craft2.0 is tomorrow! If you are nearby, try and drop in to The New Dowse between 10am and 3pm tomorrow. Get some early Christmas shopping done. Or buy yourself a present just because. And if you do go along, make sure you come by my stall and say hi.

Over the past week or so, the Craft2.0 blog has been profiling some of the crafters who will be there tomorrow. Click on this link to check them out. Below is a mosaic of some of the stuff that will be for sale tomorrow. And below that is a sneak peak of some of the stuff I'll be taking with me. I'll be back next week with a full post-fair rundown and hopefully some pictures of all the crafty goodness for you.

Have a good weekend!

Making progress

2008-10-03T07:23:00.013+13:00

Sorry for the blog absence. I have been pretty busy preparing for Craft2.0 next weekend. My stock is slowly coming together, but I still have a whole lot of sewing to do between now and then. At this stage I'll be taking baby shoes, bibs, appliqued baby tshirts, small zipped pouches and tote bags. I'm really worried that I won't have enough stock, so I'm probably making too much of everything, but I figure the leftovers can be used to open my much-talked-about but not-yet-started Etsy shop.

Here are some pictures of my progress from the last week or so:

My sewing table piled up with WIPs and fabric

Carrybags made from recycled picture books, using Melissa's great tutorial here

Kiwiana Stamps

2008-09-24T08:05:00.002+12:00

I've been meaning to post about these new A-Z of New Zealand stamps since they were released about 6 weeks ago. Each stamp has a picture of something "kiwiana" that starts with that letter. Hopefully the image is big enough for you to read. If not, I think you should be able to click on it to see a larger version. My current favourites are F for fantail, E for Edmonds and G for Goodnight Kiwi. Very cool. I bought the whole sheet and I'm planning to pop it in a frame to hang in the hallway.

Matching Set

2008-09-21T08:51:00.003+12:00

Made for baby Maia Rose, born 10 days ago. She was very obliging with newborn cuddles yesterday.

Random Friday

2008-09-19T11:26:00.002+12:00

A few things I’ve been meaning to tell you about:

* Fabric Barn on High Street in Lower Hutt is having a 50% off sale off all of their fabrics and most of their patterns. Sale ends next Wednesday. I stocked up on a whole lot of flannel to use for interfacing – half price is $3 per metre. Woot!

* The next Juniper Lucky Dip craft night is on October 22nd and will be the last one for the year. Apparently the theme is Christmas. Sign up now if you haven’t already. Should be a fun night.

* The lovely and clever Helen at Stripy Sock Studio has started a clothing swap group on flickr for kiwi girls who want to update their wardrobes without spending a lot but don’t want to buy new from chain stores or deal with the hassle of online auctions. Fab eco-friendly idea I reckon! Its since expanded to include sewing patterns and fabric for those of us who like to DIY our wardrobes.

* Oh no - the end of Snifters, Tangy Fruits and Sparkles is nigh. What will be in the Twenty Cent Mixtures of the future?

Have a good weekend everyone. On Monday I should be able to post a few pictures of my progress on stock for Craft2.0.

Pink Overload

2008-09-16T07:19:00.006+12:00

Apologies for the unplanned blog break. I went to Rotorua for the weekend to catch up with family and go to my sister-in-law's baby shower. Her baby girl will be the first grandchild in my family and everyone is very excited. She received a whole lot of wonderful pink things at the shower, so the present I made her fitted right in:

Bibs and matching reversible baby shoes (see my new label on the bibs? I'm quite proud of it)

Reversible baby shoes

I may be a bit quiet on the crafting front for a few weeks. I've just found out that I have a stall at the next Craft2.0 on October 11th, so most of my spare time will be spent making things for the stall. This will be my first stall and I'm a bit nervous about making sure I have enough stock. I will pop in from time to time to update you on progress.

Olives

2008-09-09T08:54:00.009+12:00

We have three big olive trees in our backyard, but we usually leave the fruit to the birds (Wax-Eyes especially seem to love gorging themselves on olives). But earlier this year I saw some instructions for preserving your own olives in the NZ Gardener magazine and decided to give it a go.

The steps themselves are pretty simple, but the process is time-consuming. Before you even bottle the olives you have to remove some of their bitterness. The easiest way to do this is to soak them in water for a reasonable length of time, changing the water often. Of course if you like crisp, bitter olives, you can bottle them in brine pretty much straight away.

I picked olives off two of our trees (large black fruit on one tree and smaller green/brown fruit on another tree) and soaked them for about 40 days in clean buckets in our laundry sink. I changed the water often, but it certainly wasn't every day. At the weekend I finally got around to reclaiming the sink and bottling the olives in brine. They now have to pickle for another three months before we can eat them. I'll update you once we try them.

I've had a couple of friends ask me why I would go to so much trouble when I could just pop to the shops and buy a jar of olives for $5. I'm hoping the proof is in the tasting...

New labels and some more knitting

2008-09-05T13:59:00.009+12:00

Ooh, look what arrived in the mail yesterday - my new labels from Fancyweaver. They were quite reasonably priced and only took three weeks from the time I placed my order to arrive. After reading about these labels here and here, I knew to ask for extra space on either side of the text so I can easily sew them into seams. I did consider using a different name for my Etsy shop, but nothing I came up with really appealed, and I guess it's easier to just use my blog name. Looking forward to sewing these onto some new things this weekend.

And in knitting news, I've finished another couple of projects:

A shrug for me. The first thing I've knitted for myself that isn't a hat, scarf or gloves! I used this pattern, though I only used it as a guide for the shape. I read on Ravelry that a lot of people found that it came out too small, so I chose thicker wool (10ply), larger needles (8.5mm) and actually made a swatch (gasp!) to figure out my gauge and how many stitches to cast on. Since it's knitted in one piece from the top down it was easy to try it on part-way through to check the fit.

A baby beret. Modelled by Pooh Bear in the absence of a suitable model. This is a Sublime pattern from a new book I picked up on E-bay. Made from 8ply Naturally NZ Merino et Soie. We have a couple of friends who are due to have babies in the next few weeks, so I may give this to one of them if they have a girl.

Furry friends

2008-09-03T07:40:00.009+12:00

While we were in Melbourne, we visited a wildlife park on the Mornington Penninsula south of Melbourne city. I've seen native Australian animals lots of times before, but I'm always fascinated by how unique they are. I especially like wombats with their cute waddle-ly walk. The park we went to wasn't particularly large, but it had quite a few animals, including some babies, and you were able to hand-feed the kangaroos and wallabies.

Here are a few photos from our visit:

Baby Koala - not great lighting sorry, but he was so cute. And his fur was really soft.

Me getting mobbed by kangaroos - they're after the bag of kangarooo food in my hand. By this stage everyone else had finished their food and I was the only one with any left.

Kangaroos relaxing

Sleepy wombat

Home again

2008-09-02T07:57:00.004+12:00

Matroyshka dolls in park near Meet Me At Mikes, Fitzroy, Melbourne

We are back from our brief trip to Melbourne. The reason for the trip was to visit Alex's brother and his fiancee. They are getting married in Melbourne in November and Alex is the best man so there were a few pre-wedding things to sort out that were easier to do in person. I tagged along because I hadn't been to Melbourne for a couple of years and I wanted to check out some of the crafty places I'd been reading about.

While the boys were sorting out suit hire, I fed my fabric addiction by visiting Amitie and Patchwork on Central Park. The next day I managed to make it to the suburb of Fitzroy and checked out the funky shops and cafes. There is a definite craft vibe in Melbourne and a lot of it seems to be centred in Fitzroy. It reminded me of a much bigger, craftier Cuba Street.

Inside Patchwork on Central Park

New Fabrics from Patchwork on Central Park

New Fabrics from Amitie

Magazine inspiration

On Sunday we went out to a wildlife sanctuary and saw a baby koala and a baby wombat. We also hand-fed kangaroos and wallabies. Photos to come tomorrow.

Giveaway winner

2008-08-27T14:39:00.003+12:00

The winner of the clutch from my 100th post giveaway is Gabes from SweetP! Thanks to everyone who commented - I think that is the most comments I've had on a post.

I'm off to Melbourne for a few days of catching up with family and shopping (Meet Me At Mikes and Amitie here I come!), but I'll be back next week with some more finished knitting WIPs to show you plus hopefully some things from Melbourne. Have a great weekend!

Twisted Stitches

2008-08-25T07:33:00.002+12:00

In preparation for doing a lot of sewing for the Etsy shop, I've been working on finishing my knitting WIPs. The first was the stripy hat I posted last week. This is the next one.

It's from a Debbie Bliss pattern called Cable and Moss Stitch Baby Hat. Knitted in 4ply merino. Until I knitted this pattern I was a bit scared of cables. The way the stitches twisted over themselves looked pretty complex to me. But I have now discovered the secret of simple cables - every few rows you swap the order of a couple of stitches, knit them, do a few purl stitches or some moss stitch in between and Bob's your Uncle. I can feel a more complex cabled project coming on next - maybe the Central Park Hoodie for next winter.

Signs of spring

2008-08-24T13:17:00.007+12:00

The other morning as I was leaving for work, I spotted the first flowers on our small kowhai tree. I was so excited that I rushed back inside and grabbed the camera to get a photo in case the wind battered it later in the day.

There are a whole lot more buds about to open. And the magnolia outside my office window at work is covered in buds. Surely the warmer spring weather can't be far away now?

100

2008-08-22T07:50:00.002+12:00

It is hard to believe that this is my 100th post already. I have had a lot of fun and met many talented people, both in person and online. To celebrate and thank you for reading, I thought I'd have a giveaway.

The prize is another Artsy Clutch (are you sick of them yet?). This one is made from the last of my lovely Lara Cameron raindrops linen in duck-egg blue. It's lined with a plain coordinating fabric and finished with a couple of buttons.

To be in the draw, please leave a comment on this post before next Wednesday.

Stripy Hat

2008-08-20T07:03:00.002+12:00

I knitted this hat to match the pink kimono cardigan I made for my niece, who is due in October. I didn't really use any one pattern, but consulted a couple of books to find out how many stitches to cast on. I think it's more like 9-month size than newborn size, but indications are that she is going to be a big baby (my brother is 6 foot 2), so maybe it will fit her sooner than I think.

I once again used the NZ Naturally merino et soie yarn I love so much. I wanted to use what was in my stash, hence the stripes since I didn't have enough of any one colour. But I think they work. I decided while I was knitting it that the bold stripes remind me of something out of Who-ville (from Horton Hears A Who).

On my desk...

2008-08-19T09:58:00.003+12:00

..or rather on the dining table, since my sewing table is in the coldest part of the house, are piles of fabric waiting to be cut out for baby shoes. Over the weekend I finally sorted out the sizing and style of my baby shoes. All going well, I should be able to open my Etsy shop by early September. In the meantime, there is a lot of cutting out to do.

Treasure Hunting

2008-08-17T15:06:00.005+12:00

I found this map in our front yard last week. It says seth and ashtons map. The directions are straint, turn, cross road, go ta house. Hopefully the treasure hunters got to their destination OK without the help of their map.

Speaking of treasures, I discovered one of the crafty kind today - a shop called Minerva on upper Cuba St. It specialises in textile books. Wow. It isn't open on Sundays but I stood with my nose pressed to the window for ages. I could see quilting, sewing, textile design, felting, crochet and knitting books. I will definitely have to go back when they are open and spend some serious time browsing.

Roast Vege Salad

2008-08-15T07:22:00.005+12:00

Last night I made one of our favourite winter dinners - roast vege salad. It doesn't look that appetising in the photo below, but it was delicious.

I don't really have a recipe as such, instead it's more of an idea. You chop up lots of roastable vegetables into chunks (this time I used pumpkin, kumara, yams, carrots, red onion, courgette and capsicum but eggplant and potato are also nice), then toss them in a little oil and garlic (I used garlic-infused oil which makes things easier), season with salt and pepper and then chuck them in the oven at 220 degC for about 40 minutes or until they are tender. Take them out of the oven, and while they are still hot, drizzle a little balsamic vinegar over the top and mix through. Serve warm or cold.

I sprinkled some sunflower seeds over the top of each serve (for protein) and then put a dollop of pesto dressing on the top. I made the dressing by mixing some mayonnaise with some ready-made basil pesto. You could just use watered-down pesto. Or aioli. Or plain mayonnaise. Or even oil and vinegar dressing. Whatever appeals to you.

I always make too much of this, but the leftovers are delicious for lunch the next day. Or you can stir the leftovers through some tomato-based pasta sauce and use it as a topping on pasta.

Kreativ Blogger

2008-08-13T07:55:00.005+12:00

Oooh, look what I received
The lovely Gabes at SweetP Knits has given me the Kreativ Blogger award. Thank you! The rules say that I have to nominate another 5 blogs, but I don't think I can narrow it down, because there are so many that I enjoy and I don't want to leave anyone out. So instead, I'd like to nominate everyone on my Kiwi craft blogs list over to the right there. There are some seriously talented people in this little country of ours. If you haven't already, I'd encourage you to have a nosy at what everyone else is up to.

PS It seems that my 100th post is coming up soon. A giveaway is in the pipeline - stay tuned.

Another artsy clutch

2008-08-10T10:31:00.003+12:00

A quick post before I head out for a run in the glorious sunshine. After a few days of horrible rain and wind (plus freezing-cold sleet yesterday), Wellington has turned on a stunner - little wind and clear sunny skies.

I made this clutch yesterday for a friend's birthday. The outer is made from Lara Cameron fabric and lined with a co-ordinating spot craft cotton. I also interfaced it with flannel to give it a bit more structure. Pattern is from Bend the Rules Sewing by Amy Karol. This is another almost instant gratification project. The most time-consuming part (apart from picking the fabrics out of your stash) is cutting out the 6 pieces of fabric.

Yummy yarn

2008-08-08T07:37:00.002+12:00

Doesn't this look good enough to eat? It's hand-dyed sock yarn from the very talented Morag at Vintage Purls. Morag was visiting Wellington from Dunedin this week and thanks to a bit of planning via Ravelry, she (and some of her lovely yarn) came along to the Wednesday night Stitch n Bitch group in Lower Hutt. I'm not a sock knitter (at least not yet), but I think this will knit up into lovely baby hats or mittens.

I had been meaning to go along to the group for some time, and I'm pleased I finally made it this week. As well as Morag, I also got to meet some other local Ravelry people in person. It was great to just have a couple of hours to sit and gossip while knitting. I think it might become a regular appointment in my diary.

On something else entirely, is anyone else have problems with Blogger and comments? My last post received some comments on Wednesday and then last night when I checked, they had disappeared. Very strange.

A farm in stitches

2008-08-06T09:28:00.005+12:00

I've been meaning to post these for a while. They are a series of small embroideries that I have been stitching on and off for quite a while. I think I started the first one sometime in 2006! The last one was finished just before we went on holiday. Despite looking like cross-stitch, they are actually petit-point or half-crosses, done on very fine 27-count linen. Finished size of each is around 8cm square.

I used to do a lot of cross-stitch on Aida cloth and I thought these Lanarte kits would be a good way to introduce me to embroidery on linen. I really like the restricted colour palette and the look of the rough natural linen.

I've been playing around with how I will frame them and I quite like this 2x2 arrangement. Once framed they will live in my sewing area, but hopefully one day they might hang on the wall of our child's room.

Organisation

2008-08-03T08:55:00.003+12:00

In an effort to keep my WIP crafty projects in the lounge looking a bit tidier, I recently bought one of those woven seagrass baskets with a lid. I sorted through the three large plastic bags that had been beside the couch and kept out only the knitting and embroidery projects that I am currently working on. The rest of the needles and wool and so on were consigned to my yet-to-be-organised craft area in another part of the house. Keeping the projects tidy in the seagrass basket has been a bit of a problem though - I keep misplacing needles and patterns. So yesterday I made myself a couple of project bags, to keep everything separate.

These are based on a similar one I bought at Loop in London (you can see it at the back of this photo). They are just simple drawstring bags made from unbleached calico - really quick and easy to make (I think the most time-consuming part was re-threading my overlocker/serger with white thread before I started!). I used the freezer paper stencil motifs I made a while back to decorate them.

Now, I wonder how long everything will stay nicely organised this time?

Lemon Tart

2008-07-29T07:56:00.002+12:00

We had some friends over for dinner on Saturday and I decided to make one of my favourite desserts, Lemon Tart. Recipe here. I really like this version because the pastry has lemon rind in it, meaning you get an extra lemon hit from the crust as well as the filling. I served it with Raspberry and White Chocolate Kapiti ice-cream which is very sweet and goes well with the slightly sour citrus. Yum!

London

2008-07-23T11:04:00.018+12:00

Ahh, London. Noisy, crowded, huge, lovely London. Before we moved to London, I thought I was a city girl through and through - I had lived in the "huge metropolis" of Wellington (about 400,000 people including Hutt City) for 6 years after all! But after 18 months in London I discovered that I was actually a small town girl at heart. I loved that in London Europe was on my doorstep, and the theatre, music, markets, museums and food that comes with a big city, but I didn't like the commute, the traffic, the frustrating bureaucracy and the hordes of people. It was great to go back as a tourist this time though, and not have to stress about everyday things.

When we lived in London, I wasn't particularly crafty, apart from doing a bit of cross-stitch, so before we left New Zealand I did some research to find out the best crafty places to visit in London. There are good suggestions here and in the comments here and here. In the end I only got to visit a few places on my list, but I figure I'll be back there one day, so it's nice to have something to look forward to next time.

I didn't want to make this the longest post ever (although I suspect it may become that), so here are just a few favourite craft and food places I went to and would recommend. A list of links to other places that I liked is at the end of this post. I've restricted this list to craft and food places, but the links above list many other museums, parks and places of interest that are also well worth a visit. The picture at the top of this post was taken in St James' Park - a nice haven of calm to relax in after a few hours of touristing.

*Loop. The well-known knitting shop certainly lived up to its reputation. It is a tiny place, full of delicious yarns, fabulous patterns and other bits and pieces. Downstairs below the shop is an area where they hold knitting classes. There was a class being held when I visited and every now and then a roar of laugher would make its way up the staircase. Sounded like they were having a lot of fun. Even though the shop is small, I still spent ages deliberating over what to buy. In the end I picked up some pattern books and some wonderful Clover bamboo DPNs. Yummy though the yarn was, I just didn't have space in my bag. The lady working there told me that they do ship to NZ through their online shop though...

If you are visiting, I would allow plenty of time to get there and even more time for browsing. The shop is situated half-way between the Highbury & Islington and Angel tube stations - about 15 minutes walk from each station.

*Liberty. I had visited Liberty when we lived in London, but that was just to see inside the wonderful Tudor building more than anything. It is only in the last two years or so that I have realised that the wonderful tana lawn fabric I have seen in lots of craft blogs is from Liberty. I have to admit that I did get a bit overwhelmed by all the crafty goodness and in the end only bought some rolls of grosgrain ribbon, although I did spend a lot of time oogling the countless rolls of fabric (both the Liberty fabric and the huge range of cotton quilting prints), and the Rowan knitting yarns. No pictures for you though - the sales people were pretty attentive so I couldn't take a sneaky pic.

Liberty is pretty central - just off Regent St and close to the Oxford Circus tube and Carnaby Street.

* Spitalfields Market. This was a favourite market of my mine from the time we lived in London. Since then it has been revamped and now has permanent shops as well as market stalls. Most of the stalls sell art and crafts and a lot of it is handmade rather than imported. There seemed to be quite a few emerging designers selling their clothing labels. Sunday is the busiest day (it's closed on Saturdays) and on Thursday is the antiques/vintage market which we didn't get to but sounds like it would be fabulous (a friend we caught up with said that the vintage market is great for taking photos).

The market is about 5 minutes walk from Liverpool St tube station. It is also within walking distance of Petticoat Lane market and Brick Lane so you can make a bit of a morning of it.

* Borough Market. My favourite food market in the world (well, I've only been to a few, but this is the one I liked best). If you've watched early episodes of Jamie Oliver's show, you might recall that he would jump on his scooter and go to a fresh food market to pick up his supplies - apparently that was Borough Market (though I never saw him there and we used to go most Saturday mornings). This is the place to go on Saturday mornings to get your fresh veges, meat, bread, cheese, olives, wine or just soak up the atmosphere. Apparently some of the stall holders come over from France for the day to sell their local cheese or other produce. When we lived in London, I discovered a stall-holder selling kumara (NZ sweet potato) and bought a few at great expense to roast on Christmas Day as a reminder of home.

Our Saturday morning routine often consisted of going to Borough Market in the morning, getting a 'proper' coffee from the Monmouth Coffee stand, having some raclette from another stall, a brownie for dessert and then picking up some olives, bread and cheese to take away for later. I was pleasantly surprised to see that after 5 years, most of the stall-holders were still going strong and a lot of them were still operating from the same location in the market.

Borough Market is close to London Bridge tube station.

* Mildreds restaurant. This is a great modern vegetarian restaurant in Soho. I read about this place on another blog before we went to London and knew we just had to go there. Their menu is really varied, reasonably priced for London and would probably satisfy carnivores as well. We had two lovely meals there, one night before we saw Phantom of the Opera and also our last night in London. I would happily have eaten there every night. Their varied menu has also inspired me to try some new recipes at home.

Mildreds is in Soho and is therefore within walking distance of several tube stations - Oxford Circus, Tottenham Court Road, Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square.

Rolls of ribbon from Liberty, other ribbons from VV Rouleaux, coin purse from Marimekko and knitting books, needles and project bag from Loop

Other places I enjoyed:
* Carluccio's Caffe. A chain of cafes started by chef Antonio Carluccio - their Bicerin coffee, cream and melted chocolate drink is to die for.
* V.V. Rouleaux. Shop selling ribbons and trims in Marylebone. Not as impressive as the ribbon shops in Hong Kong, but still wonderful to browse in.
* Cloth House. Linen and vintage trims. In Soho.
* Marimekko. Fantastic! The shop I visited was in St Christophers Place, just off Oxford St.
* Treacle. Cupcake shop in the Columbia Road flower market.
* Bar Italia in Soho - an espresso or cappucino and cannoli here is a must-do. I think their cannolis are better than any we had in Italy.
* Brick Lane - Bangadeshi curry houses lining the street. On a busy night the touts outside offer you discounts to dine at their restaurant.
* Hummus Bros for reasonably priced healthy fast food, all based around hummus (yes really). Their tag-line is "Give (Chick) Peas A Chance".

Rainbows of ribbons

2008-07-20T20:35:00.018+12:00

While I was in Hong Kong, I made a special visit to the area of Sham Shui Po. This is a little district north of the centre of Kowloon that I had heard was a paradise for crafters. There are several streets filled with wholesale shops selling fabric, beads, ribbons, trim, zips, sewing notions and so on. I only had a couple of hours, so just managed to look in a few ribbon and bead shops, but it certainly lived up to my expectations. Imagine tiny shops with aisles only wide enough for one person, crammed to the ceiling with rolls of ribbon of almost every shade, pattern and width you can imagine.

The three photos above show rolls of ric-rac, a wall of ribbon and a ribbon shop. I'm not sure if I was allowed to take photos, but no-one told me not to and I knew I couldn't blog about how great the shops were without some eye candy for you!

Though most of the shopkeepers I encountered spoke little English, and were used to dealing with people buying in bulk, they were only too happy to sell small quantities to me. I have to admit I did get a bit overwhelmed by all the choice and completely forgot what I already had in my stash at home. In the end I went for a few ribbons that "spoke" to me. From the picture below it looks like velvet, spots and stripes in bright colours are what caught my eye that day. The most I paid for any of these was around $1 NZD per yard. Most of it was about 50c per yard.

In addition to the ribbon shops, I also visited a few bead shops. I picked up some findings but resisted the urge to buy any beads as I knew my suitcase was getting rather full. Again the bead shops were tiny, crammed full of drawers and bags of beads. In one shop, they sold plastic beads by the pound (the spoon is for scooping up your selection):

I didn't make it to any of the fabric shops, but apparently they are just as good. If you are ever going through Hong Kong, I highly recommend a visit to Sham Shui Po. I can almost guarantee you will not come away empty-handed!

P.S. Craft2.0 was fantastic as always. This time I got to meet a few local lovely craft bloggers in person as well. It's nice to finally meet people that you only know online, although it does feel a bit stalkerish saying "Hi, I'm Louise, I read your blog". But Helen, Helen, Kimberley and Steph didn't run the other way screaming, so I must have come across as harmless. It was lovely to meet you ladies!

A few things

2008-07-18T11:30:00.008+12:00

Despite the grey weather, there are some things that are making me smile this week:

Craft2.0 is tomorrow! If you are out in the Hutt between 11am and 3pm, try and call into the New Dowse and check it out.
CraftFetish is up and running again. This cool site is an online community for NZ crafty peeps plus a marketplace a bit like felt or etsy where you can sell your creations.
The Wellington Film Festival starts today. I was a bit disorganised and only bought my tickets this morning, but the good news is there are still tickets available for a lot of sessions.
I finally joined Freecycle and got rid of our old compost bin (we upgraded to an Earthmaker a while back and the old one has been taking up room in the garden). I love the Freecycle concept and I'm looking forward to sending some more unwanted-but-still-usable stuff off to new homes.
Sukin face wash. I think my search for an eco-friendly, organic, non animal-tested, foaming face wash that is also reasonably priced may have finally ended. This stuff smells great, foams really well, and is at least a third of the price of other similar products (Living Nature, Trilogy) that I've tried. Plus, the bottle is actually recyclable in NZ. I've seen their range so far at Health2000, CommonSense Organics and Farmers.
The Big Shwop - fantastic idea for refreshing your wardrobe, plus it's free and eco-friendly.

Travel knitting

2008-07-17T07:35:00.003+12:00

I had big plans to knit lots of things while we were travelling, but the weather in Italy was so hot that a lot of the time I didn't really feel like knitting on a humid train. I did however manage to finish a kimono cardigan for my brother's baby, due in late October. They are having a girl and I will become an aunt for the first time. She will also be the first grandchild, so I can see she will be very spoilt. I used the 8 ply version of the seamless baby kimono pattern found here. The yarn is NZ Naturally Merino et Soie in a dusky pink. This is now my go-to yarn for 8 ply baby stuff. It's really soft and knits up well, and is cheaper that the other merino/silk blends I've found. The pattern itself is very clever - all knitted in one piece so there are no bulky seams and it knits up quickly. The sleeve in the 8 ply version is a standard sleeve shape, but I preferred the flared kimono-ish shape of the sleeve in the bulky (12 ply) version, so I created my own version of the flared sleeve for 8 ply weight wool. The details are below.

8 ply flared Kimono sleeve
Knit kimono cardigan as in pattern here. For sleeves, do the following:

Evenly space the 36 sleeve stitches on 3 DPNs

With the right side facing, locate the centre bottom of the sleeve opening. Leaving a tail of 8 inches or so, pick up two additional stitches from the left of the opening and continue knitting the round, picking up two additional stitches at the end of needle 3 (40 stitches total).

Decrease round: k2tog, k2tog, knit to last 4 st, ssk, ssk (36 stitches).

Knit 26 rounds.

Increase round: k1, m1, knit to last stitch, m1, k1

Increase every 4th round 3 more times (44 stitches total)

Alternate purl one round, knit the next round for next 4 rounds.

BO loosely.

Note: you can choose not to pick up the stitches at the start and just knit 28 rounds of 36 stitches, but I tried it that way and I was getting holes under the sleeve. I think picking up the stitches and then decreasing them helps eliminate this. You can also fix up any holes when you weave the ends in - that is why I suggest leaving a long tail of 8 inches.

Blue and White China

2008-07-15T06:53:00.008+12:00

I haven't mentioned it on this blog before, but I have a bit of a soft spot for blue and white china. Our everyday plates and bowls are white, but our mugs are a mismatching collection in shades of (mostly) dark blue made by local potters, picked up on my travels around New Zealand.

When it comes to "fancy" china, my favourite pattern is the blue calico floral, made by Burleigh of England. It's an old-fashioned, all-over pattern which is transfer-printed by hand onto earthenware, as opposed to bone china - as a vegetarian, the idea of buying bone china grosses me out a little (though strangely I don't feel quite the same way about the vintage bone china I've inherited from family). Until our recent holiday however, my collection of Burleighware consisted of one cake plate, as it is rather expensive to buy in New Zealand.

Anyway, when I heard from a friend a couple of years ago that Burleigh actually had a factory shop that you could visit, I decided that next time I was in England, I would have to make a special trip. Just over 3 weeks ago, I finally made it there, and I'm so glad I did!

The Burleigh pottery is located in Stoke-on-Trent, which luckily for us, was on the way from Liverpool to London, so we didn't have to go too far out of our way. Stoke-on-Trent is also the home of Royal Doulton, Wedgewood, Spode and a number of other well-known English names in pottery.

The shop carried a wide range of factory seconds, a lot of which didn't seem to have any visible faults (at least to my inexperienced eye), all at half retail price. Despite sussing out what I wanted to buy before we got there, I still took a long time to pick out just-the-right milk jug or the perfect teapot. While I was dithering, Alex patiently took some great pictures of the shop, which I have uploaded to Flickr.

We managed to leave my well-wrapped purchases with friends in London while we were in Italy, but travelling back through Hong-Kong, I cradled my full day-pack like it was a newborn baby! Luckily I managed to get it all home with no breakages.

I think a tea party is now in order - what do you think?

Home again

2008-07-14T10:21:00.002+12:00

I'm back from holiday, still in one piece, though a bit spaced out today from jet-lag. The last thing I wanted to do was get up and come to work. Hopefully I will be a bit better after a coffee.

A quick update from me before I attack my inbox.

The holiday was fantastic. Italy was great, but unseasonably hot - 35 degrees most days and quite humid. Almost too hot for me. Though I understand the weather was awful in New Zealand while I was away and have been instructed not to complain too much about the heat in Europe! Hong Kong was also humid, with 30 degree heat and thunderstorms. London was a bit more pleasant - overcast and 20 degrees.

I managed to get to a few craft places in London and Hong Kong - posts and photos to come. We also ate a lot of great food, but I have discovered on returning home that pizza plus gelato plus pain au chocolat times four weeks of little exercise equals trousers that are too tight. Hmmm. Will have to do something about that.

While on holiday I had a lot of time to think about what I want to do with this blog and my crafting. I've made a few decisions which I'm looking forward to sharing with you in the next little while.

I am still alive...

2008-06-28T05:20:00.002+12:00

...but melting somewhat in the heat of Florence. Thank goodness for gelato!

We're enjoying our European holiday. If you're interested, I have uploaded a few pictures from London onto Flickr.

More soon.