Christmas in summer

In September we moved to our new house, a beautiful grand old lady ( for us) with original features largely intact and a wonderful garden, which is quickly becoming jungle-ish, as I struggle to juggle  illness ( kids have had whooping cough all winter and we are on our 5th bout with our son, bleeding noses, vomit and all), tiredness (mine), the garden, a growing belly ( baby no 4 is about 28 weeks along and growing fast!), christmas preparation and a husband whose job is manic at present. ( i love wild gardens anyway, i just hope the neighbours don't think we are slobs!)

 We were lucky to take over guardianship of this beautiful place from my lovely friend gilly, and hope to continue her work here. (I'll have to refer often to her old blog posts as I try and learn what I'm supposed to do and when!)

 We are also putting our own stamp on the place, taking out wallpaper and carpets and finding many characterful  surprises of the kind that makes us appreciate old homes ( like a concrete  patch in the middle of the lounge floor when the rest is gorgeous rimu floorboards!)

 But actually all I feel right now is numb and tired and I just want to sleep for days....

I can't quite bring myself to close my blog, so maybe I'll be around a bit more after all.

Summer for christmas, I am struggling for ideas. I am Waldorf inspired but can't find any info out there in www land for craft ideas, or stories or anything. friends of mine are swapping to just celebrating summer solstice but I have christian beliefs so can't give up christmas... any links would be appreciated!

Wishing you all a wonderful summer / advent season!

busy times

Yes, hmm busy times.  Three kids with chickenpox ( not all at the same time though, fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it!), Visits from grandparents, a whole lot of sock knitting: 5 pair for my niece and nephew and one for an uncle, 1 pair  for tobins birthday, and now something just a little bit different... tights for maaike's birthday in june.
( no photos, i had an unfortunate run in with  the camera  and deleted lots ofphotos!). And then, still with a bit of pox we drove to Dunedin and stayed for a few days with friends and then drove back ( that all took 6 days).
The children are a bit unsettled as a result an needing more of my time to structure activities etc AND  our computer is too slow ( still on dial up)!!!! Hence my absence. Hopefully I can be back with some sort of regularity soon, or maybe I might just close down for a while, and regroup ma familie.
How are you all? If you are interested in nutritiuon, here is a site recommended me in a wapf ( Weston a Price foundation) meeting recently.:  www.marksdailyapple.com   Challenging!

craft love

So here we are, another group of people, mamas, grandmas, children... stitching away in solidarity with friends  and folk of lyttleton, recently devestated by the quake.  We stitched during our homeschooling gathering group. Adults stitched, children stitched, each heart is not only a work of art but also of love, for people we don't know,  for people we do. This project clicked for us, not only because some of us know some of the stitchers in Lyttleton, but because we are crafters and all of it made sense: the symbolism, the community, the physical act of each stitch; the next best thing to hugging everyone, which is pretty hard to do from a distance.

There is LOVE in them hearts!  Completed hearts and more supplies for making them are on their way to you folk. KIa Kaha Christchurch, Kia Kaha Lyttleton!

A touch of Autumn

Last Week, the kids and I went  for a walk here in the area, foraging for wild blackberries, and rosehips and collecting  things for our nature table.

 

When we got home and I made blackberry muffins and rosehip syrup the children trawled through my vintage linens and sorted out their treasures and arranged them all over the house. Very beautiful and autumnal.

 

 For the leaf shapes i used a wee folk art pattern from their list and  knitting/ felting patterns from living Crafts magazine for the acorns and oak leaves on our hanging wreath. 

 It feels good now that its cooler, and the light is different. I feel re-invigorated and have even spent some time in the vege garden, hoping my  seedlings grow enough before winter hits. ( We had 2 degrees here yesterday).

butterfly buns and more sewing love

Some butterfly studying this week,  led to a butterfly day, with origami butterflies now decorating our  hanging table centre wreath, and butterfly buns for lunch ( along with plenty of drawing and reading and watching and observing.

 And another photo of my love: She needs a name! She feels like an old  maiden aunt or well- worked grandmotherly type, persistent, and just needs to be used and oiled every now and then.

  I've been hemming handkerchiefs, ready to be embroidered for Valentine's day tokens. The handkerchiefs are from old calico from a thrift shop, or another old  cotton tea towel, also thrifted.  The children will get one each too, with their names cross-stitched on. very vintage! I really like that I can hem the hankies like hundreds of other women have done before, then stitched the initials of family members with love. Very simple ( very cheap), but full of sentiment! 

 The cross-stitched alphabet comes from a new book for me: linen, wool, cotton, as does the idea to make hankies. My husband has allergy issues, so always carries one!And he/we can always use more, and its a nice way to be closer when he is at work. As you can tell we don't go in much for the commercial version of valentine's day, and normally don't do anything at all as our anniversary is the very next week!  I do think it's nice to try and remember to show him how much i love him as after  nearly 8 years  of marriage that stuff is often last on the list. Hope you have a  lovely day sharing your love for you families too!

holiday love: sewing

 

Here she is! Well part of her, I've decided to let a man who knows what hes doing to give her a once over and put a new belt on, and i can't wait to use her!

You see, at the moment my sewing stuff is in the garage/shed, which is about 50 metres up the drive, which is great but not so great when i need to be with the kids ( I can't see or hear anything from up there!), so now I can sew down in the house ( well soon), without lugging sewing paraphernalia too and fro. Yay! 

 And so in the holidays while there's been someone else to supervise and stuff I've been up there, hiding and making these: A foxy quilt from the book sew la tea do, by meet me at mike's pip lincolne. I supersized it by making an extra fox head panel and didn't quilt it as such but  used an existing washable duvet inner inside and bound it together with the binding, more a continental bed spread or something I suppose.  I am in love with this book and have made her tunic dress three times for three very different looks too. While i was busy with the quilt I decided to make the pillowcases too and embroidered these creatures from her book too. In fact you'll find them on almost anything now because the kids liked them too and they can be found lurking on clothes and fabric waiting to be clothes... Tobin even knew that he wanted a "blue foxy please mama."

   

And a dump shop find: an embroidered lacy valance that fits our superkingsized bed for a few bucks, wow! (It has to be superking, how else would we fit 5inabed!?)

And a throw pillow for good measure, i got a bit quilting happy! It was my fist time!

holidaying

A spontaneous roadtrip to Christchurch, lunch in Lewis Pass, a walk on new Brighton Pier, watching the buskers in Cathedral square... a not - needed excuse for a last fling in the summer holidays and a chance to pick up an old singer treadle sewing machine. more pictures later, I'm giving her  some  love at the moment, oil and treadling....