Going up North

Ian and I are going away for a week tomorrow. We are visiting our son Alexander in New Plymouth and this means a ferry crossing over the Cook Strait to Wellington and then a drive of four hours or so.
I am very excited...it is my birthday on Saturday and I have a visit to a couple of knitting shops planned, and we will be seeing some of Monet's paintings which are being exhibited at Te Papa along with Renoir, Degas, and Cezanne.

I shall be away from my blog for a while and thought I would show something I finished today.

My crocheted ripple blanket.

I loved making this so much, I found it very calming to do when I was trying to relax before a concert, or a Dentist appointment !

I think I will take it with me on the ferry crossing, it might have the same curative power as the seasickness tablets.

A little sweetness

February and March are birthday months in our family, and on Saturday we celebrated our little Eve's birthday. Today is her official birthday and she is four years old.

Yes, she is rather fond of pink, how did you guess ?

Felt Like Folk

I was lucky enough to go to an exhibition at our local art gallery this week, featuring a work all beautifully thought up and made with great skill by a friend of mine...Mary McCubbin. Mary is the "Artist in Focus" for the month of February.

I haven't done her justice in these photos, I might have to return and see if I can do better, I don't need an excuse to visit these wee folk another time.

These "Felt like Folk" are darling little people, all with different personalities and their own special fashion sense.

They each have a name, of course, and Mary has created each one using her skills of knitting, felting, crochet and sewing and embroidery,........ fourteen exquisite tiny dolls.

All fourteen dolls sold straight away and I wasn't one of the lucky owners, I didn't make it to the exhibition on the first day. I love them all and I think it would have been very difficult to choose !

New from Old

Once upon a time when my children were tiny, I decided to make myself a Fair Isle Shetland jumper. I sent a postal note to Shetland in Scotland ( yes, a postal note...no computers or online banking, or visa cards for me in those days) and received a card with strands of coloured wool in 4 ply. I decided to purchase enough wool to make a vest from this book, which incidently is a library book that I was fortunately allowed to purchase from the Public Libary. One of the children did some scribbling on a couple of the pages and in much glee I returned it to the libary, knowing that they would want me to pay for it.

I then worked a vest all in one piece, opening in the front. When it was finished I tried it on and it was huge. It didn't fit any other family members and even my Mum shunned it, so I hid it away in the cupboard, feeling very guilty about the cost of the special wool from Jamieson and Smith in Scotland. It really was a big deal, I remember very clearly!

The other day when I was having a forage around in the cupboard I came upon the hapless vest and decided to give it another life.

Blueberries

I wanted to make some blueberry muffins today, so I wandered down to the garden to see if the blueberries were ready for picking,

they weren't, but I managed to find some bigger, nicer, juicier ones in my freezer,

and we had these for lunch...blueberry and coconut.

Then because I am into shades of orange this week

I couldn't resist taking these pics.

Sunny Sunday

My temperature gauge outside the kitchen window tells me that it is 37 degrees today...phew, very hot, unseasonally so. As we are experiencing unusually very high temps.,some of the readers of this blog are experiencing the exact opposite on the other side of the world.

The plants in my garden are looking rather sad and dehydrated but we have lots of fruit and veg. doing well. For all of you readers enjoying ( or not) the snow in the northern hemisphere, here are a few pics. from my garden.

The very first flower on my Jacaranda tree. I think this tree is five years old, I was so excited when I spied the purple amongst the green that I raced up to the house to grab my camera.

Not quite ripe enough yet.

These apples are delicious.


Greeny goodness of advocados.

A plum about to be picked or plucked.

Billie having a hot cuddle with my Mum in her wheelchair.

Thank you all so much for your lovely comments and thoughtful words on my last post.

Blue times

We have had a rather distressing time of late. Our daughter has had a very painful miscarriage which ended in a visit and overnight stay in the hospital, and we have been caring for the rest of her family this past week.

It has been especially hard because she had a previous miscarriage last year.

They all went home this morning and I sat at my table with a comforting cup of tea, inside the quiet house, with my thoughts, and taking long , deep, breaths.

The Afghan

According to Wikipedia the afghan blanket is a throw /wrap/shawl / all used for multi purposes.

An afghan is seldom sold, is benevolently given and very often used for important ceremonial occasions.

A lovely persian word and one that conjures up the country of Afghanistan and magic flying carpets, , large ditsy afghan hounds running through the woods, , Melissa's afghan biscuits for afternoon tea, and these crocheted granny squares.

While I was in Norway last year, I visited a wool shop that sold skeins of fibre from Peru. The label is from the Mirasol project and it supports the local shepherds and their families that are raising the alpacas that are used in some of the yarns.

I bought several skeins of cotton and merino mixed and not enough of any one colour to make anything other than a beautiful afghan.

Our daughter Sarah is flying home from Norway at the moment and I am hoping that she will have a few more skeins for me tucked away in her bag.