21st birthday

This last weekend was spent in Wellington celebrating our youngest daughter's 21st birthday. Even though the weather was cold, rainy, windy and horrible we still managed to have a thoroughly great time in her flat with all her friends and quite a lot of family.

Phoebe was very interested in the decoration of the cupcakes...especially the jaffas.

Sarah wanted it to be an afternoon tea party outside in the garden, she had envisioned little cupcakes, cream scones, cherry cake, chocolate cake, lemon drizzle cake, platters of tiny sandwiches, etc, etc.....you get the picture.

Instead her flatmates did a splendid job making the flat very festive and all the food was brought out in relays, as everyone kept eating steadily throughout the afternoon.

No more 21st birthdays for a while now....my Mum's 80th next . I hope the sun will shine that day !

Kowhai

We have several large kowhai trees that are home to a pair of tuis. I stood and watched their antics today as they were hanging upside down to extract the last drop of nectar from the kowhai flower. Do you see the black tui shape in the middle of the photo ?

The kowhai brings me inspiration to work some more on this, although I think I need more yellow in the blocks

I like the orange tulip with it too.

Colour and Kuler

My garden has certainly been a huge source of inspiration in recent days. Yesterday I picked a big bunch of freesias and bought them inside and I was immediately drawn to spending some time on this crocheted blanket. I have written an earlier post on this afghan which is made up of lots of squares of different sizes. The designer was inspired by the colours and designs that Kaffe Fassett uses and you can find out all about it here.

I really enjoy working on this. The wools that I keep in a little cane basket and randomly select for each crocheted square are a visual treat alone, not to mention how they feel in my hands with a crochet hook , so fine and soft.

I was given a link to this wonderful website called Kuler which I must share with you...it is a very exciting place to be, especially on a grey and dreary day.

The site is linked to photoshop but is extremely easy to use and you can create colour themes within your own photos. For instance in the photo of the flowers above...through kuler I can select seven colours from the photo and play with them..creating different shades of colour and changing them to suit. A wonderful resource for artists. Do go and visit if you have time, it opens up all sorts of possibilities.

The Colour of Spring

In my garden I have so many wonderful things going on...the tulips are growing tall on their lovely long stems and the anemones have such sweet cheery faces. The stocks are sending a very strong perfumed message to the bees and the weeping cherries are weeping very prettily.

I have lived and worked in this garden for thirty three years and I can remember on many occasions when friends have visited and made comments like.."oh I can see that you love gardening, you must spend hours and hours looking after it all" !

I nearly always would reply "No I don't like gardening, I would much rather be in my workshop sewing...gardening is too much like housework!"

This morning though, as I was wandering around looking at all the new flowers that seem to have appeared since yesterday, I had a wave of extreme thankfulness wash over me and I realised that this garden is such an amazing gift, a legacy left to me by the previous generations of Ian's family...the mother, grandmother and great grandmother. How very lucky am I to be the custodian of this place for now!

A special request

This cute little person has been staying with us for the last few days and she has made a special request....she couldn't decide between the mermaid or a mouse so has chosen both.......

They are found in this book .

Phoebe's big sister Esmae has requested a Magic Unicorn which I have started already.

I think my knitting needles are going to be red hot and busy, busy, busy with all these special requests !

Music Making

I have been spending lots of hours trying to make my fingers move faster on this piece. It is the Ibert Flute Concerto and our orchestra is hosting a Young Musicians Concerto Concert this Saturday night.

We have seven concertos to play and seven very talented young soloists. The Ibert is difficult but very exciting and you can hear the 1st movement here.

Along with Ibert, we are playing some Mozart, Beethoven, Telemann, Vivaldi, Haydn,

Saint Saens and Weber.

Read all about the programme for Saturday here.

I have been thinking about comfort food to get myself through all the rehearsals and today I have a big pot of vegetable soup simmering on the stove, and these just came out of the oven.

There are lots of recipes for flapjacks out there but this one from Yarnstorm works every time, and now I am going to take a break from "TOO many notes "and have a cup of tea and a flapjack.

A Ballerina Bunny

I had a little diversion this week and took time out from Tristan's Cobblestone Pullover to make this little rabbit.
She is going to amuse my grandchildren I am sure.
The pattern is in this book, which is full of delightful handknits for children, and I couldn't resist

the dancing bunnies.