Stones and Flowers

I love dressing the stones I find with their own little crochet covering, and then placing them in the garden amongst the flowers.

You can read about their beginnings here.

I choose my stone carefully, then take a cup of chai tea to sip, and sit outside to play hooky for a while.

The garden looks it's best in the Spring and I am finding a sweet surprise every day.

Amidst the pink

I have long been an admirer of the blog Resurrection Fern and I was surprised and delighted to read an article about the author in this magazine.
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Margaret Ooman shares three of her beautiful crochet patterns for the little stones,

and I thought I would have a go at making one myself, here it is sitting amidst the pink.

Still Life

Two more pincushions.........apple and pear.
The beginnings of another ripple blanket. A very soothing thing to do, stretched out on the window seat with an ipod and a hot chocolate.

Weekend

We spent a lovely afternoon here at Kaiteriteri on Saturday. Although it was crispy cold, the sun was shining and the cappuccinos were hot and delicious when we had them at this cafe. We had collected my Mum and her wheelchair from the rest home and drove out to catch the sun and give her a little bit of nostalgia for Mother's Day. This was a favorite place of hers when my Dad was alive, they came here a lot...Mum was a bit of a sun babe in her day.

I am still picking feijoas, and for those of you who aren't familiar with this fruit, here is the definition. I wish I could post a bag of them to all of you out there...they are very nice.

and we have limes too ! Not very many trees as yet, but hoping to plant a lime orchard next year.

I have been half heartedly looking for recipes for lime and lemon marmalade. Making marmalade is another one of those things that I "should' be doing instead of browsing through the internet looking at blogs like this one and sitting in the sun on the window seat procastinating big time with my crochet hook.

Thought I would show the Mother's Day gifts I received.....

this beautiful gardenia and the dear little flower that you can see has the most divine perfume. and the shocking pink cyclamen goes so well in my living room. Coordinates perfectly with the cushions.

Hoping your Mother's Day was equally pleasurable.

Crazy for crochet

I made a new friend yesterday,.......... a weaver ! Actually a master weaver living here in my town !!!! Very, very exciting and when I drove away from K's beautiful home yesterday, my head was full of ideas for a wealth of new projects on my loom that I would like to pursue.

We also shared another love...crochet, and discovered our equal admiration for this talented crocheter. Lucy's choice of colour in her sensational work always has me sighing with satisfaction whenever I read her blog. It is a sensory delight.

K has crocheted a number of beautiful cushions and I decided last night to put together the few squares that I have made recently. So I transformed an old cushion, by sewing the squares onto the cover.

The cushion on the left was a present from Melissa for my birthday last year, and this little corner is a favorite place of mine to sit and think, read, crochet, quilt

and dream.

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.

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.

A whisper

I heard some exciting news on New Years day.

We are going to have another grandchild, and as I was packing my bag for Auckland I hurriedly put in some wool and a crochet hook in case there was the odd hour that I could dream up a new baby blanket.

I started this square one night , but still wasn't sure if it was what I was wanting......

so the next night I started a ripple blanket,

and I am very pleased with the result. It is lovely and soft and will be just right for the little one coming in September.

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.

More, And Now

It is my birthday today and I am spending it doing all my favorite things.

More of this doodling, yes, I have found that others do it too, and there is even a book written about it, it is called doodle stitching.

Reading,

A favorite poem to share by Lauris Edmond

Wellington Letter

More and more she cries, at two years

old, and more again- more plums more

trees more nests and eggs ( and squawking

hens) more pips and melons dribbling

from more lips, more dancing on the roof

more night more day, sun splintering

through cracks of early morning doors,

more floors more bare feet curling on

their woody sheen, more arms and elbows

toes, and breasts, more white and smooth

more round and small, more slips of grassy tips and petal shine, more

gold and black and rosy, smell of feathers

warm,wet,more scrape of gravel, kiss

of dust, more soft sour sharp-sweet,

more shooting stars more midnights,

milk and apples, mountains, cats' meows

and mornings - more, she says. And now.

I do believe that even though I have turned fifty two today, I am still very much the two year old in this loved poem. The "smell of feathers" reminds me of a dear little blue budgie I had as a pet when I was a young girl. His name was Nickie, and he would perch on my finger and allow me to kiss him, and I would breathe in deeply the smell of his warm feathered little body. Delicious.

I have had some birthday surprises already in the post, look at this from Melissa

A beautiful cushion made by her own fair hands, wool felted and a really lovely linen backing.

And,

The most gorgeous belt ever seen in this hemisphere!

From Noa Noa in Norway, and it fits perfectly!

From myself, from purl .This arrived in my letterbox today ( perfect timing) and I have put the skeins in different rooms of the house to see if I can photograph the true colours..I can't.

This photo was taken in the bathroom and what looks like blue is a really deep inky purple.

They are for the Babette blanket I am making,

More to come in the next post.

A Friendly Tui

Look at this lovely little friend who decided to perch outside the kitchen window at lunchtime, he is perched on Arlo's little bike.

Clare ( Arlo and Keira's other grandmother ) comes on Friday mornings to help me with the garden and we both felt very privileged to see such a happy little fellow so close to us. He was probably a very inquisitive fledgling out and about on his big adventure.
You can hear a tui's song here.

This is Clare and Billie working in the garden. We have just received some much needed rain, and the plants soak up Clare's loving attention, as does Billie.

My first sewn up block on Babettes's blanket. Lots more to do though :-)

Queen of Diamonds

I have been busy over the last few days cutting diamonds from some "hot" fabrics that have been lingering about in my stash for far too long. Time to give them some action I thought. I intend to piece them together for a "Hot Diamond Quilt". The design and pattern is to be found in Kaffe's book "Kaleidoscope of Quilts".

I love these fabrics with their bright and bold flowers of zinnias, hollyhocks, geraniums, pansies and poppies, and the colours are delicious, but for the last couple of years they have languished in my fabric cupboard until the other day when these "real" flowers arrived and the inspiration for the quilt came too.

I have had a lot of fun cutting,and then running to the spare room to place on the bed. I haven't completely decided on the arrangement yet, and because most of the fabrics I had were fat quarters and I needed larger amounts to make a complete row of diamonds, I have had to play around with the colours to achieve the look I am after.

I made a start on Babette's Blanket ( see 2 posts ago), a very small start, but here it is:

This blanket requires well over a hundred squares of differing sizes and when it is finished it will look just like patchwork, which is very pleasing because as everyone in my family knows, I am slightly obsessed with patchwork. :)

Blanket love

I have been thinking about blankets, quilts, afghans, throws, shawls, pashminas,wraps, in fact anything that can be wrapped around a loved one, or to cover them in bed, or to wrap them up in warmth and comfort whilst having a sickie on the couch.

For me personally, I find this to be an ultimate expression of love for that other person. To make them them a shawl , afghan, wrap (any of the above) and to see it giving warmth and comfort brings such delight and satisfaction. Nurturing !

Talking about nurturing make me think about Joan ( Ian's Mum)

My mother-in-law didn't sew, knit, crochet, spin or do any of those handcrafts that other rural women , raising a family in the fifties, and sixties did.

She grew up being fostered by a relative who didn't make time to show her those skills. Instead she showed her love by enveloping everyone that came to her door with wonderful hospitality, and marvellous meals, and a sweet graciousness.

She was a wonderful teacher to me in the early days of my marriage. This cake was a firm favorite of ours when our men were out in the paddocks haymaking.

Pineapple Christmas Cake

1.5 kg mixed fruit

450g crushed pineapple

3 cups flour

1tsp.cinnamon and mixed spice

225g butter

1 cup sugar

1/2 tsp.each of vanilla, almond and lemon essence

6 large eggs

Place mixed fruit and pinapple in a large bowl and leave overnight in a warm place.

Mix spices with flour. Cream butter sugar and essences then beat in eggs one at a time, adding about two tbsps of spiced flour with each egg.Toss tog. the prepared fruit and the remaining spiced flour in a large bowl. Stir in creamed mixture. Put mixture into a paper lined 23 cm cake tin and bake at 150c for 1 1/2 hours then 130c for approx.2 hrs.

I am loving every minute spent making the ripple afghan and am already thinking about the next crocheted project..uuum yes another blanket. I might have a go at this one, the Babette Blanket in the Interweave Crochet mag 2006

Of course I should finish this woven blanket for Alexander , although as it is his birthday on 1st April, I still have plenty of time. It has been a little too hot to sit at my loom for very long.