Productivity

Today got off to a brilliant start with the arrival of Alison’s famous Mandarin Jam. Alison’s [quote] enthusiastic packaging material included some rather delightful items, which have come to a happy new home.

I was very surprised to find all of these little extras propping the marmalade up, all beautifully colour-coordinated and nestled in a kraft filing box. Alison so kindly included some Aunty Cookie ‘home sweet home’ fabric which I can’t wait to use!

We’ll be enjoying the jam, as instructed, on fresh sourdough, toasted, with organic French butter and a good cup of tea. I did have a sneak taste of it and it tastes so so so delicious.

Anknel and Burblets say they’ll be eating Alison’s jam for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

In other happenings I’ve been very productive having taken some time out from flickr. Millie’s bag is nearly finished. And to celebrate I’ve got out my Cath Strawberry fabric and am making some more bits for the one-day (as in it’ll happen one day) shop. Things are slowly piling up in the cupboard.

Speaking of the online shop. I built it last week. Then tore it down again as I really didn’t like Zen Cart. It reminded me of a late 90s content management system. Erk. So Little Orchard Shop is still a couple of weeks away yet.

The fabrics from Jen have all been neatly filed down the right hand side of my winebox. I have a bit of a thing for wineboxes and would use them for all my storage if I had enough of them.

I went to Global Fabrics again the other day to have a look at their linens and pick up a sample for Alison of So Tread Softly. The excellent news is they have branches in Wellington and Christchurch and the other, sort of, good news was they were having a bit of a large sale happening on merino and some of their cashmeres. I was not in the good books when I came home sporting this lot:

And here’s a close-up on that Donna Karan linen.

Astrid’s getting a new dress and trousers, as soon as I ever manage to sew them. The little scarf is from my favourite book Koharu no Fuku (in case I haven’t mentioned it often enough). I’ve made four so far – they’re lovely and quick to make, so are excellent gifts.

And here’s the bag I made from Simple Sewing with a French Twist. It’s the Rive Gauche carry-all. (Should you ever choose to use that pattern I would omit the slits and make sure you edge the bits the handles go through). This used the vintage tie fabric and bamboo handles from Salvage and the lovely green lining from Global Fabrics.

The new sites I am building are nearly done and now waiting for content. I had a bit of a buggeration with the logo I wanted to use and to cut a long story short I have to change it to avoid any potential copyright issues.

I’m really excited about them and just want to spend all my time going out and getting the stories. I have one, which I’ll be able to show you soon – which will then reveal the game plan.

The postman also very kindly delivered my photo prints from the UK last week and to celebrate that I’m having a bit of a give-away. And on that note I’ll go and write the give-away post.

Not forgetting of course the weekly Astrid photo just to catalogue her growing up. We like this photo because it captures the sense of ‘baby’ in Astrid. Linen bunny from Nature Baby.