Category: Making

  • Small things

    Following my dream the other night about running away to the Amazon to stop illegal logging I happened upon a rather relevant article in the Guardian. For Blog action day I just thought I’d let you know my little piece I do for the environment – and it is small but it does add up…

  • Some clothes for Astrid

    I’ve had a pile of Liberty fabrics slowly building up over the past few months. And because I know I’m going to be designing and building web sites solidly for the next few weeks I thought I’d better squeeze in some fun before work hits. And of course ensure Astrid will have some clothes for…

  • Happy birthday little blog

    Well this little blog is one year old today. It started over at Blogger and moved here at the end of May. My first ever comment was from Juju (yay – thanks Juju) and then four months later I got my next comment! Hooray for persistence eh 🙂 I met Juju in London when I…

  • Making the meadow (and vege plot)

    Friday; Dad rotary hoeing the lower lawn. Below; still hoeing – the grass is all cut. And we still have the nice big shady lawn above. Saturday we dug, and dug, and dug, and dug. And sifted up the grassy clumps, shook the soil from them and threw them in the (now huge) grass pile.…

  • Wall bags

    When I was at the Steiner school many many years ago one of the first things we made in handwork class was a wall bag. I have no idea what happened to mine. It was made from beige cotton drill and I had embroidered onto it a green caterpillar – made up of ten circles.…

  • I like purple and green

    One of my favourite colour combinations is purple and green. So I am happy indeed about all the cinnerarias in the garden. Regardless of whether I can spell them or not. I made some more 70s purple flower bags this week for shop orders. Big, lined calico shoppers. Yummy! And look… they match my divine…

  • Like the olden days

    I’m sure most of you have noticed my life has been quite full on these past few months. In fact, it’s been full on since last October when we bought a house and had to sell one in a matter of weeks. And then move. And then have a baby. And all the stuff that’s…

  • Little Orchard news

    Well, I was aiming to have the shop launched today. And I could if I felt like staying up till 2am. But I don’t do that anymore. And, I am always of the mind that to miss a deadline by only a day isn’t too bad really. There was a Harvard study that said things…

  • Ricotta. And grapefruit marmalade

    It’s been a poor year for our grapefruit tree. We’ve only had about ten fruit so far and I think only another six to go. But it wouldn’t be right if we didn’t make marmalade – so I did that yesterday. Not until I’d been out to the trusty Mitre 10 (equivalent of B&Q) in…

  • Kitchen improvements

    Last week our national ISP made some ‘improvements’ which meant I didn’t have email for a week. I also didn’t have internet access for three days. At first I was aghast, but then – oh joy – I had so much fun! One day I made curtains, which I’d already cut out a few weeks…

  • It’s winter and spring

    Astrid got a little friend before she went in to hospital – a little bunny for her patch in the garden. It’s a flowery ceramic bunny that Ande made for her. And when we all got back home from hospital there were loads of fresias blooming in the garden. So before the big rain today…

  • Wish us luck

    Photo from a shoot this week for indice. The past couple of weeks have been so packed full of things happening. Lovely NZ has taken off – especially Lovely Blogs and Lovely Shops – as I’d imagined. Whip Up did a post on it and everyone said they had a big spike in blog traffic.…