birthday prepping

i've been prepping for Claud's 3rd birthday. it's 3 weeks away but hard up against christmas day, in the season of endless antenatal-buddy birthdays and christmas parties, i start early to avoid the possibility of stress. and cause i love every minute of making for her.

the taste of claudine's birthday is elderflower cordial-picked by claud and her "boys" (cousins) at the farm

she'll be getting a bunny rabbit

and a belle and boo themed garden tea party for her and her wee mates

with a big pink cake

and pinwheels!

my creative space

i did it!

my first post-washcloth knitting project completed. yahoo and phew in equal measure-i did a lot of unpicking! not perfect, but perfectly serviceable, not going to fall apart, and rather fetching. and now a gift for a northern hemispherer who has a seasonal need for them now. now for a baby blanket. something plain and in a pale grey, for a boy. i will decide on a pattern and start soon. i better start soon, (i'm 25 weeks already!), it's just that ravelry is soooo distracting...

its has been marvellous doing sitting down knitty craft, post my advent-swap-craft-marathon. my advent calendar is in the mail to Stella (i'm itchy to show you some of the things i made/thrifted come December openings) so now so i can catch my breath and vacuum the craft room before finishing up christmas present makings, and clauds birthday party makings, and Christchurch Bloggers secret santa swap makings, and...you get the picture. it's my last craft hurrah before probable craft-barren newborn-dom!

the good thing about learning to knit in spring/summer, is that by autumn/winter i could be awesome at it, ahem, and be able to knit endless chunky cable cowls (whilst carrying the boy in my gobsmackingly beautiful silk Sakura Bloom baby sling, won at Che and Fidel)  which are my major ravelry preoccupation at the moment. and Cat is sending me the pattern for this most gorgeous strawberry tea cosy she made. i do like the thought of knitting it in strawberry eating season, if it's not too complicated and unbeginnery.

it's my creative space. what's yours? do show and tell!

ruminating and gestating

happiness is a pile of library books. especially the latter two which were especially bought at my request by my local library. go you ace library! both are by exceptionally ace and intensely inspiring Australia bloggers (Rohan of Whole Larder Love, and Rhonda from the Down to Earth blog). especially when lots of them refer to raising chooks, necessary when your hubby is going to build you a chook house. YES! AT LAST! we have access to a range of chooks as the husbands uncle, Gavin Greenwood, is a champion breeder of all manner of birds, and so i'm enjoying researching the different breeds to decide which fancy-named, fancy-feathered egg popping fowls  we will have clucking round the garden come christmas.

but happiness is only a pile of library books when it is raining, for when it is fine happiness is my garden. i'm trying for an aubergine as my pet vegetable project this year (in the tunnel house). if it works then i may try a melon next year (we're a bit far south for either of these to be easily grown). i've raised everything from seed this year for the first time, and everything that did grow is now in-capsicums, cucumbers, tomato  courgettes, pumpkins, lettuce, coriander, endless seedlings of all sorts, so many they've filled out the beds and have spilled out into the shrubs and the flower beds. in fact the shasta daisies are coming out this very weekend in favour of a cranberry patch. the basil re-sowing is tomorrows project, i put them in wayyyy to early and nothing came of them.  the celery and red onions seeds have been a total fail, twice. i'm trying to decide whether to buy new seed (these were rare forays away from my ever reliable and largely organic Kings Seeds) and try again or just give up and buy seedlings. we've claud has had our first strawberries, but despite our best efforts to be early i don't think were going to get new potatoes, the pea-tee-pee or a tomato for christmas dinner, unless the soil warms and they have a massive growth spurt between now and then.

after 2 1/2 years in pots my buxus are finally, just, ready for a trim. still a long way (years) off from their final intended pyramidal shape, topiary really is the art of patience personified. its so hard keeping things in pots alive never mind flourishing in general, especially sans the seasonal gratification of something edible sprouting from it. this spring though, my improved nurturing skills-I seem to remember for a change that plants in pots need food and a drink now and then (it must be the preggy hormones) have seen them grown more more over 2 months than they had over the whole previous 2.something years...

the pregnancy hormones are perhaps also at the root of my current fascination with the history of things, with roots. for example i'm trying to identify the ancient apple tree in our garden, which the in-laws (farmer-gardeners) seems to think was probably planted contemporaneously with the house being built (1929). i'm hoping it's some heirloom type, mainly for a cool name, a peasgood nonsuch or a belle de booskoop. its probably just hedge-flung-core raised, which is a nice little mouthful itself! whichever, its clauds favourite climbing tree (she first climbed it aged 18 months believe it or not, i've never been so frightened in my life)  in case you know a thing or two about apple trees it produces a large knobbly cooking apple with a uniformly burgundy-red skin and yellowish flesh. at the same time as harbouring a deep desire to know it more, i couldn't tell you why i need to know. i. just. do.

i'm also uncommonly enthused with writing/researching a whakapapa (genealogy) chart for Claud. i've love the maori concept of genealogy, which traces each individual human being right down from space dust, through the 'earth mother and sky father', to the 'the rope of mankind' (te here tangata) that reminds us how were are all, every one of us, literally related. i'd like to represent this somehow pictorially on the chart, but i'm not sure how to without making it look like some twee scrapbooky thing so i'm just sitting on it, gestating it if you will, a bit longer.
in an interesting contrast whilst the Bennett's have a small library of books about their genealogy, i've read 4 so far, full of dates, places, deaths,  i have been unable to even find a birth or marriage record for my maternal grandfather, though i do have a heap of amusing stories about my whole hedge-flung-core raised disreputable lot! and when Terry gets swanky about being related to Mary Queens of Scots I can now say that technically i am too (and so are you!). one of the several things i liked about taking my husbands surname on marriage, as an Austen fan, was becoming a fellow Ms Bennett, so i was quite thrilled to discover the original spelling around was in fact Bennet a la the Bennet's. but i've yet to persuade the bloke of the merits of spelling it properly!

tree, family, and local history. we've discovered that our house was built on the site of the original Rangiora town square and that the builder was an ancestor of our excellent current mayor David Ayres. i'm itching to find a picture of the house (especially the apparently meticulously planned garden, which even now has a mature range of trees and shrubs which flower consecutively from earliest spring to early winter). i had no joy until i realised that the subdivision of the land and building of the neighbouring houses meant a shift in access to our property, so when the house was built in 1929 it was technically on a different street. so i shall be back to the museum this week for further sleuthing.

what's your favourite book-by-a-blogger? 

what would your book be about? 

mine would be about preggy hormones induced activities clearly! such as tree sniffing. i keep getting brief periods of intensified smell sensitivity, which rather than making me feel sick at everything is allowing me to discern the difference in smell between individual trees (even out of flower/fruit). it's amazing, like having a superpower for a few minutes here and there, you have to immediately dash off and do something good with it (sniff tress and marvel) before it wears off!

summery christmas gift tags

christmas gift tags with a summery vibe i made from rescued wrapping paper and the martha stewart snowflake punch i love so much.  i might have to go try to buy some of that paper if it's still around to make more or i may not part with these. i defo prefer the blue string (its op-shopped crochet cotton).

i've been otherwise busy creating the last present for my advent swap (i'm giddy with joy at how it turned out and can't wait to show you) and knitting-unpicking-knitting-unpicking-knitting-knitting-knitting... speaking of which i'm keen to make several pairs of those cool wrist warmers to go in my present stash, since it's such a good sitting-down-when-tired-and-preggy craft. the dove grey & mustard combo look ace, and i really want to make a violet & red pair, but it'd be great to have some more colour combo suggestions ideas since i'm on the verge of visiting a yarn store.

do you have a present stash? mine has multiples of things i made in it, and cool stuff i find in op shops but  that aren't me, and, ahem, a few re-gifts. it's only second to having children in the making me feel grown up stakes and i highly recommend it!



my very basic creative space and Ta-Dah! this week

christmas traditions-the boxing day walk

i started to read this book last night, a rare work of fiction for me, chosen because it's loosely based around Catherine Bailey's Black Diamonds, the non fiction book documenting the history of the Fitzwilliam family who lived in a huge country house close to where i grew up in the UK. that reading, and the gloomy weather today put me in mind of my Boxing Day walks, almost always taken in the grounds of that big country estate.

coming from a northern hemisphere family obsessed by christmas, as you can imagine we had quite a lot of traditional practices, both cultural (letters to father christmas burnt in the fire; pomegranates, mandarins and nuts-still-in-their-shell in your stocking, turkey and sprouts for dinner) and idiosyncratically familial (one present was always ‘forgotten’ and suddenly discovered when the excitement had worn off in the late afternoon and the bickering commenced. genius mother, genius). but one christmas tradition we didn't partake in as a family was the Boxing Day walk. mum had polio as an infant so long walks were impossible, but as a teen it was a nice way to escape the family and the suffocatingly overheated house for a few hours. and it's stuck.

invariably you don’t want to do it when you wake. for starters, in the northern version anyway, it’s freezing and bad-weather-induced-dark. you’re likely hung-over and in an over-fed malaise. the sales are on! you have new stuff to play with and there’s loads of stuff to watch on telly. 

but once you get gone it’s ‘effing marvellous  the perfect excuse for the weather (grey, sheeting rain) “it might snow!” and the moody bare-branched beauty of the season. the parade of bright new scarf, hat & gloves combos, the dogs where dogs are not normally allowed. the festive I-really-mean-it “hello, Merry Christmas” greetings and talks of dreams for the New Year. my preferred routine was to walk in the morning and walk up an appetite towards a gastro pub, for it was far too bleak in midwinter to walk anywhere truly remote. following another roast dinner (lunch) and a pint, a slower, yet merrier meander home proceeded before collapsing in front of the late afternoon/evening telly. Boxing day perfection to my mind and my heart. from my place it was usually somewhere in the Hope Valley, in the Peak District. at home-home (mums) it was always to Wentworth House, village and the George and Dragon mainly because I could get there on foot right from the front door and because we English like a country house, pubs and a tailored landscape.

my summer-loving kiwi husband was finally persuaded to have a winter christmas a couple of years ago, and so we took Claud-the-christmas-baby to celebrate her first birthday and her second christmas (just) with her extended English family. joyfully our visit coincided with the 'big freeze' of 2010, so as well as being snowed on whilst Christmas shopping in Brighton and London, they got to experience the ultimate boxing day walk-the white(ish) boxing day walk. snow on the ground, frozen over dams, robin redbreasts, mist, moles and old buildings. whilst I wouldn't call the sun-loving a husband a convert he does now, finally  ‘get’ the allure of a northern christmas.

and what of the southern hemisphere boxing day walk? well, it’s not a tradition here for one thing, and if you superimpose christmas on high summer it has rather a different feel, which only lately has come to feel good (dare I suggest better?!). the walk part is not the problem, everyone walks in New Zealand and there are beautiful walking paths everywhere. the issue for me in maintaining my tradition is the walk-to-a-good-pub part. here pubs tend to be on the main roads, walks in the countryside, and rarely does the twain meet. For several years we simply walked down the river bed, fished a little, paddled a little. nice but not quite enough boxing-day-walk atmostphere for me (excepting the year it rained all day, that was a good one!). last year we walked from Ashworth's beach to Leithfield beach and the historic pub there. But it was noisy with wind, and the sand walking was rather hard on toddler legs, and the pub rather too populated with gambling machines for my liking. 
this year, given I’ll be 33 weeks pregnant (and as the Pegasus Bay winery restaurant is closed on Boxing Day-sob!) the plan is to take the lovely, only 6 kms round trip, historic walk from the Governors Bay Jetty to Allendale and back, followed by lunch at the Governors Bay Hotel. With a little fishing thrown in (the newer, southern hemisphere part of the evolving ritual of our Boxing Day walk) whatever the weather i'm anticipating happy remembrance of Boxing Day walks past for us, and the creation of early, sunny, Boxing Day walk memories for our wee Claud.

      Unapologetically sharing, very early in the season (I have so many more to share, heh heh) over at this linky...

                                    if you'd care to share your christmas traditions,  here's the place

wheres my knit at?

i'm on the eve of my first real knitting project! weeks of knit, knit, argh, knit. knit, pearl, *hit, pearl. soon to be knit, knit, pearl, pearl, ahhh. please!. the practice runs are in use as face cloths, the best beauty product ever for someone who used to buy exfoliants before shifting to 8 dollar knitted-by-someone-else face cloths.
all the materials i've used, and indeed the wools i'm using for my first real knitting project have been op-shopped over recent weeks. i am hanging out for a knitting needle holder box thing though, so the needles don't pull at the lining on my boho reversible (op-shopped) knitting bag.  i'm rueing the one-that-got-away. wood, with a red folksy flower design that i spied, and carried around, but ultimately didn't purchase in my pre-learning to knit effort to not buy things i don't need just because they're cute restraint.
do you have a 'i can't believe i left it behind at the oppy' regret? it seems such a small negative of the proper desire to be choosy and not consumptive, but still. sigh. why?!
my you tube, library books, mother-in-law, and library craft group instructors mean this is proving a cheap hobby. but then i haven't been in an actual wool shop so far. heh. so yay to the providence that motivates and frequently strikes all op-shoppers that brought me double knit in mustard and dove grey-colours i favour and which look wonderful together. to my inspiration, all you amazing knitty orientated bloggers everywhere. and the knitted ballet slippers i was given for my birthday. and cover on that book. thank you. i know knitting gloves when we're on the cusp of summer seems a little silly, and i really ought to knit-for-the-baby, or finish some of those other on-the-go projects (further diy doll house furniture, braided rug no.2, further printed tea towels, christmas presents...) but I'm in the grip of another fad (my favourite place to be) and a likely arduous first project needs to be personally motivating.

and i'm sure i'll be even more motivated to watch myself knit if i paint my nails in pretty colours too.

wish me luck!

playing along at Our Creative Spaces

all about my blog header

with glee a year or so ago, lured by their striking cover design, I op-shopped these old New Zealand School Publications childrens books. the saturated off-primary colours, the doodles that could have been spiro-graphed, or etched by a kid with a compass point into the soft wood of a desktop bring to mind carnivals, fireworks, hollyhocks, snowflakes, the sun sizzling. good things. exciting things. that appeal hasn't wavered, they're still my favourite design ever. they were the first image that came to mind when Sophie offered to help me with my blog header picture a while back, but as the cover artist was not identified in these books i couldn't reference it. but this week i read Cover Up-the art of the book cover in New Zealand by Hamish Thompson,   followed up by 'A Nest of Singing Birds, 100 years of the New Zealand School Journal' by Gregory O'Brien and all was revealed.

Jill McDonald was a New Zealand architect and illustrator who created these designs in the mid 1960's whilst working as the head of the art department at NZ School Publications, before moving to Britain where she illustrated for Puffin childrens books and their book club Puffin Post. She passed away in the 80's. Now I know her name I've been hungrily hunting down all manner of her images online, and am especially overjoyed that  she drew some of the puffin book illustrations i remember loving in my childhood.


if you're in the mood to look at some more slightly retro/Angie Lewin style illustration I highly recommend the Fishink blog.


so, what's the story with your blog header image? 

and the title? blackbird has spoken is of course a line from the Cat Stevens song Morning has Broken. my favourite song at school assembly, constantly brought to mind by the family of blackbirds which inhabit my garden.

It's Retro Cook-Off Time!!!

dear Kylie of Lucy Violet Vintage and of Donna of Hung Up on Retro are the organisers of what i would vote linky-of-the-year were there such a thing. not content with rescuing and rehabilitating retro decor and clothing the duo have expanded their attention, towards the dusty abandoned cook book section of their local oppy, to inspire some retro culinary art (of the worst possible kind). 

and we were all invited to the party...

please help yourself...

what? you don't want a seaweed christmas tree cake?

or is it...silage? 

or...spinach tagliatelle?

i suspect my entry is rather tame. but still the disgust factor is there, the gross colour scheme is there.

here is the original inspiration

 via the bad & the ugly of retro food blog

as you can see it failed to put off the kid, a surefire giveaway it ain't seaweed, spinach or anything genuinely green...

erm, did anyone guess cornflakes dyed green shiny with golden syrup?

second helpings anyone?

you may be able to resist our christmas 'cake', but you won't be able to resist having a gander at the other entiries so click over to Lucy Violet Vintage to view and puke!