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 we went outside in our sandals and picked fresias and hellebores – both such typical flowers for their seasons; spring and winter. Ach the seasons are a changing. Trees in our street are blooming beautiful crimson blossoms alongside the pink rhododendrons.

I bought some old Agee preserving jars from the charity shop at the old homestead in Pt Chev for ten cents each. Gone are the days where I’d spend fifty dollars on a fancy vase – how my tastes have changed. Although I do still like expensive vases. A Lalique one would be quite nice.

Yvonne (Yvestown) got her swap yesterday – hooray! Here it all is laid out on the table the night I wrapped it all up. Half way through I ran out of my usual white tissue and I had to wrap the rest in whatever I could find. But it was all nicely tied up with my favourite yarn Louisa Harding Kimono Angora.

I did go to town a bit and apart from the Cath Kidston items I had a bit of a New Zealand theme going – including feijoa chocolate, the Edmonds Cook Book and the Crown Lynn book. I also sent her a piece of Crown Lynn (pink and green roses of course), a big bag of milk bottles and a zip pouch made from Zambesi silk velvet in antique green. The funny cube thing at the back left has a bell in it. It’s an object d’art for cats by Pussy Galore (um yep, that’s me) and was of course for Boo.

The funny story about the swap is that me being me I left a few bits till the last minute – like making the zip pouches and the merino scarf… and on the Saturday night my new sewing machine broke. Kevin was thanking his lucky stars I had out and out refused to sell my beautiful vintage machine when I bought the new one a few months ago because he would have been in pretty serious trouble then. Oh yes, he was right about that. Fur would have flown.

The reason I’d bought the new one was because I thought the old one had something wrong with it – but the problem was actually with me not threading the bobbin properly so I didn’t need to buy the new one at all. And the old one is actually much more solid and it’s so smooth and quiet. Oops!!

Astrid’s getting back to her old self – I am seriously looking forward to being able to wash her hair in two days time. Her scar has healed so amazingly well – it’ll be hidden very soon as they only shaved off a strip of her hair from ear to ear. She’s still a bit bruised and swollen but she’s very very happy again and back to her little smiley self. I won’t go into detail right now about the hospital. It’s something I don’t particularly wish to re-live.

One thing I would like to say though is if you are in hospital and they are going to do something you don’t think sounds right, question it. Question it again and don’t let them brush you off. We came far too close for my liking to Astrid being overloaded with blood (they gave her 300ml when it should have been 100ml) two days after the operation. And that could have been not very good at all.

Two things that made me happy while we were in hospital were the brown daisy CK duvet I made and Astrid’s crochet blanket. They transformed our little room and I felt almost at home. I created certain rituals about making up Astrid’s bottles; and keeping our room tidy and looking after young Astrid were my full time jobs. No homework was done at all :)

Yesterday we at last got around to ripping out the carpet in our living room. Man is it amazing the difference it’s made. And I am so sick of having old granny throws on our modern furniture to protect it from Plum I’ve just thrown caution to the wind and taken them off. I did make some chair covers out of CK blue pop print which makes our lovely Gelderland chairs look like bach (kiwi for beach house) chairs. I like it. And as you can see so do the cats – that’s Mr Rufus and little Oscar napping in the kitchen while we do all the work.

In a few weeks we’ll have the walls white and the room will be transformed. This is one half of the living room – the other half shall be revealed in due course…

Here’s a little sneak peek of some items being made for Little Orchard. I’ve set an opening date of September 21st. It’s going to be well stocked I tell you!

And here’s my new rimu chest which holds all my fabric and sewing stuff – I love it. And best of all it was only sixty dollars from the Sandringham Road junk shop. It’s in the other half of the living room which is currently my sewing space and Astrid’s play area. I think I’d get too lonely if I had to sew tucked away in a room on the other side of the house. And I quite like kids room decor so I’m surreptitiously spreading it throughout the house. Tomorrow I hang the rainbow butterfly mobile…

Alison will laugh to see Astrid’s toys in a wooden bowl. Yep, just like fruit and veg, we also like toys in bowls.

And that my friends is the diary of my past week and a bit. I hope you all have a fabulous and fruitful week.