food for thought

I enjoyed this obituary for Alan Peters from The Economist

What mattered most to him was that a piece was simple and honest, that it worked, and that it was good enough to put his name to. If people called it art, all well and good; but his was the ethic of the craftsman.

I am a hopeless woodworker, but the article captures something of an ethic that I aspire to.  Go and read it.

the dragon’s tail

:: for swap victim Nettie,inspired by this, using this pattern and mirasol yarn

Sometimes swap projects are a bore, working to a deadline for someone I don’t know, wondering why I signed up in the first place, using colours I don’t like.  Not this one.  The colours and the stitch pattern were an enchanting pleasure, and I didn’t want it to end. I may just cast on another one, for me.

mojo rising?

My sewing mojo has been missing in action for some time.  Seems like I’m always too tired, too busy, not bothered enough.  Seems like I have too many clothes. Too many clothes and at the same time, not enough.  For instance I have only two skirts to wear to work in the summer time and one of them needs to be held up with pins.

Last weekend I coaxed the sewing mojo out, and gently convinced it that maybe we could work together and make something.  Nothing too hard.  Nothing too complex.  Just another skirt to augment the work wardrobe for summer.

I started here.  This dress was the first thing I bought after six months of wardrobe refashion.  It was fabulous, it’s a cool cotton-linen mix, and I wore it out to cocktails at Madam Fling Flong’s and felt well glam in it.

It shrank two inches vertically on the first wash.  I was no longer the cutest thing on King St, rather all of King St could see all of me every time I bent over.

So I chopped it off and made a skirt, for summer.  Keeping the big pockets (big enough for a night out without a handbag), pulling the side seams in, adding a zip and some belt loops.

It’s fitting that the first thing I bought after Wardrobe Refashion should end up refashioned itself.  As for the sewing mojo, it was exhausted afterwards, but in such a way that suggests it will replenish itself soon.

 

 

look away now if you don’t like babies

A few photos of actual babies modelling actual baby presents.

::Miss Harper in the monkey dress

:: Master Luca in his hat, ignoring his elephant

:: Master Josh in his jumper, not particularly interested in the bear

Thanks to their respective parents for the pics.

more baking

The craving for afternoon tea usually strikes me around 3:15pm. On a weekday, this means a quick trip to the cafe downstairs, or in emergencies, the vending machine.  On weekends, I’m always frustrated by the lack of afternoon tea delights in the house, and too lazy to walk to the shops.

On Saturday, and I don’t know why, I had pre-emptive thoughts of afternoon tea at around 2pm.  So I baked rhubarb cinnamon sugar muffins, which came out of the oven just in time to accompany a pot of earl grey tea, in the sun.

(If making them again, I’d add some vanilla, because the muffin is a little bland.  But they are still pretty tasty).