The Owl Club

seeing what's near

2012-01-27T20:00:00.000Z

I spend a lot of time wishing I could visit this place and that place. The blog world has given me a great image of Portland, Oregan (is it really craft heaven?) and I've always wanted to go to Japan. My recent visit to Austin, Texas reminded me what a cool city it is. But the truth is, I live in a pretty incredible place as it is.

Yesterday as I was popping out of work for some lunch, I suddenly noticed the market, whose striped awnings brighten up the aptly named Market Square on a daily basis.

As well as the inevitable touristy bits and bobs, here you can find locally-grown vegetables, home-made bread and cakes, vintage clothes, a dressmaker who'll fix hems etc., a second-hand book stall, and various crafty sellers offering ceramics, wooden toys, jewellery...

It struck me that if I were a visitor here I'd think this the most incredible market and wish I had something like that every day in my own town! As it is, I tend not to notice it until I need it. Taking some photos in true tourist style helped me see it anew. Sometimes it's good to be a tourist in your own city.

I was also struck by the number of men in hats and waxed jackets at this second-hand book stall!

On my way back to work I walked past one of my favourite local shops: ARK. They sell all kinds of pretty, homely, unusual bits and pieces (a good supply of vintage ribbon), and they have another outlet with vintage clothes.

Obviously the market is not the most beautiful thing about Cambridge and there are many other beautiful things (buildings, especially) that I walk past every day without fully appreciating them.

But this just happened to be what I saw at a particular moment, with some dramatic clouds and light, and it reminded me how lucky I am to live somewhere that has more on offer than chain stores.

patchwork love

2012-01-24T14:30:00.000Z

My mother came to stay this weekend and on Saturday evening she helped me to finish the patchwork quilt (not strictly a quilt, but I don't know what else to call it!) I have been making for my little 1 1/2 year-old boy.

I can't tell you how delighted I am to have finished this project at last! I started making it when the little one was just 4 months old. I've never made patchwork before. I didn't really know about the availability of tutorials and things on the web back then: I figured out how I was going to do it during the long wakeful nights with a baby.

It is made from 120 10cm squares of very diverse fabrics: some scraps I bought in Paris (when the little one was just months old, in the baby carrier), scraps of old sheets and curtains from my mum, vintage material bought on ebay and new Japanese fabrics I found on Etsy (the cute owls, the brown polka dots). The border is new cotton - I was looking for light turquoise but settled on this totally mis-matching green. The backing is made from a 1970s sheet I found on Etsy (more about that in this post).

I wanted a random pattern and one evening my husband helped me lay out the pieces to get that effect - easier said than done! I remember the baby was upstairs sleeping - a rare occurrence at the time, since he seemed to need our proximity to sleep - and we were rushing to get it done before his next awakening!

I put all the squares in order in numbered plastic bags to preserve the layout... and there they stayed. For a long time. For nearly a year. And then suddenly my baby was a toddler who would sleep in the evenings and I could sew. I was determined to finish this for his Christmas present, but I didn't quite manage it. I was nervous about stitching on the border and putting the 3 layers together. My mum helped guide me through this bit and here it is!

One of my favourite childhood books was The Patchwork Cat. It combines two of my lifelong loves: patchwork and cats, in a tale about a musty old quilt that got thrown out. But the cat loved that quilt and followed it on its journey to the rubbish dump (see more about the tale and more pictures here). I hope my little boy's quilt will be like that: an object that surpasses all its imperfections because it is loved. It was made with love.

And I'm delighted to say that the little one loves it! He has been playing a game of "ni'night" with it in the mornings and rolling himself up in it. I hope it will always be a comfort to him.

green-eyed owl

2012-01-23T10:55:00.001Z

In more owl-related news, I finally finished off my owl brooch, based on the tutorial from Andrea at Paper Sparrow.

I think it looks pretty with my new handmade green cowl from Beth of Deer Little Fawn, which was part of the fabulous prize I won in her recent giveaway (another lovely blog, full of sweet and pretty things, for you to get acquainted with!)

{I love Beth's cowl so much I've been wearing it non-stop all weekend!}

Back to the brooch: Andrea's tutorial was featured in the Autumn Blog Party at Laura's Blue-Eyed Night Owl blog.

{click here to see the tutorial: make your own!}

I was so delighted when I received Andrea's lovely parcel full of goodies I'd ordered plus a whole lot more besides. Included was one of the beautiful owl brooches she made for the blog party!

I love to wear it with this vintage jacket.

She also sent one to Laura (Blue Eyed Night Owl), which you can see in this post. I think I may make some more as presents now I've got the hang of it!

flour sack owl

2012-01-20T20:00:00.000Z

Remember the pretty flour sacks my dad gave me that I wrote about in this post? Well, one of them has become part of this lavender-filled owl I made for a dear friend of my dad's. So this material will be winging its way back over to Austin - I like that thought.

This little creature is made entirely from vintage or salvaged material: vintage scraps from Rag Rescue for the wings, some flannel and wools scraps from my treasure trove for the mask and beak, vintage buttons for the eyes and part of an old sheet of my mum's for the back and eyes. Even the twine for hanging it is recycled (it bound a bundle of fabric I bought).

I think he'll do a great job of perfuming a wardrobe and guarding against pesky moths. I'm grateful for the inspiration from Ashlie, who posted this great collection of owl tutorials on her blog!

think pink!

2012-01-19T20:00:00.000Z

There's no doubt about it: pink is a fabulous colour. It's just not possible (for me, anyway) to make a statement like that without thinking of the wonderfully over-the-top 'think pink' sequence from Funny Face (1957 musical starring Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire).

Kay Thompson is the domineering fashion editor confident in her power to influence what women wear. But it's really an excuse for an explosion of cinematic pink. Now didn't that just brighten up your January day?

So you can imagine how pleased I was when no fewer than TWO wonderful pink things arrived in the post. First of all this glorious spool of vintage rik-rak from Stacy Leigh's Atelier. I love rik-rak, I love vintage and I love pink, so I'm going to have fun with this!

Stacy took it off the lovely old spool to make shipping to the UK affordable. I love how she then tied it with a length of GIANT hot-pink rik-rak!

I was also very excited to receive my pack of isavirtue stationery (who also has a blog). I absolutely love Kaitlyn's designs, especially this series of flapper girls (this one is named Ramona) typing or telephoning. I also love the pretty stamps and hummingbird drawing on the envelope enclosing it.

Snail mail is very important to me. Although I love the immediacy of email, Facebook and Twitter, there is nothing quite like holding something you know someone else has held: a point of material contact. I can't wait to surprise a friend with a bright pink missive! My only regret is that I don't have a typewriter so I can't pretend I'm Ramona while I'm writing it!

crafters against SOPA

2012-01-19T08:55:00.001Z

I was reading up on SOPA and PIPA last night and from what I understand, if these bills are passed, there could be extremely negative consequences for websites such as blogger, Etsy, Flickr and Twitter, with all users effectively being punished for the bad actions of a few.

To find out more and to pick up the code for the button, see the Strumpet's Crumpets blog or just click the button below:

Let's keep the internet creative!

treasures

2012-01-17T09:54:00.001Z

In this post I shared some of the pretty vintage accessories given to me by a wonderful family friend who is in her 90s. Sadly, she has had to move out of her home and so has been giving away her belongings. When she heard I was learning to sew, she wanted to give me her stash of sewing things: fabric, scraps, unfinished projects.

What an incredible gift and opportunity! I was so touched. I couldn't keep it all so I went through it with my mum at Christmas: some things were so smart we gave them to a friend-of-a-friend who owns a vintage clothes shop and who we think can finish them and sell them - they were not my size and deserved a fancy future.

There are all kinds of fabrics and trims in the stash I kept: from cheap and cheerful to seriously chic; from ultra-patterned to plain and simple. I am so happy to have all these bits and bobs to use in creative ways in my sewing projects.

What struck me is that this lady saved everything, even the smallest scraps, even hems cut off the ends of trousers. I think it has been stressful for her as she has accumulated a lot of stuff, but at the same time it means a lot to me that she has passed on some of her collection. When I use these materials I will think of her and there will be a lot of love going into the things I make.

I have seen a lot of posts lately about the importance of de-cluttering, in the spirit of the new year. I agree that we have to choose wisely what we keep in our living spaces. It is essential not to let things become more important than people. If you've ever seen the show Hoarders (which I occasionally watch with a mixture of fascination and abject horror) it's clear that it's possible for the things/people balance to go terrifyingly awry!

{Eeeek! From the TV show not my home, I hasten to point out!!!}

But at the same time I believe in the importance of preserving and valuing precious things, and investing objects with meaning. This stops things being just throwaway objects of consumption and reminds us of the human labour that went into making them, as well as being material links to special people or moments.

These beautiful scraps of green and gold brocade were wrapped in newspaper dated 1946: a little reminder of the past - and some seriously hard times in post-war Europe - a past that my friend actually lived through as an adult. For me, these are tactile traces of the past.

Whenever I write about projects that have incorporated these treasures, I will link back to this post as a reminder of the history and special friendship embedded in the materials.

p.s. if you liked today's post you might also be interested in this old post about tasting memories in jam.

be open, be free

2012-01-15T13:23:00.002Z

I thought I'd share what I made for Romi, who won a custom collage badge in the giveaway over at Lo's blog Little Somethings. She asked for the large size badge and the phrase, 'be open, be free', and she said she loved nature (as you can tell from her sweet blog). I loved the phrase and the atmosphere this evoked, and found a cute deer in a vintage children's annual.

Although I showed this pretty bracelet already in this post, I thought I'd show it again, as I won it in the same group giveaway and it seems to have something of the same colours and atmosphere: leaf green, the freedom of nature and recycling (it's made from a vintage scarf). I think Lo of Printed Peaks makes really pretty jewellery, with a natural vibe that goes well with Romi's phrase. I'm so delighted to have won it!

Finally here is some lovely bunting by Romi, made from old pages from a children's novel. On her Etsy listing she says: "can you guess what it is? If you can and tell em in order conversations, you'll recieve a surprise gift in with your order! Clues- Published in 2011. Author's last name is Counstable. It's an Australian country book." I haven't worked it out, can you?

so how did it go?

2012-01-13T20:00:00.000Z

You may remember that I promised an update on my Careful Christmas Project this month. Although Christmas now seems a very long time ago already, I feel it's not too late to revisit the project, particularly as, thinking about the year ahead, I would like to continue the principles of homemade, handmade, re-used, and recycled that underpinned the project.

home-made and vintage gifts

I'm pleased to say that 75% of the 52 gifts I gave met the guidelines I set out for myself (some of them on several counts, such as being both recycled and homemade!) The 25% that didn't included a DVD for my mum that she asked for and I couldn't find second-hand, a few books, 2 presents for my nephew and niece that my husband bought (he saw this as "my thing") and a Camellia plant we gave our childminder. I don't feel too bad about most of these.

handmade gifts

1. FreshyFig zebra necklace
2. Posh Graffiti robin
3. Paper Sparrow pouch
4. Custom name t-shirt
5. Man's cowl by Under Reconstruction
6. Ordinary Mommy pregnant owl
7. Blue Eyed Night Owl bookmark
8. Paper Sparrow desk calendar
9. Montessori baby toys

As far as cards, wrapping paper and decorations go, I didn't buy any new gift wrap or decorations and only used a few new cards (Andrea from Paper Sparrow just happened to have given me some lovely ones!) So 99% success on that front!

I'm looking forward to doing even better next year, with more preparation and taking this year's experience into account.

I'm also looking forward to trying to incorporate more of this carefulness into my year-round living.

So how did you guys get on?

serene

2012-01-11T20:21:00.004Z

When I was little, my mum had these special playing cards that told fortunes. Time and again, I got the same card: 4 of Spades, I think it was, aka 'petty annoyances'.

Not the biggies, like Ace of Spades (death), just those everyday irritations that are part of life.

If my mum were to tell my fortune right now, you can be sure that card would turn up: stress and pressure at work, poorly toddler, bad night's sleep, having to cancel my mum's visit this weekend (sniff!) Sometimes life's trivial obstacles sure can get you down.

The thing is, I can be a bit of a stressy person, a worrier. There's a good deal of truth in the notion that it's not what life throws at you but how you handle it.

My traditional way is: eat a lot of chocolate, drink a lot of tea, get snappy with everyone and withdraw into my self-pity in melodramatic, martyr-like style. Not very pretty! It hurts my pride a little to write it out for all to see!

When my friend Ashlie mentioned the FlyTribe WordHop 2012, I initially wanted to pick "complete" i.e. finish all my projects! (You should check out her amazing choice of word, perseverance!) But I've since realised that the last thing I need at this moment in my life is to add pressure and set myself up for the failure of incompleteness. Instead I want to think about changing the way I react to and deal with situations. I'm hoping that ultimately this will help me achieve my goals, but more importantly it will help me stay calm and juggle all the different aspects of my life. So my word for 2012 is going to be:

It is interesting looking up the word in the Oxford English Dictionary. Serene is not just calm, it is also brightness, an illumination. In Shelley's poem Prince Athanase (1822) he writes: "Through which his soul, like Vespers' serene beam‥Shone, softly burning." As well as an adjective, it can also be a noun referring to the vast, unruffled sky.

Within the calm stillness of the word is a light that shines. I hope that in seeking to be serene, creative strength will shine through in everything I do: as a mother, a partner, a friend, a creative, a person.

food for thought

2012-01-09T20:00:00.000Z

One of the lovely things about staying with my dad is eating lots of delicious food. He and his wife are real foodies: they take their food seriously! Dad's wife takes photos of every special meal. All the photographs in this post were taken by her.

Today I want to give you an idea of how they cook and eat, and think about what inspiration normal people (with kids, crappy UK weather, less money, more laziness etc.!) might take from all the goodness.

watermelon radishes, with radish & cucumber

They grow their own vegetables and shop at farmers' markets. They take a lot of care of the aesthetics and presentation of food, like the pretty watermelon radish, above. My dad always, always makes his own bread.

steaming the baguettes

He makes bread almost every day. For us he made special French baguettes using an authentic recipe and lots of steam.

perfect home-made baguettes

They tasted so good!

barbecued beef fillet on new year's eve

They went to town on new year's eve, with beef fillet on the barbecue (soft, tender, smokey), romanesco cauliflower and a host of other tasty dishes. We were also treated to plenty of flavoursome wines.

making lasagna pasta

Dad also makes his own pasta. On Boxing Day, for our main Christmas supper (since we'd arrived from England on Christmas day) he made "Renaissance Lasagne", i.e. an Italian recipe from the 16th-century. He finds a lot of inspiration on the internet (the original recipe is here).

Renaissance lasagne in the making

But he always makes the recipes his own. He simplified this recipe and sent it to us (and you can download a .pdf file of it here). He omitted the tomato paste because the point is it has no tomato in it - the recipe comes from a time before tomatoes even came to Italy (they originated in South America fyi!)

another layer

The combination of spices and textures and flavours was unbelievably wonderful. Both my husband (who is pretty down-to-earth about food and loves a good junk food fix) and I felt we would never again feel satisfied with ordinary lasagne!

While I can't imagine ever taking food as seriously as my dad does (like taking a 4-hr round trip to buy meat or ordering special bread flour from France), I found it inspiring to enjoy food like this - not as a chore or something to feel guilty about but as a pleasure worth paying attention to. I've thought about it and these are the things I'd like to incorporate into my own life - not all the time, but as much as possible:

take care over how food looks: because a little bit of prettiness never hurt anyone, but mostly because it makes you look at it and notice it, rather than just mindlessly wolfing it down.
buy the best ingredients you can afford: because it's amazing how lovely healthy food is when it actually has some taste! I will definitely be making more of an effort to find quality ingredients.
DIY: because homemade almost always tastes better. Sure, we're mostly too busy to make Renaissance lasagne with hand-rolled pasta! But I have my bread-maker and only need to remember to throw in the ingredients at night to wake up to fresh-baked bread in the morning.
worry about flavours, not nutrition: contraversial, maybe, but I think worrying over nutrients and fat/sugar content (as I often do) takes the soul out of cooking and eating. I am starting to believe that the route to healthy eating is actually just enjoying a wide variety of food flavours, which naturally ensures you get the nutrition you need.

I'm not making resolutions this new year, but keeping these ideas in mind as I shop, cook and eat is going to be the closest I'll get to them!

what I found

2012-01-08T14:54:00.001Z

This is a sequel to yesterday's post about Uncommon Objects. I wanted to share my finds! I was delighted with this assortment of vintage feed sacks in bright colours.

I had always wanted to use some feed sacks in my sewing projects. I love the idea of them: in a nutshell, from the 1850s in the USA, the cheap availability of cotton combined with the invention of sewing machines that could make sturdy bags meant that cotton bags came to be used as goods containers instead of barrels.

Thrifty housewives re-used the bags in the home and colourful prints became a part of the product marketing. There's a great article about the history of feed sacks on the Etsy blog, here.

As you may know, I love the idea of re-using materials! I'd so much rather re-use something than buy new: I love the concepts of sustainability and creativity that this implies.

So imagine my delight when, showing my finds to my dad, he went to his cupboard: it just so happened that the specialised flour he buys for making bread (more on my dad and food in another post!) is still quaintly packaged in pretty printed cotton bags.

He and his wife had kept them as they were so charming, but had no idea what to do with them so were happy to pass them on to me (see photo above)! I will enjoy using these, knowing that they contribued to my dad's delicious bread.

And here is something else I found in the shop: a fabric bag with an adorable owl print (I'm guessing late 1980s/90s)! I had to have this... so roomy and useful and cute!

These were lovely things to buy with money dad gave me for Christmas. I'm happy as since these are all second-hand things, as a gift it is in keeping with my Careful Christmas Project - I'll be updating on how that went very soon!

uncommon objects

2012-01-07T21:58:00.001Z

We had been longing to revisit South Congress (aka SoCo) in Austin: a wide, wide street with a whole lot of awesome shops to explore. My particular favourite is called Uncommon Objects.

On South Congress there a lot of vintage boutiques and the famous cowboy boot store, Allen's Boots (some amazing creations there if you have about $700 to spare) but Uncommon Objects stands out as totally original.

Part junk shop, part antique shop, part ever-evolving art installation, it contains myriad marvellous things: some very old, some newer, all "pre-loved", all beautifully displayed in crowded, colour-coded arrangements. You could spend hours in there and still not see everything.

I didn't dare take many photos (or ask in case they said no, which was very silly of me, really, as they seem pretty cool - check out their mission statement).

I don't know if these three snaps can convey something of the slightly-overwhelming and inspiring atmosphere of the interior.

From furniture to feathers, chessboards to children's toys, postcards to pin-cushions... I love the sense of thousands of untold stories dwelling within these (un)common objects.

from an Austin garden

2012-01-02T18:58:00.000Z

Happy new year and greetings from Austin, Texas! I wanted to share these photographs, taken on the first day of 2012, of my dad's garden (they call it a "yard" out here). It is such a peaceful, beautiful place. While the little one was napping I went out beneath the warm winter sun to take photos in the hope of capturing something of the atmosphere...

The live oak leaves cover the ground; I love their colours. I sat on the swing bench and listened to the grackles squawking and the wind hushing through the palm leaves.

My dad and his wife have made a garden with a lot of local trees, grasses and plants, so it's green and lush but adapted to the dry climate.

I love their big old limestone slabs. The little one loves to jump across them.

Everything looks beautiful in the sunshine, right? It is doing me good to be here in the middle of winter and look up at a deep blue sky. This is the 3rd time I've been out here for new year (last time was 4 years ago) and I find it a very serene place to begin a year.

I love to look upwards from the swing. The leaves are very late on the Sycamore this year.

In the bright sun everything goes into shadow and light, and all the surfaces - stones, fences, benches - are warm.

Back at home in the UK, the Autumn leaves have long since been rained into mush. I love the way the dryness preserves them here.

And I love the way they get tangled up in the fronds of ferns and palms, shapes and colours contrasting.

And there are cacti, of course, like a little family or group of mini sculptures by the steps up to the main house.

I hope I can keep these colours, shapes and sounds with me when I get back home. I may need to call upon them on particularly dark, damp, cold days.

merry lone star Christmas!

2011-12-23T20:18:00.005Z

This year, we'll spend Christmas eve packing our suitcases. (Swimming things? Check. Baby monitor? Check. Camera and Flip? Check.)

{source}

On Christmas morning at about 5.30am, we'll be bundling our sleepy boy into the car and driving to the airport. We're flying to Dallas first (about 9hrs) then on to Austin, where my Dad lives.

We won't be opening our stockings on Christmas morning this year! In fact we already did that at my mum's last Sunday, with my brother and his family. (Mine included: embroidery scissors, bias binding, chocolate marzipan, tangerine.)

{Ty Wilkins: source}

I LOVE Austin. I can't wait to: exchange gifts with my Dad and his wife; see the Christmas lights on 37th St; visit Central Market; ride the train at Zilker Park; swim in my Dad's plunge pool; see my little one chase my Dad's chickens; eat my Dad's homemade bread; eat tacos at TacoXpress... (and I might do "mommy & me yoga" - that would be sooo Austin!)

Taco Xpress on S. Lamar

Wish us luck with the Christmas day travelling adventure! I hope to post the occasional update while we're away. In the meantime I wish everyone a very merry, joyful and delightfully happy Christmas!

{lights on 37th St: source}

green things make me happy

2011-12-21T15:59:00.000Z

It's raining, it's pouring, and I wish I'd have more time for snoring last night... the little one had me up from 4am and I'm feeling pretty cold and grey and grouchy. So it's time to turn to some things that make me smile...

learning how to grow an avocado thanks to Ashlie

sweet, pretty bracelet made from a vintage scarf, thanks to Lo of Printed Peaks

velvet-soft chai tea-scented handmade lip balm, thanks to Autumn Balm Botanicals

roses still flowering in my garden in late December, thanks to mother nature

lovely green rain artwork, thanks (again) to Ashlie

refreshing herbal tea thanks to Good Earth

big green-eyed owl planter who keeps me company at work, thanks to retrokitsch.

Thanks everyone, I feel much better!

iced spice biscuits

2011-12-19T20:00:00.000Z

I've been making these biscuits since I was a child (I think they'd be "cookies" in US terms). I usually make them at Christmas time. They are really easy to make, keep their shapes well, store well and are delicious too! This year I enlisted my toddler to help cut out the shapes. The ingredients list is so easy to remember:

250g (8oz) plain flour
125g (4 oz) butter
125g (4 oz) brown sugar
1 beaten egg
teaspoon each of: ground cinnamon, ground cloves, ground nutmeg (you could also add ginger)
pinch of salt
For the icing: 125g icing sugar, 1-2 tablespoons hot water

oven setting: 190C (175C fan) / 375F / gas mark 5

grease a couple of baking trays before getting started; cream together the butter and sugar with a wooden spoon. I tried doing this with an electric beater this year but frankly thought it didn't help much! Beat in the egg a little at a time.

Sift in the flour, salt and spices. Actually I never bother sifting my flour, I must say.

Mix everything together into a ball of firm dough. It feels as though there is not enough liquid and it will never combine - just keep going, it will! Sprinkle flour onto a table and a rolling pin, then roll the dough to about 1/2cm (1/4inch) thickness. Cut out the shapes and gather up any leftover dough to re-roll and cut out. This dough withstands repeated rolling out very well - making it perfect for cooking with children!

Put the biscuits on the trays and bake them on a high oven shelf. I prefer to bake them in several batches as I find it gives me more control. Although my original recipe states 15min cooking time, I find that with my electric fan oven it takes 10min at most, so just keep checking the first batch to work out what's right for your oven. they are ready when golden brown all round the edges.

Put the biscuits on a wire rack to cool. Mix the icing sugar and hot water together, being really carefully not to add too much hot water. Then spoon the icing onto the biscuits and spread it out with the back of your spoon. Gloop! If I had little silver decorative balls, I'd probably add some at this point. Sometimes I like to leave some un-iced as they are also yummy plain.

Leave to cool and set, then put into airtight boxes and leave over night to let the icing harden. Then they are ready to give away... or just eat! I don't know how long they keep for as they tend to go quickly... but I know they're fine for at least 4 days in an airtight tin. Probably a week would be fine!

sloe gin

2011-12-16T20:30:00.000Z

How do you describe a taste? This is a question my friend Ashlie had me thinking about recently (visit her blog if you're in the mood for some inspiration!) If I had to describe the taste of sloe gin, I'd say: it starts off fresh as a frosty morning, with a pink, fruity tang, then grows into a sweet, warm and cosy feeling that spreads through your body.

Hmmm, that kind of makes me sound like an alcoholic. I'm not, I promise - far from it! But I do love sloe gin. One sip is all you need really, and it's the perfect tipple for snowy winter evenings by the fire.

I should really be posting this in the Autumn, which is the time for gathering your sloes from the hedgerows, steeping them in gin and sugar and then pouring them into pretty bottles in time for Christmas. But the truth is I made this 2 years ago, in 2009, and there it sat in a cupboard with the sloes still huddling at the bottom of the old bottle and jar I used, until now!

Last night I finally poured it into pretty bottles to give away, and had a little taste myself (seriously scrumptious - perhaps I should always leave it a couple of years to mature?!) It was just what I needed as a homemade present to give to our lovely neighbours - with whom we picked the sloes one day when we went to walk their dogs with them!

Here's the recipe (to stow away for next Autumn), taken verbatim - becuase I love his style - from Richard Mabey's wonderful book, with which I am occasionally a little obsessed, Food for Free:

"The best time to pick sloes is immediately after the first frost, when the skins have softened and 'bletted' and have become more permeable. Sloe gin made at this time will, providentially, just be ready in time for Christmas.

Pick about 500g (1lb) of the marble-sized berries (do use a glove as the spines are stiff and sharp). If they have not been through a first frost, pierce the skin of each with a skewer, to help the gin and juices mingle more easily.

Mix the sloes with half their weight of sugar, and then half fill the bottles with this mixture. Pour gin into the bottles until they are nearly full, and seal tightly. Store for at least two months, and shake occasionally to help dissolve and disperse the sugar. The result is a brilliant, deep pink liqueur, sour-sweet and refreshing"

I'm wondering: are sloes (also known as Blackthorn) a British thing?

once upon a time...

2011-12-15T20:00:00.000Z

I found these vintage children's books in a wonderful local bookshop called The Haunted Bookshop. I can't help but be charmed by the old-fashioned illustrations and quaint language ("chums"). It makes me feel nostalgic, but not for my own childhood: these are the books my parents' generation read as children. I love the sense that leafing through them connects me with another age.

I have decided to give some as Christmas presents to my nephew and niece, friends' children, and my son, in the hope that they too will find pleasure in peeking into childhoods of yesteryear. And some things don't change: naughty kittens and other cute animals, teddies, magic, friendship, and trains - all topics still adored by little ones.

I remember my mum telling me about Bill and Ben, the Flowerpot Men. I love that in this story they discover a Bush Baby!

My toddler is obsessed with trains and will love the story of Andy Pandy's train ride into the countryside. He'll also enjoy pointing out the teddy and shouting "nounou"! ("nounours" is French for teddy).

Of course, giving these books a new lease of life in the hands of the next generation is also about avoiding buying new things this Christmas, as part of my Careful Christmas Project (which is going pretty well, by the way!)

make some mini cakes!

2011-12-13T17:06:00.000Z

butternut squash mini cakes

I made these for a festive gathering with friends on Sunday. They are perfect for taking to parties, and so quick to make that they are great for last-minuters/folks with small children etc. You can play around with the ingredients: try grated courgette with fresh mint and parmesan!

If you don't have little silicone mini-cake molds you can use muffin cases (it is basically a muffin recipe, really). I always have too much mixture for my 6 mini cake cases so end up making some muffin-shaped ones as well.

Ingredients

1/2 butternut squash, cooked & diced (roasted in a little oil or butter until soft)
100g lardons or chopped bacon (optional - veggies can just leave out or replace with goat's cheese)
75g grated mature cheddar cheese (or gruyère, or other flavoursome hard cheese)
handful of finely chopped fresh parsley (or frozen)
70ml milk
70ml olive oil
125g plain flour
2 eggs
1tsp baking powder
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
salt & pepper, to taste
handful of sunflower seeds

Method

- pre-heat oven to 200C (170C fan) / 400F / gas mark 6
- lightly beat the eggs, oil and milk in a large bowl
- very gently add the squash, grated cheese, lardons (if using), and parsley;
- season (I skip salt if using lardons/bacon) & very gently mix in the flour, baking powder and bicarb (a good idea to mix these together in another bowl first);
- be careful not to stir too much - keep the mixture nice and lumpy so it rises well.
- transfer to cases and sprinkle sunflower seeds (or pumpkin seeds) over the top. Try to do this quite quickly so that the baking powder can hit that hot oven while it's at its peak!
- cook for 20 minutes, or until they are nice and golden
- leave to cool on a rack before turning out of cases
- TIP: cut into slices they make pretty canapés!

I hope this gives you some recipe inspiration: I'm linking it up with Polkadot Pretties today!

I heart lavender (and my mum)

2011-12-09T10:40:00.001Z

Lately in the evenings I have been making lavender hearts as Christmas presents. It's a lovely relaxing evening activity, immersed in the powdery perfume of lavender and the resiny fragrance of the Christmas tree and surrounded by pretty scraps of fabric and ribbon.

When I came across this book, I loved the idea of using vintage embroidered linen to make lavender bags. I have become a little obsessed with scouring eBay for pretty pieces. I'm going to have to make some miniature versions too because some of my linen scraps are too small for this template.

Lavender bags are very special things for me, because I remember my mother making them when I was a child. My little brother was in a choir that was going on a concert trip to Rome. My mum made batches of fudge and piles of sweet little lavender bags bordered with lace and we took them door to door on a big tray, selling them to make money for his trip! I was fascinated by the process and the pretty fabrics. (One day I'll try out her fudge recipe too).

I loved using vintage materials to make these (I used scraps of new cotton for the backing). I realise that a lot of my spools of thread are in fact 'vintage' because my mum passed on her big stash to me - a wonderful gift!

I have a stock of vintage ribbon that I bought from a local shop. I also like to re-use the ribbons that come inside new dresses to keep them on the hanger in the shop! (Hey Laura from Blue Eyed Night Owl - I love that you do this too!)

See, it looks so pretty as a little bow on the lavender heart I made for my friend! Hoarding things, and the little thrill I get whenever I feel I've got something "for free" is another thing I've inherited from my mum!

What has your mother passed on to you?

tree stories

2011-12-07T15:02:00.000Z

I love getting out the Christmas decorations and putting up the tree - who doesn't? I especially love the way each object holds a story or memory, and the way each year something new is added to the collection.

I bought this gorgeous golden owl (along with some hearts) a few years ago from Posh Graffiti, which is an amazing, British, ethical company sourcing handmade letters and decorations fair-trade from Bali, using sustainable timber (more about their ethics here). I bought it for our first Christmas in our own home.

This funny little fellow was a present from an owl-loving friend many years ago. I kept it for years, waiting to have a place where I could put up a tree.

This pretty blue sparrow is a new addition - a handmade present from sweet Andrea of Paper Sparrow! It arrived in the gorgeous package I mentioned in this post.

This little horse is very special as he is older than I am! He was always on our Christmas tree at home throughout my childhood and my mum passed him on to me. He has a little green friend too, just seen in the photo below.

Behind the owl you can see a home-made decoration, 'noël'. About 3 years ago my husband and I decided to make felt decorations. Neither of us knew how to sew so we just winged it! We had a lot of fun. I still really love all the things we made then, even though I can see everything I did wrong! My husband made the black moon and yellow star just seen in the photo below.

This elaborate green kitty comes from Singapore. We bought him in the airport there while we wandered round in a daze on our long journey back from Australia in 2009. He reminds me of an amazing trip and I reminds me that I've set foot in Singapore, even though we never left the airport.

book review: Owl

2011-12-06T19:00:00.000Z

So, I'm finally getting round to reviewing the book I first mentioned in this post. It took me quite a while to read it (in the meantime I read some other things too), which already tells you something about the book: it's definitely more of an informative read than a gripping page-turner!

northern spotted owl, p.145

However I enjoyed it and would definitely recommend it to owl lovers. Not only is it full of intriguing facts and stories about owls, it also has plenty of lovely colour illustrations of owls, from cave drawings to tribal appliqué.

Wounaan Indian cloth appliqué molita, p.104

Desmond Morris (whose books about human behaviour I was fascinated by as a child) writes in a chatty, lighthearted and straightforward style that is easy to read. He also has occasional bouts of dry humour, which sometimes works and sometimes falls a little flat.

He seems keen to defend owls both from ardent fans (who imagine them to be wise when in fact they are such good hunters that they haven't evolved to be particularly clever) and fearful detractors (who superstitiously associate them with darkness and evil). What is amazing is that both these extreme reactions to owls appear to have existed since the earliest civilisations.

Owl, Skull & Candle, anonymous Dutch or German painting from 17th Century, p.43

Morris clearly admires owls, however, and wants the reader to love them as he does: simply as magnificent birds and expert predators, without the burden of symbolism and myth that seem always to have flourished along with humans' fascination with owls.

He is not interested in owls as 'cute' and does not deign to say much about the proliferation of cute owl designs in conetmporary culture (he looks briefly at owls as sports club emblems etc.)

He does include a very sweet child's drawing of an owl, to show how children, as in some early/tribal images of owls, will often draw the wings around the front so that they are visible (which is also true of a lot of cute owl designs).

'Wise owl, Sad owl, Angry owl' by Matilda, age 10, 2008 (p.8)

Although I was fascinated by the cave engravings (there is a 30,000 year-old great-horned owl etched into a cave in France!) I think my favourite chapter was probably 'Owls and Artists' - I loved reading about Picasso's owl, and how he was "well-aware of the fact that his own face had an owl-like quality"!

{source}

cosy cat

2011-12-06T10:43:00.001Z

As a little p.s. to yesterday's post, I couldn't resist sharing these photos of Fafi, our cat, snuggling up on the bed with the cat hand-warmer, playing with my camera's wrist-loop, and giving me a rather withering glare as I took yet another photo of her...

warm hands, smiling cat

2011-12-05T11:56:00.001Z

The lovely Claire from Polkadot Pretties is having a 'craft, create and inspire' link-up on her delightful blog, and I thought I'd join in! (It just so happens that I have won something lovely and crafty and inspiring from Claire recently, which is very exciting - more on that soon!!!)

Click the button for some inspiration!

As you may know, I'm trying to make a lot of Christmas presents this year (find out more about my Careful Christmas project). It has been a lot of fun trying to find unusual, appealing presents for people that I can make with my limited time and skills!

This is a Cheshire cat hand-warmer. It is a project taken from Everything Alice, a book I discovered here and absolutely could not resist! It is full of whimsical Alice-inspired projects, from wonderland cookies to mad hatter hats! It is so gorgeous to look at and is full of inspiration. Although it has a summery feel, there are a number of projects that could make lovely Christmas gifts.

the original cats from the book

The cats are filled with dry, uncooked rice and a few lavender heads. You just pop them in the microwave for a couple of minutes and then hold the snuggly, smiling kitty in your hands to keep them warm on wintry nights! (Also our cat likes to snuggle up to the warmth too - cute photo coming soon!) The backs are made from 2 layers of soft jersey.

My husband pointed out that the noses of the original cats are upside-down, which may be an intentionally quirky choice, but I decided to have mine right-way-up. Mine isn't quite as Cheshire-cat smiley... I'll try for an even bigger smile with the next one I make!

Of course cats are just one possibility - I think a cute, cosy owl would be nice too, don't you?

arrivals

2011-12-01T11:43:00.001Z

Wouldn't you just love to receive a parcel with this drawing on the front? Well, I did! I ordered some goodies from lovely Laura, aka Blue Eyed Night Owl, which arrived a couple of weeks ago, beautifully packaged.

I love the attention to detail in her packaging, with pretty wrapping, a sweet note and cute stickers.

It was such a nice idea to put (very pretty!) post-its on the two bookmarks I ordered as gifts, so I knew which was which without having to open them.

This is the barn owl brooch I ordered as a present for... myself! I love the detail of the stitching and the sweet heart-shaped face.

This little cutie-pie arrived as a little extra and now lives on my mantelpiece. I'm a sucker for a teeny tiny owl!

I received another wonderful parcel recently, this time from amazing Andrea, of Paper Sparrow. This hasty photo does not do justice (not even the tiniest bit) to the excitement of opening this package, which was full of lovely things I'd ordered and quite a few extra surprises! Another beautiful barn owl appeared: I like to wear the two together. It felt like Christmas had arrived early. More on this later.

Finally, I received these delicious green tea sweets from the Japan Centre online shop. They are definitely my new favourite sweet treat, made with sugar and maccha green tea powder and not much else. They taste so... green! There is something very calming about them and they're not too moreish, which is perfect for me ;)

Bou!

2011-11-29T10:12:00.001Z

Meet 'Bou', a little owl I made last night. He crinkles - babies like that. I had been planning to make zip pouches, but realised that I had the wrong kind of zipper foot for my machine. I remembered this great video tutorial I'd seen a few days ago (see below) and it was such a simple, easy idea I thought I'd give it a try.

I love the fact that it's so easy to find great, simple ideas on the internet. I didn't need to watch the whole tutorial or watch it again it to make this because it gives you an idea for making something very cute with very simple techniques.

Bou is made from a mix of recycled and new materials, including an old jersey dress of mine for the back (nice and snuggly but a bit hard to sew) and reused ribbons from gifts for the feet and tummy. I also used the wrapping from a packet of delicious chocolate biscuits we finished last night to make the crinkle texture. I love not having to throw something away!

giveaway over at Little Somethings

2011-11-28T16:23:00.001Z

Lovely Lo of Little Somethings (don't you love all those 'L's'?) is holding a group giveaway with some sweet things donated by her readers... including me!

I've been enjoying following Lo's blog for a little while now, especially her inspiring Green DIY project. I am looking forward to making this cosy snood with some of my worn-out sweaters:

{link}

Lo is also the talent behind Printed Peaks - a shop where you can find pretty geometric necklaces, each one unique and handmade.

There will be six winners in the giveaway, one for each prize... which means I get to enter it too, yay! And here's what you can win from me:

process

2011-11-25T13:16:00.000Z

I drafted this post a while ago, and was waiting before posting it so that the recipient of the object it features (Desi, my giveaway winner) would receive it beforehand and the surprise wouldn't be spoiled.

Unfortunately the parcel never reached it's destination, which is very sad because there were a number of one-off items in it and it can't be reproduced. Desi has a lovely attitude and invited me to imagine someone else enjoying the contents. (Of course I'm going to send off another little parcel, however...!) And I'm glad that there is at least a photo of one of the gifts she should have received...

***

I thought I'd share something about my process for making personalised collage badges (pinback buttons). I recently had the opportunity to make one for Desi who won it in my giveaway last month. I love working to a brief. She asked for the word ART on the badge, with the colours blue and yellow.

The first thing I do is get out all my magazines (vintage and contemporary) and bits and pieces of paper ephemera for inspiration. I wanted there to be art "hidden" in the design of this badge as well as more obviously in the text. I found this gorgeous glowing blue in a magazine image of a painting by Leonardo da Vinci - perfect for the background. So I got out my circle cutter.

I knew this old Vermeer calendar would have some lovely yellows. I thought I'd use some painted yellow as a background for the text.

This curtain, radiant with the light coming through the window looked ideal. For cutting I use small sewing scissors which I only use for paper.

I decided to decorate the badge with a flower from some of my Japanese chiyogami paper. I aim only to use recycled paper in these badges but sometimes new materials just seem to work (I love everything Japanese as you may have noticed by now!) I also might use a printed digital image if there's a specific requirement that can't be found easily.

Once I've laid out the pieces I need to check it all fits within the cutting guidelines. The middle circle is the size of the final badge.

Then I get to work on the text. I like to cut out different coloured and shaped letters, a bit like in those anonymous letters you see in cheesy murder mysteries! I really like the poster-like, collaged effect it gives.

I love to use vintage magazines and newspapers with their pretty, old-fashioned typefaces (I like to use the images too). I sometimes get distracted by the content...

Check out this ad for soap: a women's role was so well-defined back in the 1950s! The pathway was all mapped out: a women went from her parents to her husband and then her job was to look after him and the home. I love the fact that women can choose other options (as well) these days. But I reckon we'll look back on ads of today and realise they were often quite oppressive to women too...

The hardest thing is finding letters that go together in terms of size, shape and colour. I am very particular about this. It can take a long time to find the perfect letters, with a combination of white and coloured backgrounds, the right combination of fonts, the right size and angle... I lay them out to check how they'll look. This badge wasn't too hard as there were only 3 letters.

Then it's time to glue it all down! I love this glue because it dries clear and is nice and clean to use. I was using quite large shapes for this piece but when I have small shapes I sometimes need to use tweezers to position them.

Ah, my lovely badge-making machine! It was a birthday present from my dad a few years ago. It's seen a LOT of use already! Almost everyone I know has one of my badges ;)

And voilà, the finished product! What a shame that Desi may never receive it. Inspired by her attitude, however, I will imagine that wherever the parcel ended-up, somebody, somewhere may be carrying ART around with them.

ribbons & bows

2011-11-24T14:39:00.001Z

I'm a little bit obsessed with bows at the moment. I'm starting to think about wrapping presents for the holidays and have been looking out for vintage ribbon. I'm also thinking about making fabric bows. I love this giant bow t-shirt tutorial, such a cute idea:

sweetheart bow t-shirt tutorial by I Still Love You

And I couldn't resist browsing Etsy and making a treasury full of ice-blue and frosty white ribbons and bows, perfect for winter gifts.

Don't most things look better with a bow on them? They can be sharp and sexy...

Marlene Dietrich {source}

...or cute and kitsch...

kawaii nail art

...or fun and quirky...

brilliant bow tutorial by Beth Wilson

I didn't think they could be dangerous, but you never know...

amidarose on Flickr

For me, they are an absolute must on presents, and must always be recycled carefully and saved for craft projects or to wrap another present.

flyhoof on Flickr

Using recycled materials can make fabulous ribbons for wrapping.

andymangold on Flickr

And sometimes the simplest length of string is all it takes to make a perfect bow.

cocoknits blog

So, what are your favourite tips for wrapping with ribbons? Do you have any favourite bow tutorials? And what do you do with the ribbons once you've unwrapped the gift?

au revoir, à bientôt!

2011-11-18T22:21:00.001Z

I'm off to France for a few days to visit the French family. We'll be going here:

Biarritz beach

and here:

Montgaillard

and here:

Jardin Massey, Tarbes

And my little one will get to hang out with his French grandpa. Have a lovely weekend and see you next week!

owls at home

2011-11-17T15:50:00.001Z

A quick visual tour of some of the lovely owls around our house and where they come from...

wearing my wonderful new barn owl brooch from Blue Eyed Night Owl

owl print by Sinta - a gift from my lovely man in 2009

Ollie the Owl by Ivory Clouds

a vintage perfume bottle holder - a present from the lovely lady I wrote about in this post

I love the name of the perfume and the vintage label. It doesn't smell so pretty these days however!

image from my son's adorable bedtime book, "Bonne Nuit"

A musical owl (it plays "twinkle, twinkle little star") I bought for my son in Toronto, when I was pregnant. I used to play it to my belly each night. Twinkle twinkle little star was the first song I sung to my son when he was born and I could swear he recognised it!

more fun with circles

2011-11-16T15:10:00.001Z

Lately I've been making some little brooches from circles of fabric. It's a neat way to use up little scraps leftover from other projects.

They were inspired by this brooch, shown below, which came with a Noa Noa cardigan and which I wear all the time. I was looking at it and realised how easy it would be to make one myself.

original Noa Noa brooch

The photo below shows my first attempt: red felt, with a mix of vintage and new fabric, sequins and a bead. I used two circles of felt, to hide the stitching at the back, and put some stuffing in the middle to give it some volume.

My next attempt was the green one shown in the first photo. But my favourite is my third attempt, shown below, with 2 circles of vintage fabric, a little pearly star button and a sequin. I'm so happy with how it came out that I'm going to give it to a friend for her birthday (I'll be making more for Christmas gifts too).

I think they'd be even lovelier made with real-wool felt, but I have plenty of felt stocks and for me it's important to use what I already have. In time they will get all lovely and frayed and crazy like the one I based them on!

circle collage

2011-11-14T12:36:00.001Z

my circle collage

Yay, I completed another thing on my creative to-do list! (I have to say that I've also added in other projects, so even though I'm being slow, it's not quite as slow as it seems).

This circle collage was inspired by Karena of Magic Jelly (check out her wonderful Flickr set). I loved the two beautiful collages she posted so much I wanted to try it out for myself.

Collage by Karena of Magic Jelly

Like Karena, I also wanted to use scraps of ephemera and recycled paper. However I found I had to spend quite a bit of time choosing material and rearranging the composition (which went against her idea of the 'speedy collage'). It was a little like playing Sudoku - I wanted all the blocks and lines to have a visual logic to them.

My circles also have a concept running through them: travel. Here are some of the sources (if you click on the image you can have a closer look):

a globe from a Vermeer painting (from an old calendar); a boat seen in the sunset on the Thames (from a 1950s magazine); decorative motifs from Indian paintings (another calendar); an excerpt from Coleridge's poem, 'The Ancient Mariner' (a loose page from an old book); an envelope from Paris; a piece of old, 1940s map; scraps of Japanese chiyogami paper; a poster for 'Les Amants de Venise' from an 1950s newspaper; images of rusty surfaces and logs from a catalogue.

It was a lovely project to do. Thanks for the inspiration Karena!

my doll buttons are tired of waiting

2011-11-11T11:22:00.001Z

Some time ago my lovely man gave me these sweet fabric-covered matryoshka-style buttons as a present (he found them on Etsy but I don't know where: if you recognise them as yours please let me know!) They are so sweet, with their little fringes, pink cheeks and red headscarves. But they are still in their packet, waiting to be used!

As I'm feeling a bit busy and tired and have a lot of craft projects on the go at once at the moment, I thought I would reach out to all you creative bloggers out there and ask for your ideas for what I should do with them. They are waiting patiently for me to bring their colourful cuteness to life!

As you may know from this post, I love matryoshka. I've noticed that recently Russian dolls have become a popular motif for decorating just about everything. I'm not surprised, as they are simple, striking and colourful, so they make great designs. Here are some of the sweetest non-nesting matryoshkas I've found:

woolly egg doll from Asher Jasper

felt matryoshka bookmark from Blue Eyed Night Owl (I'm giving this as a Christmas present to a friend who has an incredible matryoshka doll collection)

felt brooch from Memi the Rainbow

{source}

matryoshka headphones {source}

cookies! {source}

handpainted shoes by PonyChopsShop

handmade card by ChristyCards

A little tour of the myriad matryoshka manifestations on the web has certainly got me thinking about ways of incorporating the motif in my own projects. How about you, do you love Russian doll designs (like I do) or have you had enough? And what about my buttons, any ideas? Thanks for your creative thoughts!

busy hands

2011-11-09T15:28:00.001Z

My mum visited recently and we went to a wonderful exhibition at the Fitzwilliam museum in Cambridge: Vermeer's Women: Secrets and Silence. It was centred around Vermeer's famous painting The Lacemaker and featured paintings of women by many other Dutch 17th-century painters.

The Lacemaker (detail), Johannes Vermeer, c.1670

The exhibition showed that Dutch women at that time were expected to spend almost all their time within the confines of the home. Some of the most important activities for a virtuous woman were sewing and needlework. It even became a metaphor for female virtue. It kept women concentrated on productive tasks (even if fine lacemaking and embroidery were considered luxuries) and away from any temptation: it kept their hands busy.

A Young Woman Sewing (detail), Niolaes Maes (1655)

However as Marjorie E. Wieseman points out in her essay in the exhibition catalogue, such activities also gave women the opportunity to exercise their creativity, both in the production of creative work and also in the freedom to think about whatever they chose as they stitched or wove.

Pieter de Hooch {source}

It was fun to go with my mum as she is a very expert seamstress and has learnt pretty much every craft imaginable, so she knew all about how pillow lace is made - a very complex system with lots of tiny bobbins, as seen in the Vermeer painting. I imagine it would take years of practice before the movements became automatic enough to let the mind wander freely while making lace this way...

Woman Sewing by a Cradle, Gerard ter Borch (c.1656)

This painting struck me as the women is sewing beside a cradle. She seems to be fitting in some craft time while her baby has an afternoon nap (something I might have related to if only my son had been good at napping. I have to wait till he's in bed for the night before settling down to my sewing or badge making. I never tried covering his bed with a dark cloth however!) I notice the woman in this painting has a servant to look after the housework, so I'm guessing she is not too stressed about having to get everything done...

Although sewing and needlework are still largely 'women's work' today, and are still a source of joy and creativity for many women (me, in particular!), it is worth celebrating the fact that in the Western world today we have so many more options for expressing ourselves. Also, whether we work or not (which isn't always a choice, of course) we can come and go much more freely from our homes.

Girl Peeling Apples, Cornelis Bisschop (1667)

As a woman looking at these paintings, I have an ambivalent reaction. Although they are luminously beautiful and there is, at first glance, a sense of serenity and calm in them, there is often something slightly disconcerting too. The women seem tranquil but they also feel confined, often seen in dark corners very distinct from the light spaces outside that illuminate them.

{source}

They don't look back at us - too busy with their work - so in a sense we are spying on their intimate home lives. And yet often we don't quite see what it is that they are doing. Just like her thoughts, the lacemaker's elegant work is kept secret. Painted by men as ideals of feminine virtue, these women retain some mystery that will forever escape the male painter-viewer's grasp.

mmm pumpkin!

2011-11-07T12:16:00.000Z

It's a terrible thing to confess, but I have (just once and years ago) been a pumpkin thief. It all started with a plum tree that my friend and I came across in an alleyway. It was in someone's garden but was dropping all its succulent bounty into the alley for the wasps to enjoy. We couldn't let those beasties have all the fun, so we filled up some bagfuls and made jars of jam and chutney.

So began a scrumping spree across our city: anywhere fruit seemed to be going to waste we were there to salvage it. It seemed like the right thing to do, a bit like the tradition of gleaning: waste not, want not. But we might have taken it a tad too far when we took the pumpkin.

(not this one - this one came from the market last week!)

OK, so the patch was in a large, overgrown college garden with fruit trees that weren't being harvested. Sure, my friend had to crawl under the leaves with a torch because the small patch had run so wild. But still, on reflection, it's likely no-one was really going to let those pumpkins go to waste?

I don't like to think too much about the answer to that question. It doesn't feel good. Let's just say I'd never do it again. Still, we feasted off that huge orange beauty for months (vats of heavenly soup, and tangy, spicy pumpkin chutney).

And my friend devised this wonderful and simple recipe for pumpkin soup, which, in the hope that the gesture might go a little way towards making up for the dreadful deed, I'm going to share with you!

D's delicious pumpkin soup
Ingredients (you can be pretty free & easy with the quantities):

fresh pumpkin, peeled and cut into chunks
about 30g of butter (more if the pumpkin is large)
garlic (1 clove per small pumpkin)
fresh grated nutmeg
water
salt and fresh ground black pepper
crème fraîche

Method:
Yes, you read right: no onions, no stock! I promise you it works! Heat the butter in a large pan until it sizzles, then add the pumpkin and the garlic. Turn with a wooden spoon for 20 seconds, then turn the heat down low and cover, stirring every few minutes or so to avoid burning or sticking. Mmm, smells good.

When the pumpkin has sweated for about 10-15 minutes and is starting to get quite soft, add water to cover and simmer over a low-medium heat until the pumpkin is thoroughly cooked and soft.

Whizz until smooth with a hand-held blender, then add freshly grated nutmeg, salt and pepper. Add water until the consistency is as you like it. Re-heat and add a swirl of crème fraîche and some extra black pepper to serve.

This week I actually made a different soup (with the pumpkin I'd bought for Halloween but never carved) because we had some yummy gravy left over from a lamb roast (sorry veggies) and some carrots that needed using up. It turned out very tasty!

I also made some of the delicious cookies featured by Lily of Chouettes on Blue Eyed Night Owl's Autumn Blog Party. It was a little tricky because the recipe required a can of pumpkin, which is not really something we have in the UK. I assumed this would be soft, cooked, pumpkin, so I roasted it up in the oven with a drizzle of groundnut oil, then pureed it... would that be about right, US folks?

Anyway, the cookies (which are somewhere between regular cookies and muffins) are disappearing fast... I recommend giving the recipe a go. I think milk chocolate would work better than the dark chocolate I used, because of that affinity between a milky taste and warm spices... mmm.

N.b. the cookies are all different shapes and sizes because I had to hold my little one in one arm while I spooned the mixture onto the tray - he was having a difficult morning!

arrivals

2011-11-04T14:00:00.000Z

My letterbox has been seeing a lot of action lately, with more fun to come! Here are some of the lovely things that arrived this past week:

Yay, my giveaway prizes arrived from Clare from Borderline last week. She was so sweet to include little extras like the adorable stickers (I LOVE stickers) and sweet little card.

She also included some treats: a Starbar and a Halloween-themed 'screme' egg with green goo inside... yum... sorry, my man and I simply couldn't hold back long enough for me to get a photo! For more details about the prizes, see this post.

Remember way back when I found out I won this sweet little handmade owl by Rabbit Moon, from a giveaway on Christine's blog? Well it arrived this week, beautifully packaged and with a lovely note. Apparently there are going to be regular giveaways on the Itty Bitty Cute and Pretty Blog - worth keeping an eye on that!

Finally this beautiful vintage 1970s sheet arrived from Kathleen of the cute vintage shop Artiefart, accompanied by a charming vintage card. I bought it to use as backing for the (very imperfect) patchwork quilt I'm making for my little boy. It's exactly what I wanted (and the card appeals to the mama in me)!

I will of course be posting about the results when I finally get the quilt finished... If anyone knows where I can get some vintage, plain turquoise fabric for the edging strips, please let me know!

DIY baby owl rattle

2011-11-03T15:00:00.000Z

This was on my creative to-do list, so it's nice to be able to tick it off!

When my son was a tiny baby I noticed that there was a lack of small, soft, light rattles available for when he started grasping things and discovering he could make sounds (I never saw the point of rattles till I had a baby, then discovered they are in fact a-may-zing!) A lot of the rattles were plastic and heavy. So I wanted to make my own.

Here's what I did, in case you want to try something similar!

As tutorials go this is missing some photos but hopefully the process is clear. If you'd like to make one and have any questions please just ask! (And also if you do, I'd love to see it!)

I used graph paper to design my template with some degree of symmetry. Then I cut it out, pasted it onto some card and cut it out. I drew round this on the wrong side of my fabric.

I made eyes, beak and feet from felt (I didn't use the feet in the end as they looked weird - "like teeth" my husband said). I put a dab of glue to hold the felt pieces in place and then used embroidery thread (6 strands) to stitch sleeping eyes, then a running stitch (3 strands) to hold them in place.

I pinned my two fabric pieces right sides together and stitched around the template line using the machine. I left a small opening on one side so I could turn it out afterwards.

Having turned it out, I gave it a good press with the iron and used a chopstick to pack in the stuffing, putting my 2 little bells into the head as I went. (You want to make sure those bells can't be felt from the outside as they could be uncomfortable against baby skin.)

Then I sewed up the opening (by the way, if you don't already know how to do this neatly, on the net there are some awesome video tutorials on invisible ladder stitch that I found really helpful when I started out.)

I hope my friend's baby will like it. The only drawback is that it makes more of a rattling sound than the tinkling sound I'd hoped for - this is obviously because those bells are well-surrounded by stuffing. I guess I'd need to have them inside a little round container to keep the sound more bell-like.

Here are my critera for a great baby rattle:

bright colours
simple, eye-catching design
no buttons or anything that could come off & choke baby
small, light, soft and easy to grasp in tiny hands
easy to wash
safe to chew on
some textures to feel are an added bonus

p.s. many thanks to Josella of Tack-O-Rama for the 1950s-style Pacifico font (by code.newtypography) I used in this post. You can download it for free, here, along with lots of others.

second attempt

2011-11-02T16:00:00.000Z

I promised myself that, having goofily and accidentally made a playing-card holder rather than a business card holder (i.e. way too big) when I first tried Beth's tutorial, I would give it another go and get it right!

Well, as you can see, I'm still not quite there: the elastic pulled out after sewing and I had to come up with a solution for attaching it to the outside without it looking a mess (cue extra button! I love buttons). There's also some slight puckering around the stitches that is telling me thread tension may not have been quite right.

Having the selvedge along the edges of the pockets was intentional BUT I meant the lines to be straight, oops!

Despite the flaws, I like this enough (gorgeous fabric & buttons, right?) to give it as a present to a friend who recently started his own gardening business.

things found under car seats

2011-11-01T13:39:00.000Z

I first heard about the Sketchbook Project from Erika Lee Sears of A Tiny Rocket (in this post). I was intrigued and looked into it, and then couldn't resist signing up for it. Erika is A Proper Artist and I am most definitely not! But I loved the inclusiveness of the project - it is completely open.

Each participant picks a theme from a selection. 'Things found under car seats' really appealed to me. I am fascinated by tiny or forgotten things, objects that appear to be discarded or marginal. I like finding beauty in small, banal things.

I will be filling my 32 blank pages with a mixture of collage and pencil drawings. I haven't yet found as much inspiration on the web as I'd expected but here are some images that I would like to have floating around in my mind:

Heather McCaw {source}

Alfonso Izco {source}

Elizabeth Frazer {source}

Melanie Coles {source}

Aidon Westcott {source}

Natalie Ballard {source}

I found Natalie Ballard's work through this collage (the key appealed to me) but am enjoying looking through her work on Flickr. I like her sketches of everyday objects, like this one.

new things

2011-10-31T12:34:00.000Z

For a while now I've been meaning to update the images in my Etsy shop. I finally got around to making some new sample pinback badges to illustrate the medium & large custom options (the 1-inch size makeover is coming soon).

I really enjoyed making them and I have to say I'm quite pleased with them... it almost seems a shame that they are not designed to be worn. Maybe I'll just wear them anyway, despite the text being rather odd when taken out of the Etsy shop context?

I can hardly keep up with all the awesome things happening over on the Blue Eyed Night Owl Autumn blog party! I had so much fun making my embroidered appliqué onesie, but that's just the start of it: there are so many other things in the guest posts I want to try!

foxy

2011-10-27T10:57:00.000+01:00

I was so excited when I learnt that the lovely Karena from Magic Jelly had given me an honourable mention in her fox-themed Haiku competition. She sent me this beautiful necklace as a runner-up prize. (You can see the stunning first prize here, and the amazing winning Haiku here).

Magic Jelly foxes

I'm fairly addicted to the Magic Jelly blog at the moment. Karena's illustrations are inspired by vintage picture books, postcards and ephemera and she features things I love such as old postcard collections and vintage cats. She's a collage expert and her Flickr pages are full of inspiration. Her shop will be opening soon and I'm waiting for this with great anticipation!

vintage Soviet fox badge

Here are some other cute vintage and vintage-inspired foxes I've found. The Soviet badge, above, for example looks super wily and cunning! I love the bright colours too.

While these Cheap Charlie vintage brooches picture the fox as an elegant creature, perhaps influenced by the idea of expensive fox fur stoles?

Here's a cute little collage fox brooch, made from a vintage picture book and mounted on wood. I'm loving all the cute jewellery made from vintage paper in Mimi And Lucy's Etsy shop. They have some adorable kittens and squirrels too!

In case you hadn't realised, there is an incredible Paper Sparrow sale going on at the moment! So you can get this fabulous fox ring, for example. (I have ordered the owl buttons and beautiful Fall tree print).

Look at this charming vintage woodland creatures Christmas card! I found it here. But I will be looking out for other vintage images of foxes (and all kinds of other images) on Graphics Fairy. This is a site I found recently full of amazing free clip-art made from vintage ephemera. It's simply brilliant!

image from Graphics Fairy

Update! I almost forgot to link to a lovely post full of truly fantastic foxy finds from Laura of Blue Eyed Night Owl: click here to continue the fox fun, and don't miss her regular 'Spotted' posts - she has amazing taste and an eye for really special things!

wise guys

2011-10-26T14:28:00.000+01:00

You may remember my post about nesting dolls (here) and how much I loved the idea of sets of owls, one inside the other. So imagine my delight upon finding these guys! I love their Autumnal colours and the way each one has a different character.

They are second-hand (ebay). I particularly love the last little owl - he looks a little bemused and has very fetching yellow feathers on his belly. I thought they deserved a little outing amid the Autumn leaves and berries in my garden.

In other Autumn-themed news I'm preparing a guest post for the Blue Eyed Night Owl Autumn blog party, coming soon! It's going to be lots of fun...

treasures

2011-10-21T14:22:00.001+01:00

There is a family friend, she is very old now, in her 90s, who has always given me the most amazing vintage gifts. I love the fact that, not only do these things have an unknown history, they also mean a lot to me personally, as they represent this incredible, strong, dynamic and generous woman. I'd like to start a photographic record of the collection of vintage accessories and clothes given to me by her.

To begin, here is a little taster in the form of three of my favourite treasures: 1. owl earrings, one with red eyes, one with green; 2. beaded evening purse (I have used this endlessly); 3. faux-snakeskin bag

I know nothing about the provenance/eras of these things, so if anyone would like to enlighten me that would be wonderful! Have a lovely weekend everyone.

Paper Sparrow Hitchcock blog party

2011-10-19T14:23:00.000+01:00

So the Hitchcock blog party starts today, yay! My first-ever guest post, inspired by Vertigo, will be featured at 1pm EST; be sure to check it out. See below for a sneak preview... Plus there will be a host of other inspiring and intriguing posts all based on some of the most extraordinary films by the master of suspense. Thanks for hosting, Andrea!

happiness is a warm blog

2011-10-19T11:00:00.000+01:00

Last night I was fast asleep (between baby owl wake-ups...sigh) when something heavy and furry leapt onto me with a growl and scratched my shoulder. Strange how there was never a doubt that this was an intruder, not our cat (who is always welcome on our bed). I found myself screaming, from the shock of it. That scratch stung and my heart kept beating fast for quite a long time afterwards. I love cats so much & would probably dote on this one in the right circumstances... but these were not those circumstances!

bad kitty t-shirt design by Squatorange

So we are going to have to shut our kitty in at night, in order to shut other cats out. Hopefully Fafi won't mind too much...

Anyway, so after a tiring night, it's lovely to have some warm & fuzzy blogosphere happiness to share!

What could be more delightful than discovering that I won the first ever giveaway on Clare's Borderline blog! I've been enjoying her dreamy, pretty and eclectic blog since I discovered it on Blue Eyed Night Owl, and am looking forward to following its new features, with reviews and a regular movie feature. Apparently there will be more giveaways to come as well! Clare's infectious personality is above all what makes it well worth visiting often.

Lily by viridianhouse

I've always loved Lush, ever since it was just one little shop in Devon, so I'm over the moon to be receiving their Out of this World box, which they say is perfect for daydreamers... and on the theme of dreaming, the other prize is a print of Augusta, by Caroline of Viridian house, whose beautiful illustrations of ethereal girls have a quiet intensity.

I feel amazingly lucky to have won another giveaway, and I feel a little guilty too! But I'm just going to enjoy it; more than ever I feel inspired by the generous and creative spirit to be found in the blogosphere.

On that note, I will be posting again today about the Paper Sparrow Hitchcock blog party taking place today, for which I've done a guest post, so please do swing by later on, or just head straight over to Andrea's blog!

the careful Christmas project

2011-10-18T14:25:00.000+01:00

I absolutely love Christmas, but I usually prefer to wait until the month of December to get into Christmas spirit. However, this year I want to start thinking about it a lot earlier. This is because I want to do things a bit differently this year. I am launching my very own careful Christmas project.

mini owl ornaments by EvelynX

The aim of the project is to make this a non-corporate Christmas as much as I possibly can. I am inspired by all the creativity circulating on the internet and I want to avoid the guilty surge of corporate consumerism that usually engulfs me. Instead I want to find creative solutions to gift-giving, cards, wrapping and decorating.

vintage glass ornaments from MrsRekamepip

Here are my self-imposed guidelines:

homemade gifts, e.g. badges, hand-sewn things, preserves, food
handmade gifts, e.g. bought on Etsy, craft fair or similar
vintage/second-hand gifts
gifts that recycle or upcycle things I already own
re-use saved wrapping & ribbons
or use up new wrapping bought in previous years
I have a lot of cards bought in the sale last year, any extras must be handmade
decorations: same principles as for gifts

elastic bookmark by Blue Eyed Night Owl

Note that I'm not calling this 'eco' or 'ethical' or anything like that. We are flying to Austin, Texas on Christmas day to visit family so that's one big fat carbon footprint this year! I'm just trying to be more careful than usual about the way we celebrate.

antique Austin map cufflinks by dlk designs

Now, I reckon that this is probably going to be quite challenging for me. I am guessing that it will be more time-consuming and more expensive (without that sweat-shop labour!) To help me stay motivated I will be posting, in January, about how it went, including the percentage of gifts that met the criteria above!

2012 calendar by Paper Sparrow

I also think it will be fun. If anyone else feels like joining in, that would be wonderful!

winner announced!

2011-10-16T21:06:00.001+01:00

Congratulations to Raindrop from Sofia, Bulgaria for winning my new-look blog giveaway!

Raindrop will win all the things listed in the giveaway post and chose the Lion book from Reaktion:

I will be in touch with Raindrop by email to arrange posting and the details of the custom-made, personalised badge.

Thanks for all your entries! My first ever giveaway has been really fun!

collecting things

2011-10-14T21:28:00.000+01:00

Day 30 of Lisa Congdon's amazing A Collection A Day 2010 project

I am a hoarder of things. I just can't help it: I don't like to throw things away. It comes from my mother. She was born during WWII in England and grew up with rationing. It was hard to get things: food, clothes, fuel, most things. People didn't have much and what they did have they saved and reworked and re-used. This 'make do and mend' mentality runs deep in my mother. She saves pieces of string. I grew up in a house with amazing collections of things, carefully preserved for projects, activities, games, emergencies... who knows?!

Day 290 (17th October) of A Collection A Day 2010

Here are some of the collections we had stashed in our house: fabrics, wrapping paper (either used or bought in post-xmas sales), coloured paper, seeds, small glass bottles and corks, a cabinet full of tiny glass animals (inherited), Smarties lids (when they used to have letters on them), ribbons, jelly molds (from my mother's mother - we parted with these in the end), Christmas cracker trinkets (to be used again - my mother made them by hand), marbles, promotional mugs, hat pins and... pinback badges (yep, that's where my obsession with them comes from!)

Day 335 of A Collection A Day 2010

So when I heard, rather belatedly, about Lisa Congdon's A Collection A Day 2010 project, where she photographed, drew and painted her (mostly) real and (sometimes) imaginary collections, my heart skipped a beat. (By the way, I heard it on the Button Candy blog, which is a must-follow for those collectors of things and lovers of buttons or simply of quietly pretty images.)

I spend a lot of time worrying about our messy house and where I can store my postcards and fabric scrap piles and charity-shop books and old calendars & magazines... so I always love art that makes hoarding seem beautiful. And there's a neat storage idea on day 335, which is also a great way of making use of my overflowing old jar collection...!

creative to-do list

2011-10-13T18:00:00.000+01:00

Does anyone else adore the smell and feel of wax crayons? I find it so comforting, takes me straight back to childhood. I used my 15 month-old son's well-chewed set to make a to-do list for my creative projects, which have been buzzing around in my head the past couple of nights and keeping me from sleeping. I found using them made me write and draw like a child, which I very much enjoyed!

Why do babies love to chew on wax crayons? They don't taste very good. Maybe it's just a pleasurable texture to gnaw on. Anyway, thanks for the loan sweetie, you can have them back now!

9 cats on Paris rooftops

2011-10-12T21:29:00.002+01:00

Cats rule the rooftops in every city. But what better prowling and lounging territory than the zinc-covered Parisian skyline?I love the look of this film which will show at the London Film Festival this Saturday 15th October. Dino is a cat who lives with a little girl and her mother by day but roams the rooftops with a thief by night... (my DVD is on order)

A 19th Century book for cat-lovers: cats & Paris rooftops have a long and illustrious history!

Max Vadukul for Versace - on the roof of French Vogue

{source}

The Etsy artist is London-based but this sure looks like Paris zinc rooftops to me...

{source}

I've mentioned Mr Chat before. He likes to spread his cute yellow form and Cheshire cat smile over the rooftops of Paris and other cities too...

{source}

I have a postcard with a photograph similar to this image but I love the watercolour version

{source}

And just in case you'd like a whole book on cats and Paris, here you go!

{source}

*update*

My lovely man just sent me this link to a French exhibition of street-art cats, which complements this post nicely! Check it out: Chacun Trouve Son Chat

new-look blog giveaway!

2011-10-11T15:00:00.000+01:00

This giveaway is to celebrate the launch of my new gorgeous new blog designs, courtesy of the fabulous and talented Kate of Kates Irrelevant (thank you!) It is also because I have won a couple of things lately and I want to say thank you and share the love!

I chose things I've made and that represent some of the things I love and write about in this blog. One randomly-chosen reader will win all of the following:

1. Four badges (pinback buttons), all made by me: one flower collage, one cute kitty, one Japanese fabric and one 1-inch yellow rose.

(Although she's a tabby, her chic white scarf reminds me of my own beloved tortoiseshell cat, Fafi. Isn't she gorgeous?)

2. This little decorative heart in two of my current favourite fabrics, with a pensive owl appliqué and three shiny buttons on the front (lovingly handmade by me).

3. This cute key-ring made from vintage childrens' picturebooks by Larkmade.

4. This beautiful reproduction vintage French postcard, with a beautiful October-themed poem and drawing (translation: It's raining / The October kind is dead / The deserted forest is bored / The wind dreams / The tree falls asleep / I watch the rain dance)

5. A book of your choice from this incredible series by Reaktion Books. As you know from this post, I am currently enjoying Desmond Morris's Owl. But there are so many more possibilities, from bee to whale, via cat and fox! The books are beautifully illustrated in colour so you can enjoy images of your favourite animal in photos, art and artefacts. Check out the full list and pick your favourite!

6. Last but by no means least, the winner will receive a personalised name badge (pinback button) made by me using a collage of vintage and contemporary magazines, newspapers and ephemera, something like this one I made for Karena of Magic Jelly to say thank you for her amazing Haiku competition and my honourable mention prize (she should be receiving it in the post soon!).

It's easy to enter (international entrants welcome):

Required: leave a comment below, saying what animal book you would choose from the Reaktion Books series and why, with your email address or a way of contacting you

Extras: (leave a separate comment for each, please):

Follow this blog
Follow me on twitter
Tweet about the giveaway (and include a link to the tweet in your comment)

The winner will be drawn on Sunday 16th October at 9pm GMT. That's all folks, hope you like it!

p.s. thanks to Amy from A is for Ampersand for the cute plaid arrow I used in the last image - she has a lot of clipart freebies on her excellent blog!

B.B. chic

2011-10-10T15:26:00.001+01:00

In response to the question, "who are your fashion icons?" (see lovely Audrey Hepburn post here) I found myself citing Brigitte Bardot as one of them. But browsing the net afterwards I realised that many of the popular and iconic images of B.B. (as she was known in her heydey, and in the Serge Gainsbourg song BB Initials) weren't quite what I had in mind: focusing on her hair, features and body, they had little to do with fashion and everything to do with her sex-kitten fame. She seems sometimes to have frozen into a pop art parody of herself...

Don't get me wrong, B.B. was always a sex kitten: the combination of curvaceous sensuality (sex) with a fresh, childlike spontaneity (kitten) is what made her famous in films like Roger Vadim's And God Created Woman. But I prefer her earlier, 1950s looks to the biker-bimbo style of the 1960s. Here are some examples of one of her less well-known films, Une Parisienne, where she plays Brigitte, the spoiled and innocent daughter of a French Ambassador, who cons one of his top aides into marrying her.

Let's kick off with this gorgeously simple country weekend-wear: beige suede jacket, skinny indigo jeans, flat shearling boots:

(you just know that animal-lover Brigitte is so not going hunting with her dad's friends!)

pale blue wool suit, buttoned up to a cute exagerated collar:

the ultra-sexy red dress is so obvious, but I love the huge sparkly earrings:

a long grey coat in a grey check with taupe dress, heels and gloves = perfect for Paris:

when you're taking a private plane flight with Prince Charles, you had better wear a chic jumpsuit and luxurious headscarf!

B.B. is queen of the kitten-flick eyeliner, with grey shadow and a creamy nude lip: classic!

Are there stars whose style you love only in particular films or moments?

spellbound by Hitchcock

2011-10-07T19:00:00.000+01:00

Although Andrea of Papersparrow's awe-inspiring Tim Burton blog party has only just ended (and there is still time to enter the giveaway here!) I'm already looking forward to the next one: a Hitchcock blog party! Knowing Andrea's amazing style and creativity, as well as all her fabulous blogworld contacts, we can look forward to something really special!

Meanwhile, I've been browsing Etsy looking for beautiful things that remind me of my favourite Hitchcock films. I came up with this treasury, full of hints and clues, like the glass of milk from Suspicion, the zoom lens from Rear Window and a Vertigo-like spiral...
Also, just in case you haven't seen Spellbound, I thought I'd share this incredible dream sequence from the film designed by Salvador Dalí. Like the whole film, the sequence has a very crude interpretation of psychoanalysis, but it's so fabulously surreal and visually compelling that I just don't care!

n.b. for some reason this segues into an excerpt Dalí's collaboration with Luís Buñuel, Un Chien Andalou (also pretty amazing!) To see just the Hitchcock film, follow this link or better yet watch the whole film again!

once upon a time...

2011-10-05T18:54:00.000+01:00

What makes the perfect children's picture book? I think the secret is for the parents to love it as much as the child. Kids love to read with mum or dad and they often return to the same beloved book again and again.

This is why I'm so happy that owls have long been a popular motif of books for babies and children. These are some of my favourites in English and French. I notice there is a popular theme about baby owls becoming separated from their mother. Another favourite approach is to point out how funny it is that owls sleep in the day while children sleep at night. (We read 'bonne nuit hibou' with baby owl every night before bedtime).

I think they are also rather appealing for adults, whether or not they have children! What do you reckon?

10 things I'll always love

2011-10-04T22:05:00.003+01:00

1. owls and cats

'Owl and the Pussycat' illustration by Nan Pollard (Lowe)

I've found that owl-lovers are often also cat-lovers. It's certainly the case with me. I own a beautiful, characterful tortoiseshell cat. I don't own a (real) owl, sadly.

2. the films of Chris Marker

Chris Marker is a French filmmaker (born 1921!) whose favourite animals are cats and owls (ring any bells?). He has a long-standing fascination with Japan. His films make you reflect upon the nature of memory and time, what cinema is or could be, and what connects people across cultural divides. In Sans Soleil, a woman describes letters written to her by a fictional filmmaker from his travels around the world.

3. dressing-up

set created on Polyvore, click here for more details

When I was a child one of the things I most loved to do was to act out stories and movies using our overflowing dressing-up box to create dramatic costumes. Now I have an overflowing wardrobe. In my fantasy all of the above items are in it.

4. Paris

Photos I took on a recent trip to the beautiful and inspiring city of Paris. The yellow cat is a recurring graffiti known as 'monsieur chat'. Chris Marker made a film about that. I love wall art.

5. the sea

I feel at home when I'm by the sea. I love all the British coastline, especially Norfolk, Cornwall and Devon. I also love the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts in France. I took this photo at sunset on Heron Island, a coral reef Island off the coast of Queensland, Australia. It was a breathtakingly beautiful place.

6. the piano

thanks to fazzinchi on Flickr for this image

I have played the piano since I was six. There have been times in my life where I'm not playing (like now!) and other times where I have played very intensively, either way it's always there, a part of me. I love listening to classical piano music too, especially by Debussy, Chopin and Schubert.

7. making things

I almost didn't include this because it's like, well, d'uh!! But somehow the list wouldn't feel complete without acknowledging the importance for me of creating, whether it be jam, a collage badge, a soft toy for my son, or maybe a blog post. For me, it's all about making things for others - I associate it with my mother and things she has passed on to me. Craft = nurture.

8. reading

Source: amazon.co.uk via Suki on Pinterest

I was one of those kids who was always reading and I still am. I love reading anything: novels, poetry, biographies, recipes, my old diaries, memoirs, essays... perhaps above all I love a novel that conjures up a world and makes me think at the same time. At the moment I'm reading Émile Zola's Paris on my kindle.

9. roses

I think I have 17 rose bushes in my garden. They were all here when we moved in, and although they suffer badly from all the town rose problems (blackspot, greenfly, rust etc.) they are still blooming and keep flowering throughout the Autumn. I am a pretty useless gardener, but somehow roses I can do, and I love the way they reward a little care with exuberant new shoots and gorgeous flowers. I grew up with my mother's rambling roses in three different gardens... there's a kind of English, nostalgic thing going on with them for me.

10. motherhood and marriage

This is me with my son when he was just a few days old. He was born in July 2010. I have found being a mother the greatest challenge of my life. It has been very hard at times with the seemingly endless sleep deprivation and stream of impossible decisions. But it has also been unbelievably wonderful: an explosion of love.

I am lucky to have the most incredible husband who is constantly supportive, loving and always makes me laugh. He's a brilliant dad, too. I love him deeply and feel honoured to share my life with him.

arrivals

2011-10-04T10:36:00.000+01:00

Today was a really good day for packages! I received (already!) my fabulous feline prizes from the Doodlecats giveaway. I can confirm Beth's illustrated notepads, cards and pendants are even more adorable in real life! I am wearing the little cat pendant today. I love the little zine too - she has really captured some of the cutest kitty idiosyncrasies! Thanks again Beth.

I also received a parcel full of gorgeous fabrics from This and That From Japan. I have a slight obsession with Japanese fabric and so I'm delighted to have a whole new batch of small scraps and larger pieces to play with. Check out that pinback button print - isn't it perfect? I also love the pale pink fabric with tiny mint-green umbrellas and white rain splashes. Can't wait to play with these...

p.s. 'scuse the scrawlings on my photos - I have just recently discovered Fotoflexer thanks to Amy of A Is for Ampersand! It's like free photoshop!

Doodlecat heaven!

2011-10-03T10:39:00.000+01:00

Still on the theme of Beth Wilson of Doodlecats, it just so happens that the fabulous random number generator picked my number! to win a whole host of her adorable doodlecat goodies - sweet kitty cards, pendant and an incredible cute zine!

The giveaway was held to celebrate Beth's birthday, so Happy Birthday to you, Beth, hope you have an amazing day!

Do check out Beth's lovely blog (with fab tutorials such as the one featured in my previous post) and the Doodlecats shop to buy some of her cat loveliness. Purrr!

all sewn up with Beth Wilson

2011-09-28T16:17:00.000+01:00

Usually I plan to try out tutorials but don't get round to it. But today when I came across Beth Wilson's brilliant business card tutorial I had a bit of a seize-the-day moment! I took a break at lunchtime and positively whizzed through it, thanks to her fab instructions. Only one problem: I totally got the size wrong (despite her warning about this!) So it morphed into a cute holder for one of my vintage playing card decks (I have quite a collection).

Now I just have to make another one in the CORRECT size for my business cards, and we're golden! I was thinking this would make a pretty sweet Christmas present too... (Either for business cards or for playing cards!) I can imagine some embroidery personalising it... So many options!

Thanks so much for the inspiration and guidance Beth!

threads from the past

2011-09-27T10:27:00.004+01:00

We went to my mother's house at the weekend: husband, baby owl and me. She's recovering from a recent operation (in good spirits, doing well!) Tucked in a corner of a shelf in my brother's room I found my beloved childhood furry owl. I thought he was long lost, but my mum reminded me that he became my brother's for a while (for some reason my brother was rather lacking in stuffed toys!)

We brought him back with us. Baby owl has been feeding him raisins and calls him "boo" (from "hibou", French for owl) and I've been sneaking in the odd cuddle myself! It's amazing how comforting a worn, slightly musty old friend from childhood can be.

I haven't seen many conkers around this Autumn, but it felt right that there should be plenty in the playground near my mother's house. Mother's create such a strong connection with childhood memories and collecting shiny conkers (and reluctantly accepting their eventual shrivelling) is a happy one.

I had to photograph it with one of my mother's hydrangeas in the background: white, becoming pink-dappled for Autumn. Unlike Madonna I LOVE hydrangeas (though I prefer them a little more natural-looking than the one her "fan" gave her)! I have a cutting of this one in our garden. It's been in the family since a friend gave it to my mother in 1990.

Toys, conkers, flowers... I love all these threads that connect me to my childhood and are now being sewn into the life of the next generation!

find me

2011-09-26T10:21:00.000+01:00

Here's something new for my Etsy shop: a one-off collage badge made from a piece of a vintage map (1940s UK Ordonnance Survey, I think) and an image of a deer. I thought it would be nice to package it with this vintage fairytale playing card, since that's the kind of atmostphere I had in mind while making it.

I do love to make tiny, wearable collages.

there are more owls inside

2011-09-23T12:22:00.003+01:00

I am fascinated by Russian dolls, or matryoshka. I really don't know much about them or their history (but there's a good post about them here), but for me they represent maternity and reproduction, the extraordinary fact of one person coming from another. They also make me think of the way we all have multiple selves: look inside me and there are many women, each one different, each one me.

From Passepartout on Flickr

Of course, part of the fun of nesting dolls is that the traditional ones are often painted the same, so there is the delight of progressive miniaturisation (you know, the way smaller versions of things are always appealing?) As a child, I always most loved the tiniest doll, and I preferred the sets where she was (almost) as beautifully detailed as the largest mother-of-mothers.

From Frangipani Photograph on Flickr

For a beautifully eclectic and international collection of nesting dolls, click here to visit Ingrid's Nesting Doll site.

It occurred to me that this curvy shape would make a good owl and I started to have visions of owls nesting one inside the other. A glance around the web led me to many interesting examples of this. I am most definitely not the first person to spot this affinity!

There are classic, realistic owls, like this beautiful set by Terry Savage, creating an odd family of a Snowy Owl, a Great Horned Owl, a Barn Owl, a Screech Owl and a little Saw Whet Owl still sitting in his eggshell (how cute!)

There are also strange, stylised owls, like these ones, which seem to capture an atmosphere of Russian folkiness with the use of black/gold colours, lace, tree imagery and a spooky skeleton as the final doll.

From the sugar monster on Flickr

I discovered a whole world of extraordinary matryoshka artists, like Irina Troitskaya, who creates all kinds of dream-like animals in the form of nesting dolls. If only I could discover what was inside these owls...

By Irina Troitskaya

I also love this set found in My Owl Barn's Flickr photostream: the funky, slighly 70s colours and forms and the characterful owls with big, stylised features are so appealing. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find out any more information about them so far. I'll update if I do.

*update* These amazing owls are from Things With Wings. You can find out more about them in this interview.

From My Owl Barn on Flickr

Blog: http://thingswithwingsartjournal.blogspot.com/

Finally, I'm not the only one in our household to be fascinated. Baby owl plays with his "poupée russe" (Russian doll) every day at the moment. He especially loves it when he opens a doll and a smaller one leaps out, it makes him laugh!

baby steps

2011-09-21T11:57:00.001+01:00

As I wrote in this post, last year my mum gave me sewing lessons for my birthday. I haven't made a lot of progress since then, as I found combining looking after a tiny baby and sewing quite tricky. I'm still working on a quilt I started making for baby owl nearly a year ago (and it's looking pretty wonky at the moment!)

However I do really love it and I just keep trying, whenever I get a moment. Yesterday evening I was inspired by thinking about my friend's baby who is due to arrive any day now. I also wanted to try out an appliqué technique using bondaweb + top stitch. So I made little Jacob a snuggly with ribbon tags of different textures and appliqué star and 'J', using some odd pieces of fabric I had lying around.

At around 2-3 months, babies love touching different textures with their hands (and tongues!): shiny satin ribbons, soft velvet ones, embroidered ones, even the stitching on the appliqués and the squidgy stuffing - it's all new and interesting to them!

It's not a complicated thing to make and it's far from perfect (top stitch went seriously off course on the 'J'!) But it's all good practice and I always learn something...taking baby steps to (eventual) sewing proficiency!

soul food

2011-09-19T10:43:00.000+01:00

In a bid to eat more healthily, we've started receiving a weekly delivery of local, organic vegetables. Here's the thing: I love vegetables. I could be a vegetarian without much trouble. I like meat, but for me it just doesn't have the variety of flavours and textures you get from vegetables.

The only problem is that my husband just isn't that keen on all things green. Gradually over the years we've been living together I've started to eat fewer vegetables and the range has become more limited. The veggie box is encouraging us to eat things that don't usually appear on our shopping list: chard, cabbage, runner beans, broccoli (my favourite, my husband's most hated).

This is good for baby owl, whose tastes, we suddenly noticed after a hectic few months of combining working and parenting (and lazy cooking) are also in danger of becoming even more limited than his dad's!

Baby owl hasn't tried the chard yet (we never push anything if he refuses it) but he did eat a mushroom when I cooked this dish. Small victories, yay!

And I also bought a butternut squash and made this gorgeous spread by Yotam Ottolenghi (get the recipe here) with tahini, garlic and yoghurt. This is my idea of perfect comfort food.

arrivals

2011-09-16T10:39:00.000+01:00

A little package arrived from Distinctly Ivy today, containing these lovely owl earrings. One of the things I love about Etsy is receiving things through my letterbox! These earrings are perfect for Autumn. (They also featured in my mustard treasury).

This September rose arrived too, peachy petals opening fully today. I love the blush colour of this tiny intricate rose. I neglected her somewhat this summer so I didn't think she'd be appearing again, but here she is!

happiness is a warm blog

2011-09-14T11:24:00.002+01:00

Lots of good things are happening online and I thought I'd take a moment to list a few! First off, I'm feeling very happy about winning a sweet owl made by Rabbitsmoon in a giveaway on Itty Bitty Cute and Pretty.

Sweet and rather unusual, don't you think? Talk about lucky! What made it better still was watching the draw on a video blog post and seeing my name drawn! This really makes me want to hold my own giveaway soon, to spread the love.

Itty Bitty Cute and Pretty's blog is well worth checking out. She collects Japanese Pose Dolls. I'd never heard of them before but found out all about them thanks to her blog and the amazing Flickr galleries. I love collections and collectors!

The second cool thing is having my new Japanese fabric pinback badges featured on illustrator Sven Palmowski's blog Badge Review. It's always nice to be chosen!

My photography is somewhat hit and miss and I know my photos of these badges aren't the best, so it's reassuring to think that their prettiness shines through. I love Badge Review - Sven always finds the coolest badges (or pins, or buttons, or whatever you want to call them) His are nice too - I own some.

Two other instances of warm and fuzzy online generosity and creativity are Magic Jelly's foxy Haiku contest (deadline Monday 19th September) and A is for Ampersand's Paper Sparrow giveaway (you can win $25 of Paper Sparrow goodies, winner announced 20th September).

This beautiful Folk Like Us bracelet by Magic Jelly will be a prize for one lucky Haiku writer. These bracelets will feature in her soon-to-open online shop.

8x10 print by Paper Sparrow

That's three creative and pretty blogs to follow, two amazing prizes to hope for and one fox-inspired Haiku written. Oh happy days.

Here's my Haiku (see the others here, inspiring!):

Autumn nights grow cold

A fox comes to the city

A strange cry is heard

Fantastic foxes pendant by Paper Sparrow

Update: Can't believe I posted this before the amazing Cat-tastic blog party & giveaway on Paper Sparrow, just click the button below!

Saint Joan

2011-09-12T12:44:00.003+01:00

I went with my friend to see Joan As Police Woman in London this weekend. We both agreed that there is something mystical about her live performance. It is incredibly intense and all-absorbing. She manages that perfect combination of capturing everything I love about her recorded music (some of which I describe in this post) and yet making it new in the moment of performance.

She is incredibly present and alive as she sings and plays. It's not only moving; it also makes her astoundingly beautiful and cool. The only other performer I know who achieves this kind of intensity is the extraordinary Patti Smith.

I saw Joan play once before and this gig was completely different. Some of her new songs have a more rocky, sexy edge. Strangely, a decision was made (by whom I know not) to change the layout from standing to seating at the last minute, yet this was Joan As Police Woman that made us want to dance and move! At one point she told us we could still dance in our seats, making an incredible, idiosyncratic swaying gesture with her upper body that made us collectively laugh and tingle, and wish we could dance like that in our seats!

She and her band had been on the road since January without a break and I thought I could feel the tiredness somehow, in her voice that sounded no less beautiful but perhaps slightly strained. And yet at the end, for her final song, her voice seemed to float out from her body, bringing with it her soul. We were all standing, mesmerised, transformed.

lunch-break gift

2011-09-09T15:48:00.004+01:00

So I nearly forgot my goddaughter's birthday, bad, bad person that I am! This meant I didn't have time to buy something beautiful and handcrafted on Etsy as I'd planned and I had to find something fast that would appeal to an 11 year-old girl. I also wanted it to be something that would be more than just a "thing", something that might encourage creative exploration in some way. This is what I came up with in my lunch break:

Flower stamps and ink, coloured pencils in a floral tube, apple-shaped pencil sharpener, heart-shaped stickers, butterly and doll stickers, elaborate relief stickers, a postcard featuring a colourful bird, a patterned notepad and a pretty floral bag to put it all in.

What creative ideas do you have for presents for pre-teen girls or for last-minute gifts?

flowers, kitten, charms

2011-09-08T16:59:00.003+01:00

Wearing today: washed-out pink, green and duck-egg floral dress by Joules, old black vest and grey cardigan, charm necklace bought in Kensington Market in Toronto and a cute kitten badge.

I bought this necklace when I was already visibly pregnant and wore it everyday. I love the charms: a white mother-of-pearl heart, a brass charm that says "going steady" on it, a heart outline and a tiny elephant. Then I stopped wearing it because baby owl would grab it. He still does, but more gently now he's older, so I'm wearing it again.

It reminds me of being pregnant, my whole body almost vibrating with anticipation and wonder. It also reminds me of Toronto. I loved the city. I bought an old 1960s Penguin edition of Faulkner's Light in August and didn't notice till I got it home that it had a picture of a pregnant woman on the front. In fact it's a lot about a pregnant woman's long journey, her stubbornness, her endurance.

mmmuffins

2011-09-07T11:56:00.000+01:00

One of my aims for this month is to try healthy new recipes and do more home-cooking. It can be hard trying to juggle baby owl, work, and being a domestic goddess!

However I think the yummy baking smell of these gorgeous, sticky, yet not-too-naughty, date, apple and banana muffins is a step in the right direction! Recipe below (they are super easy and quick to make).

Ingredients

200g/7oz self-raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

50g/2oz wholemeal flour

50g/20z light brown sugar

2 eggs, beaten

125ml/4 fl oz semi-skimmed milk

4 tbsp groundnut or sunflower oil

1 large apple, grated

50g banana, mashed

100g dates, chopped

How to make them

Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4
In a large bowl, mix the dry ingredients together (flours, baking powder, cinnamon, sugar)
In another bowl, mix the eggs, milk and oil.
Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix just enough to combine fully (lumpy batter is good for muffins!)
Then stir in the apple, banana and dates
Divide between 12 muffin cases and bake for 25 mins
Cool on wire rack... then devour at least one and save the rest for later! Will keep for several days.

new fabric badges

2011-09-06T21:44:00.002+01:00

For a while now I've been meaning to list some new badges (pinback buttons) on Etsy. I've been making these sweet badges for some time and wearing them or giving them as presents to friends. I've also been collecting vintage playing-cards to display them on. Don't you just love these cute owls in the snow, with the title 'A Wise Double'? Perfect for a sweet pair of badges made from Japanese fabric.

sweet owls for Autumn

2011-09-05T12:10:00.000+01:00

I was never much interested in playing with dolls as a child, but since baby owl arrived I find the urge to dress him up quite irresistible! I love to see him in adorable owl motifs, so I've been browsing Etsy for sweet clothes for his Autumn wardrobe. Here are some of my favourite finds (click on images for more):

This has a nostalgic 1970s feel (so very A/W 2011!)

Perfect for post-swimming

My husband will probably object to this one - he has a low cuteness threshold!

There's something debonair about this owl. I love the hat too - my little one has a similar hat and is obsessed with wearing it at the moment.

I think every toddler needs their own little bag to carry round, just like grownups.

This shop, miasunique, has some seriously cool clothes for babies and toddlers: cute and quirky animals - cats, lions, giraffes, owls - printed on American Apparel basics.

This is made from the softest Alpaca and would be gorgeously cosy for baby owl. I love the undyed colour too. It's a little beyond our budget however...

coucou hibou

2011-09-02T20:59:00.000+01:00

As my husband is French, that means baby owl is French too, and so I had to learn lots of French songs to croon to him, especially when he was newborn and couldn't do much other than listen and look.

Now he's a 14 month-old toddler and is racing around everywhere, singing is not the main focus of our day anymore, but I still sing to him.

This song is one of my favourite French lullabies for little ones. Of course it would appeal to me that it is about an owl (and a cuckoo) and has a lovely "oo oo" sound in it!

The lyrics mean: In the distant forest, we hear the cuckoo; from the top of his tall oak he replies to the owl: hello owl, hello owl, hello owl! (There is a cute pun because "coucou" means "cuckoo" and "hi" in French).

It's a shame about some of the sillier elements of the animation accompanying this version!

owls

2011-09-01T08:45:00.005+01:00

What is it about owls that makes them so fascinating and appealing? I think there's something rather human about their faces, with their forward facing, blinking eyes. Yet clearly they are very un-human, with their nocturnal hunting and curious, swivelling heads. They are somehow both strange and familiar.

On my reading list is Desmond Morris's book about owls, with intriguing chapters such as "prehistoric owls" (really, prehistoric?) and "medicinal owls". Look out for The Owl Club's book report!

new crop

2011-08-08T12:54:00.003+01:00

It's been a long time since I posted anything but I'm feeling in the mood for a new blogging crop. To begin with, here are the pretty, pale green broad beans I harvested last week from our planter in the garden. I love popping the translucent, tender beans out of their fuzzy homes in those great hoary pods.

13 months after giving birth, I'm finally feeling (a little more) able to deal with the garden again and to write here.

Nowadays baby owl comes out with me. He's walking now and likes squishing the fallen plums under his heels. He helps me to pick ripe tomatoes and will carry a tomato around with him for a while, until he forgets and lets it fall.

for friends

2010-05-22T07:55:00.004+01:00

One of my favourite ways to spend time is making things for friends and family. This is a lavender sachet I made for my Granny (a few weeks ago when the plum blossom was still out). She turned 100 years old this year - amazing, no? The fabric reminds me of the armchairs she used to have in her sitting room when I was a child.

I made this for my new friend Kate. She's been feeling a little down lately so I thought I'd let her know I'm thinking of her.

I love Toronto

2010-04-16T14:56:00.009+01:00

The bump and I flew to Toronto recently. I loved it! Not sure about baby-boy-bump... he made me sick quite a lot, but he does that at home too. I guess one city is as good as another for him!

I was excited to be in the home town of Sweetie Pie Press. So I made a little pilgrimage out to the Good Catch General Store, one of the sweetie-pie stocking stores. It was smaller than I was expecting but still totally awesome and lovely and welcoming. The perfect place to buy a guitar, or homemade cookies, or a catnip cigar, odd little craft items and, of course, sweetie pie badges!

cute sweetie pie badge from the Good Catch General Store

It's the kind of place where you don't just buy stuff, you chat, maybe for hours if you want. I talked with lovely Lisa about boys' names and Wyatt Earp. If I lived in Toronto I'd want to go there all the time.

I also loved The Paper Place - also out West on Queen St. West, but not nearly so far West. I remembered this blog entry from Sweetie Pie Press, so was pleased to stumble across the shop on my long westward walk. It's a paradise for anyone who loves paper and patterns and collage and sweet, strange little exotic finds. I bought chiyogami paper and some pretty little packs of paper scraps - irresistible to anyone who loves to reuse and recycle!