Material mania

Timaru is about 80kms north of Oamaru but I think it's a funny old place; there are more people there than in Oamaru, but it seems to lack soul. Having said that, it has a bumper crop of op shops (thrift stores).

The Red Cross Store has to be the cleanest and best organised op shop I've ever seen. The patterns are in labeled folders, the material is laundered, measured and priced. While it means that you're unlikely to find any treasures hidden in the bottom of boxes, it does mean that the shop smells nice and there is no ambiguity when it comes to paying. I picked up these two pieces of fabric for $2.50 each. A good price seeing as the material is new and there is a couple of metres of each.


I'll use the hearts material for little petticoats under girls' dresses. I'm not sure what to do with the other; it doesn't seem right for kids' clothes but I also don't think I'll make myself anything out of it. I guess that means it's destined for my stash...

I picked up this fabric at one of the antique stores:

I'm planning on using this in girls' frocks as well. I'll use a shocking pink bias around the arms, neck and hem to set off the navy, plus, as far as I can tell, girls around here only wear pink.

I popped into St Vincents as well. I was in two minds about going there because it was out of my way, but I am so glad I did. I hit the motherlode of genuine vintage fabric. Tadaa!



Jealous? I would be if I wasn't me! I couldn't believe my luck. It's actually made up into two curtains but the fabric is a good quality cotton. I'm kind of planning to make little tunics and circle skirts, but we'll have to see. I love it so much, and I know I'll never find anything like it again; the only sensible thing to do is to have it buried with me.

A guy only turns one once

 

Remy had a great birthday. He got some wonderful gifts and enjoyed being the centre of attention all day. Mum whipped him up a birthday pavlova, and the family enjoyed a huge dinner (Remy was sleeping by that time, and that seemed a pity, so I had two serves of pudding - one for me, one for him).

 

Something comes over me when setting the table at my mum's. I seem to go from finding a nice table cloth, to polishing the silver candleabras in about 10 minutes. This time it went from needing the damask tabecloth, to getting out the matching napkins, then there was the 67 year old Alfred Meakin dinner set, followed closely by the silver cutlery, the crystal water jug and matching cups plus the brand new Costa Boda wine glasses. The candleabras nearly didn't make it but then I found candles in the civil defense survival kit*.

So, the table was a little over-dressed for what was supposed to be a family dinner but I don't mind. I'm thinking of it as a trial run for Christmas.

 

*and this should be reason enough for all of us to get our emergency kits together. Why don't they put that on the ads?

Hrm, what's that smell?

(By the way, Remy woke about 5 minutes after I posted last night and then screamed for nearly three hours because he's getting his molars... was I asking for it with point number 5?).

Blimey this past year has flown. My darling little boy turns one tomorrow.

Just in time for his big party, the little treasure has eaten three cloves of garlic. Raw garlic.

But don't worry, the pungent garlic odour is off-set by a hint of lavender from his baby shampoo. Mmm, lavender and garlic.

Five happy Friday moments

1. Discovering that the top comes off Best Food's Mayo squeezy bottle, allowing a teaspoon to get those important last few drops.

2. Lots of laughs from Andy and Hamish on Rove.

3. Getting a tax refund. WOHOO!

4. Knowing there are fewer than 24 hours until our phone is fixed.

5. Pre-school gym is back on after it took a break for the school hols. Remy is one tired little button. Fingers crossed we won't see him until at least 7am.

One is the loneliest number

Whew! Our house has been full, full, full these past few days and it's been fantastic fun. We've had friends from Wellington to stay and new friends from Oamaru over for dinner and still more new Oamaru friends over for a playdate. Good times.

I'm an extreme extrovert (according to those pysch tests), so I get a lot of energy from being around other people. I'd been feeling a little lonely before our influx of visitors. I think I've been all mixed up with shifting house again, and our phone has been broken for at least a week. Even with Facebook, Twitter, my blog and email I've still missed catching up with friends by chatting on the phone. How on earth would I have survived 100 years ago?

Fingers crossed we'll have a new phone tomorrow morning, and then (hopefully!) I'll be feeling a bit more enthused about life.

Moeraki on a winter's day

 

 

 

 

Secretish secrets

There is something in the works for van Rose. It's Very Top Secret folks, but you can pretend that you knew all about it before anyone else because you read it here.

And because I'm pretty bad at keeping exciting stuff to myself I'll share one detail - (some) country people have good taste in baby clothes, lots of good taste.

A little something to keep the craftiness alive

Obviously moving island and then moving house twice is not conducive to craftiness so I thought that I'd whip out something I prepared earlier.

Ta dah!



A couple of winters ago, I started to teach myself crewel embroidery. This is the first in a series of nine panels that I've provisionally called Garden of Eden. What with being a raving atheist and all, it's a strange subject matter but I can live with the contradiction.

Thrifty Tuesday

I've been hot on the thrifty trail of late. This place is vintage heaven. I'm thinking about picking up a few things for sale but, uh, who knows. I'm having such fun indulging myself in frou frou clothes and tea cups that I think I'd have trouble switching on my commercial eye. Having said that, I'm thinking of putting a couple of the things I've pictured here on Trademe.

And here's some of what I've picked up recently:

A little 1950s purse. I'm not too worried about the missing chain, I could pick one up pretty easily. The beauty of this purse is that it is definitely 1950s and it's not often that I can be absolutely confident of the age of an item.


A Spode plate. I love it, love it, LOVE IT!


This is a funny wee plate that has a Golden Bay address on the back. It's lovely and crinkled; it reminds me of fabric.


I took a punt on Jules liking this fan, and it turns out that he doesn't. I thought it might look great up on the wall but he thinks it would look better if it wasn't in our house at all... so, it might go on Trademe or possibly be taken back to the op shop I bought it from.


This fabric originally made a curtain but I removed the tape at the top and the backing. It's in amazing condition - the colour is so bright - though it does have a little fading down one side. Not a big deal though because there is about 3 metres of the stuff. I think this is also destined for Trademe - it's not really my style and I don't have plan for it.

A sight to warm a sewer's heart...

Isn't this such a satisfying sight?

 

Hallelujah!

We're moving house again. The house we've been living in has been less than ideal... those of you reading through a RSS may have seen the rant I posted and then thought better of... but, to cut a long story short, this house is horrid (and we're being charged about $80 per week too much in rent, growl), so we're off to a much nicer one on the other side of town.

We're moving tomorrow but our broadband can't make it then, so it will be with us sometime later this week.

The bright spot in the last few weeks has been our little guy; he's started sleeping through the night. HALLELUJAH!

Yes, it's been one of those days

I should do that at some stage

My darling friend Phil has a mostly-music blog called I Should Do That At Some Stage.

It's a delicious mix of reviews, cat photos (hi Indie!) and comments on life. He's the go-to man should you ever want to know anything about New Zealand music. Actually, he's the go-to man full-stop (trust me on this; I've been in a pub quiz team with him for about 4 years).

Best of all, he writes like the utter genius he is. Check out this opening comment on Paul Simon's Graceland:

I've always been fond of the title track to this classic album even though it penetrated easy listening radio more easily than Elvis's jaw penetrated a peanut butter, marshmallow and banana sandwich.

Brilliant.

Aaaaaaaages ago, I confessed to attempting my first diet. Frankly, I didn't hold much hope. I'm not a particularly disciplined person, and my top five favourite foods contain about one million percent fat.

But somehow I've become 15 kilos lighter than I was before I got pregnant with Remy. And the most exciting thing? The new clothes.

Vintage clothes shopping has become easier and that warms my vintage-loving heart. And then today, I was in Amen and bought some divine For Good jeans (for all you NZers, they somehow belong to Federation) in a small. A small, a SMALL!

Tweet Tweet

I'm old. And slow. So it took me until May this year to discover Twitter. And now I'm in love.

Come check it out. The point of it won't be obvious until you start following others, and then you'll never, ever look back. Promise.