Recently finished objects

If there have been any themes to my summer holiday sewing, they have been 

• NSFW: as in, I've made cool, shapeless garments that aren't formal enough for the office (shapeless is my new favourite shape);

and

• fiscal responsibility: I’ve been crafting from my stash, so spending very little. I think this has made me slightly less inclined to make things, but it has meant that I’ve managed to make a dent on my pile of fabric, and have developed some new pattern-making skills.

Tunic dresses

 

These were made from a free Japanese pattern that I drafted from instructions. The tunics have that Japanese-pattern aesthetic that I'm really keen on at the mo’.

 

 

I’ve made two versions - one in a striped voile (above), the other in a sort of cotton houndstooth that reminds me of Aertex shirts (top). Both tunics are in variations of navy and white - I’ve been obsessed with sewing things in navy for some time now and I don’t seem to be bored of it yet. 

 

I’m not entirely convinced of how flattering they are BUT - I wore both tunics incessantly while we were away, and they were gloriously cool and comfortable to wear. Waists! I’m against them.

 

Here I am wearing one of my new fave dresses while standing near a beautiful waterfall near Lake Tarawera

80s kimono t-shirts (midriffs ahoy-hoy)

 

I’ve also made two of these kimono t-shirts - one in a black striped linen and one in an apple print fabric that I think looks kind of Marimekko-esque (above). The apple print is the last of my Berlin fabric, and it brings a little tear to my eye now that it’s all gone.

 

If this fabric looks familiar - it's because I've also made a dress and an infinity scarf from it. Good mileage!

 

The pattern is Simplicity 7517. I picked it up at my local St Vincent de Paul's, from memory. If you’re looking for the pattern, the envelope looks like this:

 

 

An almost-Japanese riff on a Scout t-shirt

 

I had an idea that it would be kind of great to have a dress that had a wide t-shirt style bodice and a gathered skirt - and in the absence of a budget for new patterns, I drafted my own using the Scout t-shirt for the bodice.

 

I’m pretty stoked with how it’s turned out TBH - it’s super comfortable, and while the fabric has a bit more weight to it than I think would be ideal for this style of dress, it is really lovely to wear. Also: navy and white stripes are my boyfriend.

 

 

This the bias binding I used, it feels like a special secret while I’m wearing the frock - and it saved me having to make my own. This came from Japan City - they always seem to have a heap of fun bias.

 

Wooden yarn bowl

My excuse for my paltry effort at holiday sewing is that the weather has been so beautiful that it's felt almost wrong to sit inside and sew. Instead I’ve been sitting outside in the sun, reading my eBook* and knitting.

 

Outside knitting has its issues - the biggest being that it’s too easy for the yarn to fly out of its bag and get dirty. Dealing with this very serious problem led me to research yarn bowls, which in turn led me to a Pinterest image of a wooden bowl up-cycled to a yarn bowl, which inspired me to make my own.

 

This is my first woodworking project since technicraft woodwork at Waitangirua Intermediate, aged 12

 

Given that I had only a handsaw, a drill, a couple of grades of sandpaper, and a patient Shannon at my disposal, I’m feeling pretty good about my attempt. In future I’d like to polish the spiral a bit, and maybe make some tweaks to the curve, but - in the meantime, it’s working like a charm.

 

Total outlay for all projects

I already had thread, fabric and patterns for all the sewing projects - the only thing I bought was another reel of overlocking thread (about $6).

 

The bowl cost me $12, and the sandpaper about $20, bringing my holiday projects to a total cost of around $40. Not too spendy!

 

---

*eBooks have solved that pesky knitting-and-reading issue of the book not lying flat, and the problems in juggling knitting and book while trying to turn a page. I’m a fan.

What is making me happy: Christmas week and summer holidays

Two Christmas trees are not enough. Also, please note my artful(!) use of vignette: I should not be allowed to play with filters.

I am on holiday now - three weeks of glorious me-time; cooking and sewing and knitting, and planning for Christmas and next year’s projects. Yesterday I put up our beautiful tree, I’ve made some simple mincemeat and we have a fancy free-range ham in the fridge for Christmas Day.

After New Year, Shannon and I are going on holiday for a week with the ever-lovely Nat and Mark - Taupō and then maybe Tauranga. Sunshine is nigh! Exciting because until very recently, Wellington has been proving itself true-to-type in the weather department. *Sighs as though her heart would break* *looks wistfully out the rain-smeared window at the rain with chin in hand*

Related to Christmas planning: I’m also enjoying planting succulents in teacups/stoneware goblets/dessert glasses.

READING:

• Naked by David Sedaris - I bought a copy of this for Nat for her birthday and then borrowed it off her - only to discover three essays-in that I had definitely read it before. I had a look on Good Reads in the vague hope that I’d actually made a note of it and it turns out I'd totally read it in August last year! How about that.
• The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood - long conversation with Mon after I’d read this about loving everything that Margaret Atwood represents but then not really loving the books themselves. There was so much I liked about this book, but I did feel it was a bit laboured.
• The Portable Dorothy Parker - dipping in and out of the short stories, and skipping over most of the poetry. Not keen on poetry, even the comedic rhyming couplet type.
• Always sitting in my reader and making me feel dismayed with my lack of commitment to Serious Reading - Middlemarch and Peter Ackroyd’s London: The Biography.

WATCHING: A lot (SO MUCH) of Nigella Lawson. On Saturday I watched two series of Nigella's Christmas Kitchen in a row, six episodes in all. I am totally Christmassy right now. I want Poinsettias.

Also! Last night: Home Alone which was better than I remembered.

FAVOURITE PODCAST EPISODE: Fugitive Waves (the Kitchen Sisters) - the Nights of Edith Piaf. SO.GOOD.

The Kitchen Sisters are amaze, also I am fascinated by Edith Piaf's life story. I love a mostly non-narrative/non-editorialising podcast with lots of oral history and primary sources - so: A+++.

KNITTING: I bound off a pocket of my tunic dress and have put it away until next year.

Finally, I began swatching for my Featherweight in Madeline Tosh Lace and the tiny stitches are basically quite terrifying.

SEWING: I have many plans, lots of patterns and a fairly hefty stash - but an empty cutting table. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

LISTENING: Michael Buble’s Christmas album is on high-rotation at the moment. I enjoy his unabashed cheesiness mightily at this time of year.

Pickle Pants at the Kristmas Knack

On Saturday I made the first step towards my dream of becoming the mustardress I was born to be - my friend Mon and I sold our mustards and pickles at the fancily-named Berhampore School Fair, Kristmas Knack. It was fun and also like re-visiting my time in retail – i.e. much greeting people in a cheery manner and using the same patter repeatedly (“you have to like this one, it's my Nanny's recipe” - a line that is funny exactly 0.5 times. If that).

We made a few sales, but mostly we sat behind the stall, snacked on Mon's delicious home-made cream crackers, and gossiped about all the people we knew.

Guys we are at the Knack! Buy the pickles! Buy them. pic.twitter.com/ox8ItRHlla
— pickle-pants (@gingrjane) November 14, 2014

One of the best things was the woman selling crochet across from us – she had a fabulously and hilariously broad German accent, an infectious giggle, and a pretty great sense of humour. She asked if she could enhance her cheese roll with our bread and butter pickle taster, and who were we to say no in the face of such enthusiasm? She also bought some of our wares which infinitely increased her in my estimation. There was a lot of inter-stall trading going on over the course of the day, and I ended up spending more than I earned (but nobody said this was an exercise in money-making, alright? Evidently for me mostly an exercise in pottery and jewellery acquisition).

There are a couple of things I would change when we do it again - more game for our stall, layers and levels and more beautiful things to attract attention. I also wonder if it's a better idea to have lots of small amounts of different pickles and mustards rather than a lot of the same – so, variety over abundance. The main thing, and the thing that harks back again to my days in retail - is the need to talk talk talk and engage people and get them excited.

We have no immediate plans to be at another fair, but we do have some delicious goodies that we still need to move. I will make a note here next time we have plans to be somewhere, in case you are in Wellington/super keen. We're selling under the name Pickle Pants – a phrase I coined when I got a whiff of my jeans one Friday at work - they were the same jeans I'd worn when we made 43 jars of bread and butter pickle and they were very whiffy, like stale vinegar and cucumber.

Nothing sexier than pickle pants.

Wednesday List: Fabulous things from an amazing weekend

On Labour weekend Shannon and I ran away to Martinborough for a mini-break and it was quelle amaze. This blog post is late, but also the whole experience was so fabulous so I feel totally justified in bragging about it still.

Here are some of the best things. (Non-listed best thing: Shannon. Because that goes without saying ❤, vom).

Tandem bicycles and boozy vineyard tours

Have you ever ridden a tandem bicycle around a vineyard with your lover? If no, may I recommend it to you?

The bicycle situation was pretty great. While we biked with increasing danger from vineyard to vineyard, casually drinking and buying wine, the people we hired the bike from rode around after us and collect our wine purchases.  So.decadent.

Fascinatingly, I found that my tandem-riding abilities increased with the amount of wine we “tasted".

So much delicious food

Did we eat and eat and eat? Yes we did, and it was pretty great. Highlights include the scallops at Pinocchio, a delicious roast lamb platter at Cool Change, and the inevitable fish and chips at the Lake Ferry pub on the way home. I was very sad not to have a pie at the French bakery cafe in Greytown but I guess we can't eat all the things all the time, because time just doesn’t work like that.

Chinoiserie all up in my hotel room

Shannon was lucky enough to be given a voucher for one night of our stay at the rather swanky Martinborough Hotel - hence our decision to stay there (nay, take a mini-break).

The Martinborough Hotel is a big old pile that's been renovated in a terribly tasteful style and is smack bang in the middle of the town. We stayed in the Bidwill Room and it was decorated in tres pretty Chinoiserie. There was also a small table with a silver jug of white blossoms that were artfully losing their petals.

Stonehenge Aotearoa

Stonehenge Aotearoa is worth a visit for the novelty alone. DID YOU KNOW it is not a mere replica of Stonehenge in spray-on concrete and chicken wire, but rather a perfect astronomical clock, reversed for the Southern Hemisphere and incorporating elements of Māori astronomy? DID YOU KNOW it is run by a group of enthusiastic local astronomers who also run tours and have made a lovely video guide you can watch in their auditorium? DID YOU KNOW it is beloved as a venue by local Wiccans and Druids?

Entry fee was $8, and I have no regrets.

Here is a photo of two different Stonehenges, can you tell the difference?

Sunday Film Fest: Montreal Swing Riot 2014 - invitational battle

Guys! I was super busy this past week between work and seeing people IRL. The sun has come out and everyone is shiny and amazing. I’m sitting in my office/sewing room with all the windows open, listening to the birds and podcasts of Australian public radio shows.

I’ve decided to revive this thing that I used to do where I tried to post a video each Sunday. To begin, then, here is fifteen minutes of a dance battle in Montreal between lindy hoppers (swing dancers) and a pretty amazing hip hop dance crew.

I only saw it because Katherine linked to to the video on twitter but I’ve watched about five times now and it’s re-ignited my desire to lindy hop.

The best thing about resolutions is making them

Summer! I am filled with a quiet joy at the prospect of being warm and staying outside for long periods of time, so when summer rolls around I feel a new lease on life. The long daylight hours allow so much more time to think and _ chill the fuck out_. The evening sun also mean that when I get home from work I'm less inclined to spend the evening hibernating on the couch and more inclined to do things in the evening.

This summer, filled with excitement, anticiPAtion, and enthusiasm for the months to come - not just Christmas but the warm weeks after it - I have given myself two very pleasant tasks. Tasks that I would like to spend all summer doing, but that I'm not pressuring myself to complete. Tasks for fun and not for making myself feel guilty.

My first is to write at least 500 words each day - or if I don't feel like computers and typing, write five pages in my diary. I'd like to be a bit more disciplined with my writing practice and, more to the point, I really enjoy writing... There's something infinitely enjoyable about the act of sitting down and thinking and blatting it all out in beautiful words. I carried a notebook while I was travelling and wrote daily - mostly because I was alone, and had to write things down instead of blathering them to whoever was closest. It was such a good feeling to just sit and write, and think and sit and write, and I want to continue to do that.

As I've already stated, not all of this writing will be blogging. But, you know, if I'm feeling like bestowing my (always enlightening) thoughts upon the unsuspecting internet, I shall follow that bliss. I'd also like to put a beautiful notebook in my Filofax for emergency diary urges.

My second summer task is to read my set of Anais Nin's diaries which I have owned for years and years now and have not yet completed. I am starting from the beginning of the first volume of the original published set - 1931 - and fully intend to read right through to volume VI where my set ends. I do not own volume VII which is annoying, but perhaps something I can look at remedying in the future.

Best of all, the two tasks tie neatly in with one another - reading diaries or journals inevitably spurs me to write something down myself, even if it's just my thoughts about the diary that I've just read.

Any other summery intentions are confined to the week of glorious holiday I get between Christmas Day and New Year's Day, and are concerned with a few little making projects for which I need to get materials. New dresses would be good.

In conclusion: best summer ever? Let me make it so.

A week Two weeks in SCP history (June 3-17)

An amazing Andy Warhol polaroid of Liza Minelli

Oh hello there! I have dropped off the face of the planet, blogging wise. I wrote this post a while ago now and during a transfer from blogging clients it some how ended up full of junk html (aside: if you know of a good blogging client for Ubuntu, please let me know!).

At the point where I realised that the formatting was all up the whatever, I felt too exhausted to do anything about it - and then for the next month I fell into a funk/anxiety haze where I felt mostly too exhausted or stressily het up to do anything much of anything, really.

But I am feeling more regular, and so will publish this post in preparation for something more substantial later this week. I have been making lots of things!

It looks as if June has often been a fairly prolific month here. Although I have nothing to report for this week from 2010-2012, I was posting substantively over the rest of the month during those years.

I’m putting this June enthusiasm for blogging down to the longer, colder days of winter, when nothing is more desirable of an evening than to cosy on down. (In fact I am ALSO internally cosy at the moment - full and relaxed on mulled wine. SO.GOOD.)

2009

• Cycle Rant- I am mad about the attitude towards cyclists as expressed in a Dom Post article. (I am often still mad about the attitude towards cyclists).
• You need to see this - I will knit for tattoos.
• Fashion bloggers v Pam Hogg - Fascinated by a now-ancient fashion blogger controversy.
• Saturday morning trauma - More about cycling in Wellington.
• Roller skates and roller skating - I hurt myself again at roller derby.

2008

• Roller Girls - watched Roller Girls for the first time and became deliriously excited about roller derby.
• Wednesday List: Liza Minelli - Liza Minelli is fabulous and awful. Yay Liza!
• A tour of my Kaikohe hotel room - the most retro hotel room I have ever stayed in.

2007

• Tongan Police Brass Band - heh, this is pretty awesome.

2006

• How serendipity on instant film - some thoughts on Polaroid film, which I still deeply love. Where can I buy cheap Polaroid film in NZ, people?
• Existing in real time - a list of things I happened to be well into at the time of writing.
• The World Cup has stolen my boyfriend - hilariously, I recently found a draft for a post about much the same thing that I’d written before the Rugby World Cup in 2011.

2005

• International Woman of Mystery - writing my first blog post in Australia.
• A Series of Observations: things that blow my mind - stuff in Adelaide, including the local passion for flavoured milk, the coins, and the crazy lack of people.

Do June and July fire in you the passion to do nothing but sit around at home and do indoorsy things, like blog?

My best things for looking after my rosacea (or: all the food I put on my face)

Having some success with getting my skin sorted at the moment, which is grand. I've been dosing up on a bunch of supplements and oils that were recommended to me years ago in my brief and abortive naturopath experience in Melbourne, and I've found that they've genuinely made a difference to the frequency of flair-ups and how quickly my face heals. Recently, Nat asked me about this, and given that I've done some experimenting (and continue to) I will Share. So generous.

So, my routine for my face is as at present:

• Wash my face with Agg Tval Swedish Egg White soap, and periodically (i.e. when everything is hunky dory) a quick exfoliate with a diddy bit of baking soda
• Tone with apple cider vinegar (1 part ACV to 3 parts water)
• Moisturise with Weleda Almond Oil for sensitve skin
• And then put on some decidedly non-natural sunscreen, because I need sunscreen and I haven't found a good 'natural' one yet

In terms of supplements:

• Tbsp of ACV in water morning and night
• 3000mg fish oil
• Single capsule EPO
• And something called a "Hair and Nail" supplement, which contains magnesium and zinc - the zinc should help with healing
• DRINKING ALL THE WATER

image from Daily Muse who was my first ACV as toner reference. *thanks profusely*

But the main thing is to AVOID - I had a flair-up this weekend because of drinking too much, not drinking enough water and getting sunburnt. Sunburnt is the worst thing ever. The thing to note though is that I've managed to get things under control in a matter of days because of the supplements et al above.

If I could boil it all down I would say: take lots of fish oil and drink more water. You need to drink more water. Oh and also: think sensitive skin if you're buying or making ANYTHING to put on your face, not oily skin kill it with salicylic acid and lots and lots of astringency and exfoliation die die die. *ahem*

At the moment I am also thinking of trying some new stuff out. Specifically, I'm interested to see if the Oil Cleansing Method and neem oil will make a difference to my skin. I've ordered a bunch of stuff from Go Native who are based in Auckland and were very understanding about combining my postage when I made two separate orders on the same day. I've also been obsessively reading Crunchy Betty, and am now basking in my skin after washing with manuka honey. Yes this is ridiculously expensive, HOWEVER we're periodically given honey by Shannon's cousin who is a beekeeper (apiarist) so there is that. Although he's now working in bars in Singapore so perhaps I should mediate my smugness somewhat.

So I have questions, if you have answers: have you tried/love/hate either the OCM or the washing-your-face-with-honey business? Do you have any tried and true tips for the legions of silent rosacea sufferers in the world, but especially me?

365DOP: My month of aging disgracefully; and It's Music Time?

Cross-posted from 365 Days of Peta.

Aging disgracefully over the last month has involved a lot of early nights and being cosily domesticated, and possibly drinking a little too much for me than is strictly necessary. Probably not quite enough though to qualify the adverb disgracefully: I have had no throw-backs to university days of drunken karaoke yodelling or Thursday night drinking sessions. Peta of course recommends consumption of red wine and dark chocolate in fair quantities, but I have been mostly consuming cider, white wine and cheese. (In Can We Help it if we're Fabulous, Peta comes down fairly hard on white wine (she loves her sweeping statements) and declares that it's only good for removing stains. Oh dear; I suspect that she'd be less than impressed by my quaffing of gallons of Sauvignon Plonk.)

Truthfully, my disgrace has more frequently included falling asleep on the couch with a book spread over my chest. Shannon has taken photographs of this every time it's happened. So much disgrace.

From memory, this was a particularly enjoyable snooze

The highlight of the month was the 30th birthday party - fabulous people, I was spoilt rotten, and I had a super awesome time. There were no photographs taken at all at the party, which was an inadvertently beneficial oversight. There are already too many photos extant of my drunken self and I'd like to start limiting those. I've never seen a photograph of myself boozed that I've thought was flattering in any way shape or form.

I intended to cook my little socks off, Peta-style, but in the end limited my experiments to my booze choices: I made the World's most punchy Punch, recipe from Insatiable:

• 3 bottles of rosé
• 500ml of cognac
• Some fruit and a vanilla pod

Feed to party-goers and watch as Shit Gets Weird.

From this I learnt a valuable lesson: Peta does not pull any punches when it comes to booze (thanks, I'll be here all week!).

Looking over my Peta list, I can say that I have at least thought about walking more, and have actually taken evening walks a little more frequently than I have in the past. I try to take a passeggiata at lunch time involving Stairs and Hills. I have not been as committed to vegetables as perhaps I might, but over Easter weekend I ate so much white carbohydrate cheesy stodge that I have been craving vegetables for the last three days.

This month I have marked down for Making Music.

I think that when I began this project I imagined myself joining a choir and learning to play the ukelele. The first is easiest enough - beginning next Wednesday I'll commit myself to going along to the Wellington Community Choir in Taranaki Street. Fascinated to know what it will be like; I imagine a little fruity?The ukelele is a little more difficult, but I'm hoping that the lovely Hayley will lend me one of hers and that I can learn to play at least one little song before the end of the month! Perhaps I can make a horrible video for you all.

Also: singing more around the house, and perhaps dragging some unsuspecting people along to karaoke.

Music! Fun!

365DOP: Ageing disgracefully

Cross posted from 365 Days of Peta

Peta is a little over 60. I know this because I saw it splashed across the covers of the New Zealand edition of the Australian Women's Weekly.

March is the month in which I turn 30. I am half of Peta in age - which is fitting, given that I am still but a disciple.

One of the things that I've always loved about Peta is that she is unashamedly herself when dressing, when doing her hair, when wearing her makeup - there's no playing up to the idea that older women should dress demurely et al. In saying that, she also comes across as not afraid of the fact that she's getting older - there's no freaky stretched-out facelifts here, or completely immoveable botox masks. I think her ability to accept her age without becoming a slave to it is testament to her chutzpah and general awesomeness. Big balls!

And how do I feel about approaching the 30 mark? To be honest, I'm looking forward to it! My twenties were perfectly acceptable, but it wasn't until I was about 26 that I learnt to accept and love myself and as a result, the last four years or so have been AWESOME. I'm looking forward to a decade where I'm sure of myself, am earning enough to live something approximating my ideal lifestyle, and am able to deal with most of what the world throws at me without becoming an anxious mess.

Quotes from Peta to take into this month:

You can deny your age a little bit, but by violently denying your age, you are denying a part of yourself. You are not going to become your fulfilled self, your most fabulous self, if you are ashamed of the most ordinary and inevitable of human conditions - that we all get older.

The ageing process eases us toward our certain end, forcing us to place value on our inner journey rather than on our outer selves.

You're only young once but you can be immature forever.

Wrinkles merely indicate where smiles have been - look after your body and it will look after you.

All from Chapter 6, Health, hormones and beauty: Nature is your enemy in Can we help if if we're fabulous.

Apart from writing these quotes across my mirror in lipstick, how else will I celebrate Peta-ness this month? Well, as Peta says:

The true secret to staying young, beautiful and healthy forever is boringly simple - diet. Fruit and vegetables, fruit and vegetables, fruit and vegetables ... It's also a good idea to drink one or two glasses of red wine daily... eat at least two squares of dark chocolate a day; drink as much coffee as you like; have as much sex as you can; and eat lots of fish for your brain.

Can we help if if we're fabulous, p. 152.

To break it down we have:

• Fruit and veggies
• Two glasses of red wine (kein Problem!)
• At least two squares of dark chocolate (bitchin')
• As much coffee as I like (never an issue)
• As much sex as I can - Peta says "If you can't have sex with someone, have it with yourself - it keeps you young and happy. Use it or lose it." (Can we help it if we're fabulous, p. 156-7)
• Lots of fish

She also notes that the thing with exercise - which she notes is important - is to make it incidental. Walk all the stairs! Walk around the block! Keep walking! Please add "walking" to the above list.

• walking

This month I'm also having my birthday party - which I plan to cater completely from Peta's books. In fact, she's bound to have some awesome party tips somewhere. Must research.

 

Interesting Times - a wedding

In my last attempt to blog I made mysterious noises about the Interesting Times and how the Interesting Times have been interfering with my blogging time/inclination. Essentially, what it comes down to is that I was rather thinly stretched between making a bolero for Nat for her wedding, getting my stuff sorted to go away for the wedding (think, primping myself so that I was suitable to wheel out as a bridesmaid) AND also packing my stuff (so much stuff) before Shannon and I moved house. Oh, and also I had to read something for book club. I got to a point where all my spare time was taken up with doing Very Important Things. Or being lazy after all the important things I had been doing.

Anyways, enough with the bemoaning already. Let me tell you about the wedding! Natalie and Mark were both totes gorgeous and I could have bitten them both. Shannon wore a suit. It was the first time I'd seen him in a suit and it was a rental and it was slightly too big, so all in all it was a bit of a disappointment insofar as seeing your boyf in a suit goes. I am prepared however to scratch the mental image and start again so that the next time I see him in a suit it will be a beautiful tailor made suit, and that will be the first suit I've ever seen him in. Sounds like a good compromise to me.

I'm the one with the glasses on.

The bolero I was knitting for Nat? - I completely screwed it up in the end. I kid you not, I was knitting like a demon in the last week before the wedding (I was knitting at Webstock) and when I went to block it out and sew it all together I discovered what a complete mess I'd made of the entire thing.

Here I am, knitting at Webstock (count six people back) - this image from the Webstock 2012 Flickr stream

It was literally about four sizes too big and somehow, I'd knitted one of the front panels much longer than the other. Did I mention that I discovered this balls up two nights before the wedding, and that the thing had taken me the best part of six months to knit? I couldn't do anything with it except frog the lot and start again from scratch. It was one of those moments where one feels suddenly, spectacularly, unreliable, and awful and pathetic.

Imagine: I had to call Nat with my tail between my legs and admit that I'd made a horrible hash of her wedding bolero and that she was actually going to freeze on the night of her wedding. Could she ever forgive me? And, because she is awesome, she totally could, and told me to stop worrying. What a wonderful woman! What a spectacularly blessed friend I am!

Two valuable lessons: one, Nat rocks my world. Two, always always knit a swatch. I have unravelled the lot to reknit, and am knitting a swatch now.

The wedding itself was super great: amazing food, fabulous venue (maitre'd was pretty much the most awesome man ever), great wine. The photographer was a crack up. Anna, who Nat and I also went to high school with, was the other bridesmaid and guided me in my duties as maid of honour. I wasn't that good at all, as in, every time I tried to reapply Nat's lipstick I kind of just smudged it more over her face? Anna is good at applying lipstick though. Yay Anna!

Here is some bride and groom action for you:

Also good about Martinborough: when I was hung over the next day I ate a croque madame with extra bacon and felt a million times better. Wedding/bacon/cheese sauce/sunshine = perfect weekend. Yuss.

 

Thoughts and links and thoughts

 

from La compagnie des dessins

An 84-Year-Old Sends Her First Text Message | The Hairpin

I read this today and I just LOVED it; an elderly woman making contact with her children and grandchildren on their own grounds, but most importantly, how much she enjoys learning how to use a new thing.

My Granddad is really into Skyping my brother Josh in Edinburgh. One time, Josh and his girlfriend Emma showed Granddad and Granddad's wife Dorothy all around their flat using Skype and my Granddad still talks about it.

 

 

I'm doing a free coaching online workshop type thing: The Reinvention Project. I don't know how much I'm likely to actively reinvent my life, but I'm hoping that it will steel me to be a bit more active, and a bit more proactive in paying back that credit card (also known as, the bane of my existence). I am SO stuck on those two things. With the financial thing especially, I feel as though I've been kidding myself: thinking that I am actively making progress while I take a lot of steps backwards by digging into the credit card constantly.

This started at the end of my school year. I've started talking about my finances a lot less, and I think it's because I know that I've been handling them kind of badly and don't really want to admit it to myself or other people. I've literally just realised that I've been avoiding talking about my financial situation because I'm feeling ashamed that I've been dealing with it so badly - and realising this makes me realise in turn that I have slipped off the bandwagon big time.

The Reinvention is working? Now all I need to do is to get enthused about exercise. Bicycle riding today was good.

 

Christmas Holiday and plans for next year

I'm writing this from Shannon's grandparents' house in beautiful, sunny Tauranga - where I have just spent the last three or so hours sitting out in the sun, drinking very large gins and reading a narrative biography of the Curzon sisters (who were all, frankly, appalling). The summer up here is about twenty times better than what Wellington was offering, and while smothered in sunscreen and permanently topped with a large sunhat and sunglasses, I am not trying to keep out of the sun at all *sips gin*.

S and I came to Tauranga via Kawhia Harbour, which is a somewhat circuitous route. We spent two nights in Kawhia and went to Ocean Beach where we dug our own hot pools (a la the Coromandel's Hot Water Beach), boiled ourselves and then ran into the sea. The site we were given at the campground was right on the edge of the harbour - which is really more of a large tidal estuary. Shannon walked from our tent to the other side of the harbour while the tide was out.

Other things That Are Good include my new job, in which I am learning and being challenged and have lots to do, and finishing school. My final assignment is online and operational: you can see it at Lake's web site (urbantramper.com). The thing that I'm most proud of on the site is not visible to the casual user for it is my content management system - I crafted it from scratch and I think I did a fabulous job. Still ironing out some quirks, but a fabulous job nonetheless.

In the New Year I'm undertaking a new blog project - Three Hundred and Sixty Five Days of Peta. The easiest way to describe it is that it will be a Julie and Julia style experiment, where I will be the Julie and the ever-fabulous Peta Mathias will be the Julia. However, there's a little bit more to it as Peta writes about all sorts of things in addition to Food - relationships with mothers and men, travel,  France, and What You Should be Wearing. I'll be doing my best to make a bunch of her recipes, but I'll also be taking cues about, amongst other things: eating in general, drinking, dressing, interior decorating, music, ageing, and hopefully travel. I think that it will be a very fun experiment. At the least it should satiate my Peta love while keeping me out of mischief over the course of the year. I'll probably be a big-lameo and cross-post most of my posts.

So, tell me: did you have good holidays?

Arohanui: another lovely week

The end of another week! As I write this I'm watching the RWC Scotland v Argentina game. The Argentinian players wear stripey shirts and socks and the effect is very strange; they kind of look like blue Tiggers.

Anyways, I had a very nice week, and here are some things that happened:

• I've spent all this weekend at a wedding up on the Kapiti coast. The wedding itself was lovely; the bride played murder ballads on the banjo; I saw killer whales breaching off Peka Peka Beach; and Jess Chambers and Rosy Tin Teacaddy played during the wedding and reception respectively. Shannon and I camped on the lawn which was not as cold as I thought it would be - but it did ignite a desire to spend all summer camping at the edge of the bush in DoC campsites.
• On the way back from the wedding we dropped into my Grandad's house in Waikanae and were fed by my lovely step-Nana Dorothy. My Grandad is always happy to discuss history indefinitely with me which I'm sure must be tedious beyond belief for Dorothy and Shannon. I was crazy tired from the wedding the night before, but it was very awesome to see them.
• This evening I made some baked oatmeal from the Budget Bytes recipe: part of my plan to be better organised in the morning and eat breakfast every day. My decision to make it was inspired by the Pumpkin Pie Baked Oatmeal that Beth posted about earlier this week, but as we're heading out of pumpkin season at the moment, I thought I'd better use her earlier seasonal fruit recipe. S and I had some for dinner and it was delicious.
• It was my lovely Nat's 30th birthday yesterday. I had a drink with her at Little Beer Quarter on Friday night - the first time that I'd been there. Good beer selection, lovely atmosphere (much less crowded than the Malthouse), and the nuts were good too. I'm just nuts about nuts (lol, obv). The best thing though was Nat. She's such a legend - starting university after working and travelling and living in the UK for ten years, studying incredibly hard, and absolutely blitzing with her marks. Happy Birthday darling - super proud of you, Ms. Fabulosity.
• My flatmate Hayley arrived back from her trip to Burning Man and around the States - it's great to have a gender balance in the house again, and to have someone to cackle with.
• My other James bought a pig's head for his birthday on Friday. Did you know pigs have very human looking eyes? I discovered this as a pair of them peered out the the head on the counter top. However the food made with the pig head has been good so far (some kind of Brazilian bean thing with the cheeks). There is something that looks suspiciously like brawn in the fridge at the moment that's freaking me out a bit but I'm sure it will be fine - nay, delicious!
• I dropped in yet more books to the second hand book store and I think I've finally reached an equilibrium with my book shelves, and THAT knocks another of my resolutions from my list.
• My new raincoat from Wet and Wendy arrived and I love it. It's raining rather heavily at the moment, and I'm hoping that it will be again tomorrow - can you believe that? I figure, if I can't have beautiful sunshiney weather then I want a lot of rain to splash about in.

And now I figure that it must be my bed time. Goodnight, lovelies!

The image above is from Simply Breakfast. The recipe the Simply Breakfast lady used is a different to Beth's, but Amazon has hosted a little preview that includes the recipe. Keen to try it out!

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On

I'm just taking a break from my knitting and watching George Eliot dramatisations to bring you this bizarre/cute animation.

Weekend, sewing, dog-sitting, pizza-making

I'm writing this from my mum's dining room table, with her doglette, Molly, looking up at me like an adorable (albeit slightly fragrant) teddy bear. Did I mention that she's adorable? This is Molly:

I want a Molly dog. Shannon is against small dogs. Boo to him.

My brother Luke and I undertook a big pizza making mission tonight, and made absolutely the most delicious homemade pizza ever: roast chicken, baby spinach, zucchini and bacon. And parmesan and edam cheese.

The other pizza had chili con carne, red pepper and sundried tomatoes on it. Yes, it was pretty weird. But we didn't mind! We're wacky crazy with our pizza choices.

This morning I commuted from Newlands into the city - commuting once in a while is kind of an exciting treat, rather than being a HUGE pain in the butt (five years from Whitby, anyone?). This afternoon Molly dog and I went for a walk and I made the pizza dough. Otherwise, I have just been enjoying the house - it's like being on holiday! I think mostly because Mum's house is always epic levels of clean.

I decided that I was going to have a full-on sewing weekend on the weekend just passed, and I kind of managed it. On Saturday I made a truly great skirt out of a navy woollen crepe; a top using vintage fabric and my own pattern, finally perfected; and I made a second attempt at a 60s tent/A-line dress that I picked up a vintage pattern for via Trade Me. I didn't manage to finish sewing the bias trim on the dress (next weekend's project, hopefully), but I am wearing my skirt and top as we speak.

I believe that I'm much closer to discovering the Zen of Sewing than I ever have been before - it took me until 4.30 in the afternoon on Saturday, after three or four attempts to insert an invisible zip, to finally lose my rag. Check that shit out. I'm like the Dalai Lama of amateur seamstresses.

Tragically, on Sunday I had to abandon the sewing to earn some money. On the plus side I wore my pyjamas the whole time I worked, and the Boy brought me coffee and did all the food shopping.

Alrighty, going to go to bed now because the spare bed at Mum's has an electric blanket and I love a novelty. Also, I was woken up at 5am BAH. An early night is in order.

Another Monday List of Awesome

How are you all this morning my dears? Did you have a weekend of Fabulosity and random acts of Super Fabness? My weekend featured eating eating and also eating, two birthday parties and cleaning my bedroom. The weather was lovely yesterday and as Shannon noted, it was a "resetting day". He is making plans for my very cool amplifier in a suitcase, and I am excited about the prospect of being able to listen to my music on it.

Some things that have been great and that I'd like to share with you today:

• This description of Kate Middleton's wedding dress. It was a very nice wedding dress, I must say. I had no real desire to watch the wedding, but I am glad I got a look at the dress because it was lovely. It would be great to have a closer look at some of the details.
• Hula Hope is a lovely person, and wrote about her recent gig at Happy.
• I really like this idea for a glass travel mug with a straw - it would be great to be able to take my morning smoothie with me to class, or perhaps a cold slow drip coffee in the summer time. On my list of Things to Make and Do.
• Fabric-filled potholes!
• Is it against the rules to link in a web roundup to somebody else's round up? The Pioneer Women's list of pasta dishes is heaven. Absolutely.
• I know that Detroit is also said to be a place of creativity and community gardens, but mostly I am fascinated/saddened by the ruins.
• An iconic photograph with a fabulous backstory.
• The history geek in me loves this story - a hoard found in a backgarden in Hackney, and the son of the original owner steps forward!
• I don't know how much I want to customise my jandals, but at any rate I might be able to get my three year old Havaianas to go another summer.

All Things Amazing

Epiphanies, of a kind

• Happiness is a big red wool-lined coat, with fur around the hood and a leather beaver applique on it’s pocket. How could a person ever be unhappy in such a garment?
• Wintery weather makes me very dry and papery, like a lizard princess. It’s right to invest more time in applying moisture to the scaley lizard skin. (For serious, right now my skin feels like the outside of an onion, like you could take great swathes of it and peel them off. This is the dryest I’ve ever felt in my whole life and it’s not my cup of tea at all, let me tell YOU).
• After a conversation with Mon the other week: There are so many opportunities to retrain and to investigate and explore different careers... As oppose to feeling one HAS to choose between the many many things that can be done in the world, it’s more a matter of deciding which one to do first. So, I can be a counsellor or an archaeologist or a novellist if the whole web architecture thing doesn’t work out, or when it becomes boring or a chore. Why not? But also: one thing at a time, and do it wholeheartedly.
• When Virginia Woolf picked up her diary again in 1917, after one of her bouts of illness, she wrote without ego: that is, without the word “I”. This is a pretty interesting experiment, especially for a blogger and compulsory journalist such as myself - it’s not always easy, but interrogating the need for the word and whether the same sentence is written better without it is a pretty good challenge. Creates less lazy writers. You should give it a go, even if it’s just in your own diary or journal and not online... that way it’s easy to just elide the word entirely and not worry so much about sounding off a peremptory sentence. Writing challenges are good.
• Finding and listening to new music is one of life’s little pleasures. You should try: Get Back Guinozzi!, The Living Sisters, The Eversons. “Low File Tropical” by Get Back Guinozzi! is my favourite track at the moment and is pretty much permanently on repeat. The Living Sisters make me think of Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins. The Eversons make me think of Best Coast and drinking at Happy.

And darlings, that’s all I have for today. Your scaley lizard princess bids you adieu, and expresses a hope that we’ll be back to some kind of regular blogging program beginning next week.

Books books books books

ou should know that while I was neglecting my blog I was also reading a metric crapload. I purged the enormous pile of half read books beside my bed and just concentrated on reading two books at a time - one fiction and one non-fiction (because sometimes you don't feel like reading fiction. And sometimes you don't feel like reading non-fiction).

Oh look - here they are!

As you can see I was less than impressed with Harlequin. It was a book that Jo had brought to the flat but had no desire to take with her - probably because it was COMPLETE DRIVEL. Yep. At the time I just felt like reading something light, so I guess that it fulfilled that particular need. But really, for the love of all that is good and right in literature, don't do it.

Savvy Chic was good fun. Most of it is just common sense advice as to the best ways to entertain, travel, et al. However, I like that lady's spunk! And some of the advice was inspired - and has lead me to have my own white Egyptian cotton duvet cover. Which cost me about $60 in the end, BTW. Bargain.

Lady Chatterley's Lover was our book club book for this month - and I found I enjoyed it much more than I thought I was going to, being that Lawrence is so full of loathing for all Womankind and their Masculine Essence Sucking Ways. But apparently he hated women a lot less when writing Lady Chatterley than he did when writing, say, The Rainbow or Sons and Lovers.

If you haven't read We Will Not Cease I strongly, strongly, strongly recommend that you do - especially if you have the slightest interest in WWI or New Zealand history. Absolutely fascinating autobiographical book about the treatment of conscientious objectors by the New Zealand government during WWI.

And finally - the book that has changed the way I eat - In Defense of Food. I am now the Queen of only eating at a table, of drinking a glass of wine with dinner, of eating from the garden, of avoiding processed foods. Also, of stoneground flour - the discussion of the relative nutritional value of stoneground v industrial ground flour was, for some reason, one thing from the book that really stuck with me. I feel as though all my home baking is now infused with goodness, which is of course a pretty ridiculous thing as it's mostly full of sugar more than anything else.

The current two books on the go are Dr Zhivago (Boris Pasternak) and Linotte: The Early Diaries of Anais Nin, a book that has inspired me to become diary-writing-girl once again, in the same way that Savvy Chic has inspired me to only buy really nice, quality stuff, and In Defense of Food has inspired me to eat quality food in moderate quantities.

Reading just two books at a time has made me much more excited by the prospect of the other books on my book shelf as well - I think it must be the sheer anticipation. I'm estimating that I won't even need to pay my library fine this year, with the number of books that I have lying around that either haven't read yet or really want to read again. AWESOME.

Wednesday List: Lovely Ladies with whom I'd love to have a coffee

IMDb

In no particular order, a list of women who I think would make wonderful coffee partners.

♥ My lovely, wonderful, funny and gorgeous Bex. I would like to have a coffee with her, and then also perhaps a couple of bottles of wine. I received texts all weekend about her trip to Washington DC, but it's not the same (wails).

♥ The fabulous Lizzie. Lizzie, you rock my tiny world, and I want to hear about your shop and your plans and the fabulosity you've been investing in. I miss you Lizzie!

♥ Peta Mathias who is a lady crush and fabulous to boot. She wrote a book, you know, called Can We Help it we're Fabulous? I've never met her, BUT I now have a possible contact, so when I go to France I will stalk her HARD CORE or - invite her out to coffee and sit spellbound in front of her like a student with her yogi. I'll be all "Peta! Lay your wisdom upon me". And she'll be like "Ginger, you should eat delicious food and dye your hair orange and move to France and be fabulous", and I'll say (while nodding) "Yes, yes, yes!"

♥ The apparently very batty Helena Bonham Carter. Batty! I should not be hungover for that coffee though, because, as is well recorded, I don't deal well with batty people while hungover.

♥ There are three internet people I'd like to meet for coffee: Alex Franzen, Bex from Thrifty Chick and Guyana Girl. For various reasons, including the general fabulosity of all. Fabulous! Also, I have been cross-commenting with GG since I first started my blog - she started hers about the same time. She's been there, man.

♥ Anais Nin - I'd sit in a stunned silence as she analysed me and told me about sleeping with her father. Also, I would admire her clothes and the way that she dresses, and quiz her about her relationship with her husband and how the hell that worked, and about Henry Miller and what he's really like. Because I can't make head nor tail of him or her or their relationship, and there's been a metric crapload written about it from both of them and from a bunch of other people too.

If you could choose anyone - who would you want to have a coffee with? I mega-cropped this list FYI.