In my garden this week ...........

Here are some of the plants that are flowering in my garden this week.
This is one of my favourites, I love the flowers on chives. I love the shape of the little buds as they come up and seem to float among the leaves.
Here is my second favourite the french lavendar at my front door.

Just thought I would include this rock rose as it looks so very, very like tissue paper.

New house pressie

My friend Keriann has just moved house, so thought I would make her a pressie. I used the tutorial from here to make the fabric basket above. I think it worked out really well. One day I will get round to makeing some for myself, I thought they would look really good sitting on the shelves in my sewing room.

I love Spring

I love Spring. This is the first year it has really felt like Spring since we got here. The first year we arrived in September, which should have been Autumn for us coming from the Northern hemisphere. So it all felt a little weird. It has taken three years for me to get the hang of September being Spring. Above is a field of spring flowers to celebrate and below is a close up shot.

Wasp Nest

A Wasp nest just beside my front door. I know that wasps are a nuisance and that these paper wasps are not natives, but there is something amazing about the nests they build by chewing up wood and making paper.

A rose to far perhaps

There was something not quite right with the dressing gown I made on Wednesday. I could not quite put my finger on what.
Then it struck me it needed a trim on the edge. So after pulling every fabric out of my stash I settled on another rose fabric, one of my favourites. Still not sure if it is perhaps a rose to far. But I like it, I will be wearing it and nobody apart from the family will see me in it (oh and just you as you read my blog). So who really cares. And of course being me I had to make it reversible. Hate doing edges, interfacings and neatening seams. So if I spill my breakfast yogurt or slobber toothpaste down it, I can quickly swap it over to the other side and nobody will know.

97 done and still going slowly

You might remember a few months ago I started making yoyos for a teapot cosy project. Here they are so far. 97 done and 15 more to go I hope. Maybe Peter might get his teapot cosy before christmas.

Time to myself sewing

I thought I had a few hours to do some sewing today. I had the day off to watch my youngest run his cross country race. I cut out a batch of sewing, wich included - a new dressing gown, a tablecloth and a couple of other small mending projects. Then got ready to go down to my son's school, hmmmm. I could not find the car keys, after searching for 30mins, my wonderful cleaning lady took pity on me and gave me a lift down to the school. I walked back afterwards and found the car keys hanging on the key hook in the cupboard. Guess I should have looked in the obvious place. Anyway, I did not get through my large pile of sewing, only managed to get the dressing gown done. Perhaps when I grow up I will not be so scatter brained.

Some more Spring blossom

The weather this week has been brilliant, a small taste of summer to come, so here is some blossom to celebrate.

This is what ....... what I want to be when I grow up

No not a daisy, though that is a thought. What I would like to be when I grow up is slim, tall, willowy. I would like to wander around the garden in a floaty dress and big hat, with a big basket of flowers. Unfortunatly as I am short and plump, wearing jeans and a t-shirt, grubbing about in borders yanking out weeds, with hair sticking out at odd angles. Guess it isn't likely I will ever get to wander around the garden in a floaty dress. But who really cares, it was a nice day dream, thanks to Bug and Pop for the suggestion.

Some more bargains and daisies.

My youngest and I went to a garage sale - a cross between a car boot sale and a jumble sale - at his school this morning. We had a great time. he bought a ton of toys for a few cents and I bought some books for 50cents each. A cushion with daisies on it for $2. And best of all a set of pine shelves. Peter must have liked the shelves, because by tea time they were up on the wall. I love bargain hunting.

Some blossom

Pear blossom.

Cabbage tree has a haircut

Usually when I hear rustling in the Cabbage Tree it is a cat. This time it was a cat and my eldest son, who thought he would see what life looked like from up there.

Since he was up there I passed up the loppers and he gave my Cabbage Tree a good haircut, getting rid of all of last years flowers and all the old leaves. It looks great and ready for this years flowers wich will be out sometime soon.

A bunch of bargains

A cream and green enamel with a few scrapes and bumps. Ready for bunches of spring flowers. A blue enamal jug with some more bumps and scrapes. Some beautiful vintage fabric. Not sure what to use it for. Perhaps some cushions with a ticking back.
Some old Sanderson's fabric, which is a lovely sage green colour.
The best bargain of the bunch is the little desk above, which I bought for $20. It needs a bit of TLC, perhaps a paint job and new handles. Can't wait to get started, but need a new mouse sander first. I managed to blow mine up on my last project. I have a birthday coming up soon and have been dropping hints to Peter that I need a new Mouse sander. Fingers crossed.
And finally I have got round to making a cover from my bargain fabric for my bargain wooden ironing board. I have not got my design quite right, but it seems to work and the ironing was easier. As you can see below it did not take long to fill it up. I really need to paint the sewing room walls that green is awful.

Guess who's hiding in the fabric cupboard

Whenever there is a cupboard open in our house a cat jumps in.

This is .... what I would do with a spare ten minutes

Hoppo Bumpo came up with this great "This is" theme for this week. What I would do with a spare 10 minutes. Probably what I would do with a spare ten minutes is sit on the veranda looking at the garden and planning. Or wander about the house procrastinating about what I should spend my 10 minutes doing, by which time half an hour has past and I have missed my spare 10 minutes.

Lunch with Peter

Peter and I had a bit of spare time alone, for a change. So we had a little drive down to Paper Mulberry for lunch. Above are some of the snaps of the countryside I took as we were driving along. Below is our lunch. I had kumara(sweet potato) and corned beef cottage pie, which was very, very yummy. I love cottage pie, but don't get to cook it often as the rest of the family hate cottage pie. Peter had a curried kumara pastry, which also tasted excellent. Both meals came with tons of salad. Peter did not want to have any pudding, but I could not resist the pear and ginger upside down cake. Strangely enough Peter ate more than half of my lovely cake. I should have made him buy me another one, but I was way to full by then.

And some more sunset

Sunset at the bottom of the garden.

Weather

Above is Cape Kidnappers yesterday, below is Cape Kidnappers today. Its nice to see the sun and the blue, blue sea.

The tree of happiness

Keriann over at Sweet Mary nominated me to join in with the Tree of Happiness meme. So here goes these are six of the things that make me happy -

1. Messing about with my kids and hubbie. Today Peter and I were working in the lower garden. My eldest and youngest joined us to help, but ended up messing about on the creek in the little dingy. I love watching them and listening to them having fun. That makes me very happy.

2. Peter my hubbie makes me very, very happy.

3. Having friends around so we can sit around eating (Peter's delicious cooking) and drinking, talking and laughing. Last night Keriann and Ian came round for a meal it was good to see them both.

4. Walking in the early morning. Where ever we are, either at home or on holiday, I love to head out in the early morning and stroll around taking pictures. There is something about the early morning light and the promise of a new day.

5. Music makes me happy. I have very eclectic taste in music and love everything from Louis Armstrong to The Gorillaz, passing the Monkees on the way. Certain songs can be guaranteed to lift my spirits and get me singing along, rather tunelessly.

6. Number 6 is life itself. I love life and all that goes with it. Sometimes the difficult things feel as if they will never go away. But then you look around you and see some tiny thing that reminds me that bad times do pass and the sun will shine again. I love living here in New Zealand with the sun shining and appreciate how lucky we are to be able to do this.


I would like to nominate my hubbie Peter to share with us his tree of happiness, and since he has two blogs, I think he should do two trees of happiness, one without food and one with food. Over to you Peter.

This is my ......absolute favourite band of all time.

Thank you to Curly Pops for suggesting this week's this is theme.  Here they are the Monkees.  I am really showing my age here.  The first ever contrived boy band, I think.  Now, if you had asked who my favourite artist of all time is then you might have got a more sopisticated answer.  When I was a very little girl I used to watch their show on a friday night and I loved them all.  I really thought they were so glamourous.  Over the years, I still listen to their music and enjoy it for what it is.  I have no tales of trying to see them, I was just too little and they lived very far away in a lala land.  But all through my life their music has been there and it always gets me singing and lifts my spirits.