Height of fashion

One loss in moving countries is houseplants. Just when you have grown them from cheap, tiny pots to lush, green monsters, you have to get rid of them and start again. Turns out that house plants (plants in general) are quite expensive in Australia, but I eventually found a punnet of six ferns at a garden centre for a reasonable price. Some have gone into pots for the less sunny rooms (one side of the house, with the bedrooms on it, gets no direct sunlight at all so its great for ferns and cyclamen and such). One got used for a terrarium experiment!

 

 

I'm sure you've seen these just about everywhere by now. I've always loved them, but thought they were a bit tricky. But then I kept seeing them, and came across a big jar at the op shop ($1.25! Thanks Salvos!) and took the plunge. I did some reading, then disregarded pretty much everything and decided it was pretty much just a big see through pot. The blue stones are a bit odd, but the only small bags of stones (less than 10 kg) at the garden centre were coloured, so in they went. Turns out, they kind of match some of the other stuff on the mantelpiece. The mantelpiece is probably the wrong place for it (too warm and dry thanks to the heater), however aesthetics are currently winning over pragmatics.

 It somehow has a vintage feel that seems to go with the period of the house (1940/50s), and I'm pretty happy with it. I'll keep you posted if it survives...



New Views

We've been in Hobart for about 6 weeks now. I have to say, she's put on some beautiful weather for us. Our new house has looooong long views, and lots of sun (even in winter!)

 

For those not familiar with Hobart, this isn't a usual view of the city - we look out to the suburbs, up the river.

Chairs

A while ago, we bought 3 chairs on Trade Me (its like the NZ version of eBay, although why they don't just use eBay I'm not really sure). Anyway, the chairs were 8 bucks for the three. And once they were home I decided I quite liked them - except the covers. Which turned out to be (fairly) easily removable. I made new covers for one from some Bekko fabric I bought ages ago. Its not the most professional of sewing jobs, and needs a few tweaks to get them to sit right (and stay right), but I love it. It looks great in the lounge, and its a lovely, comfy chair to sit and work in. 8 dollars well spent.

A quiet return

When we moved to New Zealand at the start of the year I decided to call it quits on the blog. But 6 months later I miss it, and I miss having a record of our stuff and goings on.
This is a corner of our new place that I like right now. Its accidental - the print is waiting to be taken in to work to brighten my very dull office. Meanwhile, it makes me smile when I walk in the door.

Redressing the gender imbalance

 A few weekends ago, we went and collected three new additions to our brood...

Meet Bat (a Nera), Butter (an Oxford Brown) and Mrs Bogey (an Oxford Blue). This is what happend when you let your two year old name your chooks. It took me a full week to realise we had named one of them Butter Chicken.
They are quite lovely, and very messy. They let B pat them, eat everything that comes their way, and dig up all my plants. They also poo everywhere, and escape from every attempt to pen them in to one corner of the garden. They give us three lovely little eggs every day.

Climbing the walls

 When we moved into our place a year ago (!), we spent considerable amounts of resources (temporal and financial) acquiring furniture that we actually liked, would remain functional after more than 6 months and look the part in this 1930's semi. We largely solved that problem. However, the blank walls were crying out for some decoration, and turns out that frames are about as expensive as furniture. So I bought a two lovely pieces of screenprinting from Helen Rawlinson on Etsy. She has lovely stuff, and works out of London. The pieces turned up so quickly, and I got some canvases and glued them on. The ABC one didn't fit a standard canvas size, so I sewed a little linen bias binding on two edges, which looks ok I think. So now the big boy's room is a bit brighter...

 and our room is a little less empty looking.

I also decided we needed a new duvet cover. I had a lovely piece of blue and white fabric in my stash, enormous and bought for a song second-hand a few years ago. But it wasn't quite enough, so I found a lovely piece of 'very vintage' Irish linen online.

 I know, it just looks like a sheet in this picture. Trust me, it is gorgeous. Cool, smooth, clearly used as it is lovely and soft. It has a hand stitched seam up the centre that is done with the most minute stitches, and the hems are so beautifully sewn, all by hand. Someone spent a lot of time on this piece of fabric. It also had a weavers mark on it:

One day I'll remember to take a picture of the finished duvet cover, but I managed to keep the centre seam and some of the hems. It had a few tiny pieces of wear, but these were easy enough to fix. I also have enough left to make some cushion/pillow covers (one day!). I love having this treasured old piece as my treasured new thing.

On my mantelpiece...

Are you sick of daffodils yet? Not me....