going south

I'll be away from here for a couple of weeks having adventures in the South Island.

See you soon.

family

The family have moved in. We've gone from a quiet house to one full of activity, toys, dirty dishes and laundry. But it's so nice to have the house full of life again.☺

We've been enjoying
- a railway line and farmyard in the living room
- buckets of tomatoes and beans from the garden - with some beans making good moustaches and
- watching the "hair" grow on our alfalfa eggheads, Charlie and Annie.

I've also managed to finish two sunhats hats using this free Oliver + S pattern. It seems every sewer on the internet has made this hat so there's lots of help and inspiration out there. This pattern worked out really well for me but there is a Q&A here, an alternative construction method that requires no hand sewing here and instructions for adding a chin strap here.

one potato

Little across-the-road neighbour had her second birthday recently. Because she loves playing with water I made this raindrop paper to wrap my gift to her. It's a potato print.

Here's a good tutorial on how to make potato prints and this is what worked for me

• Keep it simple.
• Apply paint to your potato stamp using a foam brush.
• Do a few test stamps on a scrap of your chosen paper. This should give you an idea of how much paint you need on the stamp - too little and the print is too faint, too much and it ripples.
• You're hand printing. It's the imperfections that make it special.
• Aim for good coverage.