Moda Modern Blocks

Along with several people in my quilt group I'm going to be working on the Moda Modern Building Blocks quilt, a few blocks at a time, over 2015. It's quite a challenge for me on a couple of levels: firstly, I'm not a big fan of quilts with a variety of different blocks, they don't appeal to me aesthetically - to my mind they look random and jarring. That's just me I know, other people who I like and respect love that sort of carry-on so there's obviously something in it and because this one doesn't immediately offend me I'm going to dip my toes into the deadly seas of chaos. Secondly, I don't like all the colours used in the pattern so I'm going to have to choose quite a few for myself and to be honest, for me that way madness lies. I'm going to be doing a hell of a lot of second-guessing myself and over-thinking but I figure as long as they're all colours I like then it should be ok in the end.

I went through my stash to find solids and discovered that I don't have a lot and that my warm colours don't play well with my cool or some of the blues in the pattern so I'm going to have to buy a bunch to bulk out the warms and all of the cools. I've been such a good girl on my fabric diet for the last couple years and now look, I'm going to be kicking off 2015 by falling off the wagon. Let's hope it's not the start of a slippery slope! I'm going to make do with fewer fabrics than the pattern does, I think that might provide a bit more cohesiveness as well as being cheaper.  Here's what I have so far

Charity quilt challenge

The latest Monday Modern quilt group challenge is going to be making a quilt for charity using fabrics from Helen's post-quilting shop stock. She brought along a couple of boxes of FQs and told us to go for it. At first we're all "yay it's like Christmas!" but then faced with so much choice I actually found it a bit daunting! I started out going for blues and greens but then suddenly remembered Rita at Red Pepper Quilt's Instagram post yesterday morning with a WIP shot of a 'low-volume' quilt she's working on. It made me all happy because it looks like spring so I thought I could go with that kind of fabric selection. Luckily I had my phone with me to have a look at it because she's got some surprisingly bright colours in there, which puts paid to the idea I have so far subscribed to that 'low volume' is just a euphemism for 'pastel'. This is what I ended up with:



I'm not 100% sure about all the fabrics (I've already pulled out three to return to Helen which don't go, although Hazel is very keen on one so perhaps I'll just buy them), and I'm sure I'll add in some from my own stash but I have a pattern in mind, and two months to do it - stay tuned!

Other things that are making me happy at the moment:

 Kowhai flowers and spring arriving





This photo taken in Edmonton - it's so Canadian it makes my heart ache a little.



And this little girl and her pug and how much they love each other (he does really, despite the pleading look in his eyes here!)

Wonky star bee blocks

For my Monday Modern group bee blocks I'm asking everyone to make me wonky stars using linen and vintage sheets. Everyone got a small bundle with an assortment of pink, blue, yellow and 'white' sheet scraps. The white are actually prints that have a lot of white background and soft colours, and I've included some solid white fabric just to make it more obvious.

 I'm really very excited about this bee! I had to laugh at myself a bit though, while taking this bright and happy photo because look what it was doing just out of frame...

 ...just bucketing down! In fact, by the time I took the top photo it was raining so hard that it was bouncing up off the deck (which is covered all the way to the steps out there btw) and getting on the fabric - if you look hard at the pink on the left you can see the raindrops.

Naughty bag

I went to my Thursday crochet lesson last week with a bit of a heavy heart because Helen had just announced that she is closing her gorgeous wee shop at the end of next month. I feel awful for her, and also for me because she's been a happy part of my crafting for the last two years. I needn't have worried too much though, because crochet was lovely as usual and descended into some rather unladylike discussions on topics I won't repeat here for the sake of the others (and myself!). I haven't laughed that hard in awhile. The other nice thing was being introduced to the concept of the 'naughty bag' where you hide all your closing-down sale purchases. It was actually quite stressful deciding which of the fabrics I really needed to have some of, I tried to stay practical but damn it was hard! I could have taken a metre of most of the fabrics in the shop quite happily. In the end I brought this collection home

Helen said that's nothing compared to what some people were going out the door with, so if you're planning on going in I'd suggest doing it sooner rather than later! It's all up online too.

I have plans for almost all of it, but I know I'm going to have to be strict with myself on Monday when I'm there for the quilt group. I'm going to try some paper piecing with the Japanese Liberty-esque lawn, and there are a couple Xmas projects in there as well. Helen did a gorgeous linen table runner with that pink floral mixed in with some oranges that I'd like to try and replicate.

Polaroids

I have three words for you - So. Much. Fun. I'm doing these for my Monday Night quilt group and the aim is to combine all our Polaroids into a quilt and do something altruistic with it. I'm so making some for me though! I think the proportions we decided on are a bit off though, the top and sides need to be thinner, but that's easily remedied if I can convince the others!

Polaroids WIP, originally uploaded by Hazelnutgirl.

It's a fairly random assortment of fabrics, and there are definitely more than the required one animal in my lot; but I discovered that when thinking about photo-like blocks I tend to choose fabrics with figures or objects in them, and not surprisingly, those turn out to include a fair number of animals! I've seen some lovely polaroids done with just geometric prints, like more regular quilting designs, and I'd like to try that way too.

Critters

When I saw the Critter Community panels by Suzie Ultman for the first time I thanked my lucky stars there were babies being born who needed (yes needed) quilts made from it to justify buying some. I figured that it would look great with the squares and animals quilted, and a simple border around that. And you know what, it does! Or did. Or whatever tense I should use there.



The blue border is a scrap from the new blinds in our spare room and the brown is linen I bought to make a bigger quilt but it was just so perfect I used it on this instead. In retrospect I doubt there was enough to use in a larger quilt anyways! The binding is a spotty fabric by Lecien. I've already done a post on the FMQ 'issues' I had, but after a wash and a little blurring of the eyes I don't think any occasional wonkiness was too obvious. At least I hope not!

The fun stuff

Quite awhile ago I decided that I'd do a little something when I hit 500 followers - it seemed like a far-away and unlikely number! Then it started getting closer and I thought I'd better get myself organised and maybe a giveaway would be good. I was in Spotlight one day after a conversation with a friend about the Denyse Schmidt fabrics they carry and I thought perhaps they would be suitable fodder. I was hoping to get some of the Spotlight-only prints and I did find a few of them which was nice. In the meantime the followers jumped past the 500 mark and now there are 507 of you lovely people - and of course the RSS feed readers of whom there are an unknown number - hello to you all! I'm still astounded that so many people have taken the time to add me to their blog rolls and of course very flattered!

So what do I have for you?

 There are three bundles of 8 metric fat quarters (0.5m x half the width of fabric), and they all contain two of the NZ/Oz-only prints. One of the bundles is for someone who has commented on my blog in the last month, I appreciate your comments so much! The other two bundles will go to two people who leave a comment below, international entries welcome! One comment per person, I'm not looking to publicise this, or gain more followers or anything like that. Doesn't matter what you say, but make sure I have some way of contacting you. If you can't get Disqus to work (and I know some of you have problems with it at times) please send an email to me (you need to type the address in manually, it's just a image so I don't get spambots picking it up) and I will add you in! I will use a random number generator to pick names from the two pools (and yes, if you have commented previously you can most certainly put your name in below for a second chance) and announce the winners next Monday morning NZ time.

What's next?

Mat told me I should take a break from sewing after the pillow marathon but all I can say is "Tomtes ahoy!"



Red wool felt for the caps, with a range of fabrics from French General and (I think) Lecien. Can't wait to get started, but I need to make a few pattern alterations first. I hadn't realised how pretty the French General fabics were, they're much more appealing in real life than they are in pictures.

We had our local Santa Parade yesterday, and our tree is up, so I'm starting to get into the mood; although the fact that Hazel has decided that 'Feliz Navidad' and 'I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus' by the Jackson Five are her favourite Xmas songs tempers that a little!

Stuffed animal sleeping bags

I've had the Flossie Teacakes stuffed animal sleeping bags Pinned for quite awhile but finally got on to making them after Cat gave me the gorgeous Heather Ross Far Far Away fabric as a gift. The pattern comes in three sizes - Daddy Bear (Teddy), Mummy Bear (Foofoo) and Baby Bear (Snooks). I don't know if Teddy is really a daddy bear (its sex varies from day to day to be honest) but the bag fits beautifully.

I'd like to make a longer one to accommodate Puppy, as he fits nicely in the largest width-wise but is too long - the beauty of the pattern is that it's easily altered to accommodate a range of animals of different sizes and shapes.

I bought the pink fabric from Stitchbird because I really felt that they had to be set. Not because I like buying fabric, oh no.  All the rest of the fabrics came from my stash so I feel vaguely virtuous about the whole exercise. Vaguely. Though if I have to get a fourth version to make Puppy's bag...



Just simple straight line quilting but you could get fancy if you wanted - they'd be a great project to try out free-motion machine quilting.

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Note: Just to clarify, the pattern for the sleeping bags isn't mine - if you'd like to make one the pattern is available from Flossie Teacakes at the link above.  Thanks!

That winning feeling

You'd think all I did was enter giveaways these days because dammit I won another one! I suspect this is my luck for the rest of the year, or maybe the next two, but I'm pretty pleased anyways. The giveaway was at The House of Marmalade, a blog about corsetry that I've been reading for quite awhile now and which I find endlessly fascinating - despite not owning one! Corsets really are rather gorgeous objects. Anyways! The giveaway I won was from Dragonfly Fabrics in the UK and was a Colette pattern and 3m of ribbon. Woohoo! And then of course they had a sale on summer fabrics and hey, it's going to be summer here at some point so I showed Hazel a few things and bought what she wanted (like that's any guarantee of success, but I live in hope). There's a voile (top) a cotton with blue flowers that she fell in love with immediately (interesting crisp weight with a bit of a wrinkly texture, I'll have to think carefully about what to make with it) and two lovely knits. I've always wanted to try a Colette pattern but have been a bit unsure about the examples I've seen (the skirts always seem too short to be honest). I went with the Chantilly dress because I thought it would suit a curvy figure the best without being too retro. And the whole package came wrapped up in the most gorgeous ribbon, pretty much as nice as the spotty raspberry ribbon that was the prize. And as usual I'm amazed how fast stuff comes from the UK - I think this took 3 days? I guess that's the benefit of lots of planes travelling back and forth between here and the motherland.



I'm posting this during the All Blacks vs. France rugby game - am I the only person in New Zealand not watching? I'm sure I'm not but they may try and deport me anyways because I admitted it (plus I talk like a furriner).

Projects for 2011

Why hello little blog, I've been neglecting you! It's been a busy week with Hazel starting back at school, a bit of paint stripping on exterior windows and slowly working away on my Scandinavian Needlework project - hopefully it'll be finished in a day or two!

In the meantime I thought I'd post a picture of the assembled non-clothing projects I want to do this year, the ones I know about anyways! I know there are two topsy-turvey dolls and maybe a bunny for Easter lined up as well. Some of these are still lurking from last year, some are with fabrics I bought in Canada.

Did you know that fabric is slated to increase about 30% in the next year or so? That's what I was told by one lady in a quilt shop, so that's not only quilting fabrics but ALL fabric, even that used by clothing manufacturers. Something to do with the fabric mills in China. Pretty sobering!

Projects for 2011, originally uploaded by Hazelnutgirl.

So let's think about happier things shall we? So from top left and going clockwise: a quilt for Hazel made from Far Far Away fabrics. This one has been sitting around for far too long. Stack of Amy Butler Soul Blossoms FQ, destined for a quilt (pattern undetermined), a couple of panels of Saffron Craig fabric, some hand-printed fabric from Heleen at Ruby in the Dust, destined for a lapquilt. My red quilt top and back, all ready to be quilted. I think this one will be first cab off the rank. Pile of fabrics, mostly from It's a Hoot by MoMo, also for a quilt. Green and brown fabrics for either coasters or placemats for a gift, haven't decided on which yet. This has some urgency, maybe it should be first... Yellow, red, orange and pink print and solid set to make a quilt from Practical Guide to Patchwork. My friend Sarah gave me a gift certificate to a fabric shop for Xmas, so the working title will be "Sarah's quilt", some Echino fabrics to make pillows with.

So that's the line-up and aside from anything very small and utterly necessary to one of these projects I am placing my hand on my heart and saying that I will not buy any more fabric this year and will work solely from my stash, amen. And I really do mean it and part of the reason for posting all this stuff up here is that I'll feel like I've got the world watching - I respond well to the threat of public shaming.

The kindness of strangers

Well ok they're not strangers but they ARE kind!

Heleen from Ruby In The Dust gave me a piece of her gorgeous new fabric 'in the neighbourhood' which I adore, and it's on very fine linen which gives it a lovely feel.

I couldn't resist taking this photo of it all crumpled up, I love the way the fabric drapes

And last week I was lucky enough to win some fabric in Stitchbird's giveaway and it arrived yesterday, with a few little extras - what a sweetie!

I'm planning on appliquéing the little Cookie figure onto the back of my red quilt. The speech bubble says "freak", so every time I look at the back of my quilt I'll have a quiet little giggle.

Stocking up for a 'Mummy Clothes Week Challenge'...

...of sorts!  But really, I participate quite happily in fun challenges like Elsie Marley's 'Kid's Clothes Week Challenge' but where are the challenges for clothes for Mum to get me going?  Not that I want to get all organised on this, but if anyone else wants to put their hands up for a wee challenge let me know in the comments! Nothing like an element of competition to move things along. Or a deadline...

So here is the pile of fabrics I bought last Thursday when my friend Elizabeth came to visit. Oh it's bad enough fabric shopping on my own but when there's a fellow fabric person there it gets a bit dangerous :) We visited Global Fabrics first and I bought the grey knit (oh so silky and soft and Donna Karan!), the striped knit and the rather virulently pink floral stuff (which is for Hazel natch. It's also not quite as intense in RL!)  Then we popped over the bridge to Nicks Fabric Sale in Takapuna which had come recommended by Heleen at Ruby in the Dust. Oh the marvels! I'm not really used to going to bargain places like that but I'm totally sold now. I'm always a bit grouchy when Americans post about how they don't buy anything over $6 a yard or something because I'm sorry, fabric doesn't come that cheap here. But wait! It does! It comes at $4 a meter which is even longer than a yard. Ahhhh... And there was fusible interfacing for $1/m.  Ok, so the selection was limited, and most of the shop was filled with knits suitable for making polo and rugby tops, but they had some really neat cottons and a table with great off-cuts of posh upholstery fabrics for making cushions etc. I actually recognised some of the fabric as being from Global Fabrics and the guy (Nick?) told us that his uncle owns Global Fabrics so they get their remnants etc. to sell and I can tell you that I paid a LOT MORE for them at Global. Sigh. I hate when that happens! I got the two patterned voiles and the purple knit for 'practicing on' with tops. I've never felt like I could justify practicing on something before!

I've already cut out the green and blue voile for a tunic-style top, have a pattern earmarked for the floral (if there's enough, I need to copy out the pattern and check) and one for the striped knit - all from Burda.  Yay for approaching summer!  I'm hoping to try printing something on the purple knit - has anyone had any experience with doing that on stretchy fabrics? I'm a bit worried it might crack and look awful. I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do with the grey knit, probably just something fairly basic that will show off the lovely drape.  The pink floral fabric for Hazel - not too sure about that. It's fairly heavy and slightly stiff, with a bit of a stretch. I was thinking a jacket but not sure which one. I'm contemplating this pattern, but I need to look through my Burdas and Ottobre magazines as well. Speaking of which, have you all seen the great clothes in the most recent Ottobre?  Lovely and I'm very very tempted. Ok, so I plan to buy it, its just a matter of time and I have to pretend I have some self-control. Actually I'm tempted to subscribe, has anyone ever done that? Is it worth getting them all or a total indulgence?

I am Sir Brian

I did it! I cut into my Nani Iro Fuccra!  Almost exactly two years ago I bought 2 yards at Purl Soho when we were in NY for my brother's wedding.  I loved the fabric sooo much but it's been languishing in my stash since then and I finally came to the realisation that it's because it just isn't a colour that I look good in.  It's the middle colour-way from the 2008 collection.

As soon as I acknowledged to myself that not being a pastel kind of person was ok, I also realised that there is someone in this household who is blond and blue-eyed, with peaches and cream skin, who would look utterly fabulous in it.  Mat! Haha. Just kidding sweetie.  It's Hazel of course. With the Kid's Clothes Week Challenge coming up I decided that it would be my project.  Hazel wanted a dress.  So I'm going to do Tina Given's Zigzag dress and I think it's going to look fah-bu-lus (darlings).

Tonight I cut into that Fuccra and it felt ok

Bad Sir Brian Botany

by A.A.Milne

Sir Brian had a battleaxe with great big knobs on.
He went among the villagers and blipped them on the head.
On Wednesday and on Saturday,
Especially on the latter day,
He called on all the cottages and this is what he said:
"I am Sir Brian!" (Ting-ling!)
"I am Sir Brian!" (Rat-tat!)
"I am Sir Brian,
"As bold as a lion!
"Take that, and that, and that!"
...........

Mondays can be a good thing (really)

I had to pop into University this morning to organise some skeletal material for a tutorial (syphilitic skull, depressed cranial fracture, deformed skull, broken limb bones, gunshot wound, trephanation etc. - all the good stuff), so to lighten the mood* I dropped into the The Little Craft Shop on the way home to see if Helen could help me with a little fabric-matching issue I was having, and then there was felt and some ric-rac. Of course. When I got home there were two little parcels waiting for me - one from Hawthorne Threads with my deer fabric (holy smokes fast delivery!) and one from Amy at Badskirt with some Kei honeycomb fabric. I have to give a big shout-out to Amy for some above-and-beyond customer service and I'm looking forward to dealing with her again!

The Kei will be perfect for the quilt, but the deer...not sure.  The blue is darker and has more of a grey cast than the blue in the seahorses and the red is darker. It's gorgeous though, and if it doesn't end up in the quilt it'll be something else fabulous instead!

Last night I spent a bit of time cutting fabric, and now I have two WIP. One for Mat and one for Hazel (not hard to guess which is which!).  And look at the brand of the pattern there - Kwik Sew! See I do listen when people tell me not to be a snob about the brand.  We'll see how it goes :)

Ok, back to work on Wednesday's lectures, it's going to be hard switching from fabric to evidence for disease and plague in skeletal populations!  Oh, and  big hello to the new people who have started following the blog in the last few days :)






*not really, I love that kind of thing, that's why I'm a bioarchaeologist!

More quilting progress

Thanks for all the nice comments yesterday about my proposed quilt fabrics!  Ellie over at Petalplum suggested adding in a bit more blue to go with the blue seahorses which of course sent me off on a search for red and aqua fabrics - I looooove that colour combination!  Oddly enough though, there aren't many that combine both together in one print, but this morning I stumbled across Joel Dewberry's Antler Damask in Sky which fits the bill. I've ordered some from Hawthorne Threads, partly on the strength of the pictures they have on the site of cool customer projects that have been made in it, including a red quilt. I'll have to make sure I don't use it all up on the quilt so I can do a cushion or something from it!

I've also narrowed down my pattern to a style, but I'm going to have to make up the measurements myself to get it the right size, which should be fun (not).  I came across this gorgeous quilt on Red Pepper Quilts:

and really liked the simple blocks of three fabric strips with larger blocks interspersed.  Then I found the quilt-along at Old Red Barn Co. for the same style of block (does it have a name, I haven't been able to find one?) that shows you how to do it with 5 strips, but I prefer the 3 of Red Pepper Quilts' one so I'm going to adapt the sew-along to my dimensions and three strips.  I think this will give me the intense red that I'm after, but let me break it up a bit with larger blocks that feature the prints - like the deer's head or the medallion on that one fabric.

You have called my bluff!

Alrighty, thanks to Ms Stitchbird, I now have 200 followers and I did say I'd celebrate didn't I! Truth-be-told I'm a bit stumped, I don't want to do a bog-standard give-away but on the other hand they're good fun. A sew-along was suggested and I was all keen on that but then I couldn't think what I could do and frankly I can never get my ass in gear to do one, and while I expect my readers are a lot more proactive than me, I'd have lingering doubts anyone was actually sewing. Anna suggested blog candy - now I'm not sure what that entails exactly, but it caught my imagination and I'm mulling over a couple ideas and I'll get back to you all soon I hope!

On Monday a very good friend I hadn't seen in ages came to visit so with the Design*Sponge guide to Auckland in hand we headed out and oh what a fine time we had! The first stop was the Lucy-Mae Sparkle Boutique in Grey Lynn. I used to go by that spot on the bus every day but haven't for ages so it was nice to find something new and exciting in such a familiar spot. It was seriously fabulous - from the steps that were sprinkled with glitter and loose buttons (so glad Hazel wasn't with us, I'd have had to bodily carry her past those or she'd have picked them all up!) to the masses of jars, bags and tins of buttons, the trim, the vintage fabric, the embroidered and crocheted doilies and goodness knows what else we missed! There's also a great selection of funky clothes and accessories made from the vintage goodies. I particularly liked the circle skirts made from old tablecloths! I found Hazel a lovely old wicker sewing basket for her birthday, I'm going to clean it up, replace some of the lining, and fill it with little goodies. It came loaded with bits 'n bobs but as Mat said, lots of them were sharp :) I was going to make a sewing box with Chez Beeper Bebe's tutorial, so I think I'll just adapt the ideas to this pre-existing box as best I can. No photos of it because I haven't had a chance to photograph it while Hazel's not around. I also picked up some lovely embroidered linen napkins and a cool old doily. The doily may or may not be salvageble as it's obviously been sitting in one spot for ages so has a pale circle in the middle where something was on it and the rest has gone sort of brown from age and light exposure. The fabric is in good nick though, so I'll be searching the internet for ideas on how to approach it - if anyone has suggestions I'd be most grateful. I also found a length of a very cute orange floral fabric that I'm going to make a dress for Hazel from. I know there's a term for the fabric, it has lines of puckering running along it - seersucker? Anyways, it's cute.

We also went to Salvage in Mt. Eden, which is along similar lines but is closing down at the end of next month! Sure, I finally get there and it's leaving. Accordingly she doesn't have a lot of stock but it was still wonderful. I almost got there a couple years ago but it was closed when I went past so missed out. I've always been a bit nervous of going in in case I spent too much money, and looking at the photos from the shop pre-moving I think I may have been wise in that regard! I bought the lovely pink flannel in the photo above to make some pjs for Hazel, and a couple of kitschy kid's hankies so she can blow her nose just like daddy.

Of course, being in the locale I had to go into Global Fabrics and found some Donna Karan fabric to make a shirt for Mat. I got him some fabric he liked for his birthday but wanted to test out the pattern (yes it's Kwik Sew!) before I cut into it. This one also meets his approval so he's now pestering me to make two shirts instead of just one :P

I also got a couple of panels of a rather Marimekko style fabric to make a skirt. I took a photo of it today but realised when I put it on my computer that the reds and oranges have totally blown out and you can't see the difference between them so I'll have to try and re-photograph it. The lozenges have orange and red circles in them and there are orange and red stripes at the bottom. But boy you wouldn't know it from this photo!

It's interesting that this has happened because Pioneer Woman did a great post last week about it happening in her photos and there were some very useful tips in the comments on how to avoid it or at least minimise it, I must go and read them again.

Mendocino shirt

I'm not sure when I'll ever be organised enough to get a photo of Mat actually in this shirt, so I've taken advantage of it being clean and freshly ironed (hate actually ironing but the outcome is always so satisfying to the soul!) to take a photo.

I'm really quite pleased with how it turned out, given the problems with the pattern. I'll never look at the shirt and think "what a masterpiece" but I got the sleeves sitting as well as I could and they're a million times better than they were, so that combined with the intense love I feel for the fabric means I smile a little smile when I see it and feel quietly pleased. One of Mat's professional specialities is archaeological fish bone, so we both love this fabric for different reasons! Aside from the lovely fish and their amusing expressions, I love the orange and blue together, I think it's my favourite colour combination at the moment. The actual prints are 'Seahorses' in Natural and 'Swimschool' in Pacific (or is it Glass Beach, I can't figure out these names!), you can see them all here and read about the collection at Heather's blog.

My favourite part of the shirt is undoubtedly the collar and collar stand - the seahorses go so well with the little fishies! The pop of the darker orange against the overall whiteness of the shirt really makes it.

Unexpected commonalities

When we were down at my in-laws place I was doing a bit of mending for them, and fixing up my brother-in-law's slippers with blanket stitch etc. so I was doing some rummaging around in my mother-in-law's sewing bits 'n bobs looking for thread and wool and so on. I came across this fabric wrapped up in yellow tissue paper, in with lots of other very scrappy bits of fabric like the bottoms of jeans she'd hemmed - the kind of thing I'm very tempted to keep too but which makes me roll my eyes when someone else actually does :P This, however, is different.



I wish she was well enough to tell me about it, but I think I know the story because it struck a chord with me. I'm 99% sure it's Liberty although I can't find the exact pattern anywhere; it looks like Liberty, it feels like Liberty, and it was clearly treasured like Liberty! I'd say she made a shirt out of it and couldn't bear to throw any of it out, there are tiny tiny scraps in the bundle! No-one else wanted it, so the jean and dress hems went out and this came home with me.

It might seem a bit odd that I'm blogging about it, but when I opened up the tissue paper it was like there was a connection between us, over who knows how many years, because I knew exactly how she felt when she wrapped it all up carefully. I'm very fond of my mother-in-law and we get along well, but we're such very different people that we don't have a very deep and personal connection. Now that she's ill there's yet another barrier between us and I accept that it's likely to remain so for the forseeable future. So it's neat that a little bundle of fabric scraps showed me that, although our personalities are quite different, we do share some little quirks!

It's these little connections that make archaeology fun too. I remember on one historic dig in inner-city Sydney where we were excavating a row of terrace houses and we found a wee stash of marbles. They'd been carefully put inside a ventilation grate by the back steps and were a motley assortment of old and new, purpose made and appropriated from the old soda bottles that used them as seals. My co-worker and I just knew, in that moment, that a little boy had hidden them away and for some reason hadn't retrieved them and they'd lain there for maybe 80 years or so, even as the house was razed above them. I wonder if he ever thought about them or if he'd simply forgotten them and moved away? I felt the same when I picked up a Mousterian hand axe from a plowed field in Syria - 70,000 years ago a Neandertal made it, held it and lost it, and there it was in my hand having sat in the ground for all that time. It still sends a shiver down my spine.

The 2+2 blouse

Can you believe that she's actually voluntarily wearing this?! In the end I gave it to her for Christmas openly (along with her Little Pup toy) and didn't resort to putting it in her stocking. I'm glad I did! She really seems to like it and I'm feeling pretty happy about it in general. It's a cute pattern and I'm sure I'll make it again a few times, both short-sleeved and the long-sleeve option.



I think part of the reason she likes it is that the fabric (My Folklore by Lecien) has squirrels on it and she loves squirrels. We often sing this song, from one of our favourite cartoons, Phineas and Ferb