Timeless Treasures

I bought this pretty Laura Ashley dress for my daughter's second birthday - she is now twenty one ! Over last weekend I decided to sort out a few boxes and came across lots of great memories in the form of my children's baby clothes and daughter's collection of dresses.
All of the dresses below, except for the Laura Ashley one were lovingly hand-made by my sister.
The fabrics and trims used are beautiful and the smocking is a work of art. And the great thing is that nearly twenty years down the track you could still put a child in these gorgeous creations and they would be much admired and appreciated.



The tiny knitted creations above and below were knitted by my mother who has doted on each and every grandchild in her family. Each grandchild received a fabulous handmade bear and lots of other soft toys and even though knitting wasn't her greatest love she did knit these treasures simply because I asked. From memory, the patterns were from a French knitting book, but other than that I don't know as I am not a knitter. I can sew but I can't knit!




I have been so busy lately making and sending off orders for my Sweet Mary lavender hearts that I thought it would be nice to make something for myself. An hour or two in Sweet Mary HQ and I had made a pair of flowery pillowcases to put on our bed. I had bought the fabric a few weeks ago in a Spotlight sale for only $3 a metre. I asked my husband if he had slept any better on the new slips but he didn't seem to understand what I was talking about - he is very tolerant of my flowery "thing".




Off to see the kids in Wellington this weekend - yeah! Our son will be 19 on Sunday - I really don't feel mature enough to have children of that age...






Popular posts from this blog

Ginger Crunch

Image
Ginger Crunch - a New Zealand classic with a twist. Lois Daish ( much missed food writer for The Listener a couple of years back) says this version is from the Wholemeal Cafe in Takaka. It is absolutely delicious. Two good sized pieces have been eaten rather quickly already. Base: 150g butter 2 tbsp golden syrup 3/4 cup soft brown sugar 3/4 cup desiccated coconut 1 1/2 cups rolled oats 3/4 cup plain flour 1 1/2 tsp baking powder 2 tsp ground ginger Preheat oven to 175C Line a 20x30cm slice tin Put butter, golden syrup and sugar in pan and melt gently together. Remove pan from heat and mix in all the other ingredients. Press into tin and bake for 15 minutes - I find if I go over this time it goes too crunchy when cool. Mark into squares while still warm and spread with icing. Leave to cool completely (if you can!) before cutting through icing. Icing: 60g butter 120g icing sugar 2 level tbsp golden syrup 3 tsp ground ginger Melt together and beat till smooth.
Read more

Lavender Life

Image
 With the best will in the world, I still haven't managed regular blog posts here. Lots going on re: my lavender filled sachets so if you can please come and see me on my Instagram account you will see very regular posts there. Please click HERE  ðŸ’œ
Read more

The Wool Story

Image
Te Koha organic, biodynamic wool, fresh from the sheep. Cleaning and sorting the wool to use in my lavender and wool filled pincushions, see the previous post. One gorgeous pile of the softest, sweetest smelling wool for me to use. Now to the story which my friend Bev, of "French Street Plum Jam" fame, told me last week. I have typed it out exactly as it was written: I was five years old when my mum invited me and my five siblings to go wool picking and the wool would be made into half-quilts for our beds. Mum would make a picnic of fresh homemade bread, butter from our churn and delicious plum jam made into sandwiches and a bottle of cordial for each child which we stuffed into our leather school bags and slung over our shoulders. In our hand we each carried a sugar sack to gather our wool in. We walked up hills and around the fence lines picking the wool off the barbed wire fences where the sheep had stopped to scratch, leaving behind little tufts of wool snagged on the...
Read more