Sweet Mary

The tree is up and the house is decorated, mince pies made, potatoes and strawberries grown and ready for the big day. A special thankyou to customers who over the year have supported craft, handmade and local. Merry Christmas everyone, see you back here in the new year, sometime around mid-January.

Button Cards. Sleep Hearts Christmas Decos. Only two Craft&Design Markets left, one this Saturday and the next, the following Saturday. I will be at the first one this weekend but not at the other. I have some Christmas decorations left after selling most of them at the Holly Trail fete but a good mix of my other stock: pillowcases, haberdashery, lavender filled hearts, vintage buttons etc. Hope to see you there!

I have been busy listing some of my handmades for sale recently. Click on the felt icon on the right or click HERE . Happy days.

Pumpkin seedling in vegetable bag covered with coffee sack. Strawberries in half wine barrels, fig tree in middle one, broad beans on far wall. Spoilt princess in fave spot. Clematis flowering on pergola and sweet peas in foreground nearly there. A little trip around our garden, taken by my husband a few weeks back. Growth has happened, the broad beans are nearly finished and the first sweet pea bunches have been picked. Have a good weekend!

Toile linen cushions Black with cream spot & ricrac. This is the week for the much anticipated Hospice Holly Trail event held in and around the Havelock North/Hastings area every 2 years. Lucky ticket holders can visit the open homes and gardens over a 3 day period, breaking up this huge fund raising event with a visit to the Birdwoods Gallery on Middle Road where they will also find the always popular Fete set up in the grounds behind the gallery. The Fete has 35 individual stall holders and is open to the public for a small donation. I will be manning my Sweet Mary stall for all three days and have posted pictures above of my cushion "offerings". I will also have other new items that I have made especially for this event that have not been on my regular craft stall in the village. If you would like more information please click HERE .

Christmas decos. Surely its not time for Christmas shopping again I hear you say! But really, Christmas is less than nine weeks away which means there are only a few more craft markets where you will be able to buy Sweet Mary Christmas decorations. This year I have mini doves and hearts filled with either lavender or rosemary which would look sweet attached with a gift card to a specially wrapped present. The next Craft&Design market in Havelock North is just over a week away on November the 1st and as usual it will be packed with clever makers showcasing their wares. Christmas is a time of celebration and part of this celebration is the making and consuming of "celebration food". On a coolish day last week I made our Christmas cake, a different recipe from my usual and although I can't cut into it until the day, it did smell amazing. I couldn't put my finger on it exactly but this cake smelt so wonderful that I was tempted to cut it there and then. M...

Sweet smelling violets Mint syrup, vanilla essence, water kefir and crystallised violets. Bliss balls. Yes, it was a homemade weekend for me but it was in the kitchen this time not the sewing room. I collected together the different recipes I wanted to try and made an afternoon of it. The first one, vanilla extract, was easy. Vanilla pods in alcohol, leave for a month - HERE  are the instructions and its a beautiful NZ food blog to look around too, so make sure you do. As its spring in our part of the world the mint in the garden is growing well and the idea of preserving that delicious fresh taste was pretty enticing. The recipe is HERE  and when I found it I knew it would be a good one as its from a River Cottage handbook - one that I now have out from the library. I have this idea that my mint syrup is going to go very well with my strawberries in the not too distant future. A few weeks back I tasted water kefir at a friends house and loved it so that got made t...