Sweet Mary

If you walk down to the left, outside Bay Espresso in Hastings city centre (Market St. South) you will find a fabulous shop called Coco and Co. Its the latest venture by Jess and Jo of Fruit Bowl Craft Jam. The contents are an eclectic mix of vintage and vintage style homewares, clothes, gifts, toys etc. There is just so much to look at and bring a smile to your face. Shop hours are 10-3 on Thurs,Fri and Sat. each week. Click HERE to see the website. From late next week I will have some Sweet Mary products for sale at Coco and Co., including these beautiful pincushions stuffed with wool and lavender. There is more of a story about the wool but that is for my next post in a day or two.

My sewing table over the weekend while making treasures for my Sweet Mary stall and yes, some of them are for Christmas! These lavender pillows (15x15cm) are filled only with New Zealand grown lavender rubbings from Hauiti Lavender Farm. Made with Cath Kidston fabric topped with vintage lace and embroidered heart, they have a red with white spot base fabric. These pillows would make a lovely Christmas present for a special friend or family member, to scent the bedroom and help with a peaceful sleep. I only have 5, so if you just have to have one, make sure you come along to the next Craft and Design Market at Hawthorne coffee shop in Havelock North. It will be on Saturday 22nd October, 9-12.30pm. And finally, a bit of prettiness to make you smile. SMILE!

A pretty lavender heart made up from scraps of the fabrics below. A friend in the UK requested that I make some Sweet Mary hearts from these special bits of fabric cut from favourite items of clothing. This is the easy way to order many lavender hearts - I make them and the buyer fills them with lavender local to their area. I made the filled heart as a thankyou for the order. Below - three filled hearts for sale in my Etsy shop. Click on the Etsy icon to the right.

Packing up for The Hereworth Gala this Sunday - see top left or here for details. Alongside my regular Sweet Mary handmades I have also added a few extra lines: bunting, Easter egg cups and cozies, lavender bunches and ribbon hearts. See you there !

A bit of late night sewing the week before running my Sweet Mary stall at the Pukeora Estate . It was a four day event with a very pretty but slightly tiring drive to and fro each day. When packing up I always wonder if I will have enough and what item will be the "favourite" this time. These red check tea towels decorated with vintage cream lace and appliqued fabric hearts turned out to be the winner. Its an unusual venue - stall holders set up in a series of rooms and corridors. It was a first time for me and I was a late booking so there wasn't much choice. So, although I enjoyed myself I think my spot was a bit out of the way and some people had trouble finding me. If I go back next year I would have to be somewhere more prominent. But I did meet some lovely people and as always I came home with a list of "good ideas". Pukeora Estate sits on top of a hill so the views of the valley below are truly amazing. I will be at the Porangahau Spring Fair on septe...

At work this afternoon making lavender hearts in bulk for the spring and summer fairs coming up where I will be running my Sweet Mary stall. I will post dates and venues as they get confirmed though I do know the first one will be Porangahau Spring Fair at Chapelwick Coastal Estate on Sunday 27th September. These are the first two quilts I ever made. The left for my daughter and the right for my son - as they are 20 and 23 now I can happily say that my sewing and quilting skills have greatly improved over the years. These quilts have been washed and used many times and bring back such a wave of great memories. I was inspired to post this photo after looking at this blog - click here . All winter I have been keeping a look out for fabrics to use in my Sweet Mary business - these gorgeous ones arrived today from the U.S. Shopping for fabric online opens up a whole new world but one where you have to have to be a tad careful. It can feel a little like being a kid in a sweetie shop. L...

Packing up my home-made Rose and Lavender Potpourri ready for my stall outside Linens to Love ( see left for address ) in the morning. I love my new red and white twine and snappy red and white stripe bags. Not sure how many of these lavender doves I have now made but I can see them in my sleep. They are made out of wool felt and filled only with New Zealand grown lavender and would make a geat gift at Easter or for a child or both.

After reading the last few posts from The Vintage Magpie , I felt inspired to make some lavender hearts with a Valentine's Day theme. These ones are made with a red and white linen top and a wool felt bottom. They are finished with a vintage style button and my Sweet Mary tag. They are a limited edition and will be available only from Redcurrent in Wellington and Havelock North.

Now, if you had so many roses blooming in your garden that you were picking a huge bucket full each morning you would be thinking what to do with them all. After filling the house with vases of roses, giving rose bunches away to friends there is only one thing left to do and that is make rose potpourri. So, for weeks now I have had baskets of rose petals balanced on the shelves in the airing cupboard slowing drying out enough to go into the "master mix" with dried lavender and a few other pretty things from the garden. Here is a large bowl full below - being bagged up for sale on my next stall and through my FELT site ( left of this post, click on Felt - online).

I made these beautiful lavender filled doves especially for Redcurrent in Havelock North. They looked so pretty I really did want to keep them for myself to decorate my small tree - as opposed to my big tree which always has everything but the kitchen sink on it. It really should be called a memory tree as most of the decorations have a story attached to them.

These three little cuties are for sale on my Felt site - just click on Felt to the left of this post - then double click on individual pictures for more information. There are 5 of each for sale.