Spring is in the air (for a moment)

What a weekend - Auckland actually had sun! Yes we all warmed our little Jaffa hands for a moment and tried to start our lawn mowers. But then the lawn mowers wouldn't start, the rain came back and I had to light a fire ...

but it did provide the opportunity to get some knitting done - a night by the fire with PJ, a lovely organic tomato risotto, bottle of cab-sav-mer saw the start of some new slippers for me!

I keep meaning to blog my crafty space at home since I was so excited about the prospect of space before we bought the house. Below is MY desk in the study - complete with suitcase storage, Maccona Coffee jar button holders, my Tate Modern postcard calender and very special Jennifer Pudney cross-stitch TTP made me.

These photos are a bit old and I'm laughing because since Feb my needle collection and the books/magazines have doubled - in just 5 months.

PJ and I found these old suitcases during the inorganic rubbish day last year. We lined them with some cotton (using a glue-gun, which is a very cool tool and everyone should own one) and now I use them to store my stash.

The next DIY adventure has also begun: involving excessively big nails. I priced up buying kitset planters for the paved area and decided I could build them for half the price. What an oh so clever miss I am - but 8 nails later and I'm nursing a darn sore forearm and a very black knuckle - I struggled to operate a mouse yesterday! The aim is to fill 2 planters with veges in time for this summer.

I made a table cloth too - I was looking for some good linen to do some hand printing on but found this instead. Good old Geoff's Emporium is full of great fabric offcuts. This lovely thick linen curtain fabric cost $12 - that's a bargin 2m table cloth! Pretty easy stuff really - just hem each side using an iron to get a flat, straight edge.