This weekend just been I cloistered myself in the big room and did some sewing.

A black under skirt with lace on it. A black basic skirt with paneling inspired by Alexandra Owen. A stripy top with gold skull print.

But my proudest accomplishment was making a pair of trousers exactly like ones I’ve worn to death over the last two years. In a moment of being unlike myself, I patiently unpicked them all, drew a pattern, cut and sewed new pants. They’re so good you’d think a Chinese slave made them.

In my line of work there are people that love corporate communications, some that like people and change and others who love politics.

I love creative campaigns – especially ones that include everyday, hard working people who are passionate about what they do.

Each year I’ve worked at Ideas Shop we’ve promoted The Great New Zealand Sausage competition. It’s heaps of fun and making calls to the media is awesome because they’re so stoked that someone in their area has won. Who doesn’t love a tasty sausage?

This year’s Supreme Award Winner is a Mango and Chilli Chicken sausage from Peter Timbs Meats in Christchurch. It’s fantastic! The full list of all Gold, Silver and Bronze results will be online at www.sausagecompetition.co.nz before the end of the week.

lacy needlebooks

Originally uploaded by Ravenhill Designs

Unless you’ve been in a hole, you’ll know I love dollies. It’s just another component – along with cardigan love and making jam that makes me a Nana.

Imagine my delight in today finding the Doily Love pool on Flickr. http://www.flickr.com/groups/1203103@N24/pool/

Todays job, if I can bend my legs still from yesterday’s gardening efforts is to plant out my spring bulbs.

The great thing about bulbs is that my workmates Rachel and Patricia and I looked through a catalogue, picked what we liked and then had them delivered to work. The not so great thing (if you were a fussy gardener) is that now I can’t remember what any of them – except for gladioli – looks like. So I’m going to put them in a bucket and wander around the section planting them randomly.

When we bought our house it had lots of trees and shrubs but not many flowers. I’m hoping the bulbs will help even things out.

bestival bunting

Originally uploaded by czuczy

Yesterday I headed off to another Craft 2.0 – something I’d been working towards for months and a welcome distraction from moping about the house and answering people’s “how are you?” questions.

I’ve done a few fairs now but this one was different. People came, people were grumpy looking. They looked and touched then moved on. I made quite a few sales still and times were nice but something was missing from the fairs of old. I thought maybe it was just that I was bummed out but others said the same.

There’s a certain slickness about some of the stalls now and I miss the hokey homemade feel. And what wasn’t great was people touting for their own upcoming fairs – go away people you’re cluttering up the stall. Especially not cool when people work their guts out to make Craft 2.0 awesome.

The good news is that when the December 3 Craft 2.0 rolls around (it’s an after-work fair) I won’t have to make much at all.

That and someone that reads our blog told me that the post about Tom’s offensive t-shirt (link below) has been printed out and now adorns the tearoom noticeboard at Air New Zealand. Right on!

http://tomandemma.wordpress.com/2009/04/30/princess-bride-post-911/

Ross at home

Last Saturday, between eating his breakfast and planted this year’s potatoes, Tom’s much-loved Dad died suddenly. We loved Tom’s Dad dearly and will miss him greatly. Right now we have good and bad moments, spend quite a bit of time moping about and reminding ourselves that he has died because it just doesn’t seem quite right.

Blog readers will remember Ross for his guest blog and his long comments that were more like personal emails. This one and this one are particularly good examples. We’ll miss those comments, and the Election Night commentary and our best picker on blackberry day and a million other things but I feel lucky to have had such a terrific father in law.

Something's fishy

When I was about eight I clearly remember my Mum saying to me, ‘you’re such a feminist that when you get married I bet you don’t change your last name.’ Well yeah, I thought. I’ve already got a perfectly good name – why would I change it?

At art school I did a lot of work about glory boxes, marriage and the evils of domestic chores. But honestly? These weekends spent making craft for Craft 2.0 and seeing Tom potter in the garden and reading blogs like this one make me want to jet back to the 1950s pronto and spend my days making stuff and baking.

Of course, that’s because I have a choice.

Yesterday I completed another gardening project – turning a suitcase into a wee seed raising glasshouse.

You can see how it all went down here or just marvel at the finished product below.  Or do both – you deserve a treat.

~ Tom

Em and I already have a couple of compost bins that live by the garage and are fairly run-of-the-mill food scrap affairs.  They’re perfectly good but in my heart of hearts I’ve always hankered after a compost heap like my Dad used to have when I was a kid. 

Dad’s compost lived at the back of the back yard and was constructed out of fence posts and corrugated iron in a very adhoc, blokes in sheds kind of way.  I have no great love of corrugated iron but had read that old shipping pallets made a good structure for a large open style heap.

Last week Em gave me a newspaper clipping that her friend and workmate Patricia had photocopied for me – it set out how to make the perfect heap by layering carbon, nitrogen, animal waste and lime in a strange kind of gardening trifle.  This sounded pretty good to me so after lunch today I decided to have a bash at it.

With the help of some free pallets from RD1, some $4 a sack horse crap from up the road, grass clippings from the lawn and some old straw we had lying about, I turned this hitherto lumpy patch of pseudo lawn into this combined garden alchemy set and paternal tribute.  I managed to make three and a half layers of straw/grass/shit/lime and just need to find something to cover it over with so it can get nice and warm.

In other garden updates – beetroot were indeed the next cab off the ranks in the sprouting race (mix those metaphors) and have now been joined by cucumbers, tomatoes and even eggplant!  I’ve planted out two kinds of peas (sugar snap and snow-pea), baby carrots on a special seed tape (highly recommended) and some thyme, all straight into the garden.  Tomorrow I’m hoping to get some coriander and basil on the way and find a piece of perspex for my next seed raising experiment.

~ Tom