Autumn Zebra

At the beginning of 2017 I made this book bag for my Mum. It is lined and has an elastic closure. I also gave her a book inside it. Shown below empty, and then front and back containing the book. The trickiest part was deciding how long to make the elastic so that it would hold it closed nicely but also accomodate different sized books without damaging them. It would also be nice if you could get different coloured elastic, but you can't at any of the stores here. It's made from nice Japanese printed cotton with a slight texture on the surface, and I think lined with pink linen.

Since it's the middle of winter and frosty, I thought it would be interesting to look at what harvestable food is available in my garden right now. You'll notice that they're all leaves, in one form or another. I've split them into herbs and veges, and only included things that have enough plant(s) available to actually harvest, and only things that I actually would harvest - I have various other things that can be used as herbs or tea, but I don't really know enough about them, right this instant, to make me go out and pick some. Centre: Sorrel. Clockwise from top-left: NZ Spinach; Kale; Brussel sprouts; Walking onions; Silverbeet; Non-heading cabbage of some description; Silverbeet again; Perpetual spinach. Centre: Kawakawa. Clockwise from top-left: Variegated marjoram; Coriander; Thyme; Rosemary; Parsley; Sage; Curry plant; Thyme of some other kind. Notes: One of the thymes is chicken thyme but I forget which one or what that means. T...

Although I had fully intended to start doing more crafts, I have been focusing a lot on tidying my house. I have sorted and got rid of dozens of boxes of assorted things, and there's lots more to go. So I haven't had much time to craft things, but I have done a few small things which relate to the house and the objects in it. Things that care for them. So that is satisfying, and resolves some of those little jobs that sit around for ages undone. Along with the two things below, I have shortened two pairs of jeans so they no longer drag on the ground. I have patched a pair of jeans for G. I have sewn buttons back on things I am giving away to the op-shops. I've unblocked the sink and tried to fix a leak. I have a really good umbrella, which doesn't turn inside out in the wind, but I always worry it will blow out of my hand. So I used my new power drill to drill a hole through the handle, and put a cord through. This cord can go round my wrist, and I don't need to...

I hesitate to exactly call these a craft, since there is a minimal amount of work in making them. However, I want to start actually using more of the things that I have saved for future use, so these are the first - something very simple to get started. Gift tags cut from Xmas and birthday cards, with holes punched in them. Now I no longer have these old Christmas cards sitting around, I have new gift tags for next Christmas (as I was down to two), and I can recycle all the off-cuts. I saw a "how-to" on a craft blog, and theirs were super fancy - they had a special cutter to cut them into a nice shape, presumably a normal hole punch whereas I think mine is a leather punch, fancy string to tie through the hole, and old cards which produced a much more hipster-crafty kind of result. So even gift tags cut from old cards don't look as pretty as the ones you see on the internet, but I still think they're quite nice and more than functional. It is quite fun working out...

When Mum goes on holiday, we go and water the plants, and I scavenge stuff out of her garden. She is not away long this time, so I just got things that were suffering from lack of water (rhubarb) or going to seed (salad greens), strawberries because they don't last long, and potatoes and lemon balm because there is tonnes. I love to see what there is to eat growing in other people's gardens. Salad greens, lemon balm, strawberries, potatoes and rhubarb scavenged from Mum's garden

While we were away on holiday for a week, the rose bud on one of my seed-grown roses opened. I don't know where the seed for this one came from or even what the rose hip was like because I didn't label the first few. The plant itself is not very healthy, maybe it has some kind of disease, or has got too much strong sun. The rose has probably been open a few days at this stage, and the plant hadn't got water for a week as I don't think it had rained and it is only in a pot. The plant is only around a year old and still tiny with only one stem and a few leaves. Pink 5-petal rose, grown from seed

Last year, in November I think, I found this Iris in the garden. Since we have lived here for 8 years or something, I don't know why I haven't seen it before... Normally I am not a fan of Iris's but this is a pretty one. It appears to be an Iris Confusa, aka Bamboo Iris.