Some of my vintage haberdashery: kimono fabrics, buckles, buttons, and my hands knitting, combined into an unexpected colour palette.
I like that if you cover up the colour palette with your hands so there are only three colours next to each other showing at any one time, each combo gives you and entirely new feeling – 50s sundress, nautical stripes… Colour is such an evocative language, isn’t it?
When my friend’s and I were in the northern Moroccan blue town of Chefchaouen, we stayed in this pretty guest house called Dar Terrae.
I loved all the little details, and the geometry, and changing tones of blue as the sunlight filtered down onto the walls from different angles.
Here are my friends enjoying an early breakfast on our last day, before we left to catch the bus to Meknes.
See my other posts about blue Chefchaouen here, here and here.
On Sunday I had my regular stall at the monthly Devonport Craft Market.
Here are my Kimono Felt Squares, pin cushions and needles cases.
My matryoshka fridge magnets.
Bird key rings / bag charms with Kimono Felt details.
Vintage kimono and matryoshka postcards.
The transit of Venus is happening right now but it’s cloudy and we can’t see anything! I’ve got my solar viewing glasses all ready to go. Let’s hope the clouds clear soon….
Yesterday afternoon (bank holiday Monday), my friends and I went for some good old fashioned beach therapy. We walked along Karekare, another of our wild West Coast black sand beaches. (Karekare was the location for scenes in Jane Campion’s Oscar winning film The Piano.)
As we turned left and headed south, the beach just swept open. It felt like we had the whole world to ourselves.
I can’t walk on a beach with out collecting a few little treasures along the way: a tiny purple shell, a yellow kowhai seed, the spiral from inside a deep sea squid, and a white seabird feather.
We came across the sad sight of a magnificent albatross lying dead on its back. You can’t really tell from the picture how big it was. Its beak was as long as my hand. And the wings! I just read that albatrosses fly an estimated 200,000 km (about 125,000 miles) per year. Wow.
As we returned to the car park, smoke from a bonfire was rising between the bush covered hills…
…and the sun was setting into the sea.
We left feeling happy and rejuvenated.
These past couple of days I’ve been enjoying working on some new Kimono Paper Craft illustrations which will be included in a booklet I’m putting together. Here’s some work in progress.
I thought it was about time I started sharing some photos from my trip to Vietnam with you. These pictures are of Hill Tribe women from the northern mountain town of Sapa.
There are more then 50 different ethnic minority peoples in Vietnam. ‘Hill Tribes’ refers to various different groups of people who migrated from China over the past few centuries and settled in the mountainous northern regions of Vietnam, Thailand, Laos and Burma (Myanmar). The women in the first four photos are from the Black Hmong people, and the last two are Red Dao (pronounced Dzao). The name of each ethnic group usually refers to the distinct clothing that that group wears.
I took all these photos in Sapa market where I spent many happy hours with these lovely women, shopping, laughing and just hanging out.
I bought some of these beautiful embroidered bedspreads, rolls of batik indigo hemp fabric and neon embroidery, some silver jewellery and various pieces of traditional clothing.
I had dreamed of going to Sapa for many years after seeing photos from my brother’s trips there, and receiving gifts of these beautiful handicrafts from him.
I’ll show you more photos over the next little while of our trek and village homestay, and also some of the goodies that I bought from the various Hill Tribe markets that we visited.
Over the weekend Mum and I harvested our kumara crop (Maori sweet potatoes). Unlike previous years, this year we only grew one variety. With a deep fuchsia skin, poporo kumara go the most amazingly deep purple when baked and they taste like sweet, rich roast chestnuts. I’m sure they’re highly nutritious too.
We get our young kumara plants from Koanga Institute who do a fantastic job of preserving the old varieties of food plants here in New Zealand through seed saving etc.
The tops of the kumara plants (leaves and stems) were gathered into a a great bundle…
…and fed to Alice the kunekune pig. She was very appreciative!
My man and I have both been feeling the impact of too much time spent on computers lately. Too many late nights and long weeks. So yesterday afternoon we took a break and headed north of Auckland to Palm Springs Thermal Pool in Parakai.
Palm Springs is an entirely unglamorous, unpretentious place with a sort of faded retro charm to it. I love it. When you first step down into the hotter of the two big pools, sink right up to your neck and just let go… Oh, it’s heavenly!
We came away feeling completely exhausted and heavy in our bodies, but in a peaceful, relaxed and contented way. Just what the doctor ordered! I slept so well last night.
Wishing you all a happy, contented and peaceful weekend.
Lucy x
Here are a couple of little collections I have on my walls. The first is a pairing of a brass hamsa (Hand of Fatima) that I bought in Fes, Morocco, with an old postcard featuring a Japanese print of a fish which I inherited from my grandparents. I like it that these two objects work together because of their colour, shape and size, even though their materials, style and subject matter are so very different from each other.
Birds and beads. I found the framed Japanese bird and magnolia print at a flea market for a dollar or two. The prayer beads were bought in Morocco by my father in the 70s or early 80s. I was given the stone rooster by a friend of mine who knows how much I love my chickens! I found the feather on holiday up North – I think it might be from a rosella. The little silk brocade pouch is from a temple in Kyoto. I was given it by my Reiki Master when she visited Japan some years ago.
I received a little package of things I’d ordered in the post from China yesterday. Look at the stamps! Don’t you just love stamps? Individual miniature works of art. I think it’s a tragedy that stamps are getting replaced by those ugly stickers they print out at the post office for you.
I still feel a sense of childlike delight when I receive something that has physically travelled across the globe to me, as opposed to all these electronic communications that we make each day.
Long live stamps!
