Sew your own Chatiryworld




Just going through my pile of magazines to see which ones I can live without (and give to Jon's mum and sister to read on the train). One of them is the October 2008 edition of Coast, which has got to be one of the most self-indulgent magazines out there, but I like it. There's a photo shoot that's themed around a lovely poem by Cromarty poet Jane Verburg, Sea Change. You can read it over at Cromarty: Living by the sea. I think it sums up living by the sea very well.
Sunjar
Toorde Boontje candle shade
Our Crowd lamp
Here's some lamps I'd like to own:
Moon in My Room, yes, I seem to like moon lamps.
Couldn't get a photo, but I like this rabbit nighlight, reminds me a bit of one I had as a child. I was also hoping to find the lamp I saw in the window of Entrading in Glasgow on Sunday but I'm struggling to find it anywhere. It's wooden, with a tree carved out to let light through, a bit like the Hannah Nunn lamp above.
Even if I had the money to indulge my lamp addiction, I have nowhere to put them all. Yesterday I got a copy of the fabulous book Enough
by John Naish, which is a very inspirational read. Buying several lamps you actually have no use for definitely goes against the message of the book. But one day we will need more lamps, when we live in our own house, one that doesn't come with about 67 lamps included in the rent every month. Then I can indulge.
After having read In Praise of Slow
and Enough
this year, I've decided to aim to give people useful presents. I don't mean boring presents, I mean thinking about what the person might use. Chocolate and other edibles are good, because people eat them, things like soap and candles are fine if you know the person will want them. Of course I may totally fail and buy stuff that I think is useful for someone but they totally disagree. I'm not perfect.
But what would be useful for me? Here's some things I've come up with, yes, partly to help family, but also to help us think a bit more about useful presents. I'd love to know what your list of useful presents would be.
Muji travel slippers - I like wearing slippers and but don't always want to take them away with me, using up vital luggage space. These seem like the answer.
Liz Earle handcream - I'm a pale northerner with dry skin, handcream is always useful and Liz Earle stuff is gorgeous. Useful yet also a bit of a luxury.
Big Onya - I love my Onya bag, it fold up much smaller than most reusable bags, but sometimes it's not quite big enough. But now there's a Big Onya, hurrah!
Soft foam play mat
- Why the hell is this useful for someone with no kids? It's incredibly useful for knitters as you can use them for blocking your work. I'm going to need something like this when it comes to blocking the wedding shawl.
Spring bulbs - For one reason or another I didn't get around to buying and planting bulbs this autumn so those planting gift sets that you see in shops and think are a bit of a cop out, well, I would appreciate them this year.
What would your useful presents be? Plus, apologies to my family if the presents I get you aren't useful, this is the first year I've tried it.
This gorgeous place in Stromness, Orkney is my current dream home. Considering it's a waterfront home it's got a pretty amazing garden that doesn't seem to have been blown away. The owners must know what they're doing.
Hmm...
You can either go and look at a selection of gorgeous calendars or read an interesting article about stopping fundies getting into schools in the UK.
Or you could read both. I did.
I've got an obsession with stripy clothes for kids at the moment. Possibly because I was asked to knit a stripy jumper for one of my little friends and it made me think more than ever just how cute stripes are on kids.
This mosaic shows stripy clothes from The White Company (stripy dress and tights), People Tree (stripy babygro and hat) and Green Baby (stripy leggings and tshirt).
I wanted the mosaic to feature clothes from Swedish company Polarn O. Pyret, who have a concession in Jenners in Edinburgh. They don't let Big Huge Labs access their images though and I couldn't be doing with copying and all that carry-on. Had my mum been aware of their existence when my sisters and I were small, I am sure she would have wanted to buy up all their stock (subject to some kind of lottery win) because she loves stripy clothes. I remember when Ellen and Martha were little Mothercare did a range of different coloured stripy clothes, I think Ellen had some stripy tights and a stripy skirt and Martha had a stripy jumper with matching one-colour dungarees. I think I've now inherited this love. If I couldn't knit I would get P.OP clothes as presents for friends and family's new babies. I'm pretty sure the little girl next door has some clothes from there.
Not to everyone's taste, but Craft alerted me to the pattern for these 'keep baby warm' leggings. I think you'd want the rest of the outfit to be plain but this is a great way to dress in stripes and show off Regia sock yarn, if you are 3 months old that is.
Finally, these aren't stripy, just very cute, noticed on a bridesmaid dress spotting online excursion, are these knickerbockers and this coat from Monsoon. If you have a daughter under 3 I order you to buy them.
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