No knitted knickers

This year's love

2012-02-14T12:28:00.001-05:00

Hello there,

You may remember that I restyled my hall during the hurricane that wasn't last year. If so, you'll know already that I have a small but growing collection of hearts.

We don't go in much for St. Valentine's Day celebrations in the House of NKK. Anyone who's been in the States between Christmas and 14 February and watched the commercial machine crank up the volume on Hallmark-style romance will understand why. That, and an in-built contrariness about being told to love each other NOW. So the heart collection isn't bought on St. Valentine's Day but at random days of the year, when I see a heart that calls to me. And so it was, just after Christmas, that the tinkle of this lovely proved too difficult to resist.

So, there you have it. This year's love. With bells on.

Tonight, I am off to my first WI meeting. Yes indeed.

Happy St. Valentine's Day everybody.

C.x

And the winner is...

2012-02-13T11:58:00.002-05:00

Hello there,

Last week was a bit crap so I am a bit behind on my blogging (again). But it is a new week and I have given myself a vigorous shake and am Getting On With It now.

So, to business. Welcome welcome to my new followers. How lovely to have you here. And thank you thank you thank you for all your comments on my blogiversary. In my last year of primary school, our head nun used to refer to scatty girls as Féileacán (fay-le-cawn), and I sometimes think I should rename my blog accordingly. I have all these grand ideas about posts that I carry around in my head, but somehow they don't get written except in snatches so looking back on the last year, you might be forgiven for thinking that there is no rhyme or reason to this blog. But the good news is that you don't seem to mind. And that makes me very chuffed indeed. You also seem to like my photographs, which is great because I am always happy with a camera in my hand. And it pleases me that you like the name because even now, a year on, I love NKK. So the butterfly can flit off.

Anyway, the thing I hate about giveaways is that not everyone gets a prize. But according to the random generator (Mr. P.) the lucky number here was 10, so if Annie from Knitsofacto could get in touch with your address, I'll parcel up the book and send it on its way. I suspect that Annie is more of a knitter, but this book seems like the perfect enticement to get sewing. Congratulations to Annie.

And in keeping with the randomness, on this bleak and grey day I thought you might like these beauties, seen recently in a nearby former RAF airfield.

Back tomorrow.

C.x

Winter garden

2012-02-06T12:03:00.000-05:00

Hello there,

I have a sore throat and earache. Whoa is me. I've slept most of the day today. But the weekend - the weekend was a delight. Much rummaging and pottering and gossiping and drinking and eating and general merriment. Which probably led to the grots today, but worth it. We had a sprinkling of snow on Saturday. Enough to make it look pretty by the sea without too much disruption.

We walked through the churchyard on the way to the sea and came across this. Just beautiful.

The snowfall overnight meant the garden was entirely transformed on Sunday. I haven't shown you the garden yet because it's a complete tip. But there is nothing like snow to pretty things up. Here, then, is my garden. Or at least little bits of it, dressed in white.

Off to dose up on hot toddy now.

C.x

Glow

2012-02-03T08:11:00.001-05:00

Hello everybody,

Brrr. Hope you're managing to stay warm. It's sooo cold here, but beautifully sunny so that's okay. And I'm trying to contain my excitement because we have visitors coming for the weekend. Two whole days of eating and drinking and chatting and general girliness. And it's finally given us the incentive to sort out the bedroom that we've been using as a dumping ground since we moved in. So this is how it looks now.

I made the lampshade this morning. Can I just say that again - I made the lampshade this morning. Yes indeed. As my sister will tell you, I am a bit obsessed with lampshades at the moment. It's so difficult to find nice ones for anything approaching a reasonable price. And then it occurred to me that I could make my own.

It was a bit fiddly and I needed to call in Mr. P to help at some point. I suspect it's the kind of thing that gets easier with practice. Which is good because I have a second kit and am waiting for some Etsy fabric to cover it with.

Like it?

Have a lovely weekend.

C.x

2012-01-31T12:52:00.000-05:00

Please note: this post should be read picturing me skipping around the house.

I have made something. An actual article of clothing. Yes indeed. LOOK!

I knit that. Isn't it cute? It's for a little girl who is 12 weeks old this week. So it's a good job I finished it, because foolishly I chose the smallest size (3-6 months). So it was now or never really.

It's from this lovely book.

You can also find the pattern free here on Ravelry.

It was pretty straightforward for the beginner knitter that I am. I only needed help at the very end. But I found someone at the crafty group I've joined who showed me what to do. Such a satisfying feeling.

And I think it really can't be beaten for cuteness.

I've already got plans for my next knitting project.

Will keep you posted. And thanks everyone for your lovely comments on my growing blanket collection. I wouldn't be doing any of this without you and I'm chuffed to bits that you take the time to comment on what I get up to.

C.x

Making Winter - A tale of three blankets

2012-01-28T08:23:00.000-05:00

As no doubt you already know, Silverpebble and Thrifty Household have come up with the wonderful idea of sharing what we like about winter to banish any signs of gloom in the months of short days and long nights. For me, winter is all about cosiness. And cosiness requires blankets.

I have lots of catching up to do with all the posts I have in my head. For ages, I've been wanting to show you this loveliness.

My Mum found this blanket in a charity shop and gave it to me just before Christmas. Isn't it just beautiful? It's in pristine condition and made of cotton, so we bunged it into the washing machine to get rid of the old lady whiff and it came out fresh and spotless. It makes me smile every time I go into that room. And it's got a lovely weightiness to it that you need sometimes in a blanket.

You may remember that I wrote about coveting a blanket from The White Company here. Well, they had a sale awhile back, just at the point when the House by the Sea was at its most chaotic. Now, I had no business at all buying a blanket at that point when we were still at the stage of choosing taps, but sometimes a thing calls to you and you just have to answer the call. This is the opposite of the white blanket; all gossamer lightness but deliciously warm for all that. It's on our bed at the moment and keeps our feet toasty when the temperature drops in the small hours.

And then there is my blanket. It's really not there yet. In fact it's still a fairly random collection of squares. But if I squint my eyes and ignore all the threads forget about how many hundreds more grannies I need to do to get it to the size I want, then I can almost see that it will be a blanket some day.

I'm trying to be good and do a granny a day, encouraged by the lovely Annie and Laura of Nimble Fingers and Steady Eyebrows. And I've been pretty good so far and reckon on about 5 a week. But we'll see.

I'm also trying not to be too daunted by how big the bed is compared to each little square! Maybe it'll be done by next winter.

C.x

Liberty Book of Home Sewing - Giveaway

2012-01-26T13:58:00.004-05:00

Last weekend, I realised I'd been blogging a whole year. Wowee. I had no idea when I started whether I'd have anything to say. Or if I'd even maintain my interest in learning how to do things I'd never done before. But I have loved everything about the whole process. I've loved learning how to do new things. I've loved reading about you lovely people that I'd never otherwise come into contact with. And most of all, I have loved knowing that you are out there cheering me on in my still small creative endeavours.

I know it's traditional on the anniversary of a blog to have a giveaway of a lovely thing made by the blogger. But I thought you deserved a bit more than that (maybe next year). So, it hit me that I could give away a book to celebrate. (Any excuse for a legitimate break in the book diet.) It needed to be a special book. And a crafty book. One that would make you oooh and aaah, but that you might not splash out on yourself. So, I thought this might be just the ticket.

I got a copy with a subscription to Mollie Makes. And now I want everyone to have one. This book is beautiful.

If you don't sew, I guarantee that it will make you want to. If you do sew (and you don't already own the book), you will definitely want to make everything in it. Immediately. If you can sew a bit, it will make you want to have a go. It has beautifully illustrated step-by-step instructions.

And a touch of quirkiness which appeals to me.

And it's clothbound, in hardback, and printed on good thick paper.

I do hope you like it. If you'd like the chance to own the book, all you need to do is leave me a comment. It would be nice if you could follow me but you don't have to. If you'd like to blog about the giveaway, come back and let me know that you have and I'll add your name twice. I'd love to know what you think works most about NKK and what you'd like to see more of. If you remember to include that in your comments that would be fab but I won't exclude you if you don't. In short, I'd love to hear from you. Oh yes, and I'll choose a winner on Saturday 11 February so you can leave a comment on this post any time up until then.

Thank you for all your support over the last year. Not to put too fine a point on it, the last twelve months has been a challenge in ways that I don't write about here, but it had been delightful to have a place to escape to. That you choose to read what I have to say and comment on my blog is truly amazing to me.

C.x

When everything looked better in black and white

2012-01-19T13:39:00.002-05:00

When I was little, we had an old electric blanket box that lived on top of a wardrobe in the spare room. Every now and again, my Mum would take it down and we'd go through the piles and piles of photos inside. My Dad, rail thin with winged glasses and a pipe in his mouth, standing next to his first car, my Mum in satin at a dinner dance, photos of my sisters and me when we were babies. I remember one of my sisters, smiling and dressed in matching purple crimpline (it was the 70s), and me between them looking worried in a check dress. Apparently, I hadn't wanted the nice man to take my photo and had had a hissy fit. In among the prints were the negatives. We'd hold them up to the light and look at the world in miniature, full of light and shadow. I thought it was magic.

For years, long after digital cameras arrived, I persisted with film, much the same way people kept their record collections after CDs came along. But, when we moved to Africa, I traded in my film camera (oh, the folly) because I knew the heat and dust would do no good and the development facilites would be poor. Now, I don't think twice most days about film. I love the liberation of taking a chance with my photographs, knowing that the duff ones will disappear with the click of a button. I think I'm the better photographer for it. But today, the luddite in me can't help but lament the passing of Kodak. Was it arrogance that made them think that they didn't need to keep up with the change in how we take photos? Or, rightly or wrongly, did they think this was all a passing phase? Will we go back to film like some people are with vinyl? What do you reckon?

Incidentally, when my cousin was at school, her English teacher asked the class to write out the words of a song that meant a lot to them and bring it into read. The first few lines of this strike me as the perfect response.

C.x
No photos today. It didn't seem right.

The house of NKK

2012-01-16T13:21:00.001-05:00

Hello everybody,

Hope you all had a lovely weekend. We are having the most marvellous weather at the moment. High blue skies and crisp cold days. I just love it when it's like this.

I have discovered the secret to a tidying up. Have visitors come to stay. We had a friend to visit on Saturday, which meant that instead of mess in every room, the chaos is now semi contained. So, at long last, I have some before and after photos for you.

You will remember the kitchen from a few months ago.

There was also a dining room next door.

So we knocked the two rooms into one. (Glad I wasn't around at the time...)

And this is the kitchen now.

Like it? Not bad, eh? I change my mind on a minute by minute basis as to what I like best about it. But I keep coming back to the pantry. Really, it's just a walk in cupboard that used to house a hulk of a warm air heating system. But to me it's a pantry. No more rooting around in cupboards among the out of date tins. No, no. Now, I am a domestic goddess. Yes, indeed.

Not sure I ever showed you the sitting room, complete with '60s fireplace.

This is what it looked like yesterday. (Next to where I stood we're still working on some shelving.)

I don't know about you, but for me, it's the unexpected transition views that make me stop and look when I move around a new space. This is the view from the kitchen into the dining area at one end of the living room.

My books. Almost all in one place. Hurray! And I get to stare at them bleary-eyed as I eat my porridge in the morning. Nothing if not inspiring.

Anyway, there'll be more another day, but hope you like what you've seen so far. Thanks for being with me on the journey home.

C.x

All at sea

2012-01-11T12:00:00.000-05:00

Hello everybody,

Thanks so much for all your lovely messages. It had been so long that I was a bit worried you'd all have moved on. Do you ever feel like that after a break? Like if you haven't blogged for awhile, everyone will just lose interest? Anyway, so glad you didn't.

I know I said I'd show you photos of the house, and they will come I promise. But the truth is that no room is photogenic enough at the moment. We've been in the house exactly a month today, but somehow, it's all still up in a heap. We didn't plan enough storage (plenty of sockets, but no cupboards) so we still have boxes everywhere with nowhere to unpack them into. And in many, many of those boxes, there are books. Fortunately, the chippie had now built in some shelves and we're busy painting them, so soon, very early one morning before the chaos of the day sets in, I will have photos for you.

And in the meantime, I thought I'd distract you with images of our voyage home.

First, I have to tell you that this was the perfect way to leave New York. No rushing to the airport, no taking your shoes off and emptying your pockets. No excess baggage payments. No cramped seats and dodgy food. Instead, this was the view as we sailed out on the East River.

The photos are a bit wobbly. Partly because of the low light, but also because it was freezing. It rained soon after these were taken and I wept with the sky as we left New York.

But the weather didn't stay bad for long, and it was all about snatches of brisk walks on deck squashed between the endless bouts of eating that we discovered is what a transatlantic crossing is all about. Cooked breakfast, morning coffee and treats, lunch, afternoon cream tea, pre-dinner canapes, and dinner.
But waddling slowly on...

An out of season voyage is something is like being at a coastal town out of season. Some things are packed away, or not used as much as they would be in the heat of mid summer.

But I actually liked it that way. I had nothing to compare it to, this being my first (and probably only) cruise. I suspect I am not the cruising type.

But this was just lovely. Seven days of rest and relaxation with lots to do. Or nothing. Mostly, we did nothing. Oh, we made a token effort and and played some deck games once or twice.

Oh, and we saw dolphins a few times (too quick to photograph). But mostly, we just read a little, walked a little, slept and ate lots. And contemplated the enormity of the change the year would bring.

All in all, a very fitting end to our life in New York.

C.x

Coming up for air

2012-01-05T06:53:00.000-05:00

Wowee! That turned out to be a much longer break than I thought. Hello everybody! Happy New Year! I've missed everyone. I got a lovely email from a reader today (hello Kathy) asking how life was in the House of NKK and it finally gave me the push I needed to get back at it.

Where, oh where, to start? I haven't even looked at my blog in the last two months, so logging in today and seeing 5th Avenue in the late Autumn light from my last post made me realise again what a long, long way Mr. P and I have come since last I wrote. So much to catch up on. And I promise I will come soon to the voyage home and the House by the Sea and our new adventure. But I've just looked back at some of the photos and instead I wondered if you'd like a tour of our old apartment before it was all packed up? (If you're anything like me, there's nothing quite like a nose around someone's house.)

Okay, so we had an open plan living/dining kitchen area which, even now that I see it again, I can't quite believe we lived in (those views!).

At the other end of the room was the dining area and kitchen. And the chair I sat in to read or knit.

We set up an office in the second bedroom with a comfy sofa bed (no, really, they do exist).

And the view from here was breathtaking...

... whatever the weather...

And back in November, the movers came and the whole place got packed up and sent ahead of us...

...until there was nothing left and it didn't feel like ours anymore.

And now all our things have arrived and we have rooms and rooms to put them in (relatively speaking). We're still surrounded by boxes (we have discovered that we didn't factor in much storage when we did all the building work here). But we are getting there slowly. Much much more on that another day.

For now, it's just nice to be back in Blogland. Looking forward to catching up on what you've all been doing.

C.x

Once more around the block

2011-11-06T08:45:00.000-05:00

Today is the New York Marathon. If you knew me, you would know that for all sorts of reasons, I will never, ever, run a marathon. But MeMe Rose has. In New York. And MeMe Rose loves New York even more than I do, if that's possible. Now, she's not running the marathon this year, but promises to again. So, I thought that before I leave New York, I would go once more around the block for MeMe Rose and show you some of the window shopping I did on my way home from work the other day.

First, the window of Saks. I have written before about the ogling I do as I pass on the bus every day. Here's what they have in their windows right now. (Apologies again for the eye phone photos).

I have a major case of the covets with this lot. In another life I will own a coat as fabulous as the one in picture three. It's got a 70s vintage vibe crossed with a luxe overlay. And I really want that jumper in picture 4 (but really I want to look all willowy in it).

But what I hadn't realised, what I couldn't see from the bus because it doesn't go past the front of the store, is that they are having a Pucci extravaganza.

Sigh.

And if anyone is stuck for a Christmas present idea for that special someone who has everything, how about this?

A stuffed set of sports car, speedboat and helicopter. No?

Anyway, back to a more manageable fantasy and moving sluggishly on, I went to Anthropologie....

... where they have yarn bombed a garden bench and set up a whole forest of weaving...

Once again it was the home section that really caught my eye. I just love this lamp...

And though I'm not sure this is the way I'll arrange my chairs in my new house, it still looks pretty fab here...

If you're stuck for a way to show off an old shirt, I reckon you could do worse...

And I would so love this caulifower-lidded jar if it weren't so eye-wateringly expensive...

But what I'd like most of all is pretty much everything on this table (including the overhead lampshade). Just lovely.

So, MeMe Rose, I hope you'll forgive the lack of marathon running. I was otherwise engaged.

C.x

Winter wonderland

2011-11-04T11:02:00.000-04:00

Hello everybody,

After my last very wordy post, I thought you'd like a short post with photos to start your weekend. (Apologies in advance for the quality - they were taken in fading light with my eye phone).

I really wanted to take part in Silverpebble and Thrifty Household's Making Winter bloghop but thought I had nothing to offer. The trees are indeed on the turn here too, but living in the city, we are but poor relations to the Fall splendour that is New England. (Check out these amazing images here. But then I was walking home the other night and saw this and thought you might like a peek at what the colder weather brings to Manhattan.

All over the island around this time of year, the ice rinks open for business. There's the Central Park rink and the rink in Bryant Park. But the one I pass every day on the way to work is this one at the Rockefeller Center.

And just at the point when the leaves start to fall and the trees begin to look shorn, you see men in bucket trucks stringing up fairy lights everywhere.

And it never fails to make me smile and glad that it's winter again in the city.

C.x

Book Review: Untold Story by Monica Ali

2011-11-02T12:27:00.001-04:00

(A wordy post today, so bear with me. And there's a question at the end if you make it that far...)
When I decided to do the book diet, I was actually in the middle of reading a book from the library. (Don't ask me why, when I could start my own, that I decided to go to the library for yet more books. None of this makes any sense to me either.)

Anyway, I was reading Untold Story by Monica Ali. I had a vague suspicion from the jacket cover that this might not exactly be life changing stuff...

But, as the inside fly leaf reminded me, Monica Ali has been named by Granta as one of the twenty best British novelists. She was short listed for the Man Booker Prize, and for the National Book Critics Circle Award... the list goes on and on.

So I thought to myself, how bad can it be? It might actually be one of those books that is a bit of a page turner but is well written. And I don't know about you, but I go through phases where I don't read for awhile - life, work etc eats into the day and I find I've fallen out of the habit. So this book seemed perfect to get me back into page turning mode.

How wrong I was.

I have just been commenting to Meme Rose that I think of Blogland as a place where, if you can't say something nice, better to maintain an enigmatic silence. So I considered not writing this review at all, and pretending I hadn't fallen for the Hello magazine in disguise that is this book. But, what the hell. You need to know that I'm actually reading if I'm going to stick to this book diet so here goes.

First, the story line: Princess Diana did not in fact die in a tunnell in Paris but staged her own death and disappeared to live a normal life in mid-town America. There, she has built a life, made friends, bought a house, has a nice man who adores her, and got herself a dog. (Please bear in mind I was putting much on Monica Ali's literary talents by thinking she could pull this off.)

Anyway, as if the plot line weren't lame enough, the whole thing read like the publishers had snatched it from the writer's desk in the night long before she was ready to send it out into the world. I write. (Not comparing myself to one of the twenty best British novelists here, just saying that I know how crap early drafts are...). I know that every draft starts off being bad. The kind of bad that gives you nightmares that you're back in school and someone has got hold of your first draft and is reading it out loud and everyone's laughing kind of bad. But that's okay, because you haven't a clue who your characters are or how they sound or what they have for breakfast or anything about them when you first start to write about them. You have no voice for them and that's okay. For me, writing is the process of finding that voice.

I suspect that Monica Ali still hadn't quite worked out Diana's voice by the time the publishers broke into her house and snaffled it away. And once they got hold of it, they clearly didn't read it before sending it to press or they would have edited it out of its current state into something worth reading.

It's formulaic - Diana's three closest friends are blonde, brunette and ginger haired, but otherwise seem pretty interchangeable. The plot is clunky - e.g. there's a false alarm break in early on that you just know is setting up the real thing later. The ending is all a bit rushed and pat. But the thing that bothers me most is Diana. She's largely absent from the conversations that take place with her in the room. And that silence isn't explained so she comes across as just a dummy in the corner. Sure, there's been lots of research and references to the life that drove her to take the drastic step or disappearing, but I didn't get any sense of an (imaginary) 'real' Diana.

All in all, this was a bit like eating too much ckae with extra sweet butter icing on the top. You take a sliver and it hurts your teeth and you really know you should throw it out, but after awhile, it's sat there so you take another to remind yourself how bad the first slice was, and before you know it the whole cake is gone and you feel sick that you've eaten it all.

Now for the question. I am trying to devise a grading system for my book reviews. I have the highest - 'rush out and buy' and the lowest - 'run away screaming', but I am struggling with the middle. A good read? Wait 'til you find it in the library? A good book for a rainy day? A rattling good yarn? What do you think?

And because you've made it this far, I thought you'd like an Etsy treat.

From Moxie Doll

I am now reading The Women's Room, which is a suitably cleansing and worthy antidote to all that cake.

C.x

Push and pull

2011-10-31T12:08:00.001-04:00

I'm having a real battle with myself at the moment. Part of me is in England, mentally decorating my house and wanting to supervise the builders and rush around putting everything in order. But another part is here, wanting to make the most of our last days in New York. And the part that's here also knows that there's work to be done, packing up the house and finishing everything off at work, while really what I want to be doing is gadding about the place.

On Saturday, helped by the apocalyptic weather, it was all about staying in and sorting things out and putting things in black bags for the bin men and generally getting to the bottom of what we want to take. But Sunday was definitely a gadding about day.

I wanted to go to the Highline. The Highline is a garden created using a disused elevated railway that for years was a decaying blot on the landscape. Apparently, it would have cost more to dismantle and dispose of than to regenerate it, so someone came up with the idea of creating a park along the railway line. And it's just lovely.

Image from here

We'd been before awhile back but I wanted to go again for the views of the river and the Avenue below.

And to go past one of my favourite buildings in New York: the Standard Hotel.

I'm really not sure why I like it so much. But something about its structure reminds me of a book. You get a better sense of it here:

I know. Not at all pretty, but I like it.

We had brunch first in the diner style restaurant on the ground floor.

All rather lovely. And the kissing dogs salt and pepper pots offered just the right amount of cheesiness....

Fortified with decadent doughnuts...

... we set off towards the Highline. And it was CLOSED. Bummer. No reason given, but it might have been down to Saturday's bad weather.

So we cut our losses and went to Chelsea Market.

And all the while at home, there was a loin of pork cooking away. Mr. P's latest obsession is Lorraine Pasquale. So in an effort to use up a joint that has been in our freezer for ages, for dinner we tried her slow roast pork recipe. And yes, it was amazing...

AND (cue drum roll) I am sewing in the ends of my wavery ripple scarf. Hurray. Full reveal when it's all sewn in and blocked. (Don't hold your breath - way too much going on at the moment.) Here's a sneak peak.

Back at work today. That should put a halt to my gallop.

C.x

Molly dancers

2011-10-30T09:59:00.001-04:00

Hello everybody,

Thanks so much for all your lovely words of encouragement. We've been sooooo busy for the last couple of weeks, choosing everything from paints and tiles to curtain fabric for every room in our house by the sea. Quite fun if you have six months to do it in but a bit stressful when you only have 10 days. But it's all coming together pretty well. I have so much to tell you and now that we're back in New York to pack up, I'm not sure how much time I'll have for dilly dallying in Blogland, so this might all be a bit random, but I wanted you to at least get a flavour of what's going on at the moment.

We had glorious weather for our two weeks at home. We've been absolutely blessed with this project - the builders haven't had a single day's disruption with the weather. And the early Autumn sunshine delivered some pretty eccentric behaviour all around....

As if to welcome us, when we arrived by the sea, the molly dancers were out. I had no idea until the other day that there was such a thing and it made me delighted to be in England again.

Maybe just a little bit bonkers. But I love it.

Back now and in the last 24 hours, we have had snow AT THE SAME TIME as a thunder storm (never knew that was possible...)

But now, it is a bright sunshiny day.

Hope you're all having a lovely weekend and enjoying the extra hour in bed.

C.x

No turning back now

2011-10-18T12:54:00.000-04:00

You know what it's like when you decide to sort out a particularly untidy cupboard or room. You go at it with great gusto, putting everything out on the bed, delighted at your decision.

You sort and you fold and you makes piles of things to give away. It's all very satisfying.

But there comes a point (or at least there always comes a point with me) where everything's a mess and the day is getting on and you really wonder whether it was a good idea to have started all this change lark or whether it might have been better to have closed the door and left it for another day.

But it's too late now, so the very best thing is always just to plough on and either find the partner of the stray sock in your hand or accept that the washing machine has eaten it, so you may as well throw the sock in your hand away.

And when it's all sorted, how pleased you are that you now have a tidy cupboard and you are left to wonder why on earth you hadn't tackled it sooner.

All over our house by the sea, we are at just that point where the enormity of what we've taken on threatens to overwhelm me.

But in among the chaos, there are glorious signs that the decision to smarten up the place will be worth it.

And we are tantalisingly close to the prettifying stage....

If anyone needs to source tiles and paint, I'm your woman.

C.x

In an instant

2011-10-15T07:22:00.001-04:00

Just a quick hello to say I've arrived, bleary eyed but excited. And, perhaps inspired by my blue embroidery bird, but also in a fit of boredom in the airport, I have joined Twitter.

The name?

NKKinatwist

Like it?

Do follow me, if only out of idle curiosity to see where I end up.

More soon.

C.x

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Not a great first date

2011-10-13T22:19:00.000-04:00

First, just to let you know that service from the house of NKK will be intermittent at best in the next few weeks. Posts will be random and commentary on all your lovely blogs will likely be lacking. For tomorrow, we are off to see our house by the sea. Hurray! Then back for three weeks and then sailing out for good. It'll be a bit of a roller coaster ride.

Okay, so to my date with Prints Charming. I have such a feast of colour for you today.

You will be pleased to know that I did not let you down. I did not swear once (well, not out loud anyway...). As to the rest...

It was not a very auspicious start. I arrived 45 minutes late. I hate being late. I am rarely so. My only excuse is that my life is even more chaotic than usual at the moment. So, I got the dunce's chair rammed into the back corner with the edge of the table and the table leg to contend with. Not so good.

Luckily the lovely women of Prints Charming allowed me to think it was no big deal and chatted away while I got my act together.

I am left handed. When it comes to hand sewing, this usually makes your average right handed seamstress run away screaming. But they managed to remain quite composed. I kept forgetting to tie the knot to start a stitch, so it kept slipping through. No cursing please. Big sigh and start again.

What really killed me was the chain stitch. I understood completely the theory, but I kept forgetting to anchor each stitch so that it all came unravelled in a most annoying way. (You are allowed to laugh, by the way. I won't be the least offended.)It wasn't helped by the fact that I kept getting distracted, wanting to take photos of all the lovely treats they'd bought with them and had strewn around the place.

And I was mesmerised by the detail of the sample work everywhere.

Not to mention the teacher's necklace.

But it seems there really is no short cut to the swear a lot/rip it/start again mode of learning that I have developed this year.

Undaunted, I came away armed with two instruction books (hurray - there's a book for it!).

And after much consideration on colour choice, these lovely threads.

They will be used to adorn (sic) this lovely blue bird.

You will understand from the scraggy bits of thread messing up the place that I already have plans in the swearing/rip it out/start again department.

More soon I hope from our house by the sea!

C.x

Evening With Prints Charming

2011-10-11T12:55:00.000-04:00

Hello everybody,

Thanks so much for all your lovely comments on my book diet. I am glad I am not alone in my book-buying habits (though I suspect that you are more disciplined in actaully reading them than I am...). In truth, I have no idea how long it will be before I fall off the wagon, but there's a definite element of "I've told you now so I have to do it" going on here. Will keep you posted.

Just a short teaser post today. I am spending the evening with Prints Charming tonight. Mr. P. need not worry - this is not a typo. Prints Charming is a delightful duo from Australia who specialise in modern contemporary craft.

And they are coming to New York. Hurray!

They are teaching an embroidery class at Purl Soho this evening and I have booked a place.

According to the blurb, "I will learn how Cath and Kristen combine basic stitches with a variety of thread types to create Prints Charming's signature playful modern style. I'll be treated to a fascinating demonstration of their untraditional free form embroidery approach, and finally, I will try my own hand at creating my very own interpretive embroidery masterpiece!" Yes indeed.

I wonder how much experience they have working with the craftily-challenged...

Apart from the delight of visiting Purl Soho, and taking myself out of my comfort zone for a few hours (what, no words to write?), this is about squeezing the last rich experiences out of the time we have left in New York (not long now). And it's also about actually learning how to embroider so that I can tackle this lovely project in the winter months ahead when we're installed in our house by the sea:

I bought the kit awhile back from the lovely Alicia Paulson and have been too intimidated to even open the envelope. It's too beautiful to make a hash of, and I want to curtail my usual learning process of just diving head long into it, cursing a lot and ripping it over and over before I have something half way reasonable.

I'll let you know how I get on.

C.x

Edited to say that all images come from the Prints Charming website here.

The big NKK de-stash

2011-10-09T21:41:00.002-04:00

In the months since I started my blog and came across all you lovely people out there, I have admired, in a detached sort of way, the discipline involved in going on a de-stash diet. I have no such addiction to yarn or fabric. I have yet to become hooked on it all to the extent that I would buy yarn without a specific project in mind just because, well, it was there. I know. Will you still speak to me after this?

But before you turn away in disgust, never to read NKK again, I thought you'd like to know that I am staging an intervention with myself. Because there's nothing like the prospect of moving every last thing you own across the Atlantic to focus the mind on the amount of stuff in your life. And I have come to a realisation that I have been hoarding my very own stash.

I've always had a bit of a problem when it comes to books. I love them. Everything about them. The feel of them. The smell. And of course the stories they give me.

Now, I know there are worse addictions in life. I could be a crack whore. So, I've always told myself that it was harmless. That I could stop anytime.... But in the last three years, my book buying has got a bit out of control. For two years in North Africa, I couldn't buy books, except in rushed visits when we were home. And I was always conscious that we wouldn't be there forever, so I somehow managed to curb my acquisitive tendencies.

But there's been no such holding back since we moved to New York. It's been so fabulous to be able to wander into a bookshop and come out laden with treats. So, it's only as we get ready to pack up and go that I've really thought about all these lovelies on my shelf. And only now that I realise that I haven't read any of them. Yet. Oh, I have read other books. Lots of them. But somehow, all these slipped in there along the way and I haven't yet got around to reading them. Instead I buy more. Think of it as the literary equivalent of staring at your wardrobe in despair because you have nothing to wear...

So, I have resolved to read them. And not buy any more books until I have. Even as I write this, I'm not convinced I can do it. It's going to be made all the more difficult because the house by the sea is in a small town with an excellent bookshop (one of the main attractions for me). But even I realise that it would be truly ridiculous to ship all these lovely books back unread and then go out and buy more.

I have devised a few rules.

1. Presents don't count (as long as they're real presents and not me asking Mr. P to buy a book I'm craving).

2. I want to join a book club (if I can find one) when I get home. So, if I can't find the chosen book in the local library (also excellent, I'm told), then I'm allowed to buy that book.

3. If I start a book and can't get into it, I'm allowed to not finish it and start another one instead. (Twenty years ago this would have been unconscionable to me but there are way too many books I want to read and never enough time to waste on badly written or uninteresting one.

4. I will write a review of each book as I go and post it so you get to see my progress.

There. What do you reckon? And do you have the same problem? And would you like to join me? Have you read any of the books in my piles? There's all sorts there from the light and fluffy to more weighty tomes. Where do you think I should begin?

I have no idea whether I can do this. But I am determined. And cussed determination gets me through all sorts of things I didn't think I could do. Which brings me to an update on the wavery ripple. I am discovering there is something very satisfying about getting to the end of a ball of yarn...

C.x

Loopy Mango

2011-10-06T15:12:00.005-04:00

Last weekend was the annual NYC Yarn Crawl. My first thought when I read about this was that I wished all of you lived around the corner so we could all go together. As it was, I managed to visit two shops over the weekend. It was the perfect excuse to visit Purl Soho again. But I also found a fab new shop called Loopy Mango. Oh gosh, what a treasure trove! Yes, it sells wool. But so, so much more. It's like the best finds on every flea market stall you've ever visited AND wool. How cool is that!

The wool is in a back room flooded with natural light from a glass roof. And there I found this lovely woman, casting on with the biggest needles I'd ever seen. Really quite Alice in Wonderland...

She was about to make this rug.

It seems there's a bit of a craze for these at the moment ....

Image from Purl Bee

Isn't that just beautiful?

Anyway, there were lots of treats at every turn, including these lovely craft books...

...and these rather lovely camels (every home should have one)...

...and cloth dolls and china...

... and clothing and cushions....

... and just about everything you might need to prettify a house by the sea (just a random example...)

And guess what?

I didn't buy a thing. (Mr. P. I do hope you're reading this.)

We have builders and plumbers and electricians and all manner of people working away on our house at the moment. And the thought of the money involved has put a halt to my gallop (for now at least). There will be time enough for prettifying when we have actually paid for the roof over our heads.

(Gosh, how wise I am...)

C.x

PS If you ever come to New York, remember the NYC Yarn Crawl site - it's the best all in one resource for where the yarn shops of the city can be found.

Yes, but think of the bunions...

2011-10-02T19:26:00.000-04:00

A very photo-rich post today. But before I begin, I just loved your six word memoirs. I just knew you'd get it! And welcome, welcome, to new followers. It's lovely to have you here!

So, a few weeks ago, the glitterati descended on New York for this:

Fashion week is HUGE here. I'd never bothered with it before, but somehow, knowing we're leaving soon, I have the urge to do all sorts of things we haven't already done.Needless to say, we didn't have front row tickets to the Armani show or anything, but we are lucky enough to live near Lincoln Centre, we we wandered up to gawk one afternoon.

Oh my! Even Mr. P was fascinated. (No, this isn't us....)

It really was the most wonderful mix of the bizarre and the beautiful.

But what fascinated me, and kept me there with my mouth open long after it was dignified, were the shoes.

First an admission: I have foot envy. All my life, I have wanted to parade around in strappy sandals and high heels. But I have long since accepted that this is not to be. I wear Sensible Shoes. I have been known to put a whole outfit on and then change because I have no shoes I can walk in that even vaguely go with the first thing I try on. In short, my feet are the bane of my life.

So, you will understand when I tell you that I am bit obsessed with what other people manage to teeter around the place in.

Even the men's shoes were, well, stare-worthy...

But my absolute favourite was this combination:

A journalist whose job it was to record what the clackers were wearing on their feet. Could she be any more contemptuous?!

And isn't this fab?

I just love this. Pretty sure it's Marc Jacobs. I would love this dress just to hang on my wall like a piece of art. I would wear it, but as my mother would say, where would you be going in it?

And, as if all that wasn't enough to tantalise me, I walked past Dylan's Candy Store the other day and these were in the window:

All made of sweets. Bonkers.

So, there you have it. Shoes and the City. Enjoy!

C.x

Friday flower power

2011-09-30T08:09:00.001-04:00

Hurray! It's Friday! Don't you just love Fridays!Just a quick one today as I rush out the door to work. Saw this on my way home yesterday and thought you might like it.

Isn't it just the business?

More tomorrow. Have a lovely weekend everyone.C.x

Six words: what would yours be?

2011-09-26T12:05:00.000-04:00

Hello everybody,

A wordy post today (with an Etsy or two at the end).

First day back at work today. Sigh. My back is okay. Still not right, but better. Acupucture helps.

While I was at home, I came across this book:

Available here

According to NPR, legend has it that when Ernest Hemmingway was asked to write a story in 6 words, he responded: "For sale: baby shoes, never worn." How sad is that? Fabulous, but sad.

There are others:

"Love me or leave me alone."

""Waching quietly from every doorframe." (Doesn't that make you want to go and stand beside this person?)

"A sake Mom, not soccer Mom." (tee hee)

"Extremely responsible. Secretly longed for sponteneity."

"Almost a victim of my family." (Ouch.)

"The psychic said I'd be richer."

More here and here and here.

I've had lots of fun with mine.

"I can't wait to stop moving."
"Finally getting what this is about."
"Serious person, serious job. No thanks." would definitely figure (today of all days).
"I finally wrote that novel. Hurray!" (wishful thinking)
"Held out for the right man." Soppy, but true :)

So, I was wondering what yours might be? I'd looooove to read some.

Okay, and if you've made it this far, then here's the Etsy of the day:

Not usually into things like this but he's adorable.

He's from RutaFelt.

Or this rather elegant sewing machine (if that's not a contradiction) from Moxie Doll

Anyway, think that's enough words for today. Put your thinking caps on and send me your six words. Would love to read them.

C.x

Meandering

2011-09-24T17:30:00.000-04:00

I don't know about you, but I store up random odds and ends to tell you as I go through my day, and then something happens and I never get to post about them. But going through my pictures today, there are a few things that I just knew you'd like, even if they come across as a bit random.

1. My sister asked me to buy an iPad which we delivered the last time we were home a few weeks back. We spent a little time fiddling with it and generally revealing that we are not part of the tech generation (or whatever letter that is - we had generation X some time ago now...) While we were distracted with something else, my niece got hold of it and drew a self portrait:

Isn't she lovely? She is eight. (If she could send along a picture of her brother, I would love to show you that too.)

I gave my sister this:

2. We had a lovely day out in Brighton. After pootling around furniture shops all morning, we had lunch at a cafe with this in the window:

Bonkers. Lovely, but bonkers.

3. I read here that vertical gardens are very much the thing at the moment. But have you seen the one in Trafalgar Square?

Apparently, it's inspired by A Wheatfield With Cypresses by Van Gogh. How lovely is that?

4. If you are ever near the National Portrait Gallery, then make your way to the fifth floor. The bar offers such a beautiful view over London, even on a grim grey day.

5. Isn't the ship in a bottle on the Plinth just lovely?

6. I never did tell you that awhile back, Mr. P and I went to hear Edna O'Brien read from Saints and Sinners, her new collection of short stories. Of course, I went for the stories, which are beautiful. It didn't hurt that she was being interviewed by Gabriel Byrne.

Dodgy photo taken with my iPhone - sorry

We will draw a dignified veil over my failed attempts not to drool...

So, there you are. Random things that I felt you needed to know.

C.x

Shiny Happy People

2011-09-22T08:44:00.000-04:00

Hurray! Today is my 100th post. Who knew I had so much to say about things I know nothing about?! I had no idea when I started whether I'd last more than a week in Blogland (who would read me anyway?Would anyone comment? Would everyone laugh? In a good way?) Anyway, what's kept me going is all of you. You are lovely people and I am very grateful to have met you. Thank you.

Can't remember the last time I listened to REM, but I used to listen to this all the time, oh, lots of years ago. Go on, have a bop. You know you want to.

Defiance

2011-09-21T15:42:00.000-04:00

So, I had a very definite idea as to the way I wanted the ripple scarf to look. And I thought Karin Bole's pattern would be just the ticket. The pattern called for US6 (4mm) needles. But I only had US8 (5mm) ones. And not just any old US 8 needles. THESE knitting needles:

Bought from a nice Australian shop called Coffee and a Yarn. I mean, who wouldn't want to knit on these, right? And what's a millimetre between friends? So I cast on and did a few rows.

And it was all ripply and everything. But somehow, well, it wasn't quite right.

The thing is, I really didn't want a ridge between the changes of colour and the pattern called for a knit row after the ripple row. But because I am so clever (sic), I knew that all I needed to do was purl that row instead.

So, I ripped it all and started again.

And then I decided that I wasn't happy with just a couple of ripples per row. So, I figured out that by adding 18 stitches and repeating the ripple row repeat three times instead of two, I would achieve what I wanted. Are you with me? So, I ripped it and started again.

And then I figured out the reason the pattern called for US 6 rather than US8 needles - the larger size left larger holes in the ripple. And I didn't like it. So, I ripped it and started again. This time with the right needles. (Sensible ones without the toadstool tops. Sniff.)

And that's when the fun started. I have already mentioned here that I am a Serious Person with a Serious Job. I went to school for a long time and everything. So, somewhere along the way you would think I might have acquired the capacity to count to six. That's basically what the pattern requires. But no. I have lost track of how many times I have lost track of where I am in the ripple row. It's not difficult. You just need to concentrate every third row in four. And even then, and allowing for the extra 18 stitches, they are not long rows. 56 stitches. C'mon.

Okay, so there's a definite ripple. And that's a good thing. And there are no ridges between the rows, so my cunning plan worked. But the middle ripple sort of wavers there in the first few rows until I got a grip and settled into it. And by then I'd ripped it so many times that I hadn't the heart to start yet again.

So, here it is. The beginnings of a wavery ripple.

And no-one could ever accuse it of being shop bought...

I have to say that, despite looking a bit more hairy than I expected, the wool is lovely to knit with and it feels soooo soft. I think when I finish it, somewhere around 2045, I'm going to love it. That's if I don't rip it and start again.

C.x

And the winner is...

2011-09-20T08:51:00.000-04:00

Thanks so much for all your thoughts on where you'd like to live. How lovely to read about your daydreams. The winner, chosen scientifically after much eeny meeny miney mo, is... The Girl. The Girl decided that she'd like to live in a tardis, which I think is a very sensible idea. She is also about to move house, so I think maybe the cushion cover might come in handy to spruce up (sic) her new home. All I need is an address. I now imagine The Girl is overcome with excitement in a breathy Kate Winslet sort of way...

More later on my knitting. It has met with mixed success. Nothing like thinking you know better than a pattern to humble you in the end. Now, if only I'd had the bowl, it would have been entirely different...

And because I am not really going out this week, I do not need this rather lovely knitting bag from here.

C.x
(Do you like me posting my Etsy finds? If it annoys you, I'll stop. )

Thank you - and last chance for the giveaway

2011-09-19T11:37:00.000-04:00

Hello everybody,

First a HUGE thank you for all your good wishes. How lovely are you? Such lovely lovely people I've met here, and knowing you're all sending positive thoughts my way makes me feel so much better.

I have an extra-special thank you to say to Pomona of Little Cottage Comforts. I am the lucky winner of her amazing giveaway of Organic Places to Stay, the book of Organic Holidays set up by the amazing Linda Moss whose inspirational story you can read about on Pomona's post here. For anyone contemplating a change of direction, for anyone who's having doubts about whether their good idea will get them somewhere, or even for anyone feeling a bit crap or in a funk, Linda's story is required reading. And given that I'm about to make such huge changes in my own life, this couldn't have come at a better time. So, thank you, Pomona. You have given me so much more than a book.

Today's Etsy offering from here

And what better way to say thank you myself than to give back. So, if you'd like to win the owl cushion cover I made, just click on the button to the right and leave a comment on that post. It may not be a polished performance on the sewing front, but it was made with lots of love. Good luck!

Off to do some knitting now.

C.x

Do or die

2011-09-16T17:26:00.003-04:00

Warning: whinge alert

Today is not a good day. I have a major muscle spasm in the muscles around my pelvic joint and the joint is inflamed. And the doctor thinks I may have early stage arthritis in my hip. I am 41. These symptoms and this age do not go together. Most of the time, I am busy ignoring my body, pretending that it's fine, but right now it's not and I need to just stop and rest awhile. The doctor has told me to stay at home for a week. Normally, this would be the best present anyone could think to give me. A work-free week in New York when we only have so many weeks left would be bliss in different circumstances. But I know that I won't be able to make much of it. And frankly, I am hacked off to the nth degree about that. I should be out gallivanting and instead I am stuck at home. Even the weather is not cooperating. It is that beautiful time of year in New York when the air is clear and fresh but it's not cold. And I am looking out at it feeling exceedingly sorry for myself. Sniff.

So, I am faced with a choice. I can either consume my way out of the debt crisis on Etsy/eBay/[insert favourite online shop here] or I can produce.

I choose produce. (It's not as though I haven't done my bit for the economy already...)

So, what to do?

Well, you may remember that I stropped and sulked about the poor service I got at a wool shop back in February when I was in Australia, and which I wrote about here and here. Never one to let go of a strop easily, this lovely wool has been consigned to a cupboard ever since.

What a shame. But no more. I am finally going to have a go at making my own version of this lovely thing:

I had thought to crochet it. But today, I dipped my toe in the waters of Ravelry and found what I think might be a knitted ripple scarf by Karin Boles here. The pattern says its for a 'confident beginner'. And I figure what I lack in confidence, I make up for in cussed determination. I've checked how to do YO, K1 on youtube, and it looks pretty straightforward. We'll see. Wish me luck.

And if I need a change from that, there are always my granny squares to be getting on with...

Yes, it's been awhile since these put in an appearance. (And you have been too nice to enquire as to why, thank you.) You will remember that I made a rash promise here that I'd be sewing in the ends as I went along. Well, that of course meant that I got a bit paralysed and didn't make another square. (Is it only me that puts such obstacles in my way?). Well, I've binned that idea in favour of just getting on with it. I haven't made that many, but I figure if I'm at home for the week I might just see whether I can't churn out a square or two. (Nothing if not ambitious...)

So, there you are. Productivity as the cure for consumption. Who knew?

Cx
PS: and no I do not need this lovely thing from here to do any of the above... :)

Only a matter of time

2011-09-15T15:56:00.001-04:00

Hello everybody,

Mr. P and I have come to a tacit understanding about my recent flea market purchase, which involves him pretending he doesn't know about my mad woman's basket, and me pretending that I haven't noticed the new golf bag that has appeared in the house. Besides, I now have my excuses at the ready. It's a packing case, after all... And if all else fails, I have "Oh, that old thing... I've had it for aaaaaages," to fall back on.

Anyway, the House of NKK has moved on from all that. We are now on Etsy. Oh, yes.

Ta dah! My first ever Etsy purchase. Isn't he fabulous?

At 5"x5", he's petite. But of course, quite leggy...

I'm thinking a box frame so that all his hairy loveliness doesn't get squashed behind glass.

He came from a very nice lady called Liza at Felted Fuzzies.

So, what was your first Etsy purchase? Would love to see.

Before I go, please can someone buy these cups from here:

and come back and let me know. They are absolutely adorable. I would buy them myself, but as you all know, I have my limits...

C.x

PS - I have no affiliation with the shops. I just like stuff.

This is not a picture

2011-09-14T07:46:00.000-04:00

First, a reminder about my giveaway. I'm loving your responses so far. Still time to win the cushion with the slightly bonkers looking owl. Every home should have one :) All you need to do is click here or on the button to the right and leave me a comment on that post.

Second, thank you for all your support with my recent addiction to Etsy. I see I am in good company....

Lots of photos today, and a bit of a story....

Two weekends ago, I bought a couple of pictures at the local flea market. I haven't photographed them yet because they have been consigned to the back of a cupboard for now. (I loved them, Mr. P did not. Nuff said.)

Every Saturday morning, I take the bus to my writing class. The bus stops just outside the flea market.

This is a Dangerous Thing.

This week, Mr. P has been busy getting quotations from removal companies. (I tell you, whatever business you're in, close up shop immediately and open up a removal company in Manhattan.)

So, last Saturday, before I set off for my writing class, Mr. P and I had a Serious Discussion about how every cubic foot would cost $10 to ship. We agreed that there was to be no more buying of fripperies until we arrived at our house by the sea.

The last words from Mr. P before I left the flat were: "No more pictures."

"Right," I said. "Got it," I said.

When I arrived at my stop, I had ten minutes to spare before my class. Just a couple of stalls, I told myself. Not even the stalls further in where I've found stuff before... How much harm can it be to just kill time before I spend the morning studying?

And then I found this:

Totally mad. And I had to have it. You will understand, I'm sure.

I mean, really, it has houses on and everything.

Surely a basket to move house with?

Okay, so it's a bit battered. But it's quite nicely made.

I did dither a bit over it. Mr. P's voice was rumbling away somewhere in my head.

But the thing that clinched it was this:

The year I was born... (It's a sign!)

And there you have it. I was true to my word. This is not a picture.

C.x

Late to the party

2011-09-12T16:42:00.000-04:00

I have discovered Etsy. (I know, where have I been...).

I am in serious trouble. Send help.

C.x

Tree cosy

2011-09-09T06:57:00.000-04:00

No, really. Look!

Completely barking.

And somehow completely intriguing.

So, what are you up to for the weekend? We have my sister-in-law arriving tomorrow for a few days, so will be doing lots of eating and drinking and laughing. Can't wait.

Whatever you're doing, have a lovely weekend.

C.x

Pure escapism

2011-09-08T12:00:00.001-04:00

Recently, I've come across Anthology Magazine. It's published every quarter and is absolutely delicious.

(All photos from Anthology Magazine.)

I have an idea to do a sort of 'sea wall' in our new house, full of all sorts of things from Etsy and ebay and flea markets all loosely related to the sea. But really, I just want to arrange for everything in this house to be delivered to my door. Sigh.

And yesterday, they featured this collection:

(All photos from Anthology Magazine.)

Clearly, they are stealing my ideas :)

C.x

A little piece of Jersey in the City

2011-09-06T14:09:00.000-04:00

The builders tell me that work is going well on the house by the sea - no buried treasure found, and that's a good thing... It's raining today but all last week we had sunny days here (hurricanes and earthquakes aside), and November and our voyage home still seem like a long way off.

But we have an influx of visitors in September, so I know that suddenly we'll be waving goodbye to our old neighbourhood. And one of the institutions that we pass all the time on the bus is this old store.

In many ways, it's nothing special. And it's not as though there won't be pork in Suffolk. But I'm pretty sure nowhere will have this on the wall outside.

Hilarious! Every time I pass it I expect to see a Soprano lurking outside. Or a rug-shaped object being hussled into the back.

I mean, seriously - doesn't it make you want to start singing to yourself that you woke up this morning and got yourself a gun?

Now, I know I've spent way too much time in my life watching Sex and the City and Sopranos (what else is there to do for two years in the desert?) But please, tell me it's not just me.

C.x

Giveaway - owl anyone?

2011-09-05T15:10:00.001-04:00

I am reading in blogland that Autumn is in the air in Blighty and that children are heading back to school and generally that Summer is nearly over. I thought it might be a good time for a treat.

It's Labour Day here. Which means a day off. We've been out and about a lot this weekend, but today has been spent making this:

Yes indeed. I made that. Not just sewed it. Made it up. From scratch. Me. I have realised how easy envelope cushion covers are to make, and now I want to revamp every cushion in the house. But I want to start with a thank you giveaway.

I had an idea that it might be good to have my own interpretation of what seems to be the craft mascot of the moment.

Google is awash with owl images so it was all a bit bewildering at first. But eventually, I found this one and knew that I could make it work with what was in my head.

I then spent lots of time faffing around with different scraps of fabric and generally making a mess. I hadn't used my sewing machine in a couple of months so that was all a bit daunting too. But in the end, it all came together pretty well.

Okay, so it's all a bit rough around the edges, but I think that makes it more home-made looking. And I like the perplexed expression. (If I didn't exist yesterday and now found myself living on a cushion cover, I think I'd be a bit perplexed too...).

I wasn't quite sure what to do about the feet (talons? claws?). But then a particular piece of fabric emerged at the top of the heap and I knew this would be just the thing.

Anyway, all this is a prelude to saying thank you. Eight months ago I had no idea how to sew or to crochet, and I didn't read blogs. Neither did I know that there was such a fab support network of lovely people out there just bursting with goodwill and enthusiasm waiting to cheer me on. So I thought I'd say thank you with my owl mascot.

I'm also very preoccupied with my move coming up. So, I thought that should come into it somehow too.

Here's all you have to do:

1. If you'd like the chance to win the owl cushion cover ( padding not included but it's about 17 inches square), then please leave me a comment telling me where you'd like to live in the world.

2. You don't have to worry about what you'd live off, or whether you could take your pet giraffe, or where your kids would go to school, or whether there will be sweetpeas there. All that is included in your fantasy place.

3. Maybe you're already living in your dream location (lucky duck). If so, I'd love to hear about it.

3. And if you blog about my giveaway on your blog, come back and leave me another comment and you'll be entered twice.

That's it really. Hope you like it.

C.x

Oh yes, forgot to say the posts will be open until 19 September.

Requiem for my trousers - Ta dah!

2011-09-04T12:05:00.000-04:00

This is a bad news/good news post. First the bad news.

My trousers have died. To be fair, they have had a good innings. They are nine years old. Which in trouser years makes them about 112. These are the trousers that have survived every cull of my wardrobe. Every house move and clear out. Every makeover and fashion reinvention.

I bought them when I lived in Kosovo. Think mud and dust in Summer. I wore flat shoes all the time because the surfaces were all uneven. And these were the perfect flat shoe trousers. Good quality linen, a good cut that relaxed rather than sagged around the behind with each wear. And comfort akin to trackie bottoms.

They then came with me to New York the first time we lived here and I schlepped all over the city in them.

In North Africa they were line dried in searing heat over a couple of years, fading to a kind of colourless grey. So, when we came back to New York three years ago they came too, but were consigned (most of the time) to house trousers. A bit too scruffy to be seen out in but too deliciously comfortable to give away.

Every Summer I promised myself would be the last. But somehow they came out each year for one more go around.

But this year, they have given up the ghost.

First it was a thinning. But the thinning gave way to a hole, and a dangerous lack of thread in the crotch area (ahem).

So, what to do? I couldn't quite bring myself to throw them away. And then I hit on the perfect solution. I could still sit on the them, sort of....

TA- DAH! (Imagine a gap in my typing here while I skip around the room.)

I had some heavy cotton fabric with a big repeat in the pattern that I haven't quite known what to do with.

It used to be wrapped roughly around the original horsehair (uncomfortable) cushions that came with this chair found at a flea market years ago.

But the chair had a makeover when we moved to Manhattan and the fabric went to live at the bottom of our laundry basket. For a very long time.

So, cast off fabric, meet worn out trousers.

A fab new cushion. My first ever cushion cover. Do you like it? Do You?

Now it lives on our sofa bed, looking pleased with itself. Fits right in.

Even the Queen looks pleased.

So there you have it. I made a cushion cover. Hurray!

So, have you recycled your clothes? Would love to know what you've done with them.

C.x
(The Queens are vintage life magazines bought on ebay and framed by Mr. P. And the make do and mend is an original photo from stock in 1942. Did I tell you I love ebay?)

NTR

2011-08-31T08:55:00.000-04:00

Well, that's it then. An earthquake and a hurricane in the same week. Definitely time to pack up and go home.

In fact, it wasn't bad at all. I know there are people without power still and some who are dealing with flooding. But the house of NKK was entirely unscathed. In fact, the only danger was that we might have died of boredom.

We had a friend visiting for the weekend. We had planned to go to see this, and to have lunch here. And of course to do some shopping here. And we had tickets to see this. On Saturday, we did spend an inordinate amount of time in Anthropologie before it closed.

But then we were forced home. Not by winds and hurricanoes but because everything was shut.

So we stayed in. And ate (sorry, no photos - too busy eating).

And we played lots of this:

And tried not to squabble over the made up words.

At some point I decided to 'style' my hall...

(It's not quite there yet -still working on it. Think I have the ingredients but haven't worked out what to do with them yet.)

I am collecting hearts - one for each year Mr. P and I have been married. I don't get them on any particular day, just when I see one I like. Although the feathers were bought as a bit of a joke on our first married Valentine's Day and I liked them so much, they've stayed.

And I like how they contrast with the simplicity of the other two.

I bought the mirror at the local flea market in the first year we moved here.

And the lamp came from a local shop.

But really, it was just all an excuse to find a home for this pretty, bought on Saturday. (It is essential that you buy a vase on the morning a hurricane is due to hit. Or I suppose it could be vintage china, or a jug.)

It reminds me of some kind of sea creature.

Anyway, after we'd eaten ourselves silly and drunk too much wine, we went to bed with all the blinds down and a feeling of anxiety that we might wake in the night to the world ending. But Sunday arrived more or less on time, and it was all, well, normal looking really...

Sure, it was a little overcast and damp. And there was NO ONE on the streets at midday.

But all in all, it just felt like a wet Sunday morning. And by 3pm, it had all cleared up.

So, that was it. The NKK Guide to Surviving a Hurricane. Re-style your hall.

Hope everyone else was as lucky.

C.x

Hello Geronimo

2011-08-25T14:48:00.001-04:00

Hello everybody,

Thanks so much for all your good wishes after the wobble the other day. It's bucketing down today and we're threatened with a tropical storm over the weekend. All we need now is a plague to round things off...

And welcome to new followers. Lovely to have you here. I'm having a lovely time catching up on old blogs and finding new ones at the moment. So much creativity out there.

Have you seen these button pictures? Aren't they just the business?

Don't they make you want to reach for your button stash?

(I love that daisy button. And the chandelier!)

And isn't this just lovely?

(Isn't that a fawn button for the eye?)

But my favourite one is this:

Just lovely.

These all come from Hello Geronimo (all images from their website). My sister, niece (hello Isobel!) and I went to the South Bank while I was at home and they had this map in the window. (I want I want I want.)

So which is your favourite? And what picture would you make with your buttons?

C.x

The ground beneath your feet

2011-08-23T14:21:00.000-04:00

I was on the phone to someone just now talking about life assurance (of all things) when my chair began to bounce underneath me. For a few seconds, maybe 10, it got stronger and then it just went away. I live on the 20th floor. Not a good place to be when the floor starts bouncing up and down.

This is nothing, I know. My job brought me close to the effects of the earthquake in Haiti. And when we were in Sydney we saw the effects of the Christchurch earthquake. And of course more recently, Japan's has wreaked havoc. But it's still beyond weird to be anywhere near a 6.0 magnitude tremor.

Everyone alright out there?

Cx

Ups and downs

2011-08-22T18:53:00.000-04:00

We are due to receive planning permission for the extension to the house by the sea tomorrow. Today we got an email from the Council saying that the archeological service has marked our application. This is not good. I have visions of having to dig the foundations with a teaspoon. Hopefully, we will be able to convince them that a close built in the 60s isn't the obvious place for pirate treasure. And if it were, wouldn't they have found it in the 60s? Fingers crossed.

Slim pickings at the flea market this weekend.

But I did snag this lovely at the charity shop down the road.

It may not win any prizes, but I love it.

C.x

I'm just saying...

2011-08-21T13:38:00.000-04:00

As you may remember, I have been coveting the crochet throw from The White Company since I blogged about it here.

Well, The White Company is having a sale. :)

60% off.

Sometimes it pays to wait.

C.x

Wired

2011-08-18T23:11:00.000-04:00

Thanks so much for all your good wishes. You really are lovely, and I am so glad you want to share this new phase with me.

So, how many electric sockets do you have in your house? And are you happy with their location, or do you find yourself trailing extension cords around the place so you can do the ironing while you watch the tele, or do you have to drag the mixer out from a corner every time you use it or walk half way around your house with the kettle in your hand to make a brew, or get half way up the stairs when the Hoover konks out and you're left with a flex dangling in mid air over the banisters? And if you were given a chance to start again, would you know exactly where the sockets should go? And the radiators?

These are the things that are keeping me awake at night at the moment. I had what felt like 5 minutes to walk around the building site that is our house by the sea last week with two builders who wanted to know where everything would go. In rooms that look like this

. To be fair, they're not all that minimalist. Most look like this:

And the kitchen's practically finished:

(Just kidding...)

And all things considered, I think I had a pretty good idea of what would go where. (When we finished, the builders told me I could run a war I was so decisive. That's a good thing, right?) But now, everyone I speak to tells me that you can never have too many sockets. And I'm not there anymore to figure it out. Still, I have my own collection of extra length extension cords to fall back on.

And I have also chosen bathrooms, carpets, wooden flooring, interior doors, a kitchen, taps, and tiles. But bad for 10 days.

But in case you thought you'd tuned into the wrong blog, I have also been buying fripperies. What do you think a girl needs most when she has a hall that looks like this?

Why, THIS, of course!

Isn't it just lovely?! I'm thinking it needs a new cushion cover, but then I'm so handy with a needle that that shouldn't present any problem...

I bought it at a vintage fair near the house. I was so excited I had to tell the poor guy selling it all about the 60s house it would be going to live in. He tried hard to pretend he gave a fiddle.

Other than that, I was very good, except for one complete frippery which I couldn't resist.

It was only a tenner and the label said it still worked but needed a battery. Of course it was only when I got it home that I realised that it needs one of those big old square batteries that you can't just pick up in the local Homebase. So now I'm on the hunt for the right battery.

All in all, I think it's a good thing that I'm back in Manhattan. Otherwise I'd be tormenting the builders and sneaking stuff in under the dust sheets.

C.x

All change, please. All change.

2011-08-17T10:57:00.000-04:00

So, I have big news. I resigned yesterday. And we are moving back to England. I have been bursting to tell you for the longest time, but somehow it didn't seem right to tell you lovely ladies when my team didn't know. Pretty much no one knew actually. But now I want to shout it from the rooftops. There are BIG changes ahead in the house of NKK. I've never bungie jumped (I'm a bit of a scaredy cat like that). But this is how I imagine bungie jumping to be - scary and thrilling and a little bit edgy. In three months we sail out of New York on the Queen Mary II (delusions of grandeur, I know...). And then we go to live in our house by the sea. Hurray!

C.x

Dream weavers

2011-08-15T22:19:00.000-04:00

Gosh, so much to tell you. Where to begin? At the beginning, I guess. Or at least at the start of the two weeks away.

We left New York a couple of weeks ago after a very busy time here. One of those times when you get spent onto the plane or into the car, having had no time to think about the holiday, or where you'll go or what to pack. We arrived at Heathrow early the next day and I flew straight to Ireland for a two day writing workshop hosted by Claire Keegan, an Irish short story writer. If you've never heard of her, then let me beg you to rush out and buy Walk the Blue Fields. The first story in the collection still haunts me.

Anyway, I arrived in Dublin and hired a car, arriving in Bunclody in Wexford feeling stupid with tiredness and jet lag. But it was all worth it for the next two days, spent with other women (there was only one man there), thinking and talking about writing. Claire Keegan is fierce and uncompromising and not a little intimidating, but she had much to say that is worth listening to.

Driving back to Dublin, I had lots of time to kill, so I took a detour off the motorway to Avoca. It's a little sleepy village in Wexford that wouldn't be much of a draw if it weren't or the fabulous woollen mill on the outskirts. I grew up with Avoca, and have a blanket somewhere that I bought twenty years ago, but I'd never actually been to the mill before. I'm so glad I did. First there was the delicious cafe. (I would show you the amazing home made goods, but I was so busy troughing that I forgot to take a photo...). But then there was this:

Who could resist such a sign? At first I thought it might be just a sort of living exhibition, done out to show how it used to be done.

And sure enough, there was a man weaving away on an old loom.

But as it turns out, that IS how it's still done, for at least some of the blankets. Which frankly amazes me. I wish I could show you the skill with which this man worked. And how quiet and unassuming he was about it all. He told me that all the bobbly bits on the wool get brushed out to make mohair blankets.

Not sure how the lambswool ones get make into these beauties.

Over the years, Avoca has branched out into homeware and clothing...

And cookbooks and the like. (they don't sell these letters - I asked...).

Maybe something like Ireland's answer to Cath Kidston and Anthropologie all rolled into one.

I had only intended to stop for tea, but when I saw the amount of effort that goes into these blankets I somehow came away with two. And I realised today that I have left them in the old lady house, in a cupboard away from the builders. So I'll have to show you those another time.

Stay tuned for (before) pictures of the house coming soon.

C.x

Not quite AWOL

2011-08-07T08:52:00.000-04:00

Hello there,

Just to say that I am gadding about and full of news, but it'll be a week or more before I can get my act together and post properly. For now, I just wanted to say that we have completed on the purchase of the old lady house by the sea. HURRAY! There's about 12 weeks of buildings work and dust before I can get to the fun part of decorating etc. My mind is spinning with choices of everything from carpets to where the radiators will go. And it's all being done at a mad fast forward speed because I have to go back to work on Monday. For now we're 'glamping', which basically means living in an empty house with a few sticks of random furniture, a camping stove and the blessings of hot water and a loo. (It's amazing how little you need when you put your mind to it.) But I miss being able to share it all with you, so will be full of news when I'm back.

Stay tuned!

C.x

Rain

2011-07-21T06:44:00.000-04:00

Hello everybody,

It's sweltering here. It's 6.15am and already its 24C, and will go up to a high of 34C today, and 38C tomorrow. We have the odd thunder storm, but all it does is make things more humid. I'm not complaining. My Mum tells me that the UK has forgotten all about summer this year, so I get that this might not be what you want to be hearing right now.

So, I thought I'd tell you instead about Rain. Rain Africa is a shop in the Rockefeller Center that sells exquisite handcrafts and beauty products made by small rural factories in Africa. Ethically traded, organic and environmentally friendly, it's a refreshing change from some of the tourist tat of nearby Times Square. It's also stupidly expensive (sigh). They had the most amazing crochet granny square blanket the last time I went in, and I thought to myself "I can make that." (If only I'd just get on and do it. ...)

But I couldn't leave behind the wool box, which seemed to be calling my name. I have my (very small) stash neatly arranged inside.

(Yes, as you can see, I've only progressed a little with my own granny square business.)

And I have that lovely Alpaca red and grey wool that I blogged about here, to try to make this scarf if and when I learn chevron.

At the moment the box of sheep is shoved on top of a wardrobe so that I'm not reminded on a daily basis how slack I'm being in the craft department. Somehow the thought of making a wooly scarf in 30C heat isn't doing it for me. And my head is FULL of house and building work and decorating and travel plans and stories that I want to write.

I guess this is all a long winded way of saying that I'm feeling a bit of a fraud at the moment even having a crafty blog when I'm not doing any crafting. I haven't written as much here lately as a result. And that's a bit crap.

Sorry.

C.x

Hurray!

2011-07-15T06:44:00.000-04:00

I have exchanged contracts. The constellation of bank, solicitor, vendor, vendor's solicitor all aligned and we finally have a commitment to buy the little old lady's house by the sea. Excellent.

We'll be in England for a couple of weeks in August, so we'll complete then. So excited.

And maybe a bit scared. This is my first grown up, proper house. With a garden and everything. And it will be lovely, I know.

But first we have to get the builders in. New central heating system, new bathrooms, an extension. Lots of ripping out and knocking down. But still, a house by the sea....

So, would you like a peek? I need to do a whole lot of before and after shots (and posts...) but for now, I thought the kitchen best sums up the order of things....

Watch this space. By the end of the year, it will be shiny and new. Something to celebrate.

(And besides, I thought you'd like to see my 4 July photos, even if they're a bit late...)

Hope you all have a lovely weekend.

C.x

Where does the time go?

2011-07-11T07:58:00.000-04:00

It's now mid-July (well, nearly...) and I haven't even shown you a mosaic for May! I really need to give myself a shake. To make up for it, I thought I'd do a bumper one for May and June, with a promise to do better in July.

Hope you like it. And welcome welcome to new followers. Lovely to have you here. And thanks for all your lovely comments on my last post. I knew you'd like the quilts too.

C.x

Quilting for a cause

2011-07-04T13:38:00.000-04:00

Hello everybody.

A lovely long and lazy weekend here - 4th July which means a day off. Hurray! We were also given early release from work on Friday. (Lots of prison-like associations with that phrasing, I know.) Anyway, I walked home, which gave me a chance to take in the windows of Saks and Anthropologie at a dawdling pace instead of whizzing past them on the bus. In the bizarre world of fashion, it is winter, which means that the mannequins in Saks are all bundled up in woollen coats and cashmere jumpers. Lovely, but a bit mad in 80 degree heat. Apparently, there are women in the world who shop like this. Personally, I need to feel the early morning chill of Autumn before i can think of the need for fingerless long wool gloves. (The Saks mannequins tell me they will be big next season - you heard it here first.)

Saks had also devoted a whole line of windows to The Names Project.

I had a vague impression of this that I'd picked up from somewhere, but it's a powerful thing to see these displayed in a line together. There's so much love and emotion packed into each one.

And they so vividly bring to life the people they commemorate.

So much life and loss and heartache behind each panel.

(I have sat for awhile wondering whether it's too insensitive a transition to go on from here to chatter on about Anthropologie. But the truth is that it made me so happy to study their window too. So much creativity and humour was just the kind of life affirming injection I needed. Apologies to anyone who finds the remainder of the post in bad taste...)

So, to Anthropologie. I find their window displays endlessly fascinating.

Who would think to clutter up a window with bubbles? And yet it works. And I just love the use of these old slides as the backdrop to a single outfit in the corner of this window. How fab is that?!

Each slide offering its own tiny slice of life....

There's so much care and attention to detail that goes into these window displays. But it's not often that I get to see it happen as I did on Friday.

Simple yet effective.

More creative food inside. There isn't a single plate here that I'm not coveting...

And owls are definitely the bird of the moment. They were everywhere.

I managed not to buy anything. But lots of food for mind and soul. All on the way home from work.

C.x

The delights of seeing

2011-06-27T16:46:00.000-04:00

Those who can do, those who can't shop. Or at least that's what I did yesterday rather than knuckle down to anything more productive. I went to my local flea market in mid-town (of green foot stool fame) and was not disappointed. It always amazes me what people want to get rid of. Who, for example, wanted nothing more to do with these fabulous women?

Imagine what it was like to train as a nurse in 1922. What it took to think about doing that. I find these pictures endlessly fascinating. And the best part is that the Allegheny General Hospital is still there in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, still training nurses.

These women had names like Red, and Fran and Vi and some look quite formidable. But I wonder what their lives were like and if they liked what they were doing.

This is a sister picture of one I scored at a flea market just after we came to New York three years ago. I have to admit that I was taken with the name more than anything:

And the Moody Bible Institute of Chicago is still thriving. We came across it last year when we went to Chicago for the weekend and I whooped when I saw it. These pictures will now live together in my hall.

They both remind me of a photo taken by Walker Evans that I love...

... shown in this book.

I pass my Moody Bible people every day as I come and go and every now and then I stop and study their faces. I tell you, endlessly fascinating.

Someone has also thrown out this plate, which came home with me yesterday.

It's a Vera. Until yesterday, I didn't know who Vera Neumann was but the seller seemed to know so I went along with it. I just loved the pattern. I'm having a real thing for mustard yellow at the moment. I think one of the rooms in the little old lady house will be a shade of mustard yellow. And this plate will live there.

I also finished a tentative first draft of my story. I may tinker with it a bit this week, but I am minded, in the words of Zadie Smith, to step away from the vehicle. I read one of her essays yesterday in Changing My Mind that the best thing an author can do when they have finished a work is to shove it in a drawer, preferably for a year, but three months will do. All to do with making the transition from writer to reader, which helps the writer see more clearly how to edit the work. It's tough to do, but it really pays off. So, what I'm saying is, don't be looking out for me in the New Yorker any time soon. :)

Hope you all had a lovely weekend.

C.x

Fits and starts

2011-06-25T19:18:00.000-04:00

This crafting business feels a bit like learning to drive. Intermittent brief periods when I feel like I actually know what I'm doing, interspersed with long sessions where all I do is kangaroo hop, lurching from one project to the next, before grinding to a halt, getting nowhere. And if fit is the opposite of start, then I am having a protracted fit. I am not doing anything. I was going to tell you about the growing list of projects that are waiting for me, but that's a bit depressing. And I'm not sure I have anything better to tell you in its place.

I am busy. I took a week off work and flew to England for my niece's first communion, which was just lovely, and then went home for a few days to my parents' house. The first time in three years. I have seen my parents lots in the interim, but always somewhere else. And the few days passed by in a blur of shopping. Not idle shopping with lots of coffee breaks in between, but focussed shopping that felt a bit like work. I went to only three shops. And spent HOURS in each. I met a very nice woman called Sharon who helped me figure out how to use the Ikea kitchen planner. Sharon had an ikea kitchen, but she told me her husband got custody in the divorce. I spent what felt like days in John Lewis. I am clearly getting old, because I wouldn't have been seen dead in John Lewis two decades ago and now would basically be happy if I never shopped anywhere else in my life. Well, almost... I bought mattresses and a dish washer and a cooker. All at good reductions.

None of this means that the little old lady house is actually mine yet. Oh no. The bank is still faffing around ticking boxes. And lest you think I've completely lost the plot, all the kitchen planning is still notional, and John Lewis, being John Lewis, have a no quibble return policy and will keep all my purchases for months before delivery for free, allowing me to take advantage of their sale prices at no risk. (You see... amazing!) And now I am back. And I am knackered. A week off work and lots to show for it, but I can't help but feel a bit cheated.

Anyway, there is one good thing which I am secretly very pleased about. I am writing again. Not blogging (clearly). But writing - short stories. Or at least a short story. And that makes me happy. Even if it's not very photogenic.

More soon.

C.x
(My niece painted this picture on the Big Day, and I can't resist sharing it with you.)

Handmade Renegade

2011-06-13T17:10:00.000-04:00

So, moving on from the emotional sideswipe of the Queen's visit to Ireland...

Last weekend, the Renegade Craft Fair came to Brooklyn. How exciting! This is a fair that moves around the country, only coming to Brooklyn once a year (though I think they might also do a special Christmas fair as well). So, I've been excited for weeks about this, and imagined all sorts of goodies to buy. And it had been hot as a furnace all week, so I thought if anything it would be too uncomfortably hot for a stroll around. In fact, I covered the market at a sprint because it rained. Not the kind of rain where you simply can't justify venturing out, but the kind of drizzly rain, where you convince yourself that it's just about to stop and you end up damp and cold for your effort. That kind of rain. We sat in a cafe nearby for ages and nearly went home. But I could hear the stalls across the park calling to me, and in the end I convinced myself that it wouldn't be fair to all those poor people who'd made the effort if I disappeared off home. I probably didn't do it justice. Each stall had about five seconds as I rushed by to attract me with its wares, and I have to say most didn't. But I still managed to come away with a few treats.

Now, I will admit in advance that I am clearly going through some kind of escapist second childhood thing, because none of my purchases are exactly sophisticated. But they all make me smile, and right now, that's important. So, here goes....

An owl, called Severine (though not by me) made of recycled jumpers. Wonky and cute and the kind of thing I should give to a baby. If I had a baby. Or indeed knew anyone with a baby...

My new favourite mug, because it feels so good with a pot belly in my hands, because it's white on the inside (I don't like mugs where the tea goes a funny colour because the inside of the cup turns it green/pink/anythingotherthanteacoloured). And because it's got an owl on (I'm having an owl moment.)

But my favourite thing of all, and the most daft by a mile, are these:

Aren't they just the business! I've never seen a russian doll set anything like this. And every one of them makes me laugh out loud. I mean who could resist?

A chicklet with an Elvis coif!

Genius!

They now live on a bookshelf in the hall area between the living room and the hall to the bedroom. I pass them at least a dozen times a day. And they crack me up. They all have that expression of "how the hell did we get here!?", and I have to say I sympathise. They are clustered in front of some pretty heavy-weight books because, after all, I am a Serious Person, with a Serious Job. But right now, I'd rather me playing with russian dolls....

Mr. P. has decided that I have clearly lost the plot.

C.x

National pride

2011-06-12T23:01:00.000-04:00

It's a funny thing coming from a mixed Irish/British background. I was born and grew up in Ireland and moved to the UK when I was thirteen. My father is English and my mother is Irish. If I am honest, most of the time, I feel too English to be Irish and too Irish to be English, forever bobbing somewhere on the Irish Sea.

I was away three weeks ago so it was only today that I watched the highlights of the Queen's visit to Ireland on RTE, the Irish television station. It was about 10 minutes' long. And I cried the whole way through.

I'm not sure I can articulate why exactly. My family has never been touched by the troubles (no, I don't like that expressions either, but it's a convenient shorthand for the nightmare that some went through). I remember sporadic reports of armed robberies on post offices which I now understand to have been related to funding the IRA. And I have a vivid memory of a day out in Dublin when I was ten, where we got caught up in a hunger strike demonstration. There were men in balaclavas carrying cardboard coffins and, for a brief panicky moment, we lost my Mum in the crowd. But apart from that, we were as far from being 'involved' as it was possible to be. But at school, in practically every lesson - history, literature, religion, sport, music - we were expected to remember our past. And as the children of an English father, this wasn't always easy.

It's years since I have consciously thought about all this. I have travelled extensively and lived in many places where other nationalities, with their histories, have influenced me more. But I have to tell you that, watching the images of the Queen visiting Croke Park, sitting under a picture of Michael Collins, laying a wreath in the Garden of Remembrance, I had tears streaming down my face. I am Irish and English, and proud of it.

C.x
(Needless to say, the photos aren't mine for this posting. They all came from Google images.)

At it again

2011-06-11T11:08:00.000-04:00

I have written before that my natural instinct is to looks to books as having the answers to everything. I am busy decorating my little old lady house in my head (the finance and legal bods haven't registered the same sense or urgency), and I am accumulating a small collection of books to help me do this. I love these books. They confirm my view that it is cool to be rummaging through flea markets and craft fairs for that special something that speaks to me and will make our old lady house ours. And they have such pretty pictures...

(if anyone knows where to get this picture of the Queen, I'd love to hear from you :)

This kitchen belongs to Aurelie Mathigot, the crochet queen, who seems to be able to make just about anything with a hook and yarn.

And I love this yellow collection where the grey slate is such a fab backdrop to the blossom and retro kitchen ware that you might not look at twice on its own.

I also crave the simplicity of this kitchen set up. If and when we ever get this house, I'm planning on plain white cupboards to counter level and shelves on top.

I had vague impressions of this kind of collection for my own sideboard when I bought the Danish vase last week. But the best thing about Decorate is that it has got me thinking about room plans. So I have enrolled Mr. P to draw up rooms to scale and cut outs of our furniture so that I can literally play house. A poor substitute for the real thing, but still...

I love this Ercol-style furniture, and have unearthed a fab nest of tables on John Lewis's website. A girl can dream...

More cupboards with shelves overhead, this time from a house in Brooklyn...

And finally the clean lines of this house from Perfect English Cottages.

I know there are hundreds of websites out there with just this kind of inspirational content. And I do look at them. But to me, there's no substitute for settling down with a cup of tea or a glass or wine to lose myself in these pages. I love the weight and feel of them, and how the content slowly reveals itself as I flick through. And I usually have my ipad on hand to search on ebay or look up an idea if the inspiration hits me. So hooray for books, I say. It's also a little bit more than that. In truth, I am having a shocker of a time at work at the moment and burying myself in these books, dreaming about my old lady house by the sea, is just the antidote I need. If only the money and legal people could get their act together...

C.x

Treasure at every turn

2011-06-01T10:02:00.001-04:00

Hello everyone,

Thanks so much for all your lovely comments on my iPad case. I'm glad you picked up on the temptation to sling it in the back of a cupboard. I just couldn't find a cupboard deep enough to stop the nagging voice that I could figure it out if only I tried hard enough. Nothing if not dogged...

Anyway, I am back from my travels, safe and sound. I would love to tell you about all the great things I saw and did, but I spent a week going from compound to compound and not seeing anything more exciting than airports (of the non-glamourous variety) so nothing much to report there.

But we have had a lovely long weekend here with Memorial Day so, when I wasn't sleeping, I was out and about, enjoying having Mr. P back with me, and generally making the most of a hot weather weekend (it finally stopped raining...).

And I have treasure to show you. First up, this fab leather footstool bought for a song at my local flea market.

Isn't it just the business! I LOVE the colour. (Anthropologie has a beautiful club chair in just this shade of green leather with each button covered in a different fabric that I have been coveting for the longest time. In truth, a green chair might be too much, but the footstool is just perfect...) And it really brings out the green in the faded old cushion cover from Designers Guild that I've had forever. And it's got those great metal tips to the legs. We found it at the end of a trudge through the market in the very last stall. Exactly the kind of thing that keeps me going back week after week.

(We will draw a veil over the fiasco that was the Manchester United v Barcelona match, watched after we found the stool. Nuff said...)

I left Mr. P. hiding from the heat on Sunday to go back to the Brooklyn Flea. Treasure at every turn. A Royal Denmark vase...

... and a partner for my other tapestry picture bought there a few weeks ago. (I sense a collection in the making...)

... and this lovely Arabia marmalade jar. (I saw one when I was in Australia but left it behind and it has been nagging at me ever since, but if anything this one is even better with its gold accents...)

And finally, this lovely bowl bought in a charity shop for $1 last night.

This weekend, I am promising myself not to go to any more flea markets. There's no end...

C.x

Loving catching up on all you blogs. I missed them while I was away.

In the bag - Ta-dah!

2011-05-19T22:47:00.000-04:00

LOOK!

My iPad cover. What I made. All by myself. Gosh, how clever am I!

I would like to tell you it was nothing really, just something I knocked out in an afternoon. But this has been tormenting me for about a month now. I even got up early one Saturday recently because I thought I'd cracked it, only to find myself ripping it apart again in frustration later in the day.

Never one to make it easy on myself, I didn't think to look up a pattern. Or at least I did, but I didn't think any pattern would accommodate the beautiful piece of fabric with the car that I wanted to form the front flap, and I knew if I found a pattern I wouldn't be able to adapt it, so I ploughed on. To give you an idea of how many times I re-did this, I went through a whole spool of thread... I know, right?

And now that I've got it sorted, I can't believe how stupid I was being all along. And of course the answer was so simple, and had been staring me in the face. All I needed to do was to follow the way I made my bags (sort of). I knew I didn't want any exposed seams on the sides because they would come apart after awhile, but I must have tried every possible variation of folding and stitching before it dawned on me that I needed an inner pocket sewn right sides together and left that way, and an outer pocket sewn right sides together and then turned inside out so that the right sides faced out. And then the inner pocket could, well, sit inside the outer pocket. Genius!

That only left the flap, and I knew I only had this little piece of fabric to work with so necessity made that bit quite straightforward in the end.

So, there you go - my first ever made up made thing, ever. Isn't it pretty? Do you like it? Do you really? And doesn't my iPad look the business tucked away in there?

If I'm honest, I will tell you that in fact I didn't make the pockets high enough, so that when the ipad is inside, the flap comes over but you can't see all the car, which niggles me. But I still love the colour combination and the travel motif (nothing if not obvious) and the general feel of the thing. And did I mention that I made it? Me.

And just in time - I am off on my travels tomorrow (Afghanistan and Lebanon - not sure how I feel about that...) and will be out of touch for a week or more. Will be thinking of you all and looking forward to hearing how you're getting on.

C.x

Madison Square Park

2011-05-18T09:26:00.000-04:00

This weekend was all about staying indoors out of the rain and generally moping around. But I still haven't told you about the perfection of last Sunday, when the sky was blue and Mr. P. and I meandered down to one of our favourite parts of the city. Madison Square Park lies on 23rd Street, where 5th Avenue and Broadway converge. It's also next to one of my favourite buildings in the whole city. I don't know how many photos of Flatiron I've taken over the years, but I can't be near it without trying to capture its magnificence.

The park was packed because there was a food festival going on...

... complete with a stall that made ice lollies the old fashioned way, sprinkling cordial over the shavings of a glistening iceberg....

But we weren't there for the food festival.

New Yorkers are an impatient bunch as a rule. They don't wait for anything. But, rain or shine, they wait for Shake Shack...

... Which gives everyone time to admire the blousy tulips...

... and the calming hydrangeas...

... and make new friends...

Though even he got a bit bored in the end...

But, finally, we made it to the top of the queue and scarfed down burgers and shakes with the best of them.

And afterwards, through the trees, we came across this fabulous creation...

It's by Jaume Plensa and is called Echo. He took as his inspiration a 9 year old neighbour of his in Barcelona. I can't tell you what an electrifying thing it is to see amid the buildings all around the Square and the people milling around.

It's made even more impressive by its 44ft height.

Just breathtaking. And the perfect, tranquil end to a busy, happy day.

C.x

Hoola hoops

2011-05-16T20:06:00.000-04:00

Seen yesterday in the late afternoon light...

How on earth did they do that?

C.x

(A bit of a cheat, but...) Ta Dah!

2011-05-15T13:33:00.000-04:00

Mr. P is in England at the moment, taking to an architect and builder about the old lady house. I had to stay here and work, which I'm feeling a bit peevish about even though I know we both didn't need to be there, and that gallivanting across the Atlantic every couple of weeks is all very well but we have to watch our pennies at the moment if we are going to have any money to spend once the house is bought.

And it's raining. And will keep raining for the next 5 days if the weather forecast is at all accurate. So to take my mind off my strop and the weather, I decided to do some crafting. (It was either that or endless episodes of Lie to Me...). I tried first to fix the iPad cover I started to make a few weeks back. All I achieved was to understand how to use my seam ripper. If anyone needs lessons in using this nifty little tool, I'm your woman. I can tell you that an empty flat is just the place for this exercise, because I had free reign to swear liberally and loudly all afternoon.

I eventually abandoned my efforts in favour of repeating an earlier success. If in doubt, stick to what you know...

So I made another bag. Smaller this time, because I had less material, and because I wanted it to be useful for my 8 year old niece.

I'd found this lovely fabric at Purl Soho when I made my first bag. It's so Springy and happy and has this lovely pattern on a deliciously slubby thick cotton...

Very Princess and the Pea... I decided to use grey thread which would blend with the darker colour way and provide contrast to the yellow fabric...

I realise this was a bit risky since my days of sewing in straight lines are obviously yet before me, but still... It has all the same feature as the first bag, with a magnetic snap for the outer pocket and two smaller pockets on the inside...

And, of course, it's reversible and washable.

Having made it once already, this came together pretty quickly and I'm chuffed to bits with it. I only hope my niece likes it too. Do you?

C.x
P.S. I realise I've been completely crap lately, not really crafting much, and not commenting on all your lovely blogs. But I am reading them all and planning lots of future projects, so please bear with me. There's just lots going on right now.

P.P.S. The quality of photos is appalling because Mr. P. went off to England with the cable that connects my SLR to the computer, so these were transferred using the Blogger App on my iPad, which clearly doesn't do photos. Humph.

Only living boy in New York

2011-05-11T22:48:00.000-04:00

When I was 17, I lost my heart to a boy called Adam. I spent a Summer moping after him when he lost interest. But what has stayed with me like a stone in my shoe is not that he stopped calling. But that he had seen Simon and Garfunkel play in Central Park and I had not. Now I live in New York. And tonight, I saw Paul Simon live in concert. There were so many songs I wanted him to play. And I was nervous that somehow it wouldn't be the same after all these years of hankering to see him. But I needn't have worried. He played so many and I loved every minute of it.

Call me Al, Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes, Kodachrome, 50 ways to Leave your Lover,The Obvious Child, Hearts and Bones, The Sound of Silence, The Boy in the Bubble, Mother and Child Reunion, Late in the Evening, Slip Slidin Away, Still Crazy After All These Years. And of course, The Only Living Boy in New York....

I really wanted him to play Kathy's Song but he didn't. So I thought I'd play it for him (and you).

It may not have been the reunion concert in Central Park, but I have seen Paul Simon play in New York City and I am a happy woman.

And welcome welcome welcome to new followers. So lovely to have you here.

C.x

Treasure

2011-05-08T10:59:00.001-04:00

I'm very excited about my latest ebay purchases. These beauties arrived in the post yesterday and I LOVE them. I've been seeing these horses in all the interior magazines recently but wasn't sure how to find them. And then in an idle moment I put 'wooden horse' into the ebay search and there they were waiting for me. They have their original stickers on their bellies, which tell me that they are Olsen horses from Mora and Nusnas in Sweden. I love the folkloric nature of the background to them, that these Dala horses were first made as wooden toys for children, carved in the long winter months in log cabins up and down the land. But most of all I love the colours, their subtle variations signifying where they came from, like the patterns in an Aran jumper revealing the family that knit them.

These are bigger than I expected (despite the accurate measurements by the seller). Or maybe they have even more presence than I expected. They are now standing guard on my bookshelf, protecting my precious collection of short stories.

Aren't they just beautiful?

Oh and before I forget again, thank you all very much for your suggestions as to how to clean the "my first embroidery" picture. I'm sorry it has taken my until now to come back to you. And I have good news. It looks so much better than it did when I brought it home, looking like this ....

In the end I took rather drastic action and splashed soapy water on it and rubbed it gently with a nailbrush and rinsed it with cold water. (It was kind of kill or cure). Fortunately the blithe approach worked and now it looks like this, hanging happily in my hall...

(There's still a little stain in the bottom left hand corner but it's kind of in shadow so I don't notice it so much.) I think it came from a smoky house because lots of yellow water came out as I was cleaning it. Now it looks so jolly and Springy and I love it. Not bad for $5. Thanks everybody. You're lovely and amazing.

Hope you're having a lovely weekend. Fabulous weather here (at last) so off out to the flea market down the road.

C.x

April Sampler (better late than never...)

2011-05-03T15:30:00.000-04:00

I love making these. I thought I hadn't taken any photos this month, but here they are after all. I was going to do some of the old lady house (I'm obsessing about this at the moment). But all the ones I took are of weird angles or long shots so that I could remember the detail of each room. There are no pretty photos. But I promise I'll do before and after shots when the time comes. For now, here is April.

C.x

Random distractions

2011-05-02T22:27:00.000-04:00

Thank you so much lovely ladies for all your birthday wishes. In truth I am feeling thoroughly discombobulated at the moment. And no real crafting to speak of either (though my acquisition of material for future projects goes on...) So I thought I'd apply a scatter gun approach to this post and let you in on what I've seen and done over the last couple of days in the hope that you won't notice that there are no granny squares or sewing bags or knitting or the like to pique your interest. Bear with me.

I know that the blossom has been out in the UK for some weeks now, but we're just playing catch up here. This weekend was the cherry blossom festival held every year in Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. I'd not been before. But everyone else was there already...

I'm told that the BBG is usually quite a quiet place to hang out. Not on Sunday. Despite that, the blossom was pretty amazing...

... and almost enough to make up for random Westerners dressed in Kimonos made in China and socks and flip flops. Whatever you're into I guess...

On the way home I called in to see a friend and passed this amazing display on the way....

And today I saw these pretties all lined up for a team talk before taking up their positions in Saks' window. ...

Amazing how much attitude plastic mannequins can exude, even from behind....

(Btw, if anyone knows how to turn the background noise of window reflections down on photographs, I'd love to hear from you.)

And someone else I saw with attitude of another kind, riding on the bus....

You got a problem with that?

C.x

No going back now

2011-04-30T17:27:00.000-04:00

I am forty one today. Which means that I am now definitely in my forties. I didn't mind turning forty a year ago. I loved my thirties and felt that my forties would be even better. And besides, there was somehow both a feeling of achievement to it and a sense of still being able to dance across the line back into my thirties if I wanted to. But now I am definitely forty something. No turning back. Mmm - not quite sure what to make of that.

I have taken no photographs today. But here, for no reason other than I like the image, is one I took a couple of years ago.

Maybe my forties will be the decade where I dress up in nothing but balloons....

Or maybe not.

C.x

Lest you think we don't know...

2011-04-29T15:02:00.000-04:00

We were up at 5am in the House of NKK, eating bacon sandwiches and sipping tea. We would have had champagne but I had to drag myself away from the television at some point and go to work. Not before the ceremony, the TWO kisses on the balcony and the commentary on the dress. Sigh.

C.x

Dandelion clocks and DIY

2011-04-24T19:09:00.000-04:00

I seem to remember that Easter was the time when DIY stores in the UK went into a frenzy of advertising, as if the resurrection took place so that we could all re-tile the bathroom. While our tiling days are yet before us in the house of NKK, we have been dabbling in a spot of DIY nonetheless. Mr. P has been picture framing.

I can't get enough of these old LIFE magazines and have amassed quite a collection now. But this one is so trippy that it makes me smile every time I see it.

I indulged in a spot of 'styling' when we hung it up. So now it hangs above a rather uninspiring tallboy from Ikea that used to live with the lid up revealing a mirror and lots of clutter that had accumulated in the shallow tray underneath. But now I have closed the flap of the top of the tallboy and put together a jug I found for 20p in a car boot sale last week, and a bowl from Anthropologie that I bought awhile back to keep my earrings in (when I remember).

It's really transformed that corner of the room and now the lovely tile that used to hang gamely trying to hold its own against all that magnolia paint in our rented apartment has some company.

The tile is by Xenia Taler who has nothing to do with the other kind of tiling that goes on at this time of year...

I've been reading that England is awash with dandelion seeds. So I thought you might like to see this lovely thing, also found last week. (Okay, so I exaggerated when I said that we did nothing but house-hunting...)

Isn't it just lovely? I just love dandelion clocks. It's resin. How do they do that?

Happy Easter everyone.

C.x

Home sweet home

2011-04-22T14:07:00.000-04:00

LOOK!

I have clearly gone into nesting overdrive since we found our house. And today I made this. I had these lovely buttons among the treats I bought in Sydney at All Buttons Great and Small which I wrote about here.

And a lovely old jumper that I'd bought two winters ago for $5 in a charity shop.

It's cashmere and was always a little two small for me, but I wore it anyway until the elbows gave out. So I decided to try my hand at felting. (I know, boiling cashmere is more than a little decadent, but I reckoned it had probably had enough life as a jumper and might like to be something different now....)

It took three boil washes to get it to a point that I was confident enough to cut into it. But today I'd had enough of having a doll sized jumper in my wardrobe so I snipped a sleeve off just to see what would happen. And miraculously, the line held and nothing unravelled.

I already had the photo frame and was a bit bored with the flower photo that had lived in it for years. And the creamy white backing is a section of course weave cotton from a much bigger piece with red blotches on it (more of which another time).

If I'm honest I wanted the pictures on the buttons to line up nicely with the holes for the thread. But they wouldn't. So I've made do with roughly aligning the washing line instead.

But all in all, I have to say I'm chuffed to bits with it. It'll definitely be coming to the little old lady house.

Phil and Kirstie would be proud...

2011-04-20T11:56:00.000-04:00

Hello there,

Thanks so very much for all your best wishes and support. You really are a lovely bunch of people. And of course you're right - it wasn't meant to be and we would likely have had trouble with the seller down the road, so best by far to walk away with a sigh of relief. I can say that now because you are also right that there was something else better out there all along - we have found our house! It's amazing really how life works. You think you want one thing. And then something else comes along and when you see it the thing you thought you wanted no longer is the thing at all. In fact, you wonder what you ever saw in it - dresses, men, menu choices, jobs... It was ever thus. And of course, it also applies to houses. ESPECIALLY to houses.

We thought we were looking for a crofter's cottage in a particular town. At least that's what we found first time around. So we set out to find the same again. In fact, we nearly bought a place that was bigger, better, smarter than that a few days ago in the next town along on the coast. But then the self-evident truth slapped us around a bit until we admitted to each other that it might very well be a decent house, but it wasn't in the right place at all. We have set our hearts on a town and that's where we want to be so there was really no point looking anywhere else. (Location, location, location...) Lots of appointments in random places made and cancelled. And then we were taken to see a house in the perfect spot in 'our' town. Minutes away from the sea and just off the High Street. Such a pretty location. It wasn't exactly love at first sight. This is a little old lady house. With little old lady decor. I couldn't see it at all. But Mr. P was determined. And then slowly it worked its magic until all the little old lady decor fell away in my mind's eye and I could picture a cool contempory luxury look with lots of space and light. And that was it. Sold.

It needs LOTS of work. I am lying awake at night moving walls around in my head. Trying to figure out the art of the possible on a strict-ish budget. But I know we'll get there. And I can't wait.

Sorry there are no pictures - it really wasn't that kind of holiday. And the little old lady house is camera-shy for the moment.

And lovely to be back in blogland. I've missed it. More soon.

C.x

Best laid plans

2011-04-12T17:51:00.002-04:00

Put simply, a week after the completion of the sale of my flat, the seller of the house we'd set our heart on, the house by the sea, decided that the price we had agreed wasn't enough after all. He decided he wanted £50,000 more for the house by the sea.

Fifty thousand pounds! So, as politely as we could, we thanked him kindly and walked away.

And there you have it. No house, just house hunting. About to get on a plane to England. And instead of spending the time buying furniture and thinking about curtain fabric, we'll be doing a mad dash around other people's houses, wondering whether one of them could be ours.

Fingers crossed.

C.x

The best of excuses

2011-04-10T18:58:00.000-04:00

It was Mr. P's birthday yesterday. So of course that could only mean one thing...

I first made this cake in my teens and made it so often I copied it into a notebook (hard to believe I was ever that person). But then for some reason I stopped and haven't made a chocolate fudge cake for years and years. It was always going to be something chocolatey for Mr. P. I tried to push the idea of Nigella's chocolate and ginger as recommended by Annie of Nimble Fingers and Steady Eyebrows but Mr. P was having none of it. (Sorry Annie, but I will doubtless find another reason to bake that soon...) And it being his birthday, I couldn't really say no.

It's a simple recipe (see below), which is really just an excuse to make the icing...

... which is oh so sweet, but somehow just perfect.

The cake stand was put to work again, and this is just the cake it was made for....

The weekend wasn't all baking though. I tried to make an ipad case with this lovely fabric that I mentioned here...

I will post about the disaster that followed another time when I've stopped sulking and figured out how to fix it. I may be some time.

My head was full of sewing on my way to brunch when I came across this:

I was running late so didn't have time to go an investigate. I suspect it was for one of the local hairdresser, but what if it was the sewing fairy come to tell me how to fix my fiasco?

Hope you had a lovely weekend.

C.x
Chocolate Fudge Cake
6 oz butter or marg
6 oz dark brown sugar
2 large tablespoons cocoa blended with 2 tablespoons boiling water and left to cool
3 eggs
6oz self raising flour
2 oz ground almonds

Icing
2 oz marg
3 tablespoons milk
1 rounded tablespoon cocoa
8 oz icing sugar

Cake:
Mix all the ingredients together until smooth. Divide between two 7 inch sandwich tins. Bake for 25-35 minutes at gas mark 4. (Simple!)

Icing
Place milk, marg and cocoa in a saucepan over low heat until marg melts (do NOT allow to boil). Cool a little. Sieve icing sugar into bowl and add cooled mixture. Beat until smooth Leave to go completely cold before icing.

Enjoy!