Dawn in Christchurch

A few mornings ago, we woke up to a beautiful dawn sky, and I was coherent enough even at that hour to go out and take some photos. Isn't it pretty?

Wet chickens

The weather here has been very changeable recently. The last two days were like summer - it was 26c on Monday! - but today is like winter again. It has been cold and wet all day.

The chickens have eaten all the grass from the inside of their run, and with all the rain it has turned into a big mud bath. Their eggs in the nest are all muddy from their dirty feet, and their feathers are all bedraggled. But yet they don't seem too bothered at all!

The Nor'west arch

The Nor'west Arch is a a really dramatic cloud formation in the sky towards the Southern Alps, caused by a particular weather pattern. The clouds make a perfect, even arch in an otherwise clear blue sky. (While I was on the roof of our office building on Monday I had a perfect view of it, and was wishing I'd brought my camera.) It also brings a strange warm wind called the Nor'wester which can mess with people's brains and make them feel angry or depressed or give them migraines.

By the time I was walking home from work that afternoon I couldn't see the dramatic arch any more, but I did see some really unusual clouds and was able to photograph them on my phone. They looked like there was a big dent on the underneath. And it certainly was big - this plane looks quite dwarfed by it.



True to its nature, the Nor'wester also trailed some cold wet weather behind it. By Tuesday night it was pouring rain, and it has been raining for most of today (Wednesday). I hope this weather pattern blows away again before the Easter weekend!

Just popped in to say hello, and show off my new bag

I have been neglecting my blog recently (and my emails too - sorry folks!). I'm spending so much time crafting that I am not online much apart from the sewing sites and jewellery sites and the online handcrafted item selling sites.

Here's a bag that I made for a colleague's daughter-in-law, which he asked me to make based on one of hers that is falling apart. He hasn't seen it yet. Hope he likes it - and the daughter-in-law too, of course.
It's about 30cm wide and 20cm tall. I made it out of a lovely soft black gabardine fabric, brightened up with some pretty pink flower cotton from Michael Miller. It's all fully lined, even inside the pockets.

Lifting up the front flap reveals a full sized zip pocket on the front:


Inside there is another long zip pocket, and three patch pockets.

This bag holds loads of stuff - in the first photo above, it was padded out with two of my cardigans. It took me about three hours to make once I had figured out the pattern pieces that I needed (I have a little notebook that I am using for drafting patterns - bags aren't really that difficult once you have a grasp of inserting linings and inserting zips). I'll definitely make this style again, as I think it would sell very well.