Broken Heartbreakers

It's been a wonderful week, half of it childless. Mum and Dad love having them, they love going to Hanmer and spending time with their grandparents and we love sleeping in in the morning and going out at night without arranging a babysitter. Lucky and blissful indeed.

On Wednesday night we went to see the Barley Shakers which was a lovely evening out. They were a family band playing Irish music, mostly classic tunes with one lovely original song at the end.

Last night was superb. We went to hear the Broken Heartbreakers and Bond Street Bridge. They were wonderful and we've been listening to the CDs we bought from them all of today. I loved the layers of skill in their musicianship and the political aspect to some of their songs (go the folk ballad about the IMF and Ireland) and I'll be lining up for more as soon as I hear they are back in Greymouth.

These are the gladioli which were supposed to be a lime green "Bells of Ireland" type colour. Hmmmm. Still, they are quite pretty. The pink ones start out a salmon colour which I'm not fond of, but then they deepen into something quite beautiful.


Here are the matching dancing skirts for two special girls just turned or about to run five. The one above with the berry strips around it is for Brighid and the one below with the green trim strips is for her best friend Rebecca who leaves town for a new life in Blenheim in just one week's time. We will all miss you Rebecca.I'm about to enter these two skirts in the Pattern Review stash contest, the first sewing contest I've ever entered. Anything which encourages freeing up space at the bottom of the linen cupboard is a good idea. I had planned to make a Colette Crepe dress out of curtain fabric next, but the cool, wet and blustery weather has got me in mind to make another Simplicity 2451 skirt for winter instead, using some of the fabric I brought back from my Mother in law's stash.

Enough sewing though. I read Adrienne Martini's book Sweater Quest which was quite good holiday reading and good for showing up the ways in which internet collaboration has enriched the lives and practise of knitters across the world (something which is also applicable to other crafts including sewing). Now I'm onto Geraldine Brookes' People of the Book which is fabulous so far.