Treasures!

I had a busy day yesterday. We bought taps for the new house, and in between I managed to persuade Mr B to take me to the most FABULOUS pretty shop. If you love florals, shabby chic, vintage, embroidery, quilting, patchwork and dear little gifts you must pop into Primroses. Since primroses are one of my favourite flowers I was delighted with the name. In fact if I had a yellow labrador I would call her Primrose. These are the treasures I managed to buy in the brief time I had while Mr B lurked in the car with a coffee:

Not only did I get fabric, I also got great advice. Primroses is at 150 Cashmere Road in the Cracroft Shopping Centre in Christchurch, New Zealand. I'm planning two quilts, a pink and green and a pink and blue one. I love spots with florals. The Primroses website is www.primroses.co.nz.

I thought I would show you my little linen lavender hearts before they go to their new homes. I'm not entirely pleased with the way the linen sewed up into hearts. It was great to embroider, but quite stiff, and didn't curve nicely into hearts.

The linen is vintage, and so are the buttons, which are tiny little mother-of-pearl ones. These are just presents but it would be fun to start making things to sell. I might have to simplify the embroidery a little to make them more cost-effective to make. The embroidery takes hours.

I am in the wonderful position of having Mrs CT as my surrogate Christchurch Mummy. She doesn't care if I cry randomly. She gives me great advice when I need it, plus she spoils me sometimes. She told me to go and get a teaspoon for her and in the drawer I found my Dairy Milk mint chocolate! You can't get it in New Zealand, so she got me some in Australia.

Here it is, partly chomped, sitting among some of my treasures. Can you see the primrose china?I have a wee collection. I'm crazy about floral chintz china. The crocodile nut cracker is one of a pair. They belonged to Grandma and Aunt Beth. So Meg and I have one each now, although her one is still sitting facing this one because it is hard to part them. I'm also very fond of my glass vintage lemon squeezer. It probably had a jug with it originally. Works brilliantly.

Mrs CT also gave me this fabulous skirt made of recycled sari fabric.

Ruby is wearing it to show you how nicely it falls. I love the colours! Thank you so much Mrs CT! XXX

Finally, although not the best of photos, I have to show you Katie with her duckies.

Dear Katie loves her babies. She likes to sleep with them under her head. She does eventually ruin them, but I spotted a new one waiting in the pantry. Katie never learned how to play as a young dog as she was kept for breeding. Now she is living a normal, happy doggy life she is learning how to play and likes to fetch her duckies and bound around with them. Kisses to you Katie! Actually I did manage to give her velvety head a brief kiss last night. She is terribly anxious about her head and neck area due to some past maltreament, so that was a big achievement.

Hope you are having a lovely weekend. I've updated Taming The Chocolate Baby too. XXX

Just a wee update: We got the slide showers and mixers for the bathrooms from Placemakers today. We got an amazing price. We are really having fun taking control of the project and making our own choices.