Requiem for my trousers - Ta dah!

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

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

 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

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

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...

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

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