Struan Farm

An Encounter with Pink Ferns

During Lisa Cruse's recent visit to New Zealand I mentioned to her that our native ferns sometimes turn pink, and that I enjoyed stumbling upon them along roadsides or in the bush from time to time. Also, I'd learned from someone in the NZ Dept. of Conservation that this is due to an inbuilt "suncreen" that protects the plants from strong sunlight, particularly when young.

Recently I was down at the pond at Struan Farm and stumbled upon our very own pink ferns, regrowing after our recent clean up down there:

This incident reminded me (yet again?) that it's amazing what you can see when you actually take time to look....

 

Piopio Piper: Perfect!

Added just a few bits of sparkly, coppery "bling" to my "Piopio Piper Beret" as a finishing touch, deciding enough was enough. This is one of Lisa Cruse's knitted hats patterns, available on either Ravelry or via her website here.

I'm quite happy with this, my first effort at embellishing!

Delighting in Delphiniums

This past summer I started to grow delphiniums in the gardens at Struan Farm. However, it seems these flowers (like most!) have a history at the farm, they were grown for years by John's parents, had their own special corner of the garden and pride of place. John remembers a photograph of his maternal grandmother "Mae Mae" standing amidst them in a blue and white dress.

Delphiniums symbolize levity in Victorian flower terms. Their genus name is derived from the Greek word for "dolphin," while their common name is "larkspur." They are a staple of English cottage gardens. Looking at them closely they are quite fragile and beautiful, although apparently they are also poisonous!

 

Monty's Surprise's Surprise

Very glad to see the Monty's Surprise heirloom apple tree in our orchard at Struan Farm start to bear fruit. It's the first one of our fruit trees to do so, and it's particularly interesting in this case because this tree almost didn't make it. 

John was just a wee bit tardy getting the fencing done around the tree when it was planted two years ago. In the interim one of the sheep decided it was pretty tasty, and nibbled around the trunk. We decided to leave it to see if it might survive, and it seems to be thriving and stronger as a result of this near death experience!

The fruit are huge, and have lots of anti-oxidants. We're leaving them to ripen further before picking and eating or baking.

Autumn Apple Pie

Yes, yet another homemade apple pie, this time made with heirloom Dunns Cooker apples sourced from Richards Orchard Fruit Stall in Mapua, outside of Nelson. I used my trusty pate brise recipe from Martha Stewart's classic "Pies and Tarts." I'm pretty much at the point where I can wing these.

This is a really wonderful cooking apple from Australia, dating back to the 1880's. The pie tastes amazing! 

Starting to Embellish

I pretty much missed out on the recent Embellishment Workshops with Lisa Cruse held at Struan Farm, I was so busy flitting around playing hostess, organizing and serving the food, keeping things on schedule, and making sure everyone was happy and inspired.

In addition to helping me full my hats, before she departed to go home Lisa did offer some coaching and a few quick embroidery lessons. I must confess however that I am not the quickest study, I need to think about things and practice/experiment. 

This past week I picked up "Piopio Piper Beret" and started to play around with its embellishment. Lisa calls this "auditioning." During her visit, Lisa mentioned The Button Emporium in Portland, Oregon, and what a great resource it is. This prompted me to remember that I had some interesting copper maple leaf buttons I'd purchased from them over the internet, and that they would be a perfect match for the coppery colored Piper. Things have progressed from there. I'm trying to keep this first one relatively simple and not go overboard:

I started by tacking on the buttons, then some random beads and french knots. That didn't seem enough, so I then lightly needle felted some wisps of roving around to provide a touch of color. I'm not sure I'm done yet, this may still be a work in process. 

But I'm definitely starting to embellish.

Weekend Flowers at Struan Farm

We finally had some much needed rain this past week at Struan Farm. Not enough to end the drought New Zealand has been suffering from, but enough to green up the paddocks a wee bit and perk up the gardens.

The delphiniums were so happy they decided to bloom again, so I incorporated them into our weekend table arrangement along with some beautiful pink roses and some sweet peas:

More back story on the delphinium legacy at Struan Farm later this week. 

Travels with Lisa: South Island

With limited time left during Lisa's recent visit to New Zealand, you will (of course) know where I decided to take her on the South Island. What destination has it all? Nelson, of course!

We stayed with my friend Glen at Doone Cottage in the Motueka River Valley. 

No complaints from either one of us about the views from the garden chalet above...and the ducklings I saw on my most recent visit are now fully grown. They followed us while we walked around photographing:

We toured Nelson and surrounds, Mapua, and went over into Golden Bay. We braked for trees laden with autumn fruit, fruit stands, rusty caravans and sheds, and the spectacular landscape.

And no visit to Mapua is complete without a stop at Richards Orchard Fruit Stall. I love their weathered shed stand:

This trip I picked up some Dunns Cooker apples (Australia 1880), and beautiful Forelle pears. 

I'll make a rustic apple pie from the Dunns Cookers for Lisa's farewell dinner, also to thank John for working away at Struan Farm and babysitting Clifford while I've been galavanting around the countryside. (Think he may need some ice cream on top, since there was alot a wee bit of shopping this trip too!)

Auditioning Nellie

Now that the dust has started to settle after our recent Embellishment Workshops at Struan Farm, I can start to concentrate on applying some of the learnings from Lisa Cruse on my own felted hats.

I'm starting with my favorite of her hat designs, Nellie Crush, and am "auditioning" the following:

I would needle felt the purple/plum/orange roving in a flowing design on either side of one of these two vintage buckles. Right now I'm preferring the two piece bakelite one I've propped up on the hat, but I also really like the idea of the other with translucent plum beads running down the center. I may try to inject those beads in the design once I get the roving needle felted, since I rather like them, but will have to see how it evolves when I start to execute on this.

Zinneas, Up Close & Personal

We've had zinneas blooming now at Struan Farm since before Christmas, and they're still going despite our serious drought. I am officially in their thrall.

Spent some time with my camera up close and personal having really started to look at the flowers. Enjoy my world!

Embellishment Workshops at the Farm

The recent Embellishment Workshops at Struan Farm taught by Lisa Cruse during her holiday in New Zealand were simply fantastic. We were so lucky to have her visit us in Piopio, willing to share her passion for her craft and art. It was contagious!

Ahead of the sessions we worked together to assemble a variety of materials that would enable her to teach basic techniques but more importantly to inspire creativity amongst the participants. I'm happy to report that this worked as planned.

The first day started with basic techniques for needle felting, ribbon/fabric roses, embroidery and beading. The second day explored more complicated design elements, color theory, and how to combine the various techniques.

Themes coming out of the discussion included:

--Don't play it safe, except with the felting needles, which must be "parked" when not in use! Definitely look to create outside your own comfort zone, or you'll just keep doing the same old thing.

--Use colors that glow and pop for stunning effect.

--"Audition" materials and colors to see what you like best. 

It was a great group of ladies who supported and challenged one another to experiment.

I spent most of my time playing hostess organizing the food, but I did get to spend some time around the table at the end of the second day, starting to develop and "audition" embellishments for my recently felted hats.

Below are some photos from the two days:

Travels with Lisa: North Island

During Lisa's visit to New Zealand from the USA I wanted to take her around to see as much as possible of the country before and after the Embellishment Workshops at Struan Farm. We had a day in Auckland after her arrival (as we waited to see if her suitcase was going to arrive.....).

Once we gave up on waiting around for the suitcase and landed at Struan Farm, we were able to head off on a number of interesting, easy day trips with Piopio as our base.

These included Lake Taupo and Rotorua, New Plymouth and Taranaki surrounds, and last but not least our nearby World Heritage Area, Tongariro National Park, along with Utiku/Taihape (latter best known as the Gumboot Capital of NZ!). 

While the serious drought we're experiencing is wrecking havoc on the land and our farmers, the beautiful sunny days did make for great touring:

The Bath House in Rotorua above dates back to 1908, and is the only remaining structure that was part of the first Rotorua Spa, NZ's first investment in the tourism industry. It was an Edwardian attempt at Elizabethan design, is an iconic symbol of the town, now housing the Rotorua Museum. The surrounding gardens and bowls and croquet lawns also make for interesting touring and people watching!

On another day heading south to New Plymouth along the coast we stopped just north of Mokau to wander along the rugged, black sand beach with views of Mt. Taranaki in the distance:

It is one of those spots where we both could have spent hours photographing water, rocks, patterns in the sand, etc., but I finally had to tear Lisa away to continue our journey:

After hitting some antique shops in Eltham and Hawera, we drove around the backside of Mt. Taranaki on the Surf Highway, where we stumbled upon the Bread Capital of New Zealand:

We rushed to get back on the coast road up to Piopio in time to catch the sun setting into the Tasman Sea:

Wow, it was a great way to end this day!

The next day we found better views of the National Park's celebrated volcanoes Ruapehu, Ngaruhoe, and Tongariro from the Desert Road around the back side, after having only peeks through the clouds from the other side of the park, so we were glad we took a bit of a detour to drive north:

The tussock landscape is also interesting to see:

After driving back south to Utiku to buy possum yarn and possum and merino sweaters at The Wool Company, we had coffee at Brown Sugar Cafe in Taihape. We were sad to learn that we'd miss their annual Gum Boot Day due to the Embellishment Workshops at Struan Farm, darn!

Felting the Night Away at Struan Farm

Some people dance the night away, but that wouldn't be me. With the arrival of Lisa Cruse at Struan Farm recently it was time to take the bull by the horns and felt her five knitted hats designs that I'd finished knitting under expert supervision. Actually, the technical term is "fulling," but most people would have no idea what this means so let's stick to the generic term everyone understands.

The hats were put into zipped pillow cases in the washing machine with a bit of soap powder (or dish detergent). Using a hot water wash, we stopped the machine before it started to spin, about eight minutes initially until they started to felt, progressively less time as they felted, testing the degree of felting as well as fit. (You do get a bit wet!)

Once the hats were felted and fit me (and this took some time with our washer), we removed them and squeezed excess water out by walking on them between towels on the kitchen floor.

Next came the real magic, at least for me. Lisa showed me how to shape the hats over bowls and plates put atop jars to dry. She pulled them into shape, smoothing any creases, making sure that the bowl or plate used was the right size. This makes a huge difference to the finished hat.

Here's Nellie Crush:

Here's Tatum Toque:

Here's Amy Beret:

Piper Beret:

And last but not least that grand dame of them all, Vivian:

They were left to dry overnight over tea towels on the bench, but in the morning I put them together as a group on the breakfast table:

You can pretty much see those that were dried over plates vs. bowls, can't you? And I rather liked the idea of breakfasting with Nellie, Vivian, Amy, Piper and Tatum! Next comes embellishment......

The Hats Arrive at Struan Farm

After months of planning and much anticipation, Lisa Cruse and her wonderful hats arrived at Struan Farm!

We won't go into the fact that her luggage arrived exactly a week after she did, thanks to Qantas/Jet Star.  She came to know everyone in the call centre on a first name basis trying to determine where it might be between JFK, LA, Sydney or Auckland, often receiving conflicting reports! Note to Lisa: next time, opt for Air New Zealand, the Airline of Middle Earth?! Luckily she had a few outfits in her carryon bag to wear during this interim period.

The hats settled into the Knitting Studio looking tres chic, while Lisa settled into the Cottage:

My favorite is the Nellie Crush just above, this hat design of Lisa's looks great on just about everyone, and I love the combination of beading and embroidery, as well as the colors.

Lisa brought these along to show as examples of different embellishment techniques on varying hat shapes for the upcoming Embellishment Workshops at Struan Farm. Lucky for us they were in her carryon bag!!

Moreporks!

Our native owl, the morepork ("ruru") is frequently heard at night but rarely seen. My friend Glen Davenport just shared this beautiful photo of two moreporks they discovered around Doone Cottage in Motueka, outside of Nelson:

Aren't they amazing?

Blogging Break for March Madness

I will be taking a break from blogging until the week of March 17th. My friend Lisa Cruse, aka Ambrosia Cottage, will be here in New Zealand from the USA!

We'll be showing her around the traps over the two weeks she's here on holiday. And as previously reported, Lisa has generously offered to teach two Embellishment Workshops at Struan Farm on March 9th and 10th. The Saturday workshop is now full, but there are a few spots available for Sunday.

If you're interested please contact me via email asap!

A is also for Alpaca

Pitstop at the nearby Pirongia monthly market to pick up some handspun alpaca yarn, just like the yarn I recently gifted to Heidi to bribe tempt her back into knitting!

Karisma Animal Companions is here each month selling animals, knitted/felted items and also fiber. Can't wait to knit a Bandana Cowl out of this for myself this winter!

Morning Light at Struan Farm

I walked into the Homestead Sun Porch at Struan Farm for breakfast over the weekend and saw this beautiful blue light streaming through my vase of sweet peas.

Yes, I know, sweet peas in that blue vase, again? But these are different sweet peas, I wanted to share this light and this moment.

A is for Apple, G is for Gravenstein

Managed to have time for some baking at Struan Farm over the weekend, so I used the beautiful heirloom Gravenstein apples I'd brought back from Richards Orchard Fruit Stall in Mapua. I made a delicous apple sour cream pie, recipe from the most recent issue of NZ House & Garden magazine (currently can be found on their website here).

Seriously good. The crust is sweet, with flour, sugar, eggs, ground almonds and milk, while the filling has apples, sour cream, sugar, corn flour/starch and mixed spice. The recipe called for baking it in a metal pie tin, which I didn't have (mine are ceramic and glass), so I improvised and used a cake tin, which worked just fine.