Newsletter

The cruellest month

Spring, sewing, and sorry-not-sorry

Kia ora folks!

When I started this newsletter I privately vowed that I would never write one of those newsletters that starts “sorry I’ve been gone SO LONG, I am the WORST PERSON, I am rushing to berate myself before YOU BERATE ME” because

  1. I’m not that keen on self-deprecation, in myself or others, and
  2. Hey, stuff happens, and
  3. I reckon anyone who likes my work/me enough to sign up for my braindumps is fully aware of 2. and is capable of granting grace and understanding without me doing an elaborate apology dance begging for them.

I’m not apologising for missing the last couple of weeks, because I have been spectacularly busy with teaching and it couldn’t be helped. But I am sorry, on my own behalf, that I couldn’t find the time to write to you, because it is genuinely one of my favourite things.

So, hi! I’m glad you’re here! How are you?

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Spring

The seasons are turning!

There is nothing like a community full of teenagers in spring to remind you that just because humans are thinking animals doesn’t mean they’re not animals. Everybody is very lively. There’s a lot of billing and cooing, and the occasional strutting dance of rivals butting metaphorical antlers.

Christchurch, also known as the Garden City, because we are EXTREMELY English, thank you, does spring very well. The magnolias are bursting into exuberant bloom, daffodils sprout from many roadside verges, and the cherry trees ringing Hagley Park form delicate clouds of pink and white.

Cherry trees in bloom, on either side of a pathway set into green lawn. The trees are huge and the blossom impressive! On the path, people are walking away from the camera, some pointing and looking at the trees. One parent is holding a child up to get a closer look at the blossom.

When I lived in Japan1 I hated the humid, sticky summers, but spring has never been more lovely than it was there, and every time I see the cherry trees bloom I am reminded of that.

Sewing

Sewing is something I took up during the most heinous, hectic years of the pandemic. Sewing makes me concentrate, follow instructions carefully, and slow down2. It’s a balm to the too-busy brain.

And thus, being too busy, I have been carving out time to make a few things, one of them being this blouse.

A yellow-orange blouse, semi-translucent against the light, hangs from a clothes hanger hooked over a curtain rail. The blouse has a ruffled neck that took approximately forever, and tuck sleeve details that are barely noticeable because of the lovely floral pattern, but I'm sill very proud of how neatly I managed them.

It’s a billowy affair that catches every errant breeze and makes me feel like a beam of sunshine. The pattern is by designer Vivian Shao Chen, who also does ceramics, and she named it the Nepheline Blouse after nepheline syenite, a rock used in glazing.

You know who else does ceramics? The amazing cover artist for the Olympus Inc. novels, Alison Cooley! Alison has done even better than her usual great work for the Hera book cover, and I’m very much looking forward to showing it to you all.

Until then!

Karen.

  1. Over fifteen years ago now. WHAT has happened to time?? ↩

  2. Much like baking, which I also really enjoy. But at the end of a baking project, I can only eat so much cake, whereas at the end of a sewing project, I have something I can wear over and over! ↩