Little gifts

Does doing something two years in a row make it a tradition? I hope so, because taking my mum for a birthday lunch at Federation Square - child-free! -  was so pleasant last year that my sister and I decided to do the same thing again this year. As I live and work in the suburbs, and as work is really my only child-free time, it feels especially exciting to take a train into town (alone!) and to enjoy good food and conversation (without interruptions!). Follow it up with a nice long browse at Kimono House (and perhaps even a small purchase) and you have the makings of a wonderful afternoon.

There's always something interesting to see at Fed Square and on this occasion I was happy to have arrived early as there was a wonderful troupe of what I thought were Chinese dragons (a Chinese friend has since informed me that they were, in fact, lions). They performed a rather exciting dance with plenty of acrobatics.

But onto the handmade portion of Mum's gift. For years she has been raving about a store called Ziguzagu, so I decided to go check it out, buy some silk and make her a forget-me-not jewellery pouch. Well, words can't do justice to the incredible range of traditional and vintage Japanese fabrics this place sells. They are all in wooden crates organised by colour, and the shades are just so beautiful. I could easily have spent all day trying to find the right combination of colours and patterns, but time constraints forced me to be decisive.

Although the silks were a little slippery to work with, I managed to put the pouch together reasonably well (interfacing the outer pouch helped). I've said it before and no doubt I'll say it again: I really love this little pattern. With the leftover bits of silk I made an open wide zipper pouch lined with linen. I think the colours of the silks are very much my mum's style, and I hope that she enjoys her little gifts - and that I remember not to make her exactly the same thing next year!

But here's the funny bit. At the restaurant, seating was on stools, each with a thin, flat cushion. And when we got up at the end of our lunch we discovered that Mum had been sitting on...

...a cushion made of the exact same fabric I'd used for her gift!