Author: Kris

  • Shared today on Facebook

    I blogged the process of making the nudie needlepoint cushions, if you’re curious . Thank you again to Ruth and Joseph Morris for all their help! If you want to make your own, I would definitely recommend going to Morris and Sons, where they have everything you need to get started. Unless you have an industrial sewing machine, you’re going to need professional help to put them together!

    Needlepoint Cushions with Mrs. Morris


    Lamb meatballs with feta and lemon (from @smittenkitchen) and orzo salad (from @recipe_tin), all cooked by the Snook. Very tasty!

    Greek-inspired dinner


  • Greek-inspired dinner

    Lamb meatballs with feta and lemon (from Smitten Kitchen) and orzo salad (from Recipe Tin Eats), all cooked by the Snook. Very tasty!

  • New web-goddess theme!

    I’ve been feeling like the site needed a new lick of paint, so I spent some time today installing and customising a new theme. I used the Björk theme from Anders Norén, who made my previous theme. My logo remains the awesome one that my friend Matt Hinrichs drew for me many years ago. I also decommissioned my old krishoward.org personal site, moving some of the relevant content here and then changing that domain to a redirect. Please let me know if you find any broken links or anything that looks weird!

  • Needlepoint Cushions with Mrs. Morris

    Needlepoint Cushions with Mrs. Morris

    Eighteen years ago, Mr. Snook’s grandmother (“Kathy-Nanny”) moved into a retirement village, and I was gifted one of her many needlepoint tapestries: a tasteful nude reclining with a whippet. If you don’t know much about needlepoint, it generally involves a heavy canvas with a picture printed on it that you then embroider over with slanted stitches. Many of them are based on fine art, and Kathy-Nanny’s was titled “Venus d’aprés Titien.” (It’s clearly based on “Venus and Musician,” just with the leering musician removed.) It was in a heavy ornate frame, and while it was well-executed and beautiful work, it didn’t really… go with any of our other stuff. I put it in a closet for safekeeping and it basically sat in storage for the better part of two decades.

    A couple months ago, we moved back into the house after our extensive renovation, and I decided it was time to bring Venus back to life. Rather than hang her on the wall, I thought that turning her into a pair of cushions might be the best way to go.

    First, I had to get her out of the frame. Underneath I found the tapestry wrapped around a piece of plywood and stapled all the way around. There were hundreds of staples, each of which had to be pulled out by hand.

    Tapestry over plywood

    Thankfully Mr. Snook helped me. The staples were really dug into the edge, so I pried them loose enough for him to grab with a pair of pliers. It was back-breaking work.

    Pulling staples

    At last we had the tapestry free of the plywood. This is what it looked like from the reverse. Even on that side, you can see what a good job she did with the stitching.

    Reverse of tapestry

    Once I had it free, I rang up my friends at Morris & Sons. Mrs. Morris has sewn more needlepoint cushions than probably anyone in all of Australia, and she kindly offered to teach me how to do it. I met Mrs. M at her workshop, where we started by deciding on the backing fabric. We narrowed it down to these two velvets, and I decided to go with the more orangey-brown one.

    Choosing velvet colours

    Then her son Joseph helped me work out what size to make the cushions. We measured up and realised that if we simply sliced her in half, we’d get two very nearly square cushions out of it. They were both incredulous that I wanted to cut it in half, and Mrs. M couldn’t quite get over the fact that I’d have a cushion with just LEGS on it. But they were game for the experiment, so Joseph cut it up the middle.

    Measuring up

    Joseph also helped me cut appropriately sized pieces of the backing fabric, as well as slicing up many pieces to be used to create piping.

    Cutting the background fabric

    Then the real lessons began! I don’t want to give too many of her secrets away, but at a high level: Mrs. M first showed me how to piece the strips of velvet together into one very long strip, taking care to ensure the nap always went the right direction so it didn’t look or feel odd. Then I created meters and meters of piping, wrapping the strip around a long cord and sewing it down tightly. The Morrises let me use one of their industrial Singer machines, which took a bit of practice to get the hang of. It had a large foot pedal and a knee lever for controlling the presser foot.

    Sewing piping

    Next Mrs. M showed me how to sew the piping down around the border of each cushion top, with some special tricks for navigating the corners and for joining the ends up neatly at the bottom.

    Attaching the piping

    Next I put the backing fabric onto each cushion top, face-down, and pinned it around three sides tight against the piping (leaving the bottom open).

    Pinning on the backing

    Oh no, it’s time to insert the zipper! Mrs. M is a true legend and assured me that it was going to be much easier than I feared.

    Zipper time!

    I watched her closely as she showed me her method. I took lots of photos and notes to try to capture the trickier bits!

    Mrs. M sewing a zipper

    First we sewed one side, and then the other. Hey, I was getting the hang of this!

    Sewing the zipper

    I managed to insert both zippers without too much trouble, only having to unpick one or two bits where I got a bit too close to the zipper teeth.

    Completed zipper

    Then it was time to sew the other three sides of the cushion. The bits at each end of the zipper were the trickiest part, and I had to redo them a couple times. The rest was smooth sailing though.

    Sewing the other three sides

    After turning it rightside-out, I had a finished cushion cover! The legs made me smile immediately. I knew this was going to turn out even better than I’d hoped.

    Completed cushion cover

    The final step was to sew custom-sized cushion inserts. Mrs. M showed me how to gauge the correct size and how to put them together. Each one took a fair bit of stuffing! The hardest part was then sewing the openings closed when they were so full and fluffy.

    Stuffing the inserts

    And here are the completed cushions! As you can tell, I was pretty stoked with how they turned out. It’s still obvious that they are part of the same picture, and I only lost a tiny bit due to cutting her in half.

    Finished cushions

    While I’m sure there are other needlepoint nudie cushions in the world, these are pretty special. They look spectacular on the new couch too! They got a big thumbs up from both Rodd and his sister.

    Legs cushion  Lady cushion

    If you want to make needlepoint cushions of your own, Morris & Sons is definitely the place to start. They have everything you need including tapestry kits with canvas and threads. They also offer a professional service to make up the finished cushions for you once you’ve finished with the embroidery, which is handy if you don’t have an industrial-strength sewing machine at home.

    Thank you to Mrs. M and Joseph for all their help with these! I’m so pleased we’ve been able to keep one of Kathy-Nanny’s pieces alive in our new home. 🩷

  • Photo Post

    Mr. Snook recently revived his sourdough starter, so this morning we had homemade sourdough crumpets for breakfast. 😍

    Mr. Snook recently revived his sourdough starter, so this morning we had homemade sourdough crumpets for breakfast. 😍

  • Shared today on Facebook

    Today’s mission: to sew in the zippers and finish my tapestry cushions! Thankfully I was learning from the master, Ruth Morris. They turned out so well! Behold, the (world’s first??) nudie needlepoint cushions! Definitely my best idea yet… 😂❤️


    Mr. Snook recently revived his sourdough starter, so this morning we had homemade sourdough crumpets for breakfast. 😍


  • Shared today on Facebook

    Happy birthday, Uncle Mike! 🩷


    Exciting #renovation day! Our new bedroom furniture was delivered this morning, and I’m loving how the headboard complements the blue wall. 😍 Then our bar and cupboards came back from the restorer, thoroughly cleaned, repaired, and looking lovely. That meant we could unpack a few more boxes, including our Museum of Obsolete Technology. 😂 And the landscapers have built a form for our floating concrete bench seat!


    “This is the greatest damn city in the world.” Happy anniversary to us! We had amazing Japanese-Italian food at the much lauded @lumidining. Everything was so good. 🍷 Also, I wore pristine white Chucks… just as I did on my wedding day. ❤️👰‍♀️


  • Photo Post

    “This is the greatest damn city in the world.” Happy anniversary to us! We had amazing Japanese-Italian food at the much lauded @lumidining. Everything was so good. 🍷 Also, I wore pristine white Chucks… just as I did on my wedding day. ❤️👰‍♀️

    “This is the greatest damn city in the world.” Happy anniversary to us! We had amazing Japanese-Italian food at the much lauded @lumidining. Everything was so good. 🍷 Also, I wore pristine white Chucks… just as I did on my wedding day. ❤️👰‍♀️

    “This is the greatest damn city in the world.” Happy anniversary to us! We had amazing Japanese-Italian food at the much lauded @lumidining. Everything was so good. 🍷 Also, I wore pristine white Chucks… just as I did on my wedding day. ❤️👰‍♀️

    “This is the greatest damn city in the world.” Happy anniversary to us! We had amazing Japanese-Italian food at the much lauded @lumidining. Everything was so good. 🍷 Also, I wore pristine white Chucks… just as I did on my wedding day. ❤️👰‍♀️

    “This is the greatest damn city in the world.” Happy anniversary to us! We had amazing Japanese-Italian food at the much lauded @lumidining. Everything was so good. 🍷 Also, I wore pristine white Chucks… just as I did on my wedding day. ❤️👰‍♀️

    “This is the greatest damn city in the world.” Happy anniversary to us! We had amazing Japanese-Italian food at the much lauded @lumidining. Everything was so good. 🍷 Also, I wore pristine white Chucks… just as I did on my wedding day. ❤️👰‍♀️

    “This is the greatest damn city in the world.” Happy anniversary to us! We had amazing Japanese-Italian food at the much lauded @lumidining. Everything was so good. 🍷 Also, I wore pristine white Chucks… just as I did on my wedding day. ❤️👰‍♀️

    “This is the greatest damn city in the world.” Happy anniversary to us! We had amazing Japanese-Italian food at the much lauded @lumidining. Everything was so good. 🍷 Also, I wore pristine white Chucks… just as I did on my wedding day. ❤️👰‍♀️

    “This is the greatest damn city in the world.” Happy anniversary to us! We had amazing Japanese-Italian food at the much lauded @lumidining. Everything was so good. 🍷 Also, I wore pristine white Chucks… just as I did on my wedding day. ❤️👰‍♀️

    “This is the greatest damn city in the world.” Happy anniversary to us! We had amazing Japanese-Italian food at the much lauded @lumidining. Everything was so good. 🍷 Also, I wore pristine white Chucks… just as I did on my wedding day. ❤️👰‍♀️

    “This is the greatest damn city in the world.” Happy anniversary to us! We had amazing Japanese-Italian food at the much lauded @lumidining. Everything was so good. 🍷 Also, I wore pristine white Chucks… just as I did on my wedding day. ❤️👰‍♀️

  • Photo Post

    Exciting #renovation day! Our new bedroom furniture was delivered this morning, and I’m loving how the headboard complements the blue wall. 😍 Then our bar and cupboards came back from the restorer, thoroughly cleaned, repaired, and looking lovely. That meant we could unpack a few more boxes, including our Museum of Obsolete Technology. 😂 And the landscapers have built a form for our floating concrete bench seat!

    Exciting #renovation day! Our new bedroom furniture was delivered this morning, and I’m loving how the headboard complements the blue wall. 😍 Then our bar and cupboards came back from the restorer, thoroughly cleaned, repaired, and looking lovely. That meant we could unpack a few more boxes, including our Museum of Obsolete Technology. 😂 And the landscapers have built a form for our floating concrete bench seat!

    Exciting #renovation day! Our new bedroom furniture was delivered this morning, and I’m loving how the headboard complements the blue wall. 😍 Then our bar and cupboards came back from the restorer, thoroughly cleaned, repaired, and looking lovely. That meant we could unpack a few more boxes, including our Museum of Obsolete Technology. 😂 And the landscapers have built a form for our floating concrete bench seat!

    Exciting #renovation day! Our new bedroom furniture was delivered this morning, and I’m loving how the headboard complements the blue wall. 😍 Then our bar and cupboards came back from the restorer, thoroughly cleaned, repaired, and looking lovely. That meant we could unpack a few more boxes, including our Museum of Obsolete Technology. 😂 And the landscapers have built a form for our floating concrete bench seat!

    Exciting #renovation day! Our new bedroom furniture was delivered this morning, and I’m loving how the headboard complements the blue wall. 😍 Then our bar and cupboards came back from the restorer, thoroughly cleaned, repaired, and looking lovely. That meant we could unpack a few more boxes, including our Museum of Obsolete Technology. 😂 And the landscapers have built a form for our floating concrete bench seat!

    Exciting #renovation day! Our new bedroom furniture was delivered this morning, and I’m loving how the headboard complements the blue wall. 😍 Then our bar and cupboards came back from the restorer, thoroughly cleaned, repaired, and looking lovely. That meant we could unpack a few more boxes, including our Museum of Obsolete Technology. 😂 And the landscapers have built a form for our floating concrete bench seat!

  • Shared today on Facebook

    Twenty years married to my best friend… Everyone should be so lucky! Happy anniversary, Mr. Snook. ❤️💒