Connectedness and community is something inner-city neighbourhood friend Lisa Baumann and I reflected on this morning. These positive characteristics of old-fashioned country life are not always cultivated in modern cities but are comforting when you come across them.

It was lovely sharing a coffee at Abode and scoping up Lisa’s day-old newspaper before heading home. Then to open the Sunday Mail and find a spread which has stories about Cunnamulla friends and sheep/wool producers Pru and Stu Barkla beside Ministry of Handmade’s Julie Hillier, well it’s made my day. I feel the urban and rural connection.

In beautiful Brisbane Queensland Australia, our winter blue-sky days start chilly then become toasty by lunchtime, so layers of wool are the order of the day. I made this blanket cape as a top layer for the chill but the largish collar needed to be reshaped to stop drafts at the neck. To do so, I cut small nicks around the neck and threaded though a strip of fabric-cord to draw the neckline in to keep the chills out. I love the way the herringbone fabric frays at the edge to reveal its essential colours and structure.