dreamy sunday

On a beautiful frosty and brilliantly sunny Sunday morning
the pirate is away visiting his first mate
the 2 day scarf is finally ready to cast off
blogs are being read
tea is being drunk
my house is being tended to
with cleaning and washing and painting
my soul is being tended to
with meditation and gardening and then
a whole evening and morning alone with my beautiful partner

I am satisfied

frugal comfort

I once heard an expression of a way to live. It was about the past but it is something I aspire to. Frugal comfort. Now we would call it a sustainable lifestyle. For me it comes with images of warm fires, wholesome simple meals, friends, family, home and, especially, making do.

In the spirit of frugal comfort I have been on an unofficial and rather healthy break from buying sewing supplies. This has meant working through the stash of fabric and finishing off some long overdue projects, instead of spending all my spare time and and money shopping for supplies and not actually getting to the projects themselves. The pile of fabric is going down. It is a nice thing to behold.

So what have I been making? this past couple of weeks a bag for a gift from a felted opp shop jumper. I love making things from felted jumpers, but the right ones are very hard to come by.

And my new favourite cord pants, in what has become my favourite pants pattern. The cord has been hanging about for years waiting for me to get to it. I love the wide legs and making use of scraps of other fabric as a contrast (which was not only nice but necessary when I didn't have enough red cord). I have had them only 2 weeks and worn them just about all weekend for both weeks.

Now I am onto my first quilt using an old sheet, stash fabric and a vintage chenille bedspread. More on that later.

And about the scarf. I was still sick and didn't make it to Sydney, developed knitter's forearm and took a break. I am still only about 30% done, shamefully. Luckily I have a couple of weeks before the next visit to finish it off.

another weekend

It may seem that all my posts these days are about weekend adventures and not a lot of making things. We do seem to be having more than our share of weekends away, so much so that I am looking forward to the coming weekend at home with relief.

There are reasons for the lack of project progress, well several really. Of course, all the weekends away aren't helping.

Some stealth knitting is taking up most of my creative time, but I finished this on the weekend and should be able to show and tell in the next couple of days. It has turned out rather nicely.

The cardigan of the dreadful name isn't helping things. I started it as part of the knit-a-long we are having here in Canberra, but it is tedious and I keep finding other things to be doing that are much more fun. I am only about 10cm into the back and that is it. Totally it. I will say that after some initial concerns about the yarn it is coming up a treat and will make a beautiful cardigan. I just wish it was more fun to knit and I was an XS, rather than somewhat larger, to make the knitting shorter.

And I do have to admit I have been more than a bit preoccupied with a new relationship which puts making stuff to the side a little, in the nicest possible way.

So for now you get a shot of the weekend activity. The pirate has been deposited with the first mate in the blue mountains for a few days of the school holidays. We managed to fit in a bushwalk before I headed back down the highway to my very quiet house. This was the view on the walk. Not bad is it?

camping fun against the odds

Would you believe I managed to go to the coast with a flat battery in my camera? I remembered everything else (except milk!) . It was very disappointing not to be able to record the events like:

5 people on airbeds in a smallish tent
the thrill of a fire all our own
two days and three nights of frequent rain showers and a flooding campsite
half the campsite kids playing the the back of my hatchback car
the skull and crossbones drawn in the inside lining of the car
the most amazing treasure maps every drawn
homemade pirate flags hanging from the trees
a mummified sea dragon found on the beach
a vodka bottle found complete with shells attached, and vodka inside still!
lace monitors wandering slowly around
possums running through the tent
illness and lemon and honey drinks
disintegrating camping chairs (not just one)
knitting and reading
and the best coffee on the site thanks to my atomic, the most essential camping item of all

Against many odds we had the most wonderful camping break.

last gasp

It is the last last hint of summer.

I'm off to the beach camping here with my new love and our assorted kids for 4 whole days.

(not my photo)

I will be spending a lot of time digging in the sand for treasure. The pirate has the key, that opens the treasure chest he expects to find, ready.

Found in the drawer of a work colleague yesterday after the pirate sent me off with very particular instructions of what I was to find in my key quest.

We are going to have so much fun!

Hope your easter is wonderful.

frogs and leeches

On the weekend some friends joined the pirate and I for a night at Bundanoon in the Southern Highlands.

We stayed at the magical Bundanoon YHA . It has all kinds of fun things - including a climbing wall and a ping pong table. This was good because, as many may know, it rained a lot in this part of the world on the weekend. It rained an awful lot in Bundanoon.


Still we managed to get in some walking in Morton National Park, tadpole spotting and puddle jumping.


Bundanoon is famous for its Glow Worm Glen. It is a walk down down down into a little gorge filled with sparkling glow worms. Of course you can only see glow worms in the dark so it is even more fun. It bucketed down and the pirate was thinking it was fun at all and especially not relishing the walk back up the long track to the car. But we spotted a frog, and another and before we knew it we had seen quite a few and were at the top of the walk.

And the absolute highlight for the little people was gettting back to the hostel and discovering leeches on our legs and feet.

How awful, how gross, how ' I .think .I .am .going .to .have. a. complete. freak .out', but add salt and it becomes, how interesting!

maker's market

The pirate and I were in Melbourne for the weekend. I dragged my good friend out of the city and off to Daylesford for a day in the country and to visit the Daylesford Maker's Market.

Oh such crafty and blogging goodness. The market had much more than its fair share of blogging superstars out of the 30 or so stalls there.

great photo from here

It was great to catch up with Jodie again for a start - and I did manage to spend my market budget almost entirely at her stall. All those cute robots!

Curlypops had great bags and brooches, Kootooyoo had amazing and gorgeous little mp3 player speaker tins as well as a pile of other stuff. And then there were all the bloggers and stallholders I didn't know about but am slowly catching up on here. There must be some kind of creativity gas pumping out down in Victoria.


The pirate was, well, a pirate. In his full splendor. He was duly admired but he repaid the kind attention by wondering at the cleverness of people who could not tell the difference between a pirate costume on a 6 year old and a real life pirate! 'Don't they know I am not a real pirate? I am a kid!' So if you ever see the pirate about remember it is all about the costume and an extraordinary boy.

umm....

I don't know about you but a blog break makes me all anxious about where to start. I was computerless for a couple of weeks and now I have things to share that seem so old news.

I have been doing a mindfulness meditation course these past few weeks. Last week we were discussing depression. How simple things can become when they are broken down, as my teacher did explaining depression as a conglomeration of emotions - including, particularly for some, loneliness. I had never thought about it this way before, but loneliness was put simply as a need to share.

Simple.

Essential.


It struck me how blogging is important for me as a place to share a part of myself and to be encouraged, as we all need, and for me to take a step out of the way of depression.


And a gorgeous handmade wool covered one at that.

Thank you for sharing.


The photos are of recently FOs - Hedera Socks, French Press Knits slippers finished, and seeing as they are so very good, a second pair, which were sent on their birthday way without a completed photograph. Sometimes giving is just too exciting to remember the photographs.

reunion

On Friday afternoon the pirate and I were hanging out at home discussing the pros and cons of having a brother. He would like one - a twin one. He misses the first mate desperately. It occurred to me that we didn't have anything particularly important planned for the weekend and 20 minutes later we were in the car and on the way back to the blue mountains to reunite these boys who love each other so much.

In fact, I overheard a magical conversation between them last weekend. They were discussing the options around marriage and how they felt about it. The first mate declared he did not want to marry a girl - No, agreed the pirate. The first mate reasoned that if you married a girl you had to have babies and they didn't want babies. No, agreed the pirate again - babies were awful. Who will you marry? I asked, and of course each other was the answer.

Being in the mountains, with its common misty cool weather, provides the perfect setting for settling in for an afternoon of knitting. I have been very frustrated with a particular pattern I want to knit from Cheryl Oberle's Folk Shawls book. I have made many attempts at getting pattern working - and it has just not been lining up. I put it away several times and tried again later. On the weekend I was determined to work it out. It is my first attempt at laceweight knitting and I thought it was me being inept. But guess what. The pattern is wrong. WRONG!.

So now that I have finally worked that out and worked out how to get it right I am off.....

It was Rhododenron Festival weekend in Blackheath - but I was much more excited about this Waratah I found on my morning walk.

Creative Space Thursday

This week I cannot blog about the handicraft type things I am creating. I wish I could. But they must stay a big big secret.....for now.

I can talk about another very creative project I have been working on this week. I did post on it way back in the planning phase. Now that it is coming to fruition it is very, very exciting.

The pirate's school is the first Canberra school to get a Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden grant. As the resident landscape architect parent I am getting involved in a few school projects and designing this garden has been a wonderful experience. I have met some fantastic new friends with similar philosophies about gardens, sustainability and community. See how good we are?- almost all of us arrived by bike, even with tools!

This week I got to lay out the great curving planter beds along an old driveway, making sure they were just so - but was beaten to it by over-enthusiastic blokes when it came to applying the power tools!

I am quite chuffed with them, I must say.

For more creative spaces head this way.

what a weekend

My lordy I had a busy and productive weekend.

We had the first mate and family here and lots of pirate action. The pirate was in character almost all weekend practicing his Jack Sparrow mannerisms except when we went to the markets when the pirate and first mate were star wars characters in their capes. I wish this dressing up would never end. It is magnificent.

We had the kind of weather that just makes you want to be outside in the garden. I finally built a vegie garden.

I mowed the knee deep back lawn, extended the chicken run, weeded weeded and weeded.

I got to play with my new toy - and yes I was all a quiver!

The clothkit dress for my niece. Cute isn't it?

A couple of little sacks - one for the lovely woman who sold me the machine. The other for ???

And on top of that I knitted, cooked a dinner party for 8 adults and 7 children, did all my washing, collected straw and chook food from the produce store, cleaned eggs, socialised, and, and..... I am way to tired to go to work today!

mountains and mist

You know how your body just lets go and relaxes when you go somewhere you feel at home and connected to? I had one of those experiences this weekend visiting the misty Blue Mountains.

The Blue Mountains are where my father grew up. It is where we went for weekends as children, where I got to know my grandmother as a young child and where I have returned for bushwalking weekends throughout my adult life. When I am there I feel connected to my grandmother, Ethel. She was an amazing woman who, like many others, supported her family when her husband decided a good drink was more important than food on the table. Interestingly his drinking was what sent them to the mountains in the first place. They were set up in a house by his family, hoping it would be far enough away from drinking influences in Sydney, and while the drinking did not improve, in fact it thrived on the train commute to the city each day, it did give us the mountains.

My favourite story of the many about my grandmother was how she came into some money around the time she retired from nursing. Without my grandfather's knowledge she had a house built in Katoomba. One night, while he was at the pub, she moved into her lovely little house. Alone.

I loved her very dearly and think of her most days even almost 30 years after her death. I know she would have loved the pirate.

So back to the mountains. I love so many things about the place. I love the wild wild bush. I love that it till has some of the feel of a 1930's hill station retreat. I love that it has junk shops and bookshops galore. I love the stonework everywhere.

I love most the eclectic mix of houses. I especially adore the old ones, a bit shambly, with a wild garden, a bit of stone work and an old fence. It is so different to Canberra where finding the quirky and eclectic takes a much more trained eye.

The mountains experience is different for the pirate. The reason we were there though was to visit our friends and to drop the pirate off for a few days sleepover with the first mate. He found it confusing and difficult to be in a strange house in a strange place even if the furniture and people are very familiar. I was a little worried leaving him this time. He is usually so relaxed about being with different people and sleepovers but his time he was less settled. We talked about it a bit and then he seemed fine when I left. 4 hours driving later I was just coming into Canberra when I had a call from my very upset boy who is missing me and feeling too far away. He felt much too far away for me too hearing his voice and his sadness. He couldn't even finish the conversation, breaking down and running off somewhere to cry it out. It was all I could do not to turn straight around and do that 4 hours all over again. Thankfully I didn't - cause it all seems fine afterall.

the flavour of my day

looks like this

sniff. groan.

But it does give me time to put this together.

I blogged yesterday about the Sydney Stitches and Craft Fair.

see what leapt into my bag?

tally
2 skeins (one in a great scarf starter kit) of Lush Yarn
A couple of pieces of fabric from Ink and Spindle
off cut pack from Surface Art
off cut pack and a couple of cute kiddy tshirts from Sprout Design
a wonderful felt brooch from Dudley Redhead
a couple of cute badges from Shelbyville
gorgeous woollen felt from winterwood

I went over my budget. oops.

Not sure where to begin

I went to Sydney this weekend - a visit to the Stitches and Craft show dovetailed nicely with handing on some extra children I have been responsible for for a few days -and visiting my sister.


I was at that show for 6 hours! (you can tell I was without the pirate)

I was so completely shattered by the end and even champagne could not revive me.

The good news is it was nice to see some wonderful fabrics in the flesh and some clever crafty people flogging their wares. But, it was a very disappointing turn out for the knitters - only 1 stall selling yummy yarn not available at one of the local shops.

They did have these great drop in spaces where you could learn a skill or just join in. I knitted a cup cosy thingy at the knitting drop in and had a lovely chat to some ladies from the knitters guild. The cup cosy was great timing as my sister has those latte cups that will burn your skin clean off if you don't have a buffer of some type, as I discovered that morning. Knitted cup thingys are so much more sexy than a paper towel.



But the most fun was meeting the famous ric rac , having a big belly laugh in her talk on blogging, and getting up close with those cute bots. Jodie had some notes up for the talk and I could see the name of my wee blog up on them. Big breath......Eek, - I really hoped this would turn out to be a good thing, wondering what on earth she was going to say. And it was in the context of a community you meet through blogging and how complete strangers can be supportive - so all good, and fun. And don't we all love a bit of good attention? So thank you Jodie - you made my day, and I promise to do a post on my avatar to put it into context and show it is not me wearing scary scary make up!

I came home with a cold, less money in the bank - and some things to show off next time.

where else did we go???

you asked for it! well someone did.

The-one-day-nut-tour-of-Melbourne

Nut is our very good friend and a Melbourne resident. She worked out the places she knew I would love and then, with the pirate, made a plan for the day. see?

We started out at Olive Grove textiles on Sydney Road Brunswick - and while waiting for the magic opening time popped up the road to Sly Baby for some bargains. If you are into retro clothes it is attached to Episode, which was very very good. I picked up the great skull jacket the pirate was wearing in the last post.

So back to Olive Grove - it is a clothing and print space. The shop is mostly taken up by a huge screen printing set up with lots of great handmade clothes, bags, underwear and jewelry around it. We went because they have some kids stuff and the pirates most grooviest pants came from there. Sadly he is a little too old now for much in the way of cute stuff - they seem to stop at size 4.

From here we were back in the car and across to Fitzroy for a visit to Meet me at Mikes and the Art Souvenir Shop - here I picked up a great present for my sister which I can't talk about right now. Around the corner to Arcadia on Gertrude for the best French toast I have had in a long long time. I don't have any shots of the french toast - we were too busy eating it to take a photo. I do have a photo of the pirate's magnificent pizza though.

By now we had enough energy for the Rose Street Artist market. Oh my lordy what a place. I picked up a few bits and pieces from Neil Thomas and his Wooden Postcards.

I am still lusting over a ring I saw - it was a silver teacup and saucer.

By now the pirate was over it.

We headed over to Westgarth to visit the primary school. You might recall that the pirate's school is going to be the first Canberra school to have a Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden. You might also recall that I am designing it and am on the garden working group. Westgarth school has a very successful kitchen garden and I wanted to check it out - and how lucky was I to find a working bee in progress and the coordinator there to talk to? very.

I had a great look around, the pirate had a play and then we headed for the Flashback Fabrics. My wonderful friend kept the pirate entertained for a long long time while I looked at everything and came away with this.

By now we were very very tired. I had spent two days scooting around for work and eating great food and generally having a lovely time and then another day doing all this. It was good to retire to nut's house, open the red wine, make a curry and relax.

a little more

of our Melbourne break - which did include some work, but then even the work was quite something.

When I wasn't at meetings we did what we do in Melbourne - I drank coffee - the pirate had milkshakes, we looked at shops, opp shops, at art and at tried not to spend all my money.

We both found treasure. Good, Good treasure. The pirate and opp shop with jewels and me - a retro fabric shop.

And then we did what all people do in Melbourne, right?

We turned a giant vegetable into a baby named Jim Clary Hawkins.

Sadly he was abandoned at the airport.

and Flair had its first outing - unblocked but still devine to wear. It did end up pilling quite badly unfortunately.

worn with some Melbourne purchases

and as an aside - this time my crochet hook was confiscated on the plane. rats.

why blog?

My last post had not one comment. Now I don't get a lot of comments on my little blog and that is fine, but no posts at all left me feeling somewhat low and this led me to wonder why my self esteem would take a blow from such a small thing. I had had the most marvellous day walking in the mountains with a friend and our small people, yet I could come home and check my computer and suddenly feel alone.

I had to ask myself why I blog (amongst other questions). I am sure we all have lots of reasons for this little habit - mine are simple. It is a fun way to keep a record of our lives and what small achievements are made and I feel part of a community. Blogging is being part of a culture of women who are creative and inspiring, because, while all of my close friends are creative and inspiring none knit or have the need to make things as I do. And, of course, we all want to be appreciated and noticed in some way don't we?

So expect me to me visiting a few more blogs I like and making sure I do my bit in spreading the love and appreciation.

I could also write a whole post on my ambivalent feelings about mother's day but I won't. I will, however, tell you I did make it a day. I informed the pirate he had to let me kiss him as much as I needed to because it was my day - he reluctantly obliged. I dragged him even more reluctantly to the hills with the promise of a cave (of sorts) at the end. He walked the most he ever has in one day and I am proud of him. Here is a little taster of what we saw.

Rock art - between 800 and 10,000 years old.
Rock art at Yankee Hat

Magic mountains

Soooo many roos.

and my favourite - wrinkles on a Eucalypt's branch join. Love it.

The pirate made it all the way back to the start distracted with a search for bigger and better bones. Here is his stash.

I think Harry Potter looks afraid.