Friday, August 11, 2017

short cut blogging

Hello lovely ones,

How's your week been?

Most Fridays by the time I finally sit down with my laptop I generally know what I'm going to write my blog about. Most Fridays I've been thinking about something, or feeling something, or making something and as soon as I've loaded the photos the words come. Not always the words I expect, not always in one go, not always in order and definitely not always in any sort of readable state. But over time the sentences and themes emerge, I type them, I rearrange them, I delete some and then, mostly, by the time I press publish, I'm happy I have.

But not today. It's been a bit of a messy old week and somehow it's gotten to an hour before I have to go and pick up Pepper from school and I feel rushed, and I haven't had lunch and I'm hungry, and what I really feel like is a cup of tea in Bren's workshop and a few rows of my socks.

So if it's all the same to you I think I'll load the bunch of photos I took this morning which will give you a little glimpse into my right now, I'll write a tiny bit about each one and then we can all go along our merry ways and hopefully have a wonderful weekend.

Here goes:

This is Miss Pepper's cat who until recently was called Popcorn but then somehow during a particularly intense Orange Is The New Black binging session, had a name change to Poussey Washington. It's such a good cat name and it just rolls off the tongue, don't ya think. She doesn't look like she minds anyway.

This is farmer Bren axing a bowl blank out of a piece of apple wood. He has plans to make us all breakfast bowls. I can't wait to see them.


This is of a pile of blankets that I've made on a shelf in our studio. The pile grows and shrinks as girls take blankets to put on their beds and snuggle on the couch and then put them back, but these three seem to remain the constants.

These are my baby cabbages. I tell you what, growing plants from seeds never fails to excite me. Each one of those stems and little leaves feels like a lucky blessing. I love germinating seeds, it seems to make sense even when the rest of the world doesn't.

We have a metal filing cabinet where we store our seeds. Packets and jars of saved and bought seeds all filed by the first letter of their name. These are the seeds I've pulled out over the past few weeks optimistically hoping to get a head start on spring. It's a bit of a mess. We are hoping to get organised and keep really good records this year so when next season rolls around it'll be less of a guessing game and more of a knowing game. Although working under Mother Nature you can never really be sure.

This is the book I'm reading. I love the cover. It's about Trevor Noah, who was born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother at a time in apartheid South Africa where such a union was punishable by five years imprisonment. It's an easy read but I'm finding it hard to really get stuck into it. I think that's because the last book I read, Idaho painted a picture that was so vivid that I felt like I'd watched a whole movie by the time I'd finished. I could not put it down and then I could not stop thinking about it once I had. What a magnificent book. I hope that this one grabs me soon and takes me on a journey with it like Idaho did.


This is a cup/bowl that Bren carved during the week out of Native Cherry. It's such a beautiful piece and when you hold it up to the light, parts of it glow bright pink. Right now it's drying out slowly in that pile of wood shavings but I cannot wait to see how it dries and how it looks when it's oiled. we're not sure how it'll hold hot coffee, but gosh wouldn't that be a perfect way to honour one of my favourite rituals.


This is an arm warmer I knitted for someone I've never met who asked for one via a local Facebook page. Apparently it fits and is exactly what they were after. Yay!

This is a slipper I knitted for a giant. Oops. Just a gentle reminder to knit a gauge square when you are knitting an old fave pattern but in new to you yarn.

These are the first socks I ever knitted, three years ago almost to the the day. Look at how much they've faded. I still love them and wear them often despite the hole in the sole of one of them.

These are the socks I am currently knitting. Colour work is addictive! I can't wait to grab a chunk of time tonight to knit some more. I've gone up a needle size to 2.5 because the last pair of patterned socks I knitted were too tight. Fingers crossed these ones turn out just right.

This week is musical week for our big girls. This is the puzzle we've been doing with Pepper while they've been busy rehearsing and performing. It's of Santorini in Greece. It's hard to imagine that it's been almost two years since we were there ourselves.


It's raining as I type this and with all the mucking around it's almost three hours since I started.

And by mucking around I mean pestering my youngest sister by text, watering the greenhouse, picking Pep up from school, putting some washing away, making myself a snack, pulling out some weeds, crying to Bren about the state of the world and our country, reading and looking at everything on Facebook and Instagram, feeding the fire and scrolling through Ravelry. But I guess some days are just more straight forward that others.

So that's me and my meant to be quick blog that ended up taking hours.

How about you, what do you like to do to procrastinate?
Are you a good seed organiser? Garden record keeper?
Do you get obsessed and stay up way too late at night looking for just one more puzzle piece?
What are you making/baking/reading/planning?
I'd love to know.

I hope your weekend is exactly what you need it to be.

Love is love,

Kate

xx



17 comments:

  1. Your Friday posts well and truly signify the beginning of the weekend to me. I am currently working on far to many projects, EPP, 2 quilts, and bag, just flitting from project to project. Currently reading The Jane Austen Project, enjoyable so far.
    Happy weekending to you.

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  2. Kate love. I'm a bit like you. I cry about the world / country and don't know how to help. I wonder what would happen if us cryers somehow got together and managed to be doers instead. What would that look like? For some reason I suspect it would be amazing.

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  3. I've just started the heart's invisible furies by John Boyne. I'm going to love it x

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  4. I don't know what to say this week, but thank you for the lovely reply you left to my comment last week. It brought a tear to my eye.
    I too feel sad about the state of the world, but your lovely photos and small glimpse into your world is a hopeful and cheery start to the weekend.
    Thank you

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  5. Friday at last and another wet and grey one by the looks of things. coffee already consumed, time to read your blog post, which i must say i do look forward to :)
    your farmer boys wooden bowls look beautiful, what a talented chap he is. The woolly blankets are a must and also look so inviting all folded waiting to be used. Those seedlings are growing well, you'll have them planted out in no time.
    Plans for the weekend include; tree pruning, weed pulling, raised bed filling, food shopping, hoovering out the Esse as its just been swept, 1st slipper grafting together, coffee drinking, world cinema series watching (Dicta) and most probably crisp eating...salt and vinegar flavour. Have an enjoyable weekend

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  6. Kate, I love how you just shared a snippet and your photos from the week. I love looking at photos; I'm a very visual person, so I really enjoyed this.

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  7. Hello Kate, whilst I was sitting here reading your post, my little girl, who is 6, came and sat on my lap and wanted to see what I was reading. So I read your words to her, a bit like a bed time story as that time of day is approaching! This message is from Tabby, "Hello, I like your nice pussycat" we both love your pics and wish you a happy weekend. Lots of love, Lucy and Tabby xxxxx

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  8. I like that cover too. I'm reading about Japanese street food at the mo. LOVE that top blanket and Bren's bowl. You're a talented pair, that's for sure. And yes, I get obsessed. My current obsession is Christine and the Queens who I spend far too much time watching and listening. Have a great week. xx

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  9. I love reading about your planting and looking at photographs of your greenhouse and seedlings. I have a small suburban garden. Two garden beds and a few pots of herbs. This year I am excited about my garden plans and have felt exactly the way you stated, it makes sense and helps me focus when the world does not make sense... just looking at my shoebox stacked with organic seed, plant markers, pen and notebook makes me smile :) Last night I watched the doco Portrait of a Garden'. Beautiful (it can also be seen on youtube).

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  10. Loved this post. Those socks you're knitting look amazing, I wish I could knit just so that I could make them! I love colourwork. My plans for the weekend include studying (yep. sigh), hopefully getting some progress on my crochet shawl done, and enjoy being in the countryside. We're visiting my grandma and it's just lovely where she lives. x

    agoldenhour.blogspot.com

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  11. Thanks Kate.....i am reading Cooked by Michael Pollan, while holidaying in Washington and Oregon with family. Such a great book....only in the first chapter, but reading it with a pencil in hand and underlying the sentences that jump out at me. Also working on my Spring sowing/planting list from afar so i am ready to jump into the garden when i get home. Love to read about your knitting projects. I haven't had anything on the needles for a long while but you are inspiring me..........love love xx

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  12. So much warmth and love at your place Kate, thank you for sharing. I used to keep wonderful, detailed garden records from year to year and now I just dont. It slipped away from me. My garden still grows but my seeds and trays and bits and pieces are more haphazard. xx

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  13. You could say, that arm warmer is a jumperless sleeve! And that bowl, how fantastic!

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  14. Dearest Kate, I'm so happy that you took the time you needed to in order for this post to come about. Thank you. Have you seen the Totoro movie? There is a scene in it where the girls of the story are growing their seeds by magic in the moonlight. Seeds are indeed mysterious and wonderful.

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  15. Kate, Question for you and Farmer Bren, my adult daughter is considering taking up wood carving, to say this lightens my heart is an understatement (she has been suffering from depression for 5 years now )
    Anyhow we'd love for some tips on how to start, any courses you recommend (we're on the North Coast NSW), what basic gear is best to start with. It's her birthday in a fortnight and I'd love to give her a push start :-) (It's been a long long journey to get to this point) Love Erinxx

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  16. I do not keep any gardening records, except this year I drew some mind maps for crop rotation, just lists of the plants I grew sorted into families that they belong to. As for the seeds, I now have a labelled box with three smalled boxes inside, one for vegetables, one for florwers and one for tortoise food seeds, although a lot of those are basically vegetables. You are definitely more organised than me.

    And I love the socks, do you knit them one at a time on just two needles or do you use needles in a round, or more than two needles? Socks confuse me but would be such a great thing to be able to knit.

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Thanks so much for stopping by...

I do read every single comment you leave and appreciate it very much, but I should let you know that I can be a wee bit on the useless side when replying to comments, that's just me, everyday life sometimes gets in the way....so I'll apologise now, just in case.

Kate XX

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