dream catching

The Dumbo Feather fete was wonderful.

We sold books, we chatted to loads of people, we drank Airstream coffee and ate mushroom burgers, and we bought stuff off the other stalls too. 

But I think the absolute best part of my day was something that had nothing to do with me at all.

The best part of my day was the dream catcher workshop run on a long wooden table in the Dumbo Feather board-room.

According to dream-catchers.org

Dream catchers are one of the most fascinating traditions of Native Americans. The traditional dream catcher was intended to protect the sleeping individual from negative dreams, while letting positive dreams through. The positive dreams would slip through the hole in the centre of the dream catcher, and glide down the feathers to the sleeping person below. The negative dreams would get caught in the web and expire when the first rays of the sun struck them.

Bowls filled with wool, different sized hoops of smooth wood and the most gorgeous and patient teacher you'll ever find. What could be better, right?

My three girls spent hours wrapping and knotting and threading and creating the most gorgeous dream catchers. And that was ace for so many reasons.

And as great as all that market making was, the VERY BEST part for me was the part when we came home and without the exact materials she'd had before, Miss Jazzy made one her own way.

She went into the forest, came home with a bundle of sticks, and spent the rest of her afternoon and evening, making her own version. I LOVE THAT!!!!!!

She was unstoppable. Making and making and making and making. Each dream catcher slightly different than the last as her hands moved and her ideas grew.

How great is that feeling!

Of course now, with a house full of dream catchers, we'll all be sleeping sweetly with not a monster, or vampire, or bear, or bushfire in sight. Hooray for that!!

And yes, I know you are positively itching to make your very own dream catcher now aren't you.

Click here for some YouTube action- you'll be surprised at how simple and fun they are to make.

This weekend we're planning to collect feathers and make some yarn wraps for the dangly bits. And I'm going to make one too. I can't believe I haven't yet.


Sweet dreams - dream catchers.

xx

#ILoveSummer

It's Sunday, it's warm and we have no place to be but here.

The days leading up to now have been busy, busy, busy and the days to come are looking just as mad. So today we're staying right here. We're catching up, we're keeping cool and we're taking it very slowly indeed.

Mostly my morning has looked like this. Pretty, summery coloured cotton, a crochet hook and coffee.

I'm doing my first market in forever next weekend and I've been hooking up some bunting motifs to pretty things up and quite possibly to sell. I guess I'll just have to see how many I get made.

I'll also be signing and selling my book, Vantastic. It'd make a great prezzie for your cousin/sister/teacher/bestie don't you think?!

The details are above. There will be heaps of cool makers and stuff there. PLEASE COME!

Meanwhile Miss Pepper is excavating crystals from a rock.

Miss Jazzy has a pen in her hand and her nose in a book. Always.

And Miss Indi is making pom-poms. We're thinking we might wrap some books up for the fete and make them all pretty. Brown paper and pretty colored string and pom-poms how fun!

And my farmer boy is planting peas, pruning roses and watering.

What a day!

Let's hope the rest of summer is as gorgeous as the first day.

Big love to you where ever you are.
What have you been up to lately?
Do you think you might come and visit us next weekend?
Hope so.

Happy new season.

xx

Machane Yehuda

On Friday we visited Machane Yehuda, Jerusalem's food market. Being food growers and market sellers and goers ourselves, you can imagine how excited we were. 

Machane Yehuda is made up of about 250 stalls selling seasonal fruit and veg, eggs, cheese, seeds, spices, nuts, meat, fish, baked goods, jewelery and textiles. 

The atmosphere is electric with shoppers choosing and buying, sellers handing out samples, weighing, socialising and SPRUIKING!! Spruiking is like a competitive sport at the market. Each stall holder shouting out, one after another, getting louder and louder and louder until the noise is deafening. I caught my girls walking along with their hands over their ears more than once.

The varieties! The smells! The personalities! The foods I've never seen before and have no idea what they are. The lack of sterile health regulations governing stall holders. The dude above was smoking that cigar while filleting fish and serving customers and no one seemed to notice! 

And there was masses of new season's garlic grown in the desert. How gorgeous is that wreath. I'm going to have to have a go at making one of them next season I think.

There was fun new fruit to try, like pomellos and cups filled with pomegranate seeds.

And vintage cigarette displays!! 

Can you imagine cigarettes for sale at one of our farmer's markets?!?

And see those roll ups in the middle of that display? They are dried apricot and I have been dreaming of them for 20 years. They don't taste anything like the roll ups we make or buy back home. They are absolutely delicious. I used to buy one every time I caught a bus from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv way back then. And slowly tear little bits off and nibble them. I could make one last the entire one hour's drive. My girls aren't so patient, the one we bought at market was gobbled up less that five minutes after it was unwrapped.

The hardest part of our visit to Machane Yehuda was holding ourselves back from buying everything. EVERYTHING!! Somebody mentioned that this trip will be a 5kg trip, but it could so easily blow out and become 10kg.

We're heading down south tomorrow morning early. I think my girlies will be happy to get out of the city for a while. Our time is speeding by, it's been a week already. But oh what a week.


Bren's on the bed watching a movie with Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe, I'm off to finish packing and then I'll join him.

Thank you guys so much for your lovely comments, I'm so loving taking you along on our journey.

So what are you up to?
Are you having a lovely weekend?
I hope so.

Be good lovely peeps and happy travels. xx

#Jerusalem

We are in Jerusalem and I feel like a kid in a candy store. I am fit to burst. I want to know everything and do everything. Every other time I've been here, I've been more interested in meeting up with friends, shopping, getting drunk or chasing boys. But this time I really want to be here and I want to know why; Why is he wearing that? What is that hat made out of? Why are there numbers on the bricks? What does that scrawly writing mean? How old is this place? Where can we get the best hummus?

And I want to know who all these men at the market in the Old City are. How long they have been doing what they do. Where they get their wares from. How much does it cost to rent a stall there and do leases come up often? Where their wives and families are. What their houses look like and what they'll eat for dinner.

I think I am becoming nosier as I get older.

And I want to look at everything. And taste everything. And know it's name. And it's history.

Jerusalem is probably the craziest place I have ever been. It is a melting pot of so many cultures and religions and nationalities. Everywhere you look there are people in different costumes, speaking different languages, on different missions.

I'm not sure any of the religious stuff is really for me, but I love Jerusalem's culture. I love the intensity and the feeling. It feels rich. It feels like it is filled with stories. I'm really fascinated by those stories.

And I'm fascinated by the experience my girlies are having. I wonder how much of this they are taking in. How much they'll remember. What they'll tell their friends when we get home. Jerusalem sure is a long way from Daylesford.

I hope you are well and happy lovely peeps.

I hope your weekend is magic.

Happy travels. xx

flea market

Yesterday, on our last day in Tel Aviv, we climbed the stairs and walked the stone floors of the old Port city of Yaffo/Jaffa. It was a public holiday and there were loads of people around but still we found our place and our pace. 

The girls counted stray cats, watched videos of jewelery making and posed for angel photos. While we admired gates and windows and colours and spoke of how inspiring travel is. How opening our eyes to new things also opens our minds and our hearts. 

After Yaffo, we made our way through more Tel Aviv streets to Shuk HaPishpeshim, the most wonderful and enormous flea market.

Last time I was in Israel I spent so much time at this market looking at and buying old clothes, jewelery, bits of Bedouin embroidery and other odds and ends. It is such a crazy mixture of old and new, clean and filthy, treasure and rubbish.

I could spend weeks in that market treasure hunting, unfortunately we were bound by time and tired little feet.

So we headed back to enjoy one last night with this as our hotel window view. A bit different to the forest view outside my bedroom window in our little farm in Daylesford hey.

And then this morning we drove to Jerusalem for the next chapter of our adventure. What a crazy, amazing day. I'll blog it tomorrow, right now I'm exhausted and off to sleep.

Layla tov (goodnight!)

xx