Hooked - a blog hop

This is pretty cute!!

It's a new book celebrating the crochet motif in the most gorgeous way. Hooked! by Michelle, Cecile and Sylvie Delprat is filled to the brim with all kinds of sweet motifs, there are hearts and flowers and cupcakes and mushrooms and apples and birds and skulls and so many more. Seriously, I want to make them all. And my girls want me to make them all for them too. They've already started designing brooches, decorations for their school books and patches to sew on their jeans.

I think it's a really great book; the styling, the patterns, the photos and the ideas are all beautiful.

But where to start??

Miss Indi has been begging me to make her some love heart bunting for her bedroom for ages, so I pulled out the cottons and started hooking.

And then just because they were too cute not to, I made an apple, a mushroom and a strawberry. I really want to make the cupcake next too.

If you are into cute and quirky and crochet, then this book is for you.

If you want to follow along on the blog hop - then this link is for you.

If you'd like to win a copy of Hooked!, six balls of yarn, and a crochet hook - then this link is for you.

And if you feel like it, just for fun, tell me which motif you like the best, or what you'd like to do with them, and I'll choose one or two from the comments and make them up and send them to you.

See ya later crochet potata!

xx

Catching a moment

Hello! How are you dear friend. I was wondering if you might like to join me on a quick skip through my past week that was. I know it's a little self indulgent but it was a gorgeous week and I'd really like to catch it before it flitters off in the wind.

So here we go, this past week;

I visited a family with their new baby girl Holly, not even 19 hours old.

I sliced my thumb open on a pair of secateurs.

I saw blood clot and was impressed at my body, but not so much by the sight. 



I woke up one year older.

I thought a lot about what a wonderful place right now is to be.

I threw a little, last minute birthday breakfast in our garden and hired a coffee van. During the party I was serenaded by my family, the girls singing and Bren on the ukulele, on the steps of the cubby-house.

I wrote an article for one of my fave magazines.



I sucked honey out of honeycomb that we stole from the roof of one of our hives.

I planted 100's of seeds.

I started reading my first ever e-book - My Year Without Matches - which I am really enjoying, but still missing turning the pages.

I spent two whole days not knitting due to my cut thumb.

I sent the girls to school with yesterday's plaits due to my cut thumb.



I read through the 102 Clover crochet hook entries and loved every single one. I love how crochet unties us, calms our busy minds and enables us to make pretty gifts from scratch for ourselves and other people in our lives. Eventually I chose Dre at No Frills Mum because her story touched me. Dre please email me your postal details and I'll get gorgeous Renae to mail you your hooks ASAP.

I thought a bit about how cool it would be to run a yarn store like Yarn Haus and how we should support Renae by buying our yarn from her because she is brave and living her dreams and sourcing some really gorgeous yarns.

I spent an afternoon without house water when farmer Bren ploughed through a pipe.

I cleaned up another Mother's child's poo in our bathroom without any water (of course it happened when I had none).



I knitted a hedgehog Softie for Mirabel.

I did half of Indi's painting homework.

I remembered that I'm not such a great painter.

I remembered that I love couscous.

I felt overwhelmed and honoured and thrilled by all the birthday messages and calls and love.

I ate my first mango of the season.



I visited a bio dynamic sheep farm and fell more in love with wool.

I accumulated 246 unread emails.

I accumulated a kitchen table full of beautiful birthday flowers.

I donated to our community's Clay Space project.




I listened to this song and watched this film so many times and felt more than a little bit proud of our Indi, Tim and Geoffrey.

I think that's all the main points. I'll probably think of more once I press publish.

I have to now, my farmer boy is teaching the girls to make fire with a magnifying glass and I don't want to miss out.


So how about you?
What have you been up to this past week dear friends?
Tell me three or four things in the comments if you like, I'd love to know.

I hope you have the most wonderful weekend.

Love Kate xx

falling off the mower

Yesterday I fell off our ride on mower so today I'm starting my day off very slowly.

I didn't actually fall off but rather jumped off when I thought it was going to roll ontop of me. And actually my farmer boy says it wasn't going to roll on me, but it certainly felt like it at the time.

Looking back I know that I was being silly. I was in a rush to finish the mowing before school pick up time and instead of leaving the steep, hilly bit for the whipper-snipper, I thought I'd be smart and get it done there and then. Turns out I was not so smart. I realised I was going up the bank at too sharp an angle, I got too scared to go backwards but tried anyway, slowly, I felt like the mower tipped a bit, I slammed on the brakes, straddled it in a funny way jumping off (not haha funny) and managed to batter and bruise my legs and pride and confidence in the process. Ouchy.

I'm fine. The mower is perfectly fine. It's probably not a bad thing to happen to me at the beginning of mowing season. But this morning I'm feeling a bit achy, and instead of rushing out there to set up fences for a chook move tomorrow morning, I'm crocheting a couple of rows of Miss Pepper's stripy birthday present and writing to you.

How are you?
Are you in a rush or being gentle on yourself?


Take it easy and travel safely my friends, we'll get there in the end.

Love Kate xx

snippety snippets

So the holidays are over and we've hit the ground running. It's springtime in our part of the world and although it's not quite tee-shirt weather yet, I feel like things are changing and I'm going to have to move fast and spend my time carefully to keep up.

I feel like we've had a great rest. I feel like I've had the time to really work out my priorities and I feel ready to work hard for and at the things I love and the things that inspire me and make me happy.

I feel like I've got loads to share with you here too, but before any of that let's do a quick catch up. Here are some of the early October snippets of my life.

ADMIRING the peony roses. We are generally a bit useless when it comes to growing anything that's not edible, but the peonies seem to take care of themselves. Each year they flower for Jazzy's birthday and each year I am astounded by their beauty and make a mental note to plant more. More roses and more flowers in general. We can't eat them but they certainly feed us in other ways. They make me happy, they make this place beautiful and they make me stop for a bit and be in the moment admiring them. Love!



Technically I'm not CROCHETING anything but I have plans. I'm searching Ravelry for a hat pattern for my cold headed, awesome friend Andi who shaved her gorgeous raven locks to raise money for the Leukaemia Foundation. Pretty great hey!!

And I'm also queuing patterns for my Softie For Mirabel softie. I'm thinking I might make a kitty this year. Or a bird. Are you making one too?


I'm READING this book. Oh my goodness how I want to be a shepherdess. And a spinner. And a natural dyer. And I want to sell a Daylesford Organics yarn to people all around the world. And I want to work out if there is a way we can do it all from here in a certified organic/biodynamic way.

I'm a little bit obsessed but I feel like our probable plans to travel next year are putting the brakes on this new direction. Or maybe it's making me change the direction of our travels into woolly research. We'll see.



I'm SMELLING all of the blossom. I'm fighting for space to get my nose in deep with the bees. And I'm dreaming of quinces and plums and almonds and apples and nashis and berries. Mmmmmmmmmmmmm.....



Unfortunately we're still LIGHTING the fire for warmth. I had hoped that our days of collecting, splitting, hauling, stacking, lighting and cleaning would be over for another season by now, but I should have known better. Hopefully soon we'll be down to overnight burns only. And by then it'll probably be fire season.



I'm still KNITTING my love heart socks. Knitting time at home is so much scarcer than on holidays.



And I'm MISSING little holiday bare legs and arms photobombing my pics.



We're EATING kale on everything, in everything and around everything. We planted a ridiculous amount this year and now I want the space back.



I'm incredibly GRATEFUL for this beautiful 100% natural Polwarth wool that Tom from Tarndie Heritage Sheep Farm sent me.

Tom's great-great grandfather developed the Polwarth sheep on their farm in the 1800's to better suit the southern climate and now 100 years later they are still farming the sheep and now they are selling the wool on their big cartel site. Imagine what Tom's great-great grandfather would think of that?! Amazing!!

I haven't had a chance to knit with the Polwarth yet but I can tell you that it is soft and squishy and the colours are gorgeous, all the most important ingredients in a good yarn I think.

And finally, I'm EXAMINING our wisteria vines as they naturally weave themselves into the roof of our carport. I think I need to make some time for some basket making, and wreath making and weaving soon before they wake up and sprout leaves and flower. I think the clock is ticking on my big basket dreaming, maybe this weekend the sun will shine and I'll get out my secateurs and get to work.

And that's me, all caught up and ready to press go.

How about you?
What are you admiring, crocheting, reading, smelling, lighting, knitting, missing eating, examining and grateful for?
Let me know in the comments, or perhaps you'd like to make a blog post of your own?

Until then, I hope some fun stuff is happening in your world.

Big love

xx

#motifdaymay

Coral Flower Circle

Late yesterday afternoon I announced to my family that I was going into my room to crochet my motif and I was not to be disturbed. I would be away for 10-15 minutes and if they really, really needed me they knew where I'd be. So I closed myself in my bedroom, sat down with my back on the radiator, chose my coloured cottons and my pattern and got to work. Ommmmmmmmmmmm…...

About five minutes had passed when I heard a loud discussion from outside the door. Pepper was looking for me and Indi was trying to tell her to leave me alone and that I was meditating.

A moment or so after that Pepper burst into the room, looked at me and then burst out laughing. 'That's not how you meditate!' she cried, and then proceeded to give me a lecture and demonstration on the lotus position, the proper way to place your hands when you meditate and a couple of tips and tricks as to how to close off your mind.

My girls go to a Buddhist school, they meditate every day and apparently are experts.

Eventually she left me to it, peace well and truly broken, but a smile on my face none-the-less.

Truth be told, all five of my meditation motifs have been a bit like this: Stolen moments, interruptions, distractions, hiding behind closed doors. But I have loved every second of every stitch. I have owned that time and not felt guilty about it. I have relished it.



Penny Flower Circle

So far all the motifs I've made are from a book Bren's mum gave me called 75 Crocheted Floral Blocks by Betty Barnden. I think this one is my fave to date.



Rosette Circle

Every day after I upload my motif to instagram I click on the #motifdaymay and as I scroll through the images it makes me smile to think of all those other busy women taking time out for themselves to sit and meditate on their crochet.



Helenium Circle

I must have loved this one so much I made it twice. Weird. I've since started marking each one in the book as I hook them up.



I love getting to that moment each day when I place my new motif on the growing pile. I wonder how tall a tower the 31 motifs will be. And sometimes I do wonder what I'll do with them when the month of May is up, although I'm trying my hardest not to.

OK so those are mine, I'd love to see yours. I've tried my best to set up a linky thing below, feel free to add your motif blog posts so we can all come and visit. Hopefully it works, let me know if it doesn't and I'll have another go.

If time got away from you and you feel like starting from today, that's great and if crochet is not your thing but knitting or even stitching is, that's totally fine too.

See you soon.

Big motif love,

xx

Who influences you?

 A little while ago I was lying in bed the night before a magazine interview trying to guess the questions and plan my answers.

It was a magazine I have a lot of respect for so I wanted to make sure I knew what I was talking about and sounded a bit interesting, a lot thought out.

But, as almost always happens, the later it got, the harder the imagined questions got, the more rambly my answers got, the more worried I got, the less I made sense, the less chance I had of getting to sleep, the more pointless this middle of the night exercise became.

But I kept asking, and answering, and stressing. For hours.

And for some reason one of the questions that kept popping up in my imaginary interview was: Who and what are your main influences?

Sounds simple right? But over the course of that over-night interview I discovered that I don't have main influences. I don't have one place, or person, or style to turn to to turn me on. Did that make me shallow?

And the more I thought about that fact, the more worried I became. 

My influences come from everywhere: a quote in a book I'm reading, a song we listened to on the radio on the way to school, the way Pepper's teacher tied her scarf, something that we did when we were kids, a link on Pip's blog, the colour pallet in a shop window, the recipe I hear someone describing to someone else at the fruit shop, a picture of a garden layout on pinterest, the angle or exposure of a photograph, what needs to be picked or planted or preserved in the garden, the colourful balls of cottons in the corner, the pattern in the bits of honeycomb scraped off the roof of a bee hive yesterday, a skirt with cute pockets I saw and a pile of pretty vintage fabric I thrifted, a washy painting Indi did and the water colour pencils she left lying around, this season's stunning shiburi dyeing and all my stained whites, an instagram picture of a mini quilt and mine half made, the new and varied patterns I am learning while knitting my way through Nicki Trench's 201 Knitting Blocks, Projects Ideas, a salad recipe I saw somewhere and my rumbling tummy….

My influences seem to know no bounds and are ever changing. Often changing.

And as the sun came up I finally became comfortable with my answer.

But of course the question was never asked.

So now I'm asking you.
Can you name your influences?
Do you have people, places, times or  quotes that guide you? That you turn to? That fill you up and help make you you?
Or are yours ever changing like mine? Like the weather? Like the days of the year? Like the patterns the wind makes as it blows its way over the long grass in my parents' paddock?

I wonder.

xx

1,000 doilies

I blog for so many reasons.

I blog to record, to archive, to catalogue, to get it out of my system, to display, to tell our story, to journal, because I like to, because it's good for me and I blog to connect and be connected. I blog for community.

Blog land is made of wonderful little networks of like minded souls all connecting through our blog posts, our comments, swaps, clubs and different projects.

I've spoken before about starting my blog a few weeks too late to join in with Kirsty's quilt project all those years ago and I think I've been waiting for another big project like that to pop up ever since.

And then about a month ago, someone on instagram, I think it might have been the gorgeous Ellie Petalplum, sent me a link to Lisa Solomon's 1,000 doily project.

Lisa Solomon, a Californian mixed media artist, is working towards a piece of art made up of 1,000 (sen in Japanese) doilies.

In Lisa'a words;

1000 is a big deal in japanese culture. it's wrapped up in luck and hope and clearly excess. so... in thinking about luck and placing it into my lexicon, my vocabulary, my means of working. 1000 doilies it is. and because of my fascination with color and color theory... 100 colors of thread. 10 doilies in each color to get to my 1000. 

So Lisa put the call out and sent those 100 coloured threads to crocheters all around the world. Two of them landed here in Daylesford.

I've committed to making 20 doilies for Lisa's work. 10 peach and 10 bottle green. So far I've made 6 (one since the pics).

The thread is super fine, the hook a minute 1.5mm and the doilies themselves are about 2-3 inches wide. Tiny!

I love this project so much. I love the thought that people all around the world are joined by these tiny doilies, that it connects us, that every one of us is putting aside time in our busy lives to crochet for another. And I simply cannot wait for the big unveiling. Imagine a wall of 1,000 coloured doilies.

This project is such a big part of why I blog.

And in case you were about to ask, no I haven't sewn in the ends of The Book Blanket, but it's not book dead-line time either.


Happy, happy Wednesday to you my friends.

Are you making? Creating? Alone? With others?
Do you blog for the same reasons as me? Or for something else entirely?

Thanks heaps for being part of my community.
I really, really appreciate I do.

xx

The basket family

Isn't it funny how all it takes is something a little out of the ordinary to make your day. A little shift in the routine, a surprise, an unexpected gift and everything looks different.

This morning after the usual muesli and coffee for breakfast, after the ordinary drive to school and the same old-same old school drop off, I waited in the queue at the post office with a fist full of boring bills for what I was certain would be some dull boxes of electric fencing.

But I was wrong!

This morning there was also a great big box addressed to me.

A surprise!

Fiona Kate of Fiona Kate Simply Gorgeous Storage had sent me a basket family. Three sizes of wire baskets all nestled inside one another in their box.

I was thrilled. I still am. I skipped out of there and came straight home to try my new baskets out for myself.

I started with wool, of course, for the middle one.

And then I took the baby one over to the harvest table in the kitchen garden and chucked some onions in. The big one I am saving for apples. Or socks. Or dolls clothes...

Fiona Kate sent these baskets to me as a surprise gift. That's a pretty lovely thing to do don't you think. She thought I'd like them and I do.

So thanks heaps for making my day lovely Fiona Kate!

I hope something a bit fun has happened in your day today too.
Or perhaps you've done something lovely to make someone else's.
Do tell, I'd love to hear about it.

I'd also love to hear about what you're having for dinner.
I'm a bit disorganised but thinking about roast vegies and lentils and fetta.
And maybe a purple carrot cake.
Maybe.

Bye!

The book blanket - The last few squares

Somehow we've found ourselves in the middle of February and all those book deadlines that I've tried to put out of my mind for so long are upon us. 

Last Tuesday my publisher and designer came here for a visit. 

I'd been so nervous about their visit since we made the arrangement all those months ago. I was scared they'd expect me to be a photographer instead of the photo taker I am. I was nervous I wouldn't be able to shoot on demand and I guess I feel so inexperienced in this book making thing that I was terrified they'd see it for themselves and wonder. 

But after scrubbing the kitchen from top to bottom, vacuuming, a tantrum and a sleepless night, they arrived and we spent a really lovely day together. We talked nitty-gritty book stuff and made plans for my last month on the job. We set up and took photos, we made plans for more photos, we looked at things from different angles and we talked about shops and launches and promotions. And in between we spoke about Girls, and travel, and food and life and children and pets. 

For a week before they came I'd been wishing for it to be Tuesday night 6pm and for that day to be over already. But once it was over I realised that I'd actually had a really gorgeous day and that if they had thought me inexperienced, they hadn't shown it. And truth be told, I really hope they come back and visit me again sometime before this whole thing is done and dusted.

Isn't it funny how we work ourselves up into unnecessary frenzy sometimes. Well I do anyway.

So now I have a list of photos to take and bits of design to look at as they are sent through. 

We're nearing the end, I can feel it. I saw a first mock up of the front cover this morning with my name on it and everything. Oh my goodness!!

And the book blanket too is coming to an end I think. The last couple of squares to hook up, lots of ends to sew in and then a border to consider.

What a crazy, exciting, terrifying, humbling, nerve-wracking, awesome adventure. Sometimes I still can't quite believe it's really happening. A book!!

So what have you been up to?

Is it hot and dry where you are, or snowy and freezing?

Are you making anything crafty or foodie?

Are you reading a good book?

Big love you guys. 

xx