Shallow.

I had a bit of an emotionally full on morning this morning.

Well, actually this story begins when a friend of mine was having an emotionally full on morning this morning. My part of it came when I got her baby to look after for a couple of hours.

Usually these days when I am lucky enough to hold someone else's baby it involves lots of sitting around and cuddling and drinking tea. Not this time though. This time we were at bush kinder and so there was lots of walking and sitting and climbing and dancing.

Miss Pepper didn't mind sharing me at all. In fact watching how independant and grown up my baby is was an enormous emotional moment in itself.

And then there was this baby. There was the juggling of my bags, the ache in my shoulder after a while, the entertaining her and letting her pull at me and chew my hair, the smell of her...you get the picture. It was all so familiar and delicious and yet for me it is all gone.

Eventually her Mama came to take her off me. Eventually I let go. And then, thank goodness, Miss Pepper came and grabbed my hand and we skipped up the road.

Are you ok? My Farmer Boy asked me at lunch when I told him of my morning. I think I probably could have crumbled into a messy heap right now I replied, but I have just picked up two packages from the post office this morning and so I'm ok.

I think I'm a bit shallow like that.

Package one was crammed full of Michelle's fabric scraps. Eeeeeeep!!! Lucky me and thank you so much Michelle. One woman's scraps are definitely another woman's treasures.

I realised that I know nothing about fabric though when Michelle wrote that she is particularly excited to see what I am going to make with the voile. Hmmmm which one exactly is the voile?? I must say that I'm particularly excited to have some of the denim apple fabric Michelle once made herself a gorgeous skirt out of.

Package two was three bundles of wool from Kate. Some delicious greeny wool she dyed up for me and some of her gorgeous blue sock wool. Thanks Kate, I love, love, love them.

So you see I'm ok. I have gorgeous new bits and pieces to play with, the sun is out, my washing is drying on the line and my grape jelly is bubbling away on the stove.

Deep breath...

Ciao, ciao. XX

World Rural Women's Day.

To celebrate World Rural Women's Day today, Bren and I spent the day at a festival in the grounds of an estate in Smeaton which is about 20 minutes from here.

There were lots of talks about issues facing rural women, and about women in agriculture, and a talk about 'wonderful organic women', WOWS (I thinkI need a t'shirt). There was also a farmers' market where we sold eggs.

The highlight for me was meeting a woman who was spinning some wool that she had dyed using eucalyptus leaves she'd picked on her neighbouring property.

She was just learning and experimenting with all different types of natural dyes and mordants and had skeins and skeins of wool labelled with the fruit/seed/leaf/bark/berry that she had used to dye them with.

Unfortunately for me she wasn't selling her wool because she said she was too attached to it and was so excited by looking at it all together to separate it.

She was really generous with her information though and took my address to post me some photocopies of different dying techniques and different mordant/natural dye combinations.

Here she is with her copper dying with eucalyptus leaves that apparently don't need a mordant at all. That orange jumper was knitted from wool dyed with these same leaves.

Of course there were also some of our woolly friends on display too.

We had to leave early to pick the girls up from school but just before we left Bren heard his name being called for the raffle. Imagine his surprise to have won this lovely work of art. The potato farmer next to us thought it might be the patron saint of chookies.

So happy World Rural Women's Day to you all.

And happy Melbourne Cup Day if you live around here.

Bye now. X

Painting wool.

See this gorgeous ball of red wool?

Well not so long ago it was one of two boring, forgotten, natural coloured balls of wool, in a basket in an op shop.

But not for very much longer.

The very same day that those two balls of boring wool came home with us, they went straight into a bath of lukewarm water and vinegar and were prepared to become gorgeous.

The following day we followed Suse's wonderful tutorial and used food colouring to paint and decorate the forgotten wool.

Suse's tutorial is brilliant and fun and easy and so kid friendly and I highly recommend it. My kids loved painting the wool and watching the effects the different colours made. I loved including them in my wool obsession too.

The best part of all was how safe I felt letting them go for it, knowing there were no nasty chemicals involved.

We ended up with two 50 gram balls, the red above, and the seaweed below.

Aren't they gorgeous!

We will definitely be painting more wool very soon, only next time I think we'll paint bigger amounts as I have no idea what to do with these small little balls. Maybe they'll just sit on the windowsill and be admired.

I hope you have a happy Saturday.

We're off to Bendigo to pick up something very exciting for our family.

Sunday Sunday.

Its Sunday morning.

Bren is picking vegies for the farm shop, Indi is at Lola's house and Jazzy and Pepper are making an extravagant sand tea party outside.

I am dyeing some yarn.

It looks more grey than the charcoal I had hoped for, but I like it.

It reminds me a bit of Bren's dreadlocks when we first met.

He had 81 of them. He still has them in a box under the house.

I wonder if the girls would like to see them.

Yesterday we were hanging out here, when a woman admired Pepper's tree dress.

When I told her I had made it she asked if I could make some stock for her to sell in her shop.

I was pretty excited!

The girls were far too busy choosing a lolly to care.

Today I'm crocheting butterflies and motifs trying to work out the best way to winterfy my dresses. I want to keep sewing with the vintage linens and maybe mix in some denim or cord, long sleeves and lots of crochet embellishments.

I hope you are having a wonderful weekend. XX

Some yarn & some exciting news.

I bought a whole pile of this grey cotton at the op shop last week.

I've never bought second hand yarn before because usually I don't have any idea if it is wool/cotton/acrylic etc and what ply it is. But luckily for me this pile was made up of lots and lots of little balls and some of them still had their label with the brand (which I recognised) and their details.

The first chance I got I crocheted up a beanie using Vallie's kids Olivia's butterfly pattern.

It was the first beanie I've ever crocheted that fit the desired recipient's head, although looking at it now, it probably could do with one more row.

I ended up dying the beanie after I had finished it using a dark grey dye and am pleased to say that cotton/microfiber dyes beautifully.

I might have a go at dying a whole chunk of it today for another project I have in mind. Any hints about dying yarn appreciated. I am a bit unsure how to do it without getting into one big knot.

A bit of exciting news before I go.

Australian Traveller magazine is out today and we have just been informed that out of 100 Australian Greatest Gourmet Experiences, our business, Daylesford Organics, has come sixth!!!!

I'll post more details on my Daylesford Organics blog once I've bought the magazine.

I hope you get some great news today too. XX