The Yandoit Lesbian Wool Festival.

When Pepper went down for her nap today, the big girls, my sister Meg and I headed off to The Yandoit Lesbian Wool Festival.

On the flyer it warned us that only women would be allowed in and that only lesbians would be allowed to exhibit.

As soon as we walked into the hall, the girls were whisked off for a lesson in felt ball making.

They loved it and rolled and rolled and rolled.

To be honest, as much as I love the look of felt, I just cannot seem to get past that yellow soap smell. Ewww.

With the girls otherwise occupied, it left us free to watch the spinning lesson,

to appreciate the displays,

to add another bunting example to my inspiration, (this one is sewn straight onto blanket squares and was made by the amazing Alanah who put the whole festival together),

to partake in a bit of retail therapy,

to search for the perfect buttons,

and to touch, smell and discuss the wool with the spinner/dyer/felter/shearer.

I bought that pink hand dyed, hand spun wool in the top of the basket. It has a sparkle through it and is totally divine.

There were granny square lessons, (the woman on the right won that felted shawl in the raffle),

and gorgeous examples of woolly crafts like this nest.

We all loved the whole festival. It had such a warm, community feel to it. It was wonderful to be able to discuss all things wool with people who wanted and cared to discuss it.

And it was great to be able to ask the silly questions I've been thinking about with no one to ask. Yes, crochet uses about 20% more wool than knitting and yes, some painted wool patterns are better suited to crochet because they have wider blocks of colour. I also found a spinning teacher which is a bit exciting.

I've come home with some beautiful wool to add to the stash and a thought that I might have to beg Alanah to make an exception and let me be part of it next year.

I hope you enjoy what's left of your weekend. X

White pants & stuff.

Yesterday I had a tiny window of sewing time and I made some white pants from a tablecloth I've had kicking around here for a while.

White pants for Miss Pepper!! What was I thinking?

What two and a half year old can stay clean enough to wear white pants? Certainly not mine.

Maybe it was a wish for that sort of trans seasonal weather when you can wear dresses with flimsy white pants underneath. Sew it and it will be?!

That tree that you can see in that pic lying down in the dam fell down last Thursday night. It was a dark, cold and still night and Pepper and I were home alone and I was putting her to bed. All of a sudden we heard an almighty crash and we literally felt the earth move.

We looked at each other in terror and then all the wild life in the area began to bark/squawk/crow/chirp. It took me a minute to work out what it had been, but she was onto it straight away...a dinosaur!! Of course! Why didn't I think of that?

We are just home from a farmers' market in Melbourne. We had a fantastic market selling record numbers of eggs, the girls were mostly gorgeous and helpful, we caught up with lots of friends, stocked up on some yummy produce and packed up before the wild weather came in.

I am cold and tired now though.

I think I'll run a bath and pop all our jammies near the fire to warm up.

We'll have fresh pasta with pesto and parmesan for dinner.

I don't think we'll make it to the surprise party tonight though.

A bit of knitting and bed more likely.

Oh and I finished the bunting dress yesterday and popped it in the post. I hope its new owner likes it.

I hope you are having a great weekend.

What's going on in your world?

My creative space.

Its cold and wet and windy in my creative space this morning. I have been wandering around the farm, trying to be creative with my photo taking and have had to rescue my dress from the bushes where its been blown away on more than one occasion.

Eventually I took the pics in the hot house next to the house which is a bit protected from the elements and the light is brighter than inside the house.

I am soooooooooooo over winter this year.

There have been some gorgeous interpretations of bunting used around blogland in the last few weeks here and here and here and here and here and here and I have been oh so inspired and decided to join in the party.

Introducing the bunting dress, which Indi insists on calling the red team dress. She has even asked me to make her one for sports day.

Its still got a bit of work left to do on it but it makes me feel happy and festive and that's what counts on a cold grey day like today.

I'm also knit, knit, knitting away on a cotton version of the Eden dress. This one is coming together so quickly as the cotton slips right off the ends of the needles but now that I am up to the straight knitting round and round bit it isn't all that exciting. I do have plans for a bit of fun on the hem if I can work out how to do what I want to do.

And finally, last night I cast on Tikki's scarfette.

If you look very carefully, down the center you'll see a cable. Yep, I can knit cables now. In fact I love the cable, even though I have no idea how slipping two stitches off and knitting them afterwards creates that twist. I am so obsessed with the cable that I'm thinking I might have to knit one of those fisherman's jumpers. Actually considering the weather we've been having, a fisherman's jumper and an ark might just be what we need.

Off to put another log in the fire and click on over to Kirsty's.

Have a Thursday day y'all.

Pepper's Eve.

Hey! I hope you are having a great weekend.

Bren is in Melbourne and we're having a girls' day here. So far we've been up to the Sunday market, to Cliffy's for coffee and to the skate park. Now we're home for a bit of playing schools and hopefully some knitting by the fire.

I hope the sun is shining where you are. That you have interesting things to read/watch/look/listen to.

I hope you can see the bottom of the washing basket and that your laundry is sweet smelling and folded and put away.

I hope you have lots of ideas for delicious meals to make and have all the ingredients already in your pantry and fridge.

I hope your children are behaving gorgeously and are funny and helpful.

I hope your tea/coffee is hot when you get a chance to drink it.

I hope you find a bit of time in your day to lie on the couch and close your eyes and daydream.

I hope you are feeling inspired and excited and satisfied.

I hope someone reminds you of how ace you are.

I hope you are not intimidated by the craft you want to make. Just go for it I say. Don't expect it to be perfect straight away. Ask Mr Google lots of questions. Email the designer. Ask your Nana. Undo it and redo it. Enjoy the process.

I hope you are proud.

I hope you are having fun.

Pepper's is wearing her Eve dress that I cast off last night.

Huge thanks to Kylie for sending me the pattern. I won it in her giveaway recently.

Details here.

See ya! X

Addicted to knitting.

A few days ago I was playing this game with myself to make the mundane housework a bit funner; empty the dishwasher - knit a row, hang out the washing - knit a row, chop up some vegies - knit a row... You get the picture? It just made it all a bit more fun. Knitting was my reward for all the other bits.

Then all of a sudden it occurred to me that I wanted to knit more than I wanted to do anything else right then.

Was I addicted to knitting?

So I asked Mr Google and I found these symptoms of addiction.

• Tolerance - the need to engage in the addictive behaviour more and more to get the desired effect. Yep! I probably don't need to but I definitely want to.
• Withdrawal happens when the person does not...engage in the activity...Don't try to hide my knitting needles from me or you'll see withdrawal!
• Difficulty cutting down or controlling addictive behaviour. Don't wanna - not gonna.
• Social, occupational or recreational activities becoming more focused around the addiction...Yep! If I can knit, I'm there.
• The person becoming preoccupied with the addiction, spending a lot of time on planning, engaging in...addictive behaviour. Hmmm Ravelry, I have you to blame for that one.

I could also add to that list: spending money on feeding your addiction (patterns, yarn, needles). And staying up at night planning for your addiction (if I knit that for her with that yarn in that colour...)

Please don't get me wrong. I am in no way belittling the seriousness of addiction and addictive behaviour and symptoms, I am just slightly amused and slightly scared of how easily our craft behaviour can slot into these definitions.

When Bren told me that he was going to be spending some time with a friend of his with a baby this weekend, I straight away started going through patterns and yarns to knit her up a beanie. Any excuse really.

Unfortunately, this Bear Beanie turned out enormous and so was claimed by Miss Pepper. It was quick and fun to make and was the first time I had used four double pointed needles. Details here.

You guessed it, I'm off to cast on a smaller size for the baby.

Have a fabulous weekend. X

My creative space.

My creative space this week is dedicated to and comes with a humongous thanks to my farmer boy.

Late yesterday afternoon, he returned from a trip to Ballarat to find me losing my marbles and barely holding it together. I had had a horrible morning. I was sick of the cold, the rain, the grey, the fog, the wet, the screaming two year old, the fire mess, the dirty house, the what's for dinner, the hungry but not hungry for that two year old, the orange cake that didn't cook in the middle, the overflowing laundry, the washing hanging up to dry all over the house, the defiant two year old, bla bla bla.

My farmer boy took one look at me, tried unsuccessfully to have a conversation with me and them took himself off and cancelled his appointments for the rest of the day. He then sent me into my sewing room to sew and helped with the after school pick ups and drops off, gave them dinner, played with them and got them into bed.

And I sewed summery, flowery, happy things.

My grey mood ensured there were a few sewing disasters, the bobbins kept jumping out of my hands and rolling across the room, I snapped a few needles and sewed over some pins and the skirt above started as a dress but after I sewed the front of the bodice to the back and then tore the fabric when attempting to pull it apart, it became a skirt.

Miss Jazzy was disappointed in the skirt not dress so I started this cheery yellow one. If I can sew on a few more ruffled layers without a disaster she said she'll love me forever.

And a half made A line dress to try and work out Miss Pepper's size.

So thank you for my sanity (?) my farmer boy. We may live in the coldest and greyest and wetest part of the whole world but at least we can dress a bit springtimey.

Over to Kirsty's now to check out what the other creative peeps are up to.

Happy Thursday. X

Ella's skipping dress.

Not so long ago I wrote here about my passion for sewing. About how sewing just one seam can help make my world make a bit more sense.

But then just under a month ago two things happened:

1. I discovered and fell in love with knitting.
2. A little symbol came up on the screen of my sewing machine telling me that it needed to be serviced.

So I turned it off and walked away and knitted and didn't deal with the fact that I really had to book Nina Bernina in for a service.

The funny thing is that I didn't want to take her in for a service in the first place, because I couldn't bear to be without her for as long as it took. In actual fact it has been so much longer.

Today when I couldn't put it off any longer, I switched her on and the symbol was gone. I felt so grateful to her that she was letting me sew, that I promised to take her in for a service this week. And I will.

This skipping dress is made for a princess that lives in a patchworky castle. Check out what Andi made my Jazzy for her birthday as a swap. Isn't it the best!

This dress was made from bits of cord and vintage sheets from my stash, an op shopped zipper and bias binding and a crocheted by me motif and ric-rac. This time I stitched the Everything but the thread bit straight onto the binding.

Now I just hope it is pink enough for the princess.

Ok, now the sewing is done I can do a few rows/rounds of this before school pick up.

I hope your Monday is a funday. XX