thirteenth

For some reason I decided that today I would post some of the photos Cath Muscat took of our family for Doug Purdie's Backyard Bees book. I love those photos of us five in our bee suits and I've been planning on blogging them ever since she sent them to us on a disc months and months ago. I'd gotten permission from the photographer, from the publisher and all I had to do was load them up and press publish. But then last year I didn't have a very bloggy year and days and weeks and months went by and I never did.

So just before, while I was walking around the block with Indi, I decided that today was the day.

As soon as we came home I went straight to the spot I was sure they were, and they weren't. So I went to the next most likely spot and they weren't either. And then I started rummaging, and shuffling, and hunting, and having a minor freak out. I really got a bee in my bonnet. One of the worst things that can happen to a disorganised, chaotic person is to lose something and it seems I have and I'm not happy about it.

So for now there will be no bee photos.

But while I was searching what I did find was some of my abandoned craft projects. Some works that felt like brilliant ideas at the time. All of them at different stages of completion, but all put aside for new projects all the same.

So in the interest of full disclosure, and because I have lost the bee pics, I present six projects that may or may not remain unfinished forever.

Work In Process (WIP) one

A pile of 31 crochet motives I made last May, with their tails still hanging out, never blocked, never hung, never admired as a finished project. Shame.



WIP two

There was a time last year when Miss Pepper was having awful nightmares and we bought her a tacky dream-catcher to try and solve the problem quickly. I had full intentions of knitting her a beautiful Mama - made one instead. Lucky she grew out of that phase and didn't rely on my creation, hey.



WIP three

I once had the awesome plan to teach myself to be a better knitter by knitting every single square in the book 201 Knitting Motifs, Blocks, Projects and Ideas. After I finished I intended to sew them all together to make a blanket. Unfortunately I only got to square 45. I do love this project though and think I still might pick it up again from time to time. Hopefully.



WIP four

I have all these little piles of fabric that were once intended for greatness. Some for dresses for the girls, some for quilts and some for other grand plans. Some are wrapped in bits of pattern, some have bits cut out and ready and some like this pile are just an idea.



WIP five 

Is half a Mara shawl.

Last winter I wore my grey Mara almost everyday and often thought how nice it would be to have a blue one. So I cast one on. I have absolutely no idea why I put it down. Perhaps I'll pick it up again when the days get chilly.



WIP six

Is a rug I started crocheting from strips of vintage sheets last July. I think I never went any further because the making hurt my hands. Maybe I should do a round or two, here and there though because it's beginnings are pretty cute.

Not shown are the Olinda cardigan I started over a year ago and put aside for a bit and lost my place in the pattern, a couple of crochet blankets that we snuggle under often but that still have straggly unsewn in ends, and probably a few more projects that I didn't unearth this afternoon and therefore can't remember.

Hmmmm a bit naughty hey.

So tell me lovely folk, do you have a hidden stash of WIP's or are you loyal and monogamous to the last darned end?


I hope you have something wonderful going on to keep you busy.

Love ya!

xx

twelfth

Hello honey bunches!

How are things at your place?

Although I could easily do another few blogs about all the spoon carving that's going on around here, I thought I should shake things up a bit and write about something else.

So my twelfth (what a strange word both in spelling and pronunciation), blog is about the three things that I am making whenever I can squeeze in a round, or a row, or a coil.

Firstly, there is the basket. 

I'm not sure why I started making this basket the other day, but there I was sitting on the floor of my craft area with Pepper doing her weaving and I just started coiling. I haven't done any basket making for about ten years so it took me a little while to get it started but then I couldn't put it down. And haven't really wanted to ever since.

I'm using baling twine (AKA farmers' friend) as the base and odd balls of cotton for the top. I'm doing three coils and a figure eight into the row beneath each time. Around and around and around. It's slow going but I'm loving it.



Secondly there is the sock blanket.

Each time I cast off a pair of socks I knit the leftover yarn into my blanket. It's probably a bit optimistic to call it a blanket, sock yarn is pretty fine and it's going to take a long time and a lot of pairs of socks before it'll even cover my tootsies, but one square at a time hey.



And thirdly there are the stripy socks.

Each time I look over at my farmer boy carving another spoon and am tempted to have a go myself, I remind myself of this pair of socks. I cannot wait to wear these socks and cannot afford to fall in love with another craft right now. So he's shaving curly bits of wood and I'm knitting colourful bits of wool, practical and perfect.

What are you making these days anyway?

I hope your tootsies are warm wherever you are.

Big love xx


Happy Birthday Abby! xxxxx

eleventh

My family are officially obsessed with spoon carving.

I think that watching the people you love discovering their passion is one of the best things in the whole world.

Yesterday afternoon we went and cut a few branches off a pine-tree in our wood-lot. The girls played around skinning and sharpening bits while farmer Bren chopped some branches in half. After that we came home and he worked alongside them and showed them how to carve and shape a spoon.

For hours they sat up at the kitchen table together working and learning and making mistakes and trying different techniques and teaching each other. It was such a gorgeous scene. I may have even cried from happiness at one stage.

And the end products are things of such beauty. I'm so excited. How wonderful to be able to fashion something so beautiful and useful from a chunk of wood. What a brilliant skill to have.

This afternoon we went and got a bunch of apple wood, I'll show you those photos soon.

I hope you've had/are having a gorgeous Sunday.

And tell me, what's that thing you love doing, that gives you happiness beyond everything else at the moment?

Big love xx

Tenth

Late last night, just before we were about to go to bed, we decided to head down to the chooks to check that they were all tucked up safely in their houses. Earlier that day, in preparation for the heavy rains to come, we had pulled their houses a bit further up the hill onto higher ground and extended the fences to accommodate them.

Dressed in our pyjamas with raincoats, gumboots and head-torches, we drove down the hill. And as the head-lights flashed across the paddock we saw, to our horror, that about 280 of the 300 chooks were scrunched in a huddle, soaking wet, on the site that their houses were positioned before we had moved them that morning.

In a complete panic we jumped out of the car, grabbed handfuls of chicken legs and started carrying them up the hill to their dry houses. 150 steps there with four chickens each, 150 steps back, in the pouring rain, in the pitch dark. I think we did that crazy dance about four or five times before farmer Bren had a brainwave and drove off to fetch some chook crates.

Upon his return we loaded eight birds into each crate, drove up the hill, unloaded each bird into their house and drove back down the hill to repeat the process. Over and over and over.

By the time we had popped the last chook into her house and wished them goodnight we were saturated, exhausted, it was well after midnight and I had that thought that I have from time to time - wouldn't it be nice to actually go home from work. Wouldn't it be lovely to knock off and leave it all behind until the next day.

Needless to say we've been taking it rather slowly today, netting the overgrown apple trees in my parents' orchard, looking after the animals, whittling and basket making. And thankfully despite their nightmare night, every chicken survived the ordeal. Phew.

Hopefully they'll find their way home tonight.

Hopefully you spent your tenth day of the new year doing something you love.

Ciao xx

ninth - (yes Indi you guessed it!)

I am slowly reading my way through the comments on my last blog and I want to thank you for being so generous with your thoughts and feelings and suggestions. I wasn't sure I wanted to post that blog because late last night when I wrote it I wasn't certain I had gotten everything I wanted to across. But as the comments started coming through I was so happy I did. You guys never fail to amaze me with your words and I'll be taking them all on board.

Another way to rid your day of its busyness, I discovered today, is to let the seven year old take charge.

This afternoon, after we had finished moving our chickens I asked her if she'd like to take a shortcut home. She said she wanted to help the brown chook she was watching find a worm first and then she would lead me. So I waited for a while until she gave up on the worm.



Then as soon as we had climbed the chook fence she pulled out some lyrics to a song from her pocket, unfolded them and started to sing. Of course I wasn't allowed to go anywhere and had to wait until she was finished.

Then we picked some berries to eat and she walked me through grass so long our jeans were wet up to our knees.

I think it was at that point that she couldn't quite work out where we were and where we needed to go and let Jo-Jo our dog lead the way. Not long after we started following him Jo-Jo got the scent of some animal and started tracking it through the forest. We followed. Up, down, across and then backwards we went.

At one stage we lost Jo-Jo and she got worried but then quickly got distracted by discovering an old mine shaft and some broken shards of china.

Then she remembered to whistle for Jo-Jo, he came back and we went on.

We followed butterflies, we climbed on fallen trees, we discussed her vomiting sisters and made a plan for dinner. And we wandered.



Only deciding to come home at long last because she was hungry, swinging her bike helmet that she'd found discarded someplace under a tree.




A quick handful of peas, then inside to strip off her wet gear and help her Dad roll out the pasta.

Always moving, always chattering and singing but never busy, pretty cool I think.

It's POURING with rain and thundering away here and I can hardly think, I hope this makes sense.


Sooz and Sue, if you are reading this I need your Ravelry usernames so Georgie can send you a copy of her pattern.


And before you go, I'd love it if you would play our dinner-table game and tell me what was your BPOD (best part of your day)? Mine was all of the above.


Lots a love

xx

eighth

We spent the eighth day of the year celebrating my Mum's birthday and in the veggie garden.

We've been having conversations about busyness over the past few days.  About how our society seems to value busyness and how people seem to wear their busyness as a badge of honour. The busier we are the more we must be achieving, the more we must be succeeding, the more demands we must have on us, the more we should be admired, or pitied, or assisted or heard.

Although we also live a life where lots of things need to be achieved each day, where often the to-do lists get longer rather than shorter as the day progresses, and where we really need to work hard to achieve what we want to, we've been talking about ways we can get rid of the busyness. Ways we can slow down, prioritise, be more efficient and more selective.

We started today off with a discussion about what needed to be done. After making the list we decided to stay close to the house in the garden. We worked with Pepper showing her how to use the seeder to plant carrots, we spoke about weeds and pulled out a bunch, we examined the beans climbing up the fences, we watched for any blossoming sunflowers, we dug to see if we could find any potatoes yet, we watched the birds, the bees and the butterflies, we squished a few caterpillars but left some for the ladybirds, we looked at the clouds for rain, we noticed the breeze on our hot skin and we saw that the shallots have divided. It was a gorgeous few hours that could have gone on longer but we were chased inside by the rain.

I feel like we are practising at not being busy at the moment because the girls are on school holidays and we have more freedom to play around without the routines and deadlines of the school term, but hopefully we'll learn some tricks and come up with some strategies to manage the busyness for when things heat up again.

It's amazing how busy the slow life can be, I wonder if it is possible to achieve all that we want to and still feel like the tortoise - slow and steady.


Oh I almost forgot, the five winners of the TikkiKnits beanie giveaway are:

Sooz
Skye
CopperPatch
Sue
Darklyss

Please leave me a comment with your Ravelry user-name and Georgie will send you your pattern over there.Yay!

Before I go I'm really interested in how you manage your busyness?
Do you rush through your list or are you more calm and considered?
Do you have any tricks for a beginner like me?

I hope your days are sunshiny and productive.

Lots of love xx

seventh

The seventh day of the new year is our farmer boy's birthday.

We tried to convince him to have a party, to go on an adventure, or to go camping, but he told us that all he wanted was a day off. A day where he did not leave the farm, was not busy, or productive.

We gave him a pancake breakfast, loads of hand made cards and prezzies, a pavlova lunch, and we gave him a set of wood carving knives.



And when we went down to look after the animals and clean the irrigation filters, we brought back up with us a bit of black wattle.



First he chopped it in half and then he got to work with his new tools.











After a while the girls got their knives out too.



It was such a gorgeous way to spend the afternoon, busy hands, snippets of conversation and curly wood shavings.



We'll finish the day with a movie and popcorn.

I feel like we gave our boy the happiest birthday and everything he asked for. Oh except the non productive bit, look at all those shavings.

Happy, happy birthday farmer Bren, oh how we lovelovelove you!!

I hope you guys had a great farmer Bren's birthday too.
Oh and I'll draw the five beanie winners tomorrow if that's ok, the movie is starting and I don't want to miss out.

xxxx