Yay, my swap arrived :-)

Not sure if I blogged about it earlier (memory like a sieve), but I did some sewing for a swap with the lovely Andrea.  I sent of 3 pairs of baby shoes, and a wee surprise for her daughter too, in return Andrea was going to knit me something (a surprise).  Well my parcel arrived on Saturday, but the camera wasn’t talking to the computer so it took me a while to get pics on here   I was so pleased with my pressie, it must have been very hard to choose something to knit, especially for a complete stranger who lives on the other side of the world, where it’s just coming into spring.

Look at the gorgeous things i got.  A cabled cowl and headband/ear warmer.  Despite in being spring, the weather here has turned bad again, so I’ve been using them already.  The yarn is a beautiful Debbie Bliss Alpaca wool.  Very soft and snuggly.  And the green is a great colour on me.  So Andrea, big thanks, it was lovely swapping with you.  I do feel bad though, as the postage from the US to here was horrendous.  So i will def keep that in mind for any future swaps.

Now onto more mundane stuff.

I bought Cam these cool Batman PJ’s when he was just a little baby, saw then on TM and couldn’t resist them.  Now he’s a big boy, he fit them.  Cute aye?

The other night he got hold of the sunshade which i had out ready to put back on his car seat (huh, where’d spring go?), and he decided it made a good sleeping bag.  So easy to keep kids amused

When we were gardening on the weekend Ian caught this Skink.  It was quite happy being checked out, and didn’t really even try to run away. 

I’m off now to try and catch the late news.  We are having a (almost) TV free week.  Yesterday we saw 45 mins of 60 minutes, and then I watched the late news, and today we watched 2 movies (one at each end of the day), which for us is pretty good.  We’ve been playing heaps of games.  It’s pretty hard to play board games with a just 2 year old round, hence the movies to amuse him, but most of the time it’s not bad.  Lilly has even been reading (shock horror), two books already.

Read Full Post »

Cloth shopping bags

Clare and I went Op shopping on Friday.  Got quite a few bargains.  One of which was a nice piece of Pacifica style linen fabric.  Just enough to make these two re-usable shopping bags and a small quilted table runner.  I’m putting the bags in my present box, but I don’t think they will stay there for long as I have someone in mind to give them to.

Not bad for fifty cents

Read Full Post »

Growing Challenge update

A big day gardening here today.  We are still getting more beds prepared while things are sprouting in the woodshed (our seedling house).  Wasn’t too bad this morning, but was very windy by afternoon, gusting about 150km per hour.  Ian and I got heaps done though.  Some fencing around the corn patch (corn still in the shed till the frosts are past).

We finally weeded this garden, which has the original raised bed we put in when we first moved here.  It has been fallow all winter, so the weeds were nearly waist high.

We are expanding to use this part of the garden, which apart from the camellia (which is doing great after a heavy prune a few months ago) has our newish citrus trees in it, and an olive too, which was a gift from friends.  I’m planning to plant some beans here, so Ian has dug a trench and loaded it with compost, as the soil here isn’t great.

This is next to that corner, which we haven’t weeded yet.

We still have a little compost yet, so I’m saving that for the place where our artichokes are going to be planted.

In the seedling house lots of things are growing.  The silver beet has come up, borlotti beans, two truss tomatoes, a purple artichoke, basil, Lebanese cucumbers.

On the job list for tomorrow is to get some carrots and radishes planted as they are sow direct, and to plant the cabbage seedlings that Clare gave me.

Read Full Post »

I’ve been a bit naughty :-)

No, I haven’t been out buying fabric, or anything like that.

I bought this bottle of wine last week, it was for Nathan and Lilly to give to their Hockey coach this Friday at prize giving.  But I drunk it (not all by myself, Ian helped).  Now I will have to get a replacement one.  It was really nice wine, (and made locally too).

Okay onto the gardening.  I’ve finally put in the first lot of spuds.  Took a while, but I got there in the end.  It was a bit of an achievement, as I usually leave the planting to Ian (I’m better at supervising), but due to lack of time, I did this lot.   I hope they come up okay.

As the new potato patch is part of the wood paddock, I even put a little fence around it.  No I’m not an obsessive compulsive (my house would be a lot tidier otherwise)

Then I got Ian to get me another load of compost, and got my strawberry patch ready.

I’m going to grow the climbing peas and beans against the wall here too.  I think it will be a good spot for them.

 

Crafts.  I have done some

This is a birthday pressie for my niece.  I wanted to make her a quilt, but ran out of time (and money), so I made her this pencil roll.  The fabric is 100% Japanese Silk (thanks Clare).  I think it will be sophisticated enough for a young lady turning 15.

This afternoon i wanted to make something small and quick, so i used so scraps of a devine Michael Miller fabric to make a set of quilted coasters.  They turned out very nice.

Ok, that’s it.  Nothing deep and meaningful

 

Hi Jo, nice to see you here.

Read Full Post »

Hard work

Well the weekend was spent splitting wood.  We manged to get 10 trailer loads done. It seems a bit wierd that we have only just finished using the fire over winter (in fact it was in use last week) but we are working on next years wood already.  We had two big (really, really big) gum trees that came down in a huge wind we had (i think it was in October last year).

This pic was taken after the fire brigade had been to clear the trees off the road (the main highway).  It was a bit scary seeing the huge trees down on the road, but no-one was injured.  So today we split all the wood that had been cut from the two trees.  It’s nearly all done, just a few smaller bits left.   I do like being on the hydraulic splitter , probably because i feel a bit inadequate that i can’t split it with the axe (only the gum, i can split pine with an axe).  It also meant that Ian did most of the stacking.  It doesn’t pay to be squeamish when working on the splitter, there’s all sort of creepy crawlies in the wood.

Heaps of these black beetles.

And heaps of these huhu grubs as well.  We collected as many of the huhu grubs as we could, free protein for the chooks.

Although i felt a bit sorry for the bird who was stupid enough to build a nest in the log pile, there are limits to my conservation efforts, so this nest is no longer there.  There were no eggs in it yet, so I’m not completely heartless.

We can relax a bit now, although we still have two plum trees to cull, and will get some pine to burn with the gum later.  I was feeling a bit of city-love while doing the hard work.  Some days it just seems heaps easier to live somewhere with electric heating, or to just buy wood in, but i guess we have some satisfaction in a job well done.

I did manage to get a bit of sewing done last week, but not much

Cam has outgrown nearly all his medium nappies, so I made him these pull up pants.  They are a bit slimmer than his pocket nappies, and have less absorbency inside, but I’ve noticed that he is not weeing as much now that he nearly ready for toilet training.  They do fit nicely and use less fabric to make.  I made two without snaps, but decided that was bad idea.  The snap-less ones fit great, but are a bugger to try and stuff (pocket style) and i thought it also would be messy pulling them down when he’s pooed.  So i did 3 with snaps, and I’ve 3 more half sewn.  It sure is easier to pull them on when he’s standing up, better than the battle to get him to lie still :-0

The seedlings are doing awesome.  All 4 of the Zucchini Black Beauties that I planted have sprouted.  Last year none did, so I bought seedlings from the garden shop.  My butter beans (okay, just one) are up, 3 climbing beans are up, as are coriander and Lebanese and lemon cucumbers.  Hooray for growing food.  We have to get the potatoes in this week.

Read Full Post »

Growing Challenge

I’ve joined up to the Growing Challenge, I noticed it on the sidebar of Scrub Oak, so went off to have a wee look.  What a great idea, and a bit more incentive to blog more about the gardening happening here at Highway Cottage.  Especially as we are just starting spring.  Our garden is going to be much bigger than last year, we’ve just added the new raised bed, got the corn patch ready, and half dug the potato patch.  Last year we grew potatoes in the pig pen as we didn’t have any pigs, but as we now have piglets we are using some of the old gum paddock next to the house, as well as a couple of other spots.  We like to spread the growing around as we are still learning about ideal positions and soil conditions.  Some of the things were are growing this year that we’ve never tried before are peas, borlotti beans, purple dwarf beans, globe artichokes, purple de jesu atrichokes, cocoselle zucchini, fennel (later in the summer), mmm I’m sure there are others, but i just can’t remember right now.  Heres a couple of pics of the seedlings taken yesterday.

This morning i’ve been weeding the overgrown herb garden, and taking out some ugly little bushes from there as well, in preparation for growing strawberries there.  I’ll still have the herbs at one end I tried growing strawberries last year, without as success, so if anyone wants to leave a comment with helpful hints I’d be grateful.  I’ve picked a full sun position, and will be planting in some lovely compost.  Hopefully this year will be better.

Read Full Post »

Spring :-)

It really felt like spring here today (probably because it is). The sky was so incredibly blue, it was warm and sunny, with enough breeze to get the washing dry.  It’s so nice when it’s like that on the weekend.  The kids had a good day too, with Nathan off to a mates place, and Lilly had a friend over, Cam followed either Ian or I around all day.

We picked up our beast from the butchers this morning.  I think we will Be set for meat for the next 6-8 months now (except bacon, that will wait till Penn and Teller are big enough).  We are getting some really good spring growth in the paddocks now, so at least I can stop worrying about Brian and Shirley getting enough to eat.  The water tanks are still almost full too, after getting some more rain this week.

I finally got some sewing time in.  The place mats and coaster are part of a wedding present for a friend who is getting married next month.  So quick and easy to make. The pattern calls for one piece of fabric for each mat or coaster, folded in half,but made these with contrasting fabric for the back, just to make them a bit different.

Ian got some work done on the huge remaining stumps of the trees that came down last year, as we have the log splitter on hire next weekend.  I’ve promised not to blog about him getting the blade of the chainsaw stuck, so I’ll finish there I think

Read Full Post »

Happy birthday to me :-)

A pretty good day.  Lots of birthday texts from all who i expected to remember, and a couple of extras.  Presents at breakfast time. Ian is out in the kitchen now making my dinner, a Thai style scallop curry, while i update the blog, with a glass of lovely Margrain Sauvignon Blanc next to me (a stunning local wine) and a wicked looking Chocolate Gateaux for dessert. YUM.  Here’s a pic of some of my pressies.  All ethically bought from Trade Aid

I was kinda hoping for a Cover stitch machine, but it wasn’t realistic, especially as we had a burst water pipe here on Wednesday, which is going to be expensive I’m sure.  The plumbers gave us great service though, and were here half an hour after i called, and it was all fixed (properly) in a couple of hours.  Now to wait for the bill to come in.  Our seedling are all going well, and I mooched a few more different seeds from Clare today, so more planting on the weekend.

Read Full Post »

Just another manic Monday

Jeez I hate Mondays.  I always think it would be nice to calmly get on with breakfast and getting the kids organised, but it never turns out that way.  Nathan kindly hogged the shower for half an hour (which meant that none of us girls could use the toilet either), and then he only had just over ten minutes to get his lunch ready and have breakfast.  He does seem to be at his worst on Mondays.  I do admit to a huge sigh of relief when the bus comes at 7.55 to get them

I did have a productive day after the middle kids were gone.  Managed to finished Clare’s skirt, and then while Cam had an afternoon sleep (hooray) I finished the PJ’s in the pic above, I was pretty pleased with them, as the flannel only cost $1 and the t-shirting is about 50 cents worth of a huge pile I bought a few weeks ago.  I will make him a couple more pairs for when the weather is a bit warmer, as the t-shirt only has 3/4 sleeves (think I will hem them next time instead of adding cuffs).

I got this pile of flannel from Spotlight when I went there on Saturday.  I’ve plans for a super bright, super soft quilt.  I even have all the fabric pre washed and shrunk ready for cutting.  It’s going to keep me busy though, as I have promised myself that I will make the big boys new quilts for Xmas (this year)   Ours is still in progress, and I have to confess I’m still not liking all the free motion quilting work.  Nice effect, but i like things that are finished quicker. Oh well, I shall keep plodding along with it on my Tuesday night sewing class.  At least I’m pushed into getting some done.

As well as spotlight, Lilly, Cameron and I visited “All Aboard” in Featherston.  A fabulous toy shop!  I got these really cute wooden animals.  I’m quite keen on the idea of making some myself sometime (dreams are free you know):-).  Cam thinks they are cool, and has heaps of fun playing with them.

Cam took a dive headfirst into the wooden edge of our bed this afternoon.  Awesome way to make the most of the hell hour   He was hiding under the blanket and launched into the wood.  Has a wicked lump between his eyes, and a black eye.  Poor wee blighter.  No more playing on the big bed I suppose.

I’m guessing that toilet training won’t be too far away for Cam.  He sat on the potty twice on Saturday and did wees, then kindly went wees in his (almost) empty toy box.  Poor monkey needed a wash anyway.  Since then he hasn’t made it to the potty on time, but is telling me when he wees in his nappy, and is happy to have sit from time to time.  I guess I won’t need to make many more nappies (although I did BUY him a large side snap and I’m very happy with the fit, so I might make a couple of those).

We did lots of gardening yesterday, as the weather was great.  Ian dug the patch for the corn, which has just sprouted in my trays, and we planted out the Cavalo Nero and Turnips that Clare gave me, and planted out the Onion seedling that we bought a few weeks ago.

Penn and Teller are doing great, and the chooks laying plenty too.

Later.

Read Full Post »

And the winner is…………………….

Razz – with Penn and Teller.  Thanks to everyone for the great repsonse and cool suggestions, it was hard to make the decision in the end.  Well, I’m off now to find the right prize to send to Razz.  Stop back when we will play “name the calf” in a few weeks time

I’m leaving you with a picture of a couple of pairs of baby shoes made this week, one will be for a swap and the others for gifts or selling.

Read Full Post »