This is the view from about halfway up.

Cameron was very excited to find some animals bones to study (especially as they are studying bones at school), we couldn’t identify the animal but suspect it was a rabbit or possum.

Cameron on the climb to the top. The dog enjoyed the outing too.

See I wasn’t lying, the final bit up to the top and I’m still smiling.

If you look at the view in the right side of this photo you can see just how high up we are.

Yay, the top!!!

It was just after this I started to get a bit of vertigo, did I mention my fear of heights?  It was okay as long as I looked out over the view and not down.

On the way home we stopped at Henley Lake for a few minutes to watch the model speed boats racing.

A nice morning out

One of the first quilts that I made had a bit of an accident (of sorts).  Turns out the wool batting I used in this quilt was part of a bad batch which had a tendency to shrink. A generous sized single quilt shrunk down by about 30%.  I was a bit gutted, but it happens.  So it sat in the corner for ages waiting for me to decide it’s fate.

I eventually decided not to just chuck it, or use it as a dog blanket, but to unpick all the stitching from the binding and the quilting and re-batt and re-bind the the quilt. I knew it would be a lot of work, but I thought it would be worth it in the end.  8 hours of unpicking, 3 hours ironing and de-threading, 1 hour for basting, 2 hours quilting and 1 hour for binding. 15 hours in total, almost as many hours as it took me originally to make it.  Cost-wise the reapirs were cheap.  I used batting offcuts I had here, so the only real cost was thread and new binding, about $6 all up.

Now it’s all pretty again, usable and washable (and able to go in the drier, and important consideration when it’s for a teenager).  Size-wise we lost approximately 1 cm of the top and bottom, and 2cm off each side.  You can see in the photo’s that the wool batting I removed is about 6 inches smaller on all side than the fixed quilt.

I finished a queen size quilt last week.  It was bought straight away and posted yesterday.  Nice to know it will be used straight away

I also made a winter coat for a showcase that’s on in the next week or so.  I managed to get Cameron to try it on and of course he wanted to keep it, so I will make him one with different lining and buttons.

The Autumn weather has been really mild, we have the fire on most days, but not all so haven’t yet switched off the electric hot water.  The mild weather has tricked the chooks into laying again, I’m getting 2 eggs most days.  The chicks are now pretty well grown and we should be able to tell if any are roosters in the next month or so.  I’m hoping for all hens, but that’s not really likely.  I finally pulled all the tomato plants out of the garden this week and got a bed ready for planting garlic and shallots soon. What’s growing at the moment? Silverbeet, spinach, carrots, beetroot, lettuces and leeks.  We don’t usually bother with many brassicas as I’m allergic to broccoli and cauliflower and some cabbages and we don’t usually have much success with cabbages or brussels sprouts.  We did harvest a couple of pumpkins, there were a sneaky few that managed to survive the drought.

The small boy is home sick today.  It’s hard to keep him down though.  He tonsils are enormous and he is all snotty and coughing, but still a bit hyper like all 6-year-old boys.  We have an appointment to see the ENT specialist on Thursday.  I doubt they will take Cameron’s tonsils out, but we will go get him checked out anyway.

Well that’s todays update.  Catch you on the flip side.

Cameron and I had a fantastic time in Hastings!!! We will definitely go for a visit there again.  The boys played together so well!

Cornwall park was lovely.

The view from Te Mata peak was stunning (and scary)! You can see for miles and miles.

It was great to have few days away, I got lots of knitting done in the evenings.

On the way home we stopped and visited the Peka Peka wetlands.

On the crafty front, I made pants for the boy, reversible ones, plus some school pants (not pictured)…

A reversible jacket for a showcase early next month…

An organic cotton and wool cot quilt (now for sale in my Felt shop)…

A cute zippy pouch in some of my Ghastlies fabric…

And last but not least a couple of little dog jackets for my nieces Chihuahua puppy…

Not a bad couple of weeks work, if I do say so myself.

That doesn’t even cover the list of quilts I’d like to make, some from patterns and some originals. It’s hard to choose between work which pays the bills and art, which doesn’t.

I also need to restock my Felt shop with a couple of ready made quilts. I’m feeling the call of Dr SEUSS, which I still have a bit of, but I have another couple of ranges of fabric on the shelf I’d like to work with too (Birch organic cottons). First world problems aye?

I think I’ll ponder my choices for another day and get the pants I’d cut out for Cameron sewn up, as well as a couple of pairs for school, he’s outgrown everything lately, clothes and shoes. He must be doing alright, he never stops eating (or talking) at the moment.

Ian and I got 4 of our garden beds weeded and ready for planting on Thursday so I will pick up some seedlings when I do the shopping tomorrow. Nice to have felt like some work has been done. I’ve planted seeds of carrots, peas, broad beans, beetroot and lettuce.

The kids are driving me a bit batty so I’m looking forward to a change of scene on Monday. Cam and I are going to visit Hastings for a day or two. Enjoy the school holidays!

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
between the crosses,
row on row that mark our place;
and in the sky the larks,
still bravely singing,
fly scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead.Short days ago we lived,
felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved,
And now we lie in Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe;
To you from failing hands we throw the torch;
Be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die we shall not sleep,
Though poppies grow in Flanders fields.

John McCrae

The garden is hibernating, I haven’t yet put in any winter vegetables, I had to wait for the drought to break first.  Given that we’ve now had rain for the last week or so I think I can safely plant some out.  I need to get in some carrots, beetroot, broadbeans, lettuce, leeks and it’s nearly time to plant garlic.  I am still getting lots of tomatoes most days, we are eating lots of rhubarb (cakes and puddings), silverbeet and zucchini. Once I have finished the current custom quilt I will get into the garden and get it sorted.

Craft-wise I finished a jacket for Cam

finished a custom lap quilt

made some cushion covers

plus started a bunch of things that are not finished, like a winter coat for a showcase, cut out pants for the boy but not sewn them yet.  I don’t get much done during the school holidays, so don’t expect to see much for a while.  I have a few more custom jobs coming up in the next month or two, yay, it’s good to be busy.  My knitting is coming along, I’m halfway through knitting my Rae scarf, I might post some pics of that soon.

Animal-wise things are stagnant, but with hope for the future.  We have no replacement beef, I’m not sure what we will do about that, but not-so-little ram lamb has been servicing the ewes, so we are hopeful of some lambs in August.  The little chickens are growing up, still too early to tell if any are roosters, I hope not though.

On the renovation front, our room is almost complete.  Walls patched and painted, I love it.  Just need to paint the bottom skirtings and add some skirting around the windows.  One day we will get new carpet, but will have to wait till the rest of the house is ready for it.

So that us.

I suppose I should do the general stuff first to keep my regular readers happy.  Last night we went out to a local concert (Coffee, Cake and Classics).  Ian, Nathan, Cameron and I.  Lilly was busy elsewhere and also has no interest in classical music at all.   I thought Cameron was old enough to come along as it was a 7pm event, over by 8pm.  Wrong.  Ian enjoyed it, but then he didn’t have to sit next to Cameron.  Nathan and I not so much, interrupted by the fidgeting of a 6-year-old the whole time.  Next time he’s staying home.  Not civilised at all.  Add that to the change for daylight saving ending, makes for a grouchy mother this morning (especially while sleeping in the lounge, where there is NO peace and quiet).

Renovations to the bedroom are still happening, I think the ceiling might be painted today, but it’s not the best day for painting, it’s raining.  I’m pleased it’s raining though as we were meant to get some last week but it didn’t eventuate.  So it’s still a drought here.  The garden will love the rain, I’ve been very slack with watering it the past few weeks.  Now that we are close to having frosts in the morning I will start taking out all the tomato plants as most won’t ripen now.  If we get some more rain next week I will finally plant some Autumn / Winter vegetables. The weather is definitely more autumnal now, we lit the fire yesterday, it was nice to get rid of the morning chill.

We had a bit of drama on Friday morning with our water pump breaking.  Dammit! Another $550 that won’t be spent on renovations (I have to earn it first though).

I haven’t done a lot of quilting but made some wool baby shoes instead.

Yesterday I spent doing some mending.  I had a nice pair of cotton underwear that must have got snagged on a sharp part of the washing line and got a hole in them, so I patched them. I couldn’t bear to throw away a pair that were almost new.  I re-elasticated Cameron’s pirate Cotton On pyjama’s so we could get another winter out of them (the 3rd).  I did the same for some of Ian’s and I cut up some jeans ready for a project I will make in spring, a denim picnic quilt.  We do picnic a fair bit and I will probably back it with something waterproof to make it hardy.  Today I’m going to make Cameron a new top (Sergeant Pepper jacket in black) and new pants (red velvet jeans).  Real work tomorrow.

So onto the books.  I have spent the last 2 months reading the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon (2nd time, but was the first time I’d read them in order).  As soon as I finished the last book I dived into a couple of books that I’d picked up at the Sallies.

Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand – Helen Simonson

This the the first novel by this author and I have to say it’s great!  It was basically about love, for both young and old, materialism, culture, heritage, cross cultural relationships and heroism.  It was funny, sweet and serious.  Best of all it has a happy ending (for some).  A really good not too serious read.

While I Was Gone – Sue Miller

I’ve read one of Sue Miller’s other books (The Good Mother) a long time ago and had remembered that I’d enjoyed it, so that made me pick up this book.  This one took a while to get going, but after a few chapters I settled in.  Although the book is about a murder it’s really more about the exploration of self and loss of self.  Particularly for a wife and mother, how sometimes we lose our identity being those two people, we sometimes forget who we are.  It’s about how relationships with our children change as we all age.  I found the book a little frustrating, I just wanted to give the main character a bit of a shake and tell her to be more assertive and not such a doormat.  This one, not what I’d call a happy ending, but you might disagree.  Not a bad book, not fantastic, however the author did write some paragraphs that really resonated with me.  I’ll add one below.

“As we drove home, I found myself wanting to tell my husband about that feeling, but then not knowing what to call it. He would hear it as a want, a need. He would feel called upon to offer comfort.  I knew he would console me, but consolation wasn’t what I wanted“

This part really spoke to me.  You know that people often joke about asking a woman whats wrong and getting the answer “nothing” or “I’m fine”, this is why.  We’d like to share our feeling sometimes, but don’t want to have others feel like they have to help, console or fix things.  Or sometimes we’d just like to feel, and not share.

Dragon quilt.

Woodland patches.

Red and cream hearts and stars

Pink and Purple hearts, stars and houses

Out to Sea in squares

Out to play 1 + 2

Motocross quilt

I like them all, but have to say making the red and cream and pink and purple quilts was such a blast.  I was given just a colour theme for each and an idea of the type of quilt but basically free reign as to the make up off them.  I have to say they turned out just fabulous and the feedback from my customers is great.  I put pics of them all on Facebook (look up Sew Vivid), the Lego quilt (from my last post) is seriously popular.  I might have to make another with that theme one day. In the meantime I have another custom on the books, just waiting on some fabric to arrive in the post, so I have a week or two to work on whatever I’d like to

And down on the farmlet?? Well, it is official, we are in a drought.  Its been a bit of a challenge.  We’ve had to downsize some stock due to lack of grass, though we have been lucky enough to have some hay to fall back on.  The bore, which we use to water the garden and fill the animal troughs with dried up about 2 months ago.  It will take some serious rain to bring that back into action.  The garden has suffered a bit.  Surprisingly we’ve had a bumper crop of tomatoes (all that hot weather has been good for ripening) and chillies, lots of lettuces, carrots, beetroot, beans, peas and courgettes.  All which we’ve kept alive with grey water from the washing machine.  We had to let the corn, pumpkins and last crop of potatoes die off though as we just haven’t had enough to water them as well.

We have goats!! Well, sort of.  We have friends who have two dairy goat does and no land for them.  So we’ve given them a bit of our land, which has been fenced off and yesterday the girls arrived.  Belle and Rosie.  They are nice and friendly and not very noisy.

Ian, Lilly and Cameron have all been sick, all with different things or a virus that is manifesting as different for each of them.  Nothing terrible, but enough to be a pain.  Nathan and I seem to have avoided it, which is good.  I need to stay well as my next operation is in a couple of weeks.  Hopefully it will be the last one.  I will be having my remaining ovary removed and will go onto HRT.  Scary.

Jack the cat has been at the Vets a bit.  Last year he had an abscess fixed on one of his back toes, it was the claw, kind of ingrown.  It re-occured and turns out it was tumour causing it to grow like that, so he had to have the whole toe and joint removed, as well as cauterizing the pre-cancerous cells on is nose and a dental.  Ouch, expensive.  I had saved some money from all the quilts I’d been making, so we could finally buy some wood to finish fencing off the vege garden, but Jack’s vet bill took all of that   Bugger!  He is okay now and all fixed up.  He’s lucky that I’m a big softie.

Well that’s all I can think of right now, will try to update again soon.

So what have I been making?  A couple of cushions, one for a present for one of Lilly’s friends and the other a swap for some lovely yarn.

I’ve finished the first of 9 custom quilts on order. I expect to get one finished each week for the next 2 months.  No rest for the wicked!

The request this time was a Lego quilt, similar to this one.  I tried to write a pattern, but really still can’t get the hang of using EQ7 (pattern writing software), I just don’t have the patience for it. So instead of working with a pattern I just used my (sometimes flawed) logic and got cracking.  I have to say I’m seriously pleased with the final result. Others must be too, as I have several requests for more Lego quilts.

I’ve almost finished the top of this week’s quilt, hope to get that done this afternoon, then tomorrow will be quilting it, Friday labelling and binding.

I’ve now finished 13 blocks on my Farmers Wife quilt, might press them and take a pic later.

So that’s where I’m at. Busy, busy, busy.  Yay!