a house sparrow

For a long time this has been one of my very favorite birds . I have always seen a lot of them and I remember sharing crumbs and watching them at school lunch time. The other I wanted to make was a willie wagtail (is that not the cutest clip ever?)but I have no black felt

It wasn't until I tried to figure out what they were called that I found out that they are actually an introduce species that is considered a pest. Oh weal, there still sweet so I still made on out of felt for my solstice garland

first I drew a picture

I then figured out what pieces I would need 

 I only had one shade of brown so I used white instead

 I stitched on the details

 carded some wool to stuff him

And there you have it, a pest (a very cute one) on string:)

bringing in the green

 Underneath our hot almost summer sun I picked warm fragrant bunches of rosemary

Crafting Summer and Winter

Summer-

I'm starting with some Summer Solstice/ Christmas ornaments. 

They hang on my star garland.
I made the star garland 2 christmases ago and it has hung there ever since because I just love it, so it really needs something extra to make it feel solsticey!

I have lots of other summery felt ornaments planned for this garland, a jacaranda flower , a strawberry and all sorts of others. I will also be making garlands of bougainvillea again and I have plans for a gum leaf garland or wreath with red and yellow gum nut blossoms.

I'm so enjoying preparing for decorating for summery holidays this year. 

About 4 or 5 years ago when I started decorating for the seasons It began to feel strange that in Australia we have a lot of northern hemisphere wintery Christmas traditions and associate snow men and snowflakes with Christmas even though here in Australia its mid Summer.  

In years passed I've found it hard to figure out seasonally appropriate ways to decorate and celebrate. 

The first year I didn't really decorate or celebrate much but afterwards I felt like id missed out. 

The next year I went back to 'normal' traditions but decided it wasn't for me. 

The following years I slowly started to gather and create my own ideas and traditions. It felt a bit strange doing things my own way the first year and didn't feel particularly 'Chrismasy' but it felt a bit more meaningful and real to me. 

As the years have passed and I can do things for the second and third year it feels right. Completely and wonderfully right. What was missing was 'tradition'. It was too new to feel right. 

Now I look forward to Sun biscuits, Sun tea and energising my crystels on the summer solstice. I light candles for advent with a wreath or rosemary from the garden. Most importantly I get together with all my loved ones, enjoy barbeques, beach visits, and time together. 

The way I celebrate is similar but different to others, evolving traditions that fill me with peace, love joy and rays of our golden summer sun and I love them

Winter-

speaking of being out of season, I've been knitting away at my oat meal pullover ready to sit folded in the cupboard with a bunch of lavender until next autumn and winter when the weather cools again

 Ive also knitted the chunky cable socks that I mentioned I wanted to knit a while back. These took so long to materialise for two reasons.
Firstly the grey wool I ordered turned out to be brown. I was dissapointed so I put it away until I could decide to like it or feel motivated to dye it. I decided I kind of like it.
Secondly I couldn't find the right pattern so I ended up making them up as I went based on other socks I've knit in the past

 My pullover is growing and growing, I'm almost ready to bind off and start the arms. 12 ply wool is wonderful like that

strawberry picking

 On the weekend I went to see my favorite sister.

  She lives in such a beautiful area that we always mean to go on touristy road trips when i'm there. This time we ventured up into the hills in search of strawberries

 and strawberries were exactly what we found!

 plump sun warmed deliciousness. AJ had to keep telling me off for sneakily eating 'just one more' while we were picking. I'm not sure if we were allowed to eat them but I wasn't going to ask them in case they said no:)

 This photo was entirely necessary, after all it was our touristy adventure remember. You don't get much more touristy than ridiculous poses in front of a giant strawberry now do you?

 today I was back to work, building cubbies. Can I really still call it work when most of the day consisted of either building cubbies, reading peter rabbit, which I love as much as them and knitting? Hmm, it does sound a bit far fetched. Anyhow..

While I was at my sisters she taught me to make a yummy roast pumpkin and fetta salad so I made it tonight and ate bites between stitches.
I'm knitting an oatmeal pullover in my new favourite yarn. I've use this cascade a lot since I discovered it (I have 3 projects with it that i haven't put on ravelry yet plus my blanket and centripetal), its so cheap, fast to knit, warm and I just love it. This is my favourite colourway, its a gorgeous teal that reminds me of the ocean where we went for our honeymoon but it has a nice grey through it so it doesn't seem like it will be too bright for a whole sweater

life lately

 wet on we water colour painting some flowers

 collecting peas to plant next year and pulling down the far from lush looking pea cottage

 potting chamomile and looking forward to iced tea

 watering it ever so enthusiasticly

 enjoying basil, one of my favourite tastes of late spring/summer time

Life's been a mix of hot and cold, wool cardigans, singlets and thongs. I do like this time of the year when you just don't know what weather you will wake up to. I'm feeling the need to be closer to the beach and get my feet wet and just be calmed by the lulling waves.
This morning I decided to take the little people to play group. I usually don't take them because by the time I get the last 2 girls dropped off to me its halfway finished so it hardly seems worth all the effort of getting 4 kids organised, drink bottles, hat, snack, nappies etc etc but I got asked yet again by one of the mums if I was coming so I decided to go.
 It totally wasn't my morning- I planned on making muffins but was out of oil. We went to get some but it meant that the muffins weren't ready by the time the girls arrived. The muffins were a complete flop, we must have missed an ingredient but oh weal, it takes more than that to turn this lot of muffins luckily. From that point on I was trying to rush and get us ready while the kids were bouncing off the walls in excitement, loosing hats and shoes quicker than I could put them on them and asking me 5 million questions. We finally arrived at playgroup and it was closed. Yay.
I was tossing up between taking them back home and taking them to put their feet in the water at the little beach and luckily I took a deep breath before deciding. Little beach it was!
Ahh bliss. kids happily splashing wondering, poking stuff with sticks and finding little crabs. Me sitting in the shade sipping a pina colada and enjoying the adorableness of them all playing so happily together. Ok so there was no pina colada but there may as weal have been, it was just what we needed to turn the day around and get us back on track to having a fun day