The making of Skylas first birthday flower garland

Ive been buisy making a flower garland for the lovely Abby (who blogs at My Love Is ) She is creating a beautiful bedroom for her adorable bubby Skyla and ordered some flowers to go on her daughters bed head. I cant wait to see the room it when its finished!

Abby mentioned what a shame it was that we are far appart as she would have loved to pop in to see how it was coming along and I agreed. What would be the next best thing? A 'The making of' post of course!

 First I divided my kilo of  organic merino wool into 100gram pieces (I started with the weighing scale out on the lawn on a nice sunny day....then little mitch 'accidently let out out the chooks! It got a little trickier with feathered friends about so we headed inside!)

Each piece is platted as this makes it easier to handle.

Next each colour is dyed. I tried out using 'greener shades' dye (an eco friendly dye) for the purple and I was very impressed. I will definately get more colours of this in the future.

I rinse them and pat them dry. After that every chair in my house becomes re-purposed as a drying rack:)

This pic is of them almost dry (although I re dyed the pink and yellow as they werent quite the shade I wanted)

Next part is wet felting. The rovings are layered in different directions which makes a nice strong felt

I like making felt on the side of my sink as the sink ridges seem to help it come together nicely. Oh and so I can look out my kitchen window at birdies who come to nibble on seeds we sprinkled for them:)

I make the string by wet felting a long thin chunk of rovings. It involves a lot of rolling to get it firm and well shaped! Here are some of the flowers and leaves cut out ready to make their way to the garland.

And here is the finished piece, ready to be sent of to brighten Skylas room!

Easter preperations

My friend Alison asked me to read through a pattern that she was writing. Of course when I saw it was for this adorable little easter basket I had to make one!
I cant wait for easter, im planning on making a few more of these and felting some eggs so that my day care children can have lots of egg hunts on the lead up to easter:)

Her pattern is now available in her shop and she has some made up ones for sale too (hers are sooo cute, go check them out!)
Oh and in the background of some of the photos you can see a felt flower garland that I made her a while ago, how fun to see it again:)

(ps, please ignore my horrible blurry night time photo)

Mushrooms

Deck the halls with wool felt mushrooms, fa la la la laah la la la lah...

 Ive been getting started on some christmas tree ornaments. Im aiming to have all natural decorations this year so its about time I got started. Here are my first lot, some cute little mushrooms. Perfect as seems they dont necissarily look christmassy so we can hang them up already. 

I also have some available in my shop .

 Speaking of my little shop, Ive had an enquiry about doing a wholesale order for an eco friendly shop in New South Wales. Rather exciting I must say! 

Im a bit in love with these joyous little fungusses

 Mum gave me this little Christmas tree a few months ago, isnt it gorgeous! Im hoping with this warm weather weve been having it might grow an inch or two before christmas (its grown a lot since I got it already!) I cant wait to bring it inside to decorate in a few months.

Apparently the mushrooms make great nap time conpanions too!

New recipe book

A little while ago my recipe book dissapeared of the face of the earth.

I have no idea how a book that never leaves my kitchen can manage to dissapear, but after much searching it sadly became apparent, that that must be precicely what happened

luckily levin had a great one to give me, much better than my original (except that sadly it doesnt contain our absolute favourite carrot cake recipe like my old one did)

Soon after i saw it, it seemed to be yelling to me, i need to be covered in mushrooms

So now it is.
Honestly, when im so hungry that i pull out my recipe book to cook i probably dont need to look at such a delicious strawberry anyway. Ya know, because that would only make me hungrier!!

Next i will re-do the little sections to give them categories to suit me better (and to put sweets first because thats what i realy want to see first when i open a recipe book:)

Thanks very much Levin for my recipe book, its absolutely perfect!

thankyou!

thankyou so much levin for introducing me to mixtape magazine, i love it so much, its green and crafty and what more could i possibly want in a 'zine'! also, one of the first things i found in one of them was an add for made it, which is like etsy but in australia!!!!! a while back i set up a shop on etsy but with the converting to american dollars and overseas postage it was all to intimidating so sadly i gave up. i looked for something similar in australia but couldnt find anything. now that ive found it im setting up a store to sell little bits and pieces made of natural materials, i plan to make hemp tea towels with binding made of funky quilting fabric, natural toys, things knitted with natural fibers (i have bamboo, cotton and soy to try out) and who knows what else

today i was making some little birds for my tree and i decided to make a few for the shop asweal. but that would mean parting with them and their so darn cute! i think perhaps id better whip up a few more:)

and a close up of my favourite little sleepin babe