inside, outside

 : : inside

A spot cleared for my craft bits and pieces in the play room. Formerly it had become a spot for everything that didn't have a place (ie a big mess) now it is a breath of fresh air

buntinting I made last week from some peter rabbit fabric scraps, flowers brought in. The tiny posie off daffodills has filled the room with its sweet scent

some of my home spun wool being knitted into a little something. I love the feel of the lanolin

: : outside

our peas got damaged by fierce weather yesterday, they were reaching to the very top of the poles and now they are all blown down(you can see the poles are wonky too!). A bit sad but their still healthy and full of peas so thats what matters the most of course

 bennys parents dropped off about 10 bales (!!!) of pea straw as they were sick of bits blowwing into their pool. The garden and apple blossom kids are appreciative!

 my very favourite place to sit (my $2 garage sale chair)

A dinner I looked forward to all day, leftover babi kecap my by my Opa, the best cook ever (my slightly biased opinion of course)

Creative Friday- buzzy buzzy bees and wooly wooly wool

 Buzzing bees, buzzing bees,
 Buzzing and bumbling from flower to flower
 Sucking sweet nectar out of the bloom
 To fill with gold your honey comb bower

 I've been crafting some things for the day care sleep room lately. The addition of new beds motivated me to to put some extra effort into this little room that has remained fairly plain since we moved in.
 . Bees are a special favourite here, we enjoy watching them in the garden and pretending our fingers are buzzing bees

 This morning while the children were busy playing I began needle felting some soft yellow bees. Although I've done quite a lot of  wet felting I've hardly ever needle felted. I enjoyed making these bees

 It wasn't long before we ended up outside so I took my work out to continue as they snacked. I worked on them while the children napped and then when the older two were up we headed back outside.

 Once the bees were finished the boys helped me weave together a wreath of  peppercorn tree branches, lavender and yellow flowers. The peppercorn branches came from over out back fence and worked fantasticly, I will use them for wreaths again if they still look nice dried out. I like them because they have a lovely smell and are very Port Wakefield. There are so many big old peppercorn trees growing in this town!
We added the lavender and yellow flowers as these are two main bushes that attract bees. How can you think of lavender and not think of buzzy bees?
I hung the wreath on our clothes line to add the bees and it occurred to me to add ropes to the corners for the boys to pull as I often do. They absolutely love pulling the clothes line around, we discovered this one day when a dressing gown cord was hanging down at their level:) It was extra fun for them to chase the bees and see them fly.

This fun lasted a good half hour or so and then Mitch was still asleep so we hung our bees above our meal table while we had afternoon tea. When Mitch woke up he was so excited to see the mobile all finished!

 In other woolly news, after years of buying pre washed and carded wool for crafts (always white to dye myself) I bought a few fleeces to wash and spin. This one is from a corriedale named Ursula. I got it from Moseley Park farm

 I picked through the fleece to remove any organic matter which there was barely any. I put it in a old lace curtain, soaked it in hot water with shampoo, soaked it in clean hot water I think twice or so until the water stayed clear. I then stuck it in my spinner and dried it on a towel draped over my drying rack.

 The whole time I was worried about it felting too much to spin. Even though I swirled it in the water a bit and seemed to handle it quite a bit when squashing dirty water out it didn't seem to felt at all.

I started spinning it. As you can see I only had a few spare minutes but already I think its safe to say i will never buy pre prepared wool roving again! The only carding I did was very quickly combing the ends if they looked a bit clumped and it spun like a dream. It still has some lanolin which feels lovely and the slight slipperiness made the wool  glide straight out of my hands  beautifully.
Now that I have discovered how easy washing fleeces is I'm fairly certain I will use them for all my felting too.   I used some of my fleece for the bees stripes you may have noticed.
I will deffinately never buy pre prepared wool for toy stuffing, thats for sure!! To think I've been buying beautifully prepared wool just for stuffing all these years!

feel free to join in the fun of Creative Friday and Fibre Arts Friday

decoupaging my spinning wheel

 I have seen lots of spinning wheels that people have personalised. Many have been painted with beautiful designs. I decided I wanted to add some sheep to mine.
First I thought I would paint it but I didn't have the right colours and was too impatient to wait and get some from the shops. Second I thought wood burning but decided it was too permanent in case I want to remove it in the future. Lastly I thought of decoupage. Perfect! Easy, effective and removable. I used to decoupage lots of things. At one stage I made a decopage cupboard for my bedroom with a collage of beach and surf pictures. Its such a nice craft that also happens to be dirt cheap which was its appeal when I was a poor teen always looking for something creative to do after school. All you need is some pictures and cheap shop craft glue!

 I found my sheep pictures on the internet and printed them out. I first blu-tacked them in place (or in my case orange-tacked) and shifted them around until I was happy with all of their positions.

 I then carefully glued the back of a picture, pushed it in place, smoothed it down and put a coat of glue on top to protect the paper picture and give a nice finished. The first one was a tester. I waited for it to dry to ensure I was happy with it.

 Once it had dried and I could see that it had worked well with no bubbles or smeared ink I proceeded with the rest of the sheep

 I have 7 sheep happily 'running ' as I spin! I also added some of the left over sheep to a bobbin and decided that I like them on there so I will one day add some to the remaining two bobbins so they all match

Here Is my first plied wool made on this wheel.
After asking for a new spinning wheel for my birthday I was so nervous that I wouldn't be any good at it. The last spinning wheel that I had was hopeless and wobbly but I couldn't help but fear that the problem was just my lack of experience. I will admit that my new wheel sat for an entire day just being treadled because I was nervous to try it out. After months of looking forward to receiving it I didn't even want to try it! Its by far the most expensive present I've ever received and I was happy just to look at it:)
Finally I put some wool on it and gave it a go and I have to say its a very different thing to be using a wheel that WORKS! I cant believe how quickly I'm getting the hang of it. And it is indeed relaxing like spinning is supposed to be.

For more inspiration head over to Natural Suburbia for Creative Friday

Recent knitting

 On Sunday I cast on for a little boy jumper for the one day baby pile. It looked a bit wide and short. The size was 0-3 months and here it is on little Mr. 8 month old! I'm hoping I have enough wool to lengthen it so that I can call it size "8 months" and call it a day

 Little Mr. said, why id love to tangle your yarn and suck on your knitting needles. Take all the time you need  distracted with that black box

Here is the happy little pile that slowly grows

 I also made a little yellow bonnet and a stripey sock. Yep, just the one sock. The sock is a match to the little jumper I'm making so I will either have enough wool to make the other sock or have to unravel this one to finish the jumper. Only time will tell, I have my fingers crossed the wool stretches further than I think it will

 Next weekend Benny and I are going camping at the river with our parents, sisters and their families as a little celebration of our engagement (a little late as we were waiting for fire ban season to end) I'm making our niece and nephew hats that I've promised them. Terleahs pink hat is done and I have my fingers crossed that it fits her. The yarn is an 8 ply that she chose in Broken Hill. Its so thin that it sort of seemed more like 4ply, I wish I would have doubled it but anyhow, ill see how it goes. Dylan's green hat was improvised based on a hurricane hat pattern I used a few years ago (made last weekend when I was at the hut and didn't have a pattern) Its looking good but... I might run out of yarn. Yes again!

And I almost forgot to add this picture of my gorgeous little godson in another of my recent knits.I made him a little cable hat to keep him warm. He looks a little un impressed but apparently he keeps it on which means he likes it:)

I got the most exiting package today! Almost 4 weeks before my birthday but Benny let me open it now anyway. He didn't even need bribery but if he did I'm pretty sure I would have stooped to that level:)
Anyhow... I'm off to do some spinning!

Yarn along

Two years ago i knitted this peasy cardigan

  I was never very happy with the colour as id bought the wool online and the colour wasn't what I expected (I'm not sure if you can tell its sort of a khaki green colour). I decided to dye it blue instead

 First time I pulled it out of the dye pot I washed it and it was an even uglier green! Thankfully after anther soak with extra colour added it came out just right

So perfect in fact that when I pulled it out the colour looked familiar. I went and got my favourite beanie that my Oma knitted me a few years ago and realised that they were almost a perfect match! I love it and I'm so pleased that I finally got around to dying it.

Considering I admitted that I finished knitting the peasy two years ago I better stop cheating and post something that I am still knitting:) Ive begun a citron shawl with the left over yarn from my grey cardi. I love this yarn and I'm loving this easy pattern

For my birthday that's coming up in a month and a half Benny's getting me a spinning wheel and I'm wondering what to get. Ive spun a little before but the wheel I have is rather shall we say 'antique'.  

I'm wanting to get an Ashford and I'm thinking a Kiwi or Joy. Id like a kiwi because I've heard they're good for beginners, I like that they are mostly solid wood and id love to paint the wheel.

On the other hand I'm wondering if a Joy would grow with my ability longer as I get better at spinning (not sure about this, opinions..?) I love that it folds up as our house is fairly small and half taken over by my daycare. I also think the larger bobbin size would be good.

Benny loves the look of the Joy because its more modern looking I suppose but I kind of love the cuteness of the Kiwi.

Price isn't too much of a problem as I've been saving extra so that I can make up the difference if I decide to go with the Joy.

If anyone has experience with these wheels or opinion id love to know what you think would suit a beginner with a small amount of experience best. It would be helpful as I've been obsessing over the decision just a little!

anyhow, happy Yarn Along!

thursday craftiness

I ran out of the organic merino wool rovings a few weeks back so my blanket hasn't been progressing very much at all!

Im happy to be spinning again now that I have some more.
Today I began spinning some of the light purple I dyed with 'greener shades' dye the other day. It accidently came out in all different shades as id never used a heated dye before so it ended up un even, I love it so I hope I can get this effect again!

Ive also been having far too much fun working on some tiny little quilts for the doll house, I love them!

Ive always had a thing for minitures, I used to make tiny teddies and sew them tiny outfits when I was about 10:)

The mini quilts are hand stiched and made just like I make 'real' quilts. The only difference was I just used calico as the 'batting' (I wouldnt have used anything except the colours might have shown through) And the binding isn't double thick. (oh and the size...)

Heres the back

And of course a tiny pillow to match.

Those little wooden dolls were the first waldorf inspired toys I ever got, when id only just started out my home day care

mini quilts sure do come in handy on a cool autumn morning

The last few evenings ive been...

 spinning,

 knitting, and taking care of my little buddy Josh.
Each weeknight ill be having him until 10pm for Bennys work friend (thats what time they both finish work) and quite honestly I was dreading it but it turns out that its deffinately changing my evenings for the better.
Rather than finishing work and zoning out in front of the tv and not getting around to tea until late (at which time cereal sounds like a desirable dinner) ive been taking my knitting outdoors to watch him and cooking healthy meals to enjoy together. Weve both been enjoying lighting a candle for tea time and im going to find a nice waldorf mealtime blessing to make the meal extra special:) As much as structure and routine is good for children, I think its good for adults too

 so the knitting- my blanket's coming along nicely, im loving how its turning out! I did end up un-raveling it to make it less wide and im so glad I did (you know, now that its re-knitted I can admit that:)
Its made of a super soft organic merino, I cant wait to snuggle under it this winter!

You can probably notice that as I go along the orange lines are getting thinner and thinner:) meanwhile im loving it more and more

 Im thinking these two colours would make a beautiful stripey scarf together. hmm... (the only reason I was able to resist the earge to cast on for another project right away was because the knitting needles I want to use for it are already in use)

 (oh so soft and cudly:)