fiveandtwo

Broken

This lass is beyond repair.

 

Gracie was given to Linsey over ten years ago, passed on to Leah, then to Clare and Ally. Even though china dolls are meant to be ornamental, not played with, I let them anyway. What's the point of having a doll if you can't play with her?

She's been glued so many times, and adhesive bandage was used when the glue failed. Not surprisingly Gracie was often used in hospital/doctor/nurse games.

This time the injury was fatal and she's in the shed awaiting burial, or recycling (I stil have another hearth to do).

Speaking of hearths and broken things: the kitchen hearth is finished!

Well, some sanding and sealing of the wood surround is in order, otherwise...it's finished!

Did I say the hearth was finished? Yep, it's done.

 

The giant jigsaw was absorbing, I enjoyed doing it. I like having the ice cream containers of broken china out of the way. Makes access to the kitchen bench much easier.

Another hearth to be done...eventually. More plates and bowls need to be broken. I used up most of the good bits on the kitchen hearth. Hmmm, could be an excuse to seek out more china at the op-shop!

In Progress

So much in progress. It's a bit overwhelming. 

The hearth of our new cooker/heater/hot water heater. I looked and looked locally for tiles but nothing suited. For me, it was an excess of bland and ugly. Driving to pick up Giles from work one day...I  remembered. Ten or more years worth of broken china. I've always kept the patterned and coloured stuff. I'm about two thirds of the way through. Then to grout it.

Then there's the seedlings:

 

Which means I need to spend some time preparing here:

 

And then I need to make some clothes for me. Pants in particular. My last decent pair has been stained by "gardening in passing". You know, you see a weed or something as you walk past, bend to pull it out and before you know it you've been there half an hour in your "good clothes".

 

I'm a bit demoralised, I finished sewing pants that I began months ago. They still don't fit. Even after letting the darts out they're too small. Damn. 

I am really enjoying this book. Really. Much that is useful for me, and I consider myself a gardener with some experience. The magic square is one square metre which is the beginning of a larger garden or a garden that is in a tiny space. Or one that's manageable for a person with many other commitments. Add as many square metres as you can manage.

I read Lolo Houbein's Wrong Face in the Mirror: An Autobiography of Race and Identity many years ago and found it good. Then, recently at a market I found Walk a Barefoot Road. Haven't read it yet though, it's on the teetering "to read" pile.

I'm also in the throes of painting the latest round of built-ins.

 

This is the one in the kitchen, waiting for paint. There's also one in the loungeroom for TV/DVD/Video/CD Player, books and CDs. I'm doing this post while I'm waiting for the first top coat to dry.

There you have my excuses for posting sporadically. And also that the computer freezes for some unknown reason while I'm using Typepad - the only time it happens. I've learnt to save the draft after each paragraph and photo upload, since the only remedy I've found is to switch the computer off and resart. Anyone have ideas about this? It is very irritating, happening multiple times.

Winter Drying

This multi-storey clothes horse lives spends all winter in our loungeroom. More often than not festooned with wet washing. It gets dry - straight from the machine takes about 24 hours, partially dry usually only overnight.

I got it from a garage sale. Holds two large loads of washing!

Now a picture of some wool fabric recently op-shopped. Actually, the lairy one on top is cotton. Moth caterpillars have gnawed on the light and dark grey pieces at some stage, they're wool jersey, luckily most of it still usable.

One day (don't hold your breath people) I'm going to make a quilt/blanket thingy with my wool fabric bits.

I just looked it up in The Gentle Arts, 200 Years of Australian Women's Domestic and Decorative Arts (by Jennifer Isaacs - a wonderful book, by the way) and they were once known as bush rugs or "waggas", and made from worn out woollen clothing, suiting samples from local tailors and the like.

Very beautiful in a subtle, understated way. Like the quilts of Gee's Bend in the US. Using what fabric was available for thrift and economy. Sometimes I am boggled by the masses of fabric available today, manufactured specifically for patchwork quilting. Some of it is beautiful, too, but the whole "industry" is far removed from the origins of the craft. The same can be said of many crafts - just a sign of affluence I guess.

Banner

Oh, the frustration. I am trying to make a custom banner for my blog. Correction. I have made one, I just can't upload/insert the damn thing. Man, it's doing my head in I tell you!

I've put it all aside for now, to deal with next week...mutter,swear, mutter, swear.

The Battle of the Banner has meant no crafting or other interesting pursuits. Have a look at my bathroom medicine cabinet instead. Finally installed in the bathroom! Came from a garage sale years ago, and fixed up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I read/heard somewhere that greyhounds are cuddly pets. They don't look as if they would be but here is some evidence.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clare having a snooze with Suska. That's cuddly.

With the cold weather upon us out comes the winter kitchen window covering. Put on at sundown to keep the cold out and the warmth in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In other news: I've been having a go at patternmaking. I have a (long term) plan to open an online shop, probably Etsy. Selling little kid's clothes, toys, felt purses, cards and bags. Or maybe just the clothes and toys. Either way I need to make patterns from my sketches. Nothing like a new challenge - but it's nowhere near as frustrating as that banner thing! Of course, it's a slow process...meaning: don't expect grand shop openings anytime soon.

Those of you with Etsy shops, I'd appreciate any ideas/feedback.

I'm off tomorrow afternoon for an overnight stay at Lakes Entrance - tea out Saturday night and a sleep-in on Sunday...ah. This little interlude has been in the pipeline for a good eighteen months! My two buddies and I have found it hard to score a weekend when all three of us don't have other commitments!

Fish o' The Decade

Definitely a once-a-decade phenomenon. My husband catching an eating size fish, that is (not through lack of effort, though).

A 1kg trout, what a beauty.

It's been a scattered week. Well, more so than usual.

I got my large, luxurious sheepskin off lay-by. I haven't sat on it yet, but doesn't it look sooo comfortable.

A random room shot from where I was sitting on the couch to photograph the "sheepy".

The room through the doorway is Linsey's bedroom. It's really interesting to go and look at the ever-changing pictures, photos and artworks on her walls.

I was tagged for the "Seven Weird Things" meme by Janet. I should be able to come up with loads of weird things to tell since I've been considered weird for most of my life! The label did lessen somewhat upon finishing high school. Then I pretty much embraced the tag.

I'll come up with the seven in due course.

My Favourite Season

Ah, Autumn...such splendid weather, long shadows in the afternoon, crisp mornings. I'm all invigorated.

Much gardening going on. For the next five minutes it's pretty much in order. I've planted a full-size tangelo. I have one in a half barrel, but...I want more! Tangelos and lemons are my favourite citrus. I also planted a dwarf Washington Navel orange in a large pot against a side fence. I lost my other orange tree when we built the deck at the front.

Speaking of which, it seems the pergola above the deck may be painted completely soon (oh please). One more coat and it's done.

It's taken two years to reach this stage.

Note Suska wolfing down her tea, and recently reupholstered chair seats. Red vinyl from Spotlight. Very pleased with the result. How I like my staple gun!

The vegie garden is all tidied. All the languishing half-dead summer crops have been heaved out. Except for Clare's late planted corn - she's determined to have a cob from it.

I planted seeds of lettuce, spinach, silverbeet, beetroot and sugar snap peas. Clare planted rocket. All are up, but I need to plant more peas, blackbirds have scratched some up.

Leaves are falling.

I need to pick all of these - they ripen off the vine.

When I look at them I'm always reminded of something Jackie French wrote about a visitor to her garden. An elderly Oriental lady who laughed quietly when she saw the kiwifruit. Jackie probed. Apparently, back home in China the fruit were nicknamed "golden hairy goat testicles"!

Gratuitous nasturtium picture. They are so perky now the hot weather has abated. Such a relaible plant (once you've reefed out those that grow where you don't want them to). They just grow themselves, don't they.

Just some Autumn light photos now.

I have another sick child. Goodnight.

Greetings From The Furnace

In my old age (yes, I turned a year older yesterday - forty three!) I tolerate hot, hot days less and less. I mean, I spent the first twenty or so years of my life in the tropics and then lived for a while in Alice Springs, the heat didn't bother me. Hot was good, it was cold weather I couldn't handle.

Having a thick layer of body insulation doesn't help with heat tolerance.

We hole up inside until the afternoon and then Clare, Ally and I go to the outdoor swimming pool for some cool water therapy. Sometimes we go further afield to one of the not-too-deep swimming spots along the Tambo River.

Windows are shut and covered (kitchen featured here - it has the most interesting curtain). Ceiling fans whirl furiously. Hint for very pleasant evaporative cooling: put bathers on, hop under the shower and get all wet, stand under a ceiling fan turned on full. Lovely. Once upon a time I did it naked (very effective cooling) but but these days I'm reluctant to horrify the teenagers!

If you're a hot dog, you dig yourself a nice, cool hole in a strategic spot. This is just outside our back door, the air coming from under the house is pleasantly cool. To get full benefit you must stick your paws under.

Yes our weatherboards are disintegrating. Major project for this year: re-clad the house. I've almost saved enough. It has to be DIY though. Daunting to think about, but it'll be OK once under way...

If you're a cat you choose the coolest room in the house with a ceiling fan circulating the air just so, then you spend the rest of the day sleeping. I suspect our other cat is enjoying a sleep under the house.

Lemon  tree leaves silhouetted in the bathroom window. Before I shut that door to keep the morning heat from the rest of the house.

Please let tomorrow be cooler. I need to make plum sauce before the fruit is all scorched on the tree and the picked ones rotted. I am done with apricots - dried, jammed, chutneyed and scoffed fresh from the tree. That's a post in itself.

Flies, Be Gone!

Time to fix the wire on the flyscreen door.

A Patch of Sunlight

Clare putting on her shoes this morning.

Cats and Sunlight

Ally has been making cats.

I have been photographing patches of sunlight.

And in the mail today I got a photo from Janet. First spotted on this post, it was love at first sight. Janet has generously sent me my very own copy. Yay!

I'm also stitching away on a felt animal order.

Two giraffes and three mare & foal sets - nearly finished.