Autumnal Musings

Autumn is here at last, breathe a deep sigh of relief, Summer is technically over. We have had a very, very wet weekend, 102mls (4inches and a little bit) of rain. It has been lovely listening to it on the roof and watching it fall. We haven't had rain like this for many, many years. Unfortunately, storms have caused alot of damage around the state, but we escaped the worst of the weather and just got the rain. Dams are filling, tanks are overflowing, creeks are running a 'banker".

So what crafty goodness have I been up to over the past week?

No1 son and I paid a little visit to Beechworth recently. A lovely gold mining town in North East Victoria, full of lovely shops and a couple of Op shops which were the drawcard on this particular day.
The sign out the front read " Bag of clothes $5.00", well what's a girl to do, I thought to myself. So while No1 son waited patiently out the front I rifled through the racks and found not 1 , not 2 but 6, yes that's right 6 woollen gems.
To felt them, they need to be oh, 70 to 80% wool, well most of these beauties were pure wool, bonus.
I thought I better check with the lovely lady who was volunteering, she assured me that all clothes were included in the sale and gave me a helpful little tip "if you roll the clothes in a ball dear, you get more in the bag"
What a sweet, helpful thing she was. So I shoved and rolled and stuffed those jumpers into the bag and left feeling very happy that I had helped them make more room on their racks for more stock!!
Here they are after being felted, it doesn't look as if they have shrunk much but they are hanging on kids coat hangers, they would probably fit a 6 y.o. at this stage.

First project I had in mind was a tea cosy with an "autumnal" theme.

I love that word -Autumnal, it's not one people use, so I have made it my mission to introduce it into conversation.

I love Autumn, the crisp mornings, leaves changing colour, the opportunity to wear a long sleeved top, make soup, have porridge for breakfast, start putting blankets on the bed.

So you can see the first side of my cosy, this was made with an idea swirling around in my head but not exactly sure how it would turn out.

I wanted rosehips and blackberries - Autumns jewels.

I cut and placed and replaced and recut and placed again until I was happy and then I sewed adding thorny stems and more leaves and it changed the whole look and made me smile.

Now dear readers, please don't be cross with me BUT it wasn't till I started this post that I realised I didn't actually have a photo of the finished product. Yes, I know, how frustrating is that?

Can't believe it, I am such a goose, never mind I shall make amends before the end of the week, so please, please, please pop by in a couple of days.

Here is the other side, with a lovely saying by Samuel Horowitz and YES, I realised to my horror that there was a 'typo'.

How could I not see that before it was too late, maybe I was enthralled by all the Autumnal goodness going on!!

There's no going back, unpicking and resewing, it can ruin the fabric as the stitches are so small.

What could I do, oh well, it is handmade and a little part of me is stitched into everything I make, so I fixed the offending 'typo' the only way I could. If nothing else I like to think I can spell well, even if I do make the oldd mistake!!

To tell the truth I quite like the 'typo' and think it adds a humorous or should that be a human touch. That's right, these tea cosies aren't churned out by the thousands in some sweatshop.

It needed a bit more embroidery and acorns and oak leaves seemed to be just the ticket.

Can't resist a green door, let alone two green doors. The old garage in town has been turned into a wonderful gallery called Spiritus. Full of lovely paintings, sculptures, jewellery, garden ornaments, and textile bits and pieces.

As today was a holiday for 'Labour Day' I thought I better get out into the garden and wield the gardening fork, Shake it in disgust at the weeds which had dared to grow whilst I was slaving away over a hot sewing machine.

I have to confess I have ignored the garden for quite a few weeks, which would actually become months!! So, there was nothing for it but to get busy, cloudy day so it wasn't too hot , but I did work up quite a sweat, digging, weeding,shovelling, moving rocks and pruning.

I filled one wheel barrow after another and whipped the shrubs into some semblance of order.

The roses are putting on an Autumn flush, this is Mothers Love given to me by my dear mum, she also gave a bush to each of my two sisters.

This year has been the best display, no thrips and now that I think of it, I didn't see one aphid on my roses this summer. Now that's a first.

Mothers love has a beautiful perfume and starts off a lovely pink and then fades to a creamy colour.

Two of my 'girls' Dorothy (Dorking) background, Lollopy Lou Rock (Plymouth Rock) foreground, surrounded by the Powlonia? tree.
This fine gent is enjoying a peach I threw him, the late fruiting variety is almost ready and looking very 'peachy"

Let me introduce you to another member of the family, this is Tigger, who likes to curl up in the most unusual places.

Yes it's a box on the verandah, obviously it has great cat appeal!!

Now this is the photo we don't want Mr. Grumpy pants to see, Tigger will sneak into any basket and have a snooze and as you can see he has chosen the basket on the left. No, he didn't fancy the sock basket on the right, he wanted the jocks basket on the left!!

What was I to do, (after I stopped chuckling to myself) take a photo of course and then remove the offending cat. So Mr. Grumpypants became Mr. Furry pants for a day or two!!

Mr. G and Tigger have a love hate relationship and this sort of behaviour doesn't endear my furry friend to Mr. G. I must admit when Tigger takes a snooze on top of our jumpers I get a bit tetchy with him too.

We really do love you Tigger xx I had my market stall on Saturday up in Beechworth and although it was little quieter than expected being a long weekend I was more than happy with my sales.

Sold out of all my chook cards, so will be plugging in the machine this week to whip up a few more.

Also sold two of my book covers and someone even offered me money for the bunch of zinnias which I was using as decoration!

I couldn't take money for them, they were given away from one Zinnia lover to another.

Well, that's an abbreviated roundup of goings on here in the Sweet Birdy Love household.

Thanks for dropping by, take a minute and say "hi" and I hope you have sunshine and blue skies in the coming week.

Please drop by soon as I owe you a photo of the finished tea cosy.

Claire X