Early Morning Wakeup - 5.57 am Precisely

Yes, it was a very early morning start this morning.

I was awake there was no going back to sleep so I dragged myself out of a nice warm bed, threw on some clothes and went out to feed the chooks.

WOW, what a gorgeous morning. There was a mist rising and moving across the dam, the rosy glow of the sun rising up behind the mountains.
Bird song, it was like a choir singing. There were Magpies warbling off in the distance, Willy Wagtails chattering, Sparrows chittering, Parrots with their beautiful, high pitched sing songy call. Crows cawing and other unidentified feather friends adding their voice to the dawn chorus.

The sparrows had been up a long time, but the cows were still lying on the ground , their backs covered in dew, mist rising from their bodies warming in the light of day.

It was great to be up and see all this.

How did your morning start? Tell me what goes on in your little corner of the globe I would love to hear about it.

Polka dots are still the flavour of the month here and chocolate cake has never gone out of fashion I can assure you.

The latest book cover, rolling off the production line for a market next month.

Had a lot of fun making this, so without doubt there will be quite a few more in the coming weeks.

Front and back view.

Inside it is lined with white fabric.

Of course there has to be bunting, it's just sooooooo Spring.
I made a quick trip to Spotlight last week and rolls of pink and green polka dot fabric just jumped into my arms, honest. You all know how it is!
There is still more to be made in different colour ways. It's so easy to cut, sew, press and voila. Well, actually there is quite a bit more to it than that!

The little birdy cushion hanging from the door is from www.mimiloveforever.blogspot.com. If you have never visited her blog, head on over there, she is one, clever and creative lady.

Hey, not just yet, I have more things to show you !!!!

Check this out, isn't it one of the cutest bird houses you have seen. My boys bought it back from their weekend away at The Turning Wave Festival in Gundagai. No. 1 spotted it at the market and knew it was just 'me'. It's made of recycled timber and has lovely rusted iron on it, plus twigs and seed pods nailed to it for added interest.

I'm thinking it may be a teeny, tiny bit small for some of the parrots here, but I have hung it up in the 'Wild Wood' out the front where the parrots seem to visit and hope it's not too long before they are sampling the lovely seed I have left out for them.

I could almost see a little swag of bunting out the front. I am sure that would attract their attention.....................

Without doubt it would convince Mr. SBL that I have truly lost the plot!!

Made by the Eumundi Bird House Co., it certainly has alot of character.

The local market was on here Sunday morning. I didn't have a stall. As I hinted in my last post, the creative drive seemed to have come to a dead end, so I decided I would have a little lie in Sunday morning and head on in later as a customer.

I picked up this lovely pot of Daffodils for $3.50 , bargain. They are called Shirley Anne and have a beautiful delicate salmon pink ruffled cup.

It's seems as if I am becoming a collector of Daffodils......................

Yesterday, being such a glorious Spring day No. 1 and I decided to head to the waterhole for a picnic lunch. We drove the van down and along with two handsome looking ducks ( I assume they are fellas!) a black swan, which is a rare visitor to these parts and a couple of people trying their luck at fishing - we were the only ones there!

The water level has come right up with the recent rains. There used to be a 3 metre sandy beach behind those ducks now the water reached almost up to the picnic table.

It's lovely to see it looking so full.

I can see a few more picnics being had at this lovely spot, can't you?

Shall leave you with this photo of Tig. What can I say about it? Don't you envy him, being able to sleep anywhere and anytime.

He's totally oblivious to everyone and everything, how nice! Just hope he's oblivious to my new bird feeder.........................

Well, it's time to plug the sewing machine in and whip up some more bunting and book covers. I hope your day has something lovely in store for you.

Thanks so much for dropping by, always lovely to hear from you, so if you have a spare minute or two leave a comment and say "hi".

Till next time,

Take care,

Claire X

Anyone for tea and scones?

As promised dear reader the tea cosy mentioned in the previous post and it's finished.
It was made from a felted Op shop jumper and I used other felted wool from jumpers, scarves and some woollen blanket I dyed myself.

If you read the previous post you will notice how different it looks now that it has some stitching on it.

I burrowed into my fabric stash and came up with some cotton fabric to line it.

I don't 'do' tea cosies with openings for spouts and handles, far too fiddly for me

Autumns Jewels - rosehips and the last of the blackberries.

On the reverse side oak leaves and acorns and a lovely saying by Samuel Horowtiz.
It appealed to my love of Autumn.

Here it is keeping a rather large tea pot nice and cosy!

I couldn't resist showing you this little beauty I picked up during the week.

Doesn't it remind you of strawberries and cream or raspberry ripple icecream?

A lovely lady I met through my work has been crocheting them for many, many years. Gwen would be in her 70's and I couldn't help but admire it and offered to buy it .

It may be a little bit 'nanna' but you have to admire the workmanship and that's gone into it.

Lets hope that it's not a dying art.

This was one end of my stall at the market last Saturday, tea cosies, cards, baby singlets and some soft toys on the far left.

A bunch of zinnias to brighten everything up of course.

Shall have to whip up something on which to display my cards upright.


During the week a local paper featured an insert from a very well known, nearby bakery. In the insert was their recipe for their fabulous savoury scones.

We love them, a little bit too much perhaps, but No1 son decided he would whip them up.

An apron was a must, afterall, he couldn't get flour on his singlet could he?!!

Out of the oven and smelling oh sooooooooo good.

Let me reassure they tasted as good as they looked.

Funny that Mr. G. just happened to drop by on the pretext of getting some files for work!!

Another garden shot, vegie garden has done quite well this season, not that we have alot in it, we have scaled back due to the drought, but the late planted beans are going berserk over the arch (middle of the photo) I am picking a bunch everyday, just love them.

Where have the hills gone?This was the view that greeted me on Monday morning after a weekend where it rained and rained and rained, we thought we had seen the last of it, but Monday did turn out to be a fine day after a dull start.

To be honest, I do love this sort of weather and now that it is cooling down I am alot happier, as my thoughts turn to soup, more knitting, crocheting and mmm, maybe it's time for another savoury scone.

Thanks for dropping by take a minute to say 'hi', I love to read your comments.

From my corner of the globe to yours with love.

Claire X

To market, to market.

I picked up some small sized tee shirts from Target and appliqued them with a "Sweet Birdy Love" design in preparation for my market stall this Saturday. I was very pleased with how they turned out and I have since picked up some more tees which were half price as they are now bringing in winter stock, bonus.

For those still getting some snow, there are more blue sky, summery pictures ahead so read on if you would like to bring a bit of sunshine into your day.



Also needed to make a new batch of 'chook' cards. This is the my design which I then glue to the front of the card. I have used some different fabrics from those I normally use and I am more than happy with the look. There are a lot of chook/chicken lovers out there and these cards always seem to be popular

Here are a whole flock of chooks, funny how the back can actually be more interesting than the front. Must be the simplicity of the black and white. Maybe I should glue them on back to front!!

A bit of tie dying also went on this week. No 1 son needed a shirt to wear to a particular gig he's playing at , the theme is Spice. I bought a white mens business shirt from the Oppy and dyed it orange ( I was aiming for red, not enough dye obviously!!) It came out a striking colour and then he tied it and we overdyed it black.

It was soooo much fun but a little bit fiddly and messy all those drips and splashes. The colours were very striking whilst wet. The orange faded quite alot as it dried, but we were still very happy with the overall result. He had done a great job tying it and there are some great 'sunbursts' on the front, back and shoulders. Oops, haven't got a photo, sorry.

We had a couple of glorious, Spring like days in the middle of the week, so we decided to drive our van down to the local waterhole and have a picnic. I used to come here with my painting group and paint some of the scenery. Not being a great painter I would always find it very frustrating, but just take a look at those perfect reflections.

Didn't realise I had the swing rope in the middle of the photo!!

Lovely, tall Poplar trees in the background, no one else around, "just perfick" as Pop Larkin (Darling Buds of May) would say.

Have any of you seen that show, we just love it.

Here I am "lamby sammy' in one hand (made by No 1 son and I must say they were very nice) and a cuppa in the other. My mum who passed away 3 years ago would've loved doing this sort of thing, so I took along a duck mug she gave me, just so I could have a little part of her there with me, if you know what I mean.

We enjoyed it soooo much we went back and did it again the next day. Well you've got to sit down and eat , so you might as well sit down somewhere nice and this is barely 5 mins up the road from us.

Now after all that 'speed sewing' to be ready for the market tomorrow, I find out that there has been a mix up in the dates and it's actually NEXT Saturday the 6th of March, it's a long weekend. SO if you happen to be in Beechworth or the nearby vicinity drop in to the Buffalo Hall in the main street a couple of doors up from the Laundromat.

Well, that's pretty much my week in a nutshell, obviously alot of other things went on at Sweet Bridy Love, but no doubt similar things went on in your household too so I won't bore you with them.

Hope you have had a good week and enjoyed some time doing something that made you smile and satisfied that creative desire that seems to drive us in many and various ways.

Till next time,

Claire X