One more tea cosy!

Another day, another post, so far so good, getting the hang of posting WITH photos very, very slowly. If I wore a hat I would take it off to all bloggers who post regularly. I guess like anything it will just take time.

Just wanted to show you another tea cosy, which now that I am having a good look at the photo, it does appear somewhat wonky in shape and yes I realise the "writing" on the reverse side is too far over on the right and is heading up hill, but nonetheless, it's obviously handmade and I just love it.

Once again I have used hot pink, seems to be a favourite, although being a read head it's a colour I wouldn't wear. I found a lovely green lambswool jumper at the op shop and felted it. It was lovely and soft and it was very difficult to actually make the first cut into it. But once that was done I was fine! I used the pink and white polka dot cotton to line it and then played around with some other felted wool scraps to make some flowers, roses if you like. I cut three shapes from the scraps moved them around till I was happy with their position and then machine embroidered them, "free hand" style. I was quite pleased with the way they turned out and the effect created.

Once again I thought up a short verse to embroidery on the reverse and it reads " A garden full of roses is enjoyed more when shared with a friend. Much like a pot of tea.

It turned out to be my favourite tea cosy depsite it's slightly wonky appearance, but someone at the market had their eye on it and so it went to a new home, where it would be used and enjoyed.

Fortunately, the green jumper was a reasonable size and so from the sleeves I made some recycled arm warmers and there is still a bit of the "fabric" yet to be put to use .

Well that's it for tea cosies, I have made others but unfortunately didn't take photos at the time and they are now sold.

No need for a tea cosy this weekend as it's hot enough , 42 deg. Hope you are warm and cosy if it's winter in your corner of the globe and staying cool if you are experiencing this heatwave.

Time for tea

Ah photos at long last, welcome to the New Year. It wasn't all that painful but just somewhat laborious. No doubt practice makes perfect or as perfect as I can possibly be lol!!

This little beauty is a tea cosy I made using a recycled woollen blanket that I dyed.

I was aiming for red but fell short somewhat, but I love what came out of the dye pot. HOT pink, luscious pink, pink that would make you gasp with delight! Ok that may be taking it a bit too far.

Sticking with the recycled theme I snipped some motifs from a crocheted table runner and added them, to the front of the cosy. I then lined it with a lovely bright blue and white polka dot cotton fabric. Some of my favourite colours coming together nicely.

On the other side I decided to add a little verse, that I "thunk up meself" and it reads "oh for fine bone china, a pretty tea cosy and a buttery biscuit. Simple pleasures are the sweetest"

In my haste to finish it off and take it to a market I forgot to dot the i's and then proceeded to tie off thread ends on the wrong side!!!

Never mind the i's have since been dotted but someone must've noticed as it sat on my stall all afternoon whilst other surrounding tea cosies went off to new homes.

I love making tea cosies they are a blank canvas waiting to be decorated. I like using recycled and felted jumpers in the main and adding something slightly quirky to them.

Well, this is my first post with photos for 2010. I look forward to many, many more once I truly get the hang of this. If anyone reading this would like to leave a reply it would be so lovely to hear from you.

Heading for a hot weekend in this little corner of the globe 42 and 43deg., arrgh, hope all is well wherever your abode is. Best wishes to you and yours for 2010.

Claire

Well, the wheels are turning ever so slowly, but I am making progress and I guess that's the main thing.

Last night Mr G. showed me how to move photos from my camera onto the computer and shrink them and lots of other things as well. Now I can access photos for my blog but this morning, I just can't manage to get them onto the blog, even though we successfully did this last night. Never mind, I will have another attempt at it tonight and under Mr G's expert tutelage I will be successful, because I know they are in the computer somewhere and I'm not going to be put off.

Have been "playing" with the sewing machine this morning, trying some ideas out on textile pieces. Problem is lots of ideas but not quite making it from the ideas stage to a successful outcome, but nonetheless having fun along the way and learning one or two new things in the process.

So far the new year has been very enjoyable, but I am afraid more hot weather is on the way . Oh well that's summer and at the end of the day I can tick it off and say to myself "that's one day closer to winter". Being a cold weather lover I look forward to the longer nights, snuggling under doonas, pots of soup on the stove, sitting by the wood heater with a cuppa and a knitting or crochet project by my side. Summer is bearble if you can get a good nights sleep and don't feel like you are going to melt everytime you go outside.

Stormy Weather

Well, it's storm central here. The start to the New year has been a very wet one we had 29.5 mls of rain NY Eve and last night we had a massive storm with the whole works, thunder lightning and heavy, heavy rain. When I checked the rain gauge this morning there was 38mls in it, yahoo, the tanks are overflowing but as we have been having fairly regularly rain that's not unusual.



I was home alone and boy did that thunder make me jump, particularly as it sounded as if it was directly over my bedroom!! The lightning was quite spectacular at times but as we seemed to be in the middle of it I didn't want to open the curtains up and watch, it's unpredictable and dangerous and I didn't even have the cat to hug for comfort!! He was safely tucked up in the garage for the night.



I am sure all the campers wouldn't have been too appreciative of the storm, but when you have only tank water every drop of rain is appreciated.



One thing I want to have a little whinge about is they guys from the Weather Bureau, particularly when they are on the Radio(ABC) tlaking about the weather. I was listening, Friday morning (Jan 1st) and this guy (Cameron someone) was talking about how warm and dry it was in WA,SA, and NT then he proceeded to say it's not so good in the over in the east as there are showers and rain all over the place.

Okay, let's just have a little looky here at this:-

No. 1 A fair whack of the country is in drought

No.2 It's bushfire season

Hmm, what does this tell you, the guys from the weather bureau don't actually think about what they are going to say before they say it, or they assume nobody likes rainy weather in summer!


Well, I love rain anytime of year, too bad if it interrupts my plans, I'll manage to deal with it but we desperately need it, hellooo!!

Of course having said all that, I realize that flooding and the damage caused by it is very traumatic and I have sympathy for anyone who is affected by it.

Well, that's my little whinge for the new year, if you would like to comment please do so and let me know your thoughts.

New Years Eve

Well, this is it the end of 2009. I am sitting here typing away another post, when most people are probably getting ready for a night out or maybe staying in with friends. Me, why am I sitting here at the computer, well my Mr G and No1 son are up the other end of the country so we are separated by a great distance and therefore I am alone on N.Y.E. makes me sound like a sad,lonely, loser. But that's the last thing I am for I have the remote control all to myself, I have series 1 and 2 of Doc Martin and a 3 DVD set of the Bourne movies, with Matt Damon. So I will be keeping company with Martin Clunes and Matt Damon how many others can say they spent N.Y.E. with such interesting guests?


I have also stocked up on supplies of smoked salmon and crackers, double cream camembert, anchovy stuffed olives, cashews and there's some chocolate hidden in the fridge somewhere! As I am a tea totaller there is a bottle of 'non-alcholic" wine in the fridge and no doubt a cup of tea (tea pot and loose leaf, of course!!) will be consumed sometime in the evening, so what more could I want. Well, yes it would be nice to have the boys home and go out for dinner with them, but that's not possible.


I treated myself to amovie today "Bright Star" Jane Campion's latest offering. Nothing short of brilliant, but be sure to take some tissues with you Fanny Brawne played by Abby Cornish is sure to get the tears flowing and the your nose running. Her grief is palpable and only those with a heart of stone would not be moved by her sorrow. As I am particularly fond of English Films and TV Shows I enjoyed every bit of it and no doubt many others including myself will search out Keats poetry and see for ourselves what it is all about.


The costumes worn by Cornish were absolutely wonderful and were for me a great part of the enjoyment of the movie.

Mr Brown played by Paul Schneider was totally disagreeable in nature and you couldn't help but dislike him from the first moment. All in all a great way to spend 2 hours or so.


I have also treated myself to some new fabric from Spotlight, just half a meter of a couple of lovely prints and better still they were on special, also Gutterman threads which are the only ones I use were 20 percent off so I stocked up on them as well. I only buy them when on sale as it quickly adds up, they are not cheap.


Well, I could post a list of New Years Resolutions I would like to make, but I gave up doing that quite some time ago as I always broke them. So I just try and keep in mind things which are important to me, aim to improve in areas that need it like being more focused and persistent in my work and hope that small changes along the way will eventually make a big difference.



Anyway, I shall go and water the garden,not sure if we are going to get any rain in a storm or not and then settle in for some serious DVD watching.


To those of you out celebrating, may you have a happy and safe New Years Eve and an even happier and safer New Year - 2010

P.S. I hope Mr G doesn't read this post as he will be looking for some left overs when he walks in the door in a couple of days, but I think I am pretty safe!!

Well, surprise, surprise a new post, been a long time coming like alot of other things too!!

The year is almost over and a new one is waiting just over the horizon, a year full of promise and surprises, no doubt.

I hope 2009 has been a good year for you and your family and those that you love.

My year has taken me on a different route to what I would have thought possible. Family activities have seen my husband and son head to New York for a month for work. I decided to stay home and "hold the fort", someone had to feed the animals and keep the garden alive on 40+ deg days and while I sweltered they froze!!

I had a month to do whatever, which basically meant I could set up my sewing machine, spread out all my fabrics and play to my hearts conten! When people asked me why I didn't go with them I had trouble thinking of which reason I would give them there were just sooo many.

I admit I did miss them terribly at times, but with emails we kept in daily contact and quite a few times at that. It was as if they were here in all but body.

What does the new year bring, well the first 6 months seem to be quite busy with my son and his music, which will take him down to Tassie in January and that's the beginning of no doubt many frequent trips around the countryside. When you child finds a passion at which they do well, you do what you can to encourage and help them, it's a labour of love and my husband does it very well and doesn't complain (well, not too often) Someone asked me why I don't go away with them, my reply was - sitting in the back of the van and eating cold spaghetti from a tin for dinner wasn't really my idea of fun. Driving for two days squashed 3 across in the van, didn't excite me either, I think they got the idea, BUT when he plays near to home I am there with bells on and helping out where I can.

My plan this year is to get my blog up and running regularly, WITH PHOTOS, so watch out and stay posted. As soon as Mr G. is home and I can procure 30 mins of his time and computer expertise I will get him to show me how to upload photos onto the computer and my blog and then we will be 'cooking with gas' as they say.

So please come back and visit, don't give up on me yet, a new year and new adventures are just around the corner .

Wishing you all a safe, happy and creative 2010.

Spring is well and truly here. The weeds are growing as I type, amazing how after a little rain the place is overrun with the pesky things. Problem is I feel I have to dig or pull them out rather than mow over them or whipper snip them.

The poor chooks needed a GPS to find their way back to the chook house. For a few minutes I thought they had been abducted by aliens but then they came charging out of the undergrowth!!

That was the deciding factor I got in and spent a couple of hours weeding and whipper snipping the chook run. Looks alot better now.

So what's happening in the garden? the Port Wine magnolia is in bloom and the scent is deliciou, is it Juicy Fruit chewing gum or banana custard I can never quite make up my mind. the Philadelphus (Mock Orange) is about ot burst into bloom and fill the air with it's wonderful scent, as is the Chinese Star Jasmine in the entry to the front door. On moonlit nights I love to go outside and breathe lungfulls of it's amazing scent as I gaze at the heavens and enjoy the peace and quiet of the surrounding countryside.

Some irises i rescued from my mums garden after she passed away are putting on a lovely display, it's called Designer Gown and she loved it having spent quite a bit of money (for my mum!) on some rhizomes. It's like a dsuty pink ball gown and is so delicate, as you can imagine it's very special. Also a rose mum gave to me and each of my sisters is putting on a good display, it's called Mothers Love and I was quite touched when she presented me with it.

The blue wrens are busy in the garden flitting here and there and twittering away when someone unexpected enters their territory.

I like to let the chooks out during the day and they head towards the shrubbery where they scratch about and have a jolly old time. You can see the depressions in the ground where they take a dust bath, our rooster usually fires off a few crows just to let all and sundry know he is enjoying himself and still in charge!

New leaves on the Maples are unfurling, fresh and green. The Lilac is stunning as ever, dark purple petals with a white border as if someone has been out there with a paint brush delicately painting each flower. You can't help but cut bunches of flowers and bring them indoors to enjoy.

So glad I don't suffer from hayfever!

The days are warming up and watering is beginning a big job and one I don't enjoy during the warmer months but a garden provides such pleasure.

Vegies have been planted and mulched with the promise of fresh homegrown produce to come.
Mowing and edging continue on a weekly basis during Spring but the enjoyment far outweighs the effort and once the hot weather starts there will be no need to mow for some months.

Even during the hot summer months we have here there is still beauty to be found outside, as they say "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" ain't that the truth.