afternoons in the summer backgarden

February 18, 2015Lily 3 Comments

Living in Melbourne for the last 5 years has granted me an entirely new appreciation for the sun and its warmth, for brightness and colourful cheer. One could almost call it an obsession. See, in Brisbane, it is almost always hot and usually sunny. There is so much colour and brightness it almost verges on the garish, and our upper legs were usually stuck together with sweat! Gosh – we thought it was terrifically exciting to have a cool grey day and couldn’t wait to break out the woolies – even if it meant we had to sit under the swirling ceiling fans to really enjoy wearing them :-)

But here in Melbourne there are soooooooooo many bleak grey days that when the sun does shine I cannot bear to sit inside. I’m not overly fond of sitting by myself either so, if there’s family around I drag them out into the garden too. We set up the banana lounges (hard rubbished from an incredibly posh house on Beach road in Sandringham!), lay out a quilt and cushions, bring out our reading, drawing, knitting, crocheting, sewing … whatever takes our fancy, make up trays of drinks, tea, snacks, and soak up every last moment.

The dogs, of course, come voluntarily … they think its fabulous when we “play” in their territory. They rush around and make sure the cheeky rabbits are behaving, those dastardly birds are staying away, and that there’s no alarming or new smells to be found, then they flop down next to us, their eyes squinty shut in the sunlight and snooze. Oh we do love them so!

Now, we are heading into the last weeks of summer … soon the leaves will fall from the oak, the days will become so much shorter, the sitting room, with its cosy lamps, will become our favoured spot. But for now – we will take every summery moment that’s offered, with even the humblest parts of the backgarden aglow and colourful

It’s so good for my soul.

pointy little Christmas hats

December 9, 2014Lily 9 Comments

Well hello there! Goodness – the last two weeks have just zipped by. In a flurry of making. Mostly Christmas making. A little bit of birthday making. Busy fingers indeed, with many hot creamy coffees to kickstart early morning stitching (one morning I made a bag between 5 am and school drop off!), and steamy cups of tea to keep the fingers moving into the wee hours. So much to show!

But first … the dreaded GRAD YEAR! I realised the other day – well, actually I was reminded by a lovely reader’s concerned email- that whilst I had blabbed all over instagram about the grad year applications, I hadn’t written about it here. So, here it is! On the 14th October – an hour later than I thought was the designated time – I received an offer. My first preference – The Alfred. And last week I finally received my contract – I will be working a 4 day week (phew!) in the Renal, Endocrinology and Rheumatology Ward. Also a first preference. All that fretting ….

I really like more complex nursing where the patients have conditions that affect them systemically – where you’re constantly assessing and caring for the whole person not just one thing (I’m not at all cut out for the likes of orthopaedics – too production line).

I also like patients that hang around for a bit (not so good for them of course) because I really like building relationships with people and their families. And Renal and Endocrinology – well that’s a growth industry in our western societies at the moment so the skills and experience I gain will stand me in good stead.

I hummed and haahed over these preferences. I really really really would have loved to work at the Children’s and initially made them number 1. But then … they are on the other side of town – so dreadful travelling – horrible public transport – no train, only tram with a change in town that requires running helter skelter down two blocks and up 1. Car is no better – shocking traffic coming home from earlies (can take up to 2 hours to travel less than 10km) and often bad starting lates as well – and difficult, expensive parking.

Secondly – when I spoke with people in the know in Bega they said that if I applied to the new Bega hospital having done my grad year at the Children’s they’d be all “oh how nice.” But if I applied having done my grad year at The Alfred, they’d be all “Woo-hoo! Sign her up quick!” Even my pharmacist yesterday was excited by the Alfred – it’s such a big hospital – and the state centre for so much, that I will see HEAPS. And I loved working there in the ICU. It’s a great place – especially for a learner like me.

So – as of the 12 January, 2015, I will be Lily Boot, Registered Nurse (Grade 2) at The Alfred. Extraordinary really. Really. I arrived in Melbourne 5 years ago, with a basic BA, years of tutoring and boarding school work behind me, a smattering of retail experience and my horizons extending only as far as the dear little bookshop I worked at up in Elsternwick. And I loved it.

But once that began to wind up – and Abby was settled into high school – and Julian busy with his work – and dreams of moving to the country/beach and building our own straw bale home began to take shape – I needed something else. Something to fill up those long empty hours. Something to challenge my mind. Something to give me skills that would allow me to both contribute meaningfully to my community and give me a decent living so that our country/beach/strawbale dream could become a reality. And nursing just ticked all the boxes. I still can’t believe I did it!

I think back to that first year – travelling into town 4 days a week, sitting in classes, grasping exactly how they wanted me to write an essay (scientists are so different to humanists!), picking my way through the throngs of noisy teenagers I shared my classes with. It was so weird. I was really scared about losing my sense of being – of stopping being me – stay at home mum to Abby, wife to Julian, stitcher, knitter, home potterer. Still am a bit. And the end goal of BEING a nurse seemed ridiculously far away. Oy!

But the take home message dear reader – do it! Doesn’t matter how old you are (I was by far the eldest in every class and on almost every ward). Doesn’t matter what you’ve done in the past. Just do it! Pick that thing you’ve always thought might be good and jump in feet first. It will be scary and overwhelming and make you think you’ve utterly lost the plot sometimes, but if you just keep plodding away, it can happen. I failed Biology in high school – which was 25 years ago – and yet I topped my University Physiology and Anatomy class.

Honestly, I think as adults – especially creative adults like us, who enjoy a challenge, learning something new, keeping busy – we are so well suited to starting something new. We’ve sorted almost everything else. We’re know we can’t afford to stuff around – time, money, family, responsibilities and all. And we know how time flies.

We’re so much more efficient and capable than those lovely, ditzy teenagers (said with complete affection – I made many lovely friends amongst my young classmates! – and they’re only just like I was when I was their age) and we’ve just had so much more experience at LIFE, that so many things make so much more sense to us than them.

So – if you want to make a change, come over here so I can wholeheartedly throw my arms around you, give you a big hug, and say “Of course you can!!!!!!!”

Okay … onto pointy little Christmas hats …

So Mum’s gone to Canada for the holidays – we have family in Vancouver – and at the last minute – of course it was last minute – I thought it would be nice to knit each of the little cousins – there’s 5 of them now – a pointy elfy hat for Christmas.

I could just picture them all at Aunty Mary’s, the snow falling outside, the lights twinkling inside, and all five of them lined up – in height order – with their pointy knitted hats. What a cute photo, huh! So a couple of days before Mum arrived (her flight left from Melbourne), I began knitting and at first I was able to use wool from the stash. Awesome way to finish up leftover bulky yarn and I didn’t even have to leave the house. That’s my kind of crafting.

Biggest first – for my dear little 8 year old nephew Oscar. Thank goodness I did the biggest first. I would have hated knitting the biggest at 1:30am the morning Mum left.

Then I knitted the littlest – for my cute little 3 month old cousin James. That was a blitz. One episode of Zen, on iView, at my desk, and it was done.

Then there were three middles starting with my busy little 3 year old cousin Caleb.

But then there were no new colours for the next two – only rehashes of the previous three – bit ho-hum. I just had to go down to Wondoflex and for some reason, there never seemed to be a good time – until 2 days before Mum left.

Which meant I knitted one for my sweet little 18 month old cousin Frankie before I cooked Abby’s birthday supper the day before Mum left.

And finally knitted the last one for my funny little nephew Sam on the Thursday night AFTER Abby’s birthday supper. I think I cheered when I reached the decreasing rounds. And danced about as I cast off. Well staggered’s probably more accurate. It was very late.

However, I can now tell you, dear reader, that if you need to knit a heap of presents in a very short space of time – the Fuzzy Little Shapka Hat is the real deal. Awesomely easy, quick, lovely, doesn’t even use a whole ball of bulky … ticks all the boxes it does. Ravelled here.

And when the fam send me that photo – of all 5 little heads lined up in their stripey pointy elfy Christmas hats – I’ll be sure to show you :-)

a wooden spoon :: sugar plum fairy

November 10, 2014Lily 5 Comments

Oh my! Have I been having fun!

Now, I’ve had a Pinterest account for a while – if you’re interested, there’s an icon for my account in the left hand toolbar – but it hasn’t been until recently that I’ve really practiced the fine art of spending hours and hours trawling through the amazing creativity of others and pinning all my favourites onto an ever increasing number of boards.

Oh the things I dream of doing! I need an indoor staircase so I can wallpaper the risers. I’ll need a couple of kitchens, bathrooms and bedrooms so as to use up all the loveliness I find. Hundreds of quilts – of course. Exotic things in the garden that will require far greener thumbs than I possess. Then there’s the new skills I need to acquire – lino cutting, print making, papier mache sculpting … I almost begin to hyperventilate and I can’t decide between sitting and looking, or rushing away and doing.

Sunday morning saw us gathered in the cosy corner of the kitchen; Julian home (for just 30 hours – can you believe it! – home at 3.30am Sunday and gone again Monday at 9.30am) – sliding fresh expressos and creams across the desk every 1/2 hour or so, Abby by my side – saying “Oh! There! There! Pin that! That one!”; and me having a blissful time looking at so many beautiful handmade dolls …

Until I could bear it no longer and simply had to make a doll of my own. A lovely amalgamation of so many dolls I saw and loved. A wooden spoon doll with pipe cleaner arms and a little bit of corriedale roving for the body and hair, a wee crocheted bodice, a gathered skirt …

And because Melinda is so lovely and asked how … here is a little demonstration of how I made my sugar plum fairy. Hope it makes sense … and inspires you to make one of your own!

So I started with a small wooden spoon – bigger than a teaspoon but not a dessert spoon – the sort you buy in a packet at party supply stores.

And one long pipecleaner – also in a packet from Winterwood – it’s about 12 inches long. I used the technique of wrapping the last 2 inches of each end of the pipecleaner (as perfected by the incredibly gifted artist Salley Mavor) with embroidery floss – I used DMC perle cotton no. 8 – in your skin colour of choice. Start 2 inches in, winding the thread firmly and neatly – make sure you check both sides so that you don’t leave any gaps – to the end of the pipe cleaner. Then fold the wrapped end in half so that a little hand is made from the the bend and wrap the raw end to the pipecleaner so that it is covered. Fasten and trim. I leave an inch of floss which I’ll later cover with the arm wrapping.

Now – position your pipecleaner evenly on the spoon with its 2 wrapped hands out to each side. Twist the pipe cleaner around the spoon handle, making sure your arms are at an even height – you don’t want wonky shoulders.

Next – because I am in a crochet mood – and because I saw an amazing bird cage made from a large whisk which had had its wire loops crocheted over, crochet a single row along each arm – from the wrist to the back – making sure to keep the stitches firm (not tight) and neatly lined up. There are your sleeves! This was a bit fiddly and really, the end result was pretty much like blanket stitch – which will be precisely what I do next time.

Crochet a little bodice. I used 4 ply cotton thread and a size 2 mm crochet hook and followed the same stitch layout I am using in Attic24′s Stripey Blanket CAL. You should check out Lucy’s tutorials – they are so incredibly clear and helpful and Lucy is the Queen of Colour. I made my bodice 18 chains long after deciding on how rounded I wanted my doll’s bodice.

Pull the Corriedale roving into long thin strips and wrap the upper half of the spoon handle, making it the most rounded around her bust and tapering it off past her waist. I then pushed the doll’s arms through the crocheted bodice – there’s always a gap somewhere – overlapped the back and sewed it shut.

I used a scrap of quilt binding – cut at 2 3/4 inch – for her skirt. I machine sewed my skirt’s ends together (1/4 inch seam) then pressed up a quarter inch hem and machine stitched it. I handstitched a gathering thread around the waist and pulled it in to fit my spoon doll with her roving bodice – tie the gathering thread ends together, push them through a needle, and then pull this through the roving and trim. Use a few hand stitches to fasten the waist of the skirt to the roving and pull the bodice down over the top of the skirt waistband.

Night fell, and dim light precluded any more photos so now we jump to the finished doll!

Next, I added a bow to the waist – I just cut the ribbon to the desired length, tied a bow and stitched it onto her bodice/waistband/roving body with a button.

The hair. I used more roving to create a beehive. I started by covering the top 1/3 of the spoon’s bowl with white glue which I wrapped the roving round. I tried needlefelting but really, I just kept hitting the wood with the needle, so I just lightly poked it until it was all attached.

Then I added this lovely single ply yarn that has a lightweight wire centre. It’s kinda smooshed on. Nothing flash – poked the end into the roving best I could. Then I added the sequins – each one attached with a little crystal bead. I mostly used these to attach the yarn to the roving. I added a button with a sequin and bead – piece de resistance! – to cover the still visible end of the yarn/wire.

Finally, I painted the face. Very simply. Terrified I would completely stuff it up. The mouth’s a bit wonky – but then again, I think it looks like my lipstick these days! Bit of a problem with straightness these days ;-)

And here she is! Miss Plum! My little wooden spoon – sugar plum fairy. I’m certainly making more of these little sweeties for the Christmas tree. I was also thinking they’d make a nice mobile. Oh! You could stick them in a cupcake – how pretty would that be! Tsk! Can’t believe we’re not having a birthday party this year – these wooden spoon dolls would make lovely party favours for the guests – don’t you think?! Course they would.

I love how the afternoon light would sometimes glint off her so prettily – clouds scudding by and trees bending in the wind and all – but Abby thought the darker photos were nicer. So I put in both – Abby’s photo, my photo – Abby’s photo, my photo.

One of our last flowering stems of lavender. Miss Plum has the perfect hand for holding a wee bloom. And said she’ll mind it til next spring. What a sweetie.

I’ve already started the next wooden spoon doll … a bigger version … a Wattle Fairy for the top of our Christmas tree … with a mantle of gum leaves … here’s a glimpse …

Ahhh … such delight!

the crabapples of finch street

November 4, 2014Lily 10 Comments

One of the things that always brings me a lovely sense of “ahhhh …” is driving down Finch Street. It lies between our place and the little girl’s school I nanny/tutor – well, it does on my carefully planned route :-)

And no matter the time of year, Finch Street – with its grand old houses and magnificent trees is breathtakingly lovely. The other little girl I used to nanny (who moved to Sydney last year) used to ask me to drive down it specially, and we’d drive slowly, ooohing and aaaahing over our favourite houses, discussing who’d have which room, where we’d put the furniture, and the garden parties we’d hold.

There’s even a truly exquisite old mansion that does high teas – we always said we would go but never did. That’s a lesson in life, isn’t it – do it now or you’ll miss out.

Now part way along Finch Street is this pretty little roundabout which looks nice enough most of the year, but in spring it is glorious. ’Cause in the middle is a beautifully shaped crabapple and it puts out the prettiest spring blossoms ever.

Oh they are the perfect shade of pink with those vivid but soft green spring leaves making the rosy blossoms leap out even more. And when you stop and peer closely, the blossoms are filled with funny little black flying insecty things. I’ve no idea what they are – but I have checked other crabapples in my neighbourhood and they have them too.

Clearly funny little black flying insecty things are especially fond of crabapples. We’re kindred spirits, me and those insects.

So when I was playing with this Storybook charm pack the other day, it was crabapples that sprang to mind. I had two charm packs so I laid them out on my bed – in that carefully random way we all strive for – and because that wasn’t going to make a very big quilt, added a very pretty pink 1930s repro I had – as crosses. Maybe it’s a nursey thing, but I do like crosses lately.

Might add, it wasn’t until I was pinning the finished quilt top out that I realised the Storybook range is baby fabric! There’s onesies and bibs on the wee clotheslines! Never mind – it’s still very pretty – and the castles and birds and pirate ships are just lovely.

Found the loveliest blanket for backing – it is so thick and fresh – methinks it’s hardly been used. And such perfect colours for my crabapple quilt.

My original intention was to quilt alternating crabapples and blossoms in the simple squares. However – this here apple was the only one of 13 that turned out – boy that was some serious unpicking. Didn’t matter how much I practiced I just could NOT get any other apples nice and rounded. Hmph.

So blossoms it was. Lovely crinkly edged, smooshed layers just like those on the crabapple tree. With leaves of course. I do so love that about the crabapple – how it bursts forth with its leaves and blossoms at the same time.

They came up especially pretty on the back of the blanket. I reckon I would cheerfully use this quilt face up or down.

Like Orlando’s Blue Oaks from last week, all this quilting was an excellent adventure in free motion quilting! There are 110 crabapple blossoms, 4 slightly wonky but okay apples in each corner, inner borders of squiggly-wiggly – representing the bluestone walls of the Finch Street roundabout, and outer borders of funny little black flying insecty things – joined together on a meandering flight path with leaves along the way. It was a make it up as I went along kind of thing.

And I did unpick quite a bit – anything I wasn’t pleased with got the pick – sometimes it felt like I was spending more time on the sofa flicking those errant stitches out than I was at the sewing machine! Some of the flying insects are a bit wonky but they’ll get better with practice. I’m especially fond of the “wings” in each of the blue and white triangles – I can imagine doing something that incorporates lots and lots of them very soon

Isn’t that sky amazing! When a lovely spring day comes along here in Melbourne, it is seriously lovely.

As I mentioned the other day, crabapples are on my list to plant when we move to our land in the beautiful Bega Valley. But no matter where we venture, this sweet little quilt will always remind me of Finch Street. When we tuck it round us on a cold evening, or lay it out under a summer’s tree for a little one to play on, I’ll remember the beauty of Finch Street and its exquisite roundabout crabapple – the very first time I met this dear little spring sweetie.

Love!

quilting the teacloths

October 21, 2014Lily 2 Comments

Some tea cloths are just too pretty to subject to the washing up and scrunched up to lift hot cast iron pans – which often leads me to thinking about what nice wall hangings they would make – and yet, I rarely get around to it.

Until recently, when I tidied up all the fabric that was shoved in around our little indoor craft table and found this sweet cloth. I bought it with Mum when we made our epic 3 day drive to Brisbane at the beginning of the year. We’d deliberately gone well out of our way to visit this little village in the Southern Highlands which had an amazing antique store. Only when we finally got there – our pennies burning their way through our purses – the store had closed two years earlier after its owners had died. So sad! We found this out at the Alpaca store – where we also found these lovely tea cloths by the very talented Australian artist – Red Tractor Designs. I adore her work because it IS so very Australian. Every piece I see brings a smile of recognition to my face – I can imagine the sun, the smells, the warmth …

I bought this one because it made me think of the future Julian and I are planning – see there’s me off to the left planting some seeds and Julian doing important digging on the right :-)

- and Mum bought another lovely one for dear old Nanny. You can check out more of Rachael Flynn’s wonderful work here. Her Christmas cards are especially lovely – no snowmen or ice skaters in sight! – a girl after my own Australian heart.

The bright squares of colour against the black makes me think of licorice allsorts – another sentimental reminder of my childhood. And the brown – why it’s that Lorax again (I bought metres and metres of him at Darn Cheap one day – I daresay he will keep popping up in things) – ’cause he’s the best gardener of all.

On the back there’s a wee pocket for hanging and lots of squiggles … I tried out a few new wobby quilting strategies on this. Tried quilting round the loraxs – didn’t really work so well. And made little loopy circles in the licorice allsorts squares. They worked better and are definitely something I will keep practising. Oh and there’s a pocket at the bottom as well – I’m going to put another wooden rod in there and hopefully it will help it hanging straighter against the wall.

And where’s it hanging now? In the funniest little nook we have between the kitchen and the toilet. That’s right – our only toilet is off the kitchen. Let me tell you how much guests enjoy using our toilet when we’re all gathered in the kitchen ;-) Funny story – sorry if I’ve already shared this – but Abby and I found our sweet little house during a hectic week in October the year before we moved. It was quite the adventure, finding properties online whilst in the hotel room in the city, then catching trams and trains and walking for miles everywhere to see them. Was particularly galling to spend 2 hours travelling to view a house that was hideously unsuitable and totally misrepresented online.

Anyways – we found our little house and snapped it up on the spot – without Julian. He said he trusted us. Only when he arrived weeks later with the furniture, he called – part bemused, part frantic – because according to him, Abby and I had rented a house with NO TOILET.

Now when he first said this, given all the appalling properties we had viewed, it didn’t seem completely implausible and I burst into tears. ”Oh no!” I shrieked, “how could it have no toilet. Surely they couldn’t rent a house with no toilet!” Thankfully, Julian kept wandering through the house and finally exclaimed with relief “Found it! It’s right out in the back corner – through a funny little door off the kitchen!” Phew!

And where the quilt is hanging – that was a locked screen door into the back garden with no other means of closing it. Let me tell you how cold that was! Made you think twice about going to the toilet on a cold night. It didn’t take long before we whacked up a protective piece of MDF.

So now, on the way to our funny toilet, you’ll see this pretty quilt and hopefully think of nice things – instead of the fact that everyone in the kitchen will hear you pee.

rolling beeswax :: a recipe

October 20, 2014Lily 7 Comments

:: take some sheets of heavenly scented, perfectly formed beeswax
- sigh with thanks & wonder over the hard work
& meticulous nature of the honey bee

:: gather specially woven cotton wick, scissors for wick cutting,
& sacrificial scissors for beeswax cutting

:: lay your sheet of beeswax with the shorter edge towards you
- cut your wick to fit with an extra 1/2 inch dangling from the top – you need something to light
- lay it 1/4 inch in from your short edge – fold the short edge of the wax over it, taking care to squoosh it down good and tight
- then firmly, firmly, firmly, roll away from you, making a tight, smooth, even baclava log of beeswax
- voila! you’ve made a candle

:: keep rolling and rolling and rolling until you have all the candles you want
- or you run out of sheets of beeswax – or wick – or time

:: understand that if you were a medieval monk,
your candles would only be used in the stables,
every one of them being a slightly different width and length

:: but know, that when you light them, they will nevertheless
cast the most beautiful glow
& fill your room with a honeyed scent
you’ll want to soak yourself in

:: whilst the candles rest, gather a scrap of blanket

:: a pretty piece of fabric

:: & some pins

:: quilt & bind

:: sew down the binding by hand
- the bees would never machine sew the final edge
of a binding & neither should you

:: pin & sew onto a tin

:: gather up the scraps of beeswax stuck in the candlesticks
all round the house

:: add them to the shards of beeswax sheets
you found under the laundry sink
& put in a bowl suitable for sitting over a pot
of simmering water for melting

:: gather your rolled candles – in your quilted tin of course
& take then to the kitchen

:: over a small pot of simmering water, melt your wax scraps

:: dunk the wick end of each of your candles in the hot amber liquid
- it’s better not to get it on your fingers, but remember
beeswax melts at a very low temperature so it will only smart for a second
then you can peel it off like a spare piece of skin with no harm done

:: stand the candles to dry, taking care that their soft warm tips
do not touch each other

:: admire the sweetness you have made

:: pop your tin of beeswax candles on a prominent shelf
- easy to get to and pretty to look at

:: stand back & shake your head with delight
over how much more you love your house since
the weekend’s huge re-arrange

:: then, when dusk finally falls,
gently push your candles into their candlesticks & light

:: sigh …

magical mystery bay

October 5, 2014Lily 3 Comments

It just goes to show what a difference a tide can make. Last week we ventured up to magical Mystery Bay. Abby’s first time – only our second. And this afternoon the tide was waaaaaaay out. Oh – it was an utterly different landscape. Even more enchanting. Montague Island was crisper – especially through Mum’s wonderful new binoculars – and almost enticing to me who is terrified of boats. There was a funny gathering of birds on the far rocks – perched right on the jagged edge with their wings fluffed out like butterflies as if they were trying to catch treasures from the wind as it passed them by. There were rock pools galore – worlds for miniature people, mermaids, pirates, their ships and treasure. And the green. Oh the green. Sharp rocky fields of it. It was thick, velvety and so beautiful, turning the broken rocky landscape into an aerial landscape of lush green hills and valleys.

Mum searched for shells and driftwood … and made little movies with her iPhone to send to Grandad so many thousands of kilometres away. He loved it – especially the roar of the waves.

Abby watched the birds, inspected the sea’s washed up relics … and eventually settled down on the park bench to needlepoint. Oh my, she’s her mother’s daughter, isn’t she :-)

I – being the only one with bare feet and legs – explored the rock pools and was made chief shell washer. As I picked my way over the vivid green rocks and through the sun warmed pools, my mind was full of stories and plans to make the little felt people that could play them.

Wee fisher folk who catch the tiny, darting sparkling fish with the finest of fishing lines and nets. Rock fairies who dwell in the deep holes of the steep, black rocks – like the cave homes of ancient China – decorated with the soft pinks and greens of the rock pool gardens. Their little children who gather the sea snails and race them along the slippery rocks as the tide first slips away. Tiny but fierce pirates who know all the routes in and out of the miniature bays, hiding their treasure in the sharp crevices of dagger like cliffs. And plenty of merfolk who dart about the rock pool gardens, tending to the sea weeds and coral, and collecting the soft green moss for their beds.

I haven’t yet thought of a role for the blue bottles. There were plenty – such an amazing array of sizes and shapes but all with that exquisite colour. Always makes me think of the laundry “blue” that my Nanny Dougall kept to brighten the whites.

Doesn’t this just make you think of a face!? A sea troll who was caught out by the sun, doomed to squat there by the water’s edge for long centuries, the fierce, battering waves slowly wearing him away. First his limbs, then his body until all that is left is his surprised face until it too is no more, his story forever washed away.

Of course, this just has to be the bony spine of a long ago sea monster who was washed up one stormy night, too scared to crawl any further up the sand, to weak to return to his home in the sea.

Mum and I are both especially fond of the fragments of sponge and coral that are washed up, drained of their colour and life, but still so very very pretty …

And then, with the sun beginning to set, it was time to bump across this spindly, old beauty and head for home. Isn’t it such a delightful bridge. It’s wooden and rattly with the lake on either side filled with the most glorious of reflections, black swans, herons and egrets. Picture perfect every time.

Another magical day on the Sapphire Coast. Oh I am so looking forward to when it is my home.

hoppity-hoppity

September 30, 2014Lily 9 Comments

Well! You’ll need to settle down with a lovely cup of something to read this one! The lovely and creative Rebecca of Needle and Spindle asked me to participate in this little bloggity hop, where we get to ramble on about the whole creative process as it fits into our lives. It’s taken me hours to collect all these thoughts and put them down in some kind of order, but I do hope you enjoy reading this as much as I did thinking about it, and perhaps it will add a little light to the creative chaos that is so often on display here at block-a-day :-) And once you’ve ploughed your way through this, you can follow the links back to read how other lovely, like minded folk approach their craft. It makes for inspiring reading.

What am I working on?

I always have so many different projects on the go. I adore planning a new project, and starting it provides a thrill that literally makes me smile and jig about and even squeal a little. But finishing – well, I can honestly say, it just doesn’t give me the same zing. Bizarre but true. I am definitely more seduced by the crafty doing than the crafty finish. Is this a good thing or not? At the moment I think it’s a good thing. Starting new projects is my way of recording all the ideas that swirl around my head. And you know, giving these started projects lots of time to marinate – moving them in and out of the doing zone – gives me a chance to refine them, improve them, adapt them to new purposes. All good things.

So – what am I working on? On the knitting front, I am currently knitting my Mum a grey and red stripey jumper (that has to be finished in time for her to take to Canada at the beginning of December), my Abby a vivid purple Lopi jumper that it is now too hot to wear (ah, there’s always next year), my Julian an argyle vest (truth be told, those needles haven’t been touched for months!), and a cinnamon coloured cardigan for myself that has a fair isle band around the chest and upper sleeves.

Patchwork – definitely the black, mustard and turquoise triangles. Started as a simple star that has just kept on growing and growing and growing. It really is quite addictive. And everytime I think, that’s it! no more rounds! I find another piece of lovely fabric and quickly start cutting. And my Spring House version of the Winter House. And my fox faces.

Embroidery – Working on my Norwegian Queen. I got heaps and heaps done last week in Merimbula and am really pleased with her progress. I’m keen to finish this one, because then I want to make a Norwegian King! I’ve also dragged out my Hawk Run Hollow Village cross stitch – quite the epic project.

Applique – oh the fox chair! I am completely in love with the fox chair. It’s been slow going but very very satisfying.

Upholstery – Putting hessian, lace and cross stitch together to recover an old English Oak card chair I found by the side of the road.

Crafty – I’ve recently bought Salley Mavor’s book “Felt Wee Folk: Enchanting Projects” and oh, it is truly enchanting :-) I’ve just made a wee doll of Lucifer – he’s part of a Michaelmas mobile – he’s been pushed out of heaven and is suspended amongst the starts and blackberry leaves and berries. I foresee many many more of these little folk. They are such fun to make.

Sewing – tshirts and skirts for summer. My first two tshirts- great successes – shrank when I washed them. So they’ve been handed down to Mum’s lovely neighbour and I’m now a devoted preshrinker.

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

I think the thing that really defines my work is my lack of concern for perfection or the “right” way of doing things. Soon after I became really interested in making in my mid 20s, I became obsessed with things being perfect. Lines had to be dead straight. Corners had to be precise. Errors were intolerable. Evidence that it had been MADE rather than conjured up out of the air meant I had failed. And I didn’t think anything I made could stand up to being touched or used by anyone. It was horrible. Stressful for everyone – I remember a friend taking me for a walk through the university garden one lunch time to show me that there were no straight lines in nature. And my husband declared that if something I made couldn’t be USED than it simply wasn’t of any use. After a few years of this my making ground to a halt because I knew I could not make things perfectly. I decided that the only craft I was any good at was cross stitch – making those little crosses neatly on strictly gridded fabric met my need for order and the perfect finish. I literally gave all my wool and knitting needles to my Nanny and declared that I would have to save my few finished quilt tops up until I could afford to pay an expert to quilt them. It was all rather crushing.

Then, after finding the bloggy world of making and being so utterly inspired by so many incredibly talented people, I began making again. I also began blogging and strangely enough, that encouraged me to just keep going. There was always a new blog post to be written ;-) I began playing with many different techniques and genres and it was so fun that I slowly let go of that perfection. I wanted to be a maker – a sewer, a knitter, a crocheter, a doll maker, a patchworker, a quilter, an appliquer … I really worked at teaching myself that the beauty of making was in the making. I didn’t want to be a passive observer, I wanted to actively create.

So my seams are not perfectly straight and my points are sometimes missing. I cheerfully re-chop things if they don’t fit, and if I realise I’ve missed something on the pattern I can usually rejig it so it works. My quilting is higgledy-piggledy and I never bother with batting and backing (vintage blankets all the way). I don’t care what patchwork fabrics are the latest or what colour background the cool quilters are using. I cheerfully make my clothes out of old tablecloths and curtains. My quilts are made from fabrics gathered here, there and everywhere. My knitting is almost always dictated by what my local yarn store has dug up for the bargain basement this week. My furniture is gathered from the side of the road and brought back to life with elbow grease and Danish oil.

I just keep swimming the Lily way and when I’m finished, what I’ve loved making is free to be used and worn and dragged and squashed and crumpled up and that’s all good. If the candlewax drips onto the appliqued table cloth that’s fine. If the armhole stitches are wonky – so what, the jumper is still eminently wearable and cosy. If the little visitor dirties the felt doll, oh well, it looks loved. I don’t even blink when Mum’s old dog pees on my quilt or our dog wipes her chicken wing juicy chin on my crochet floor rug.

That’s not to say my work is clumsy or I am careless. But I think handmade needs to flow in a way that fits in with everything else that is going on. It’s not a precious art form that I set aside a few hours for each day/week or a finished item that needs to be guarded. My work is simply part of our lives, often created amongst the dishes we’ve just eaten from on the kitchen table, and as such, never needs to be perfect or cosseted. Just lovely. And useful is good too.

Why do I write and create the way I do?

You might have noticed, I have no problem with writing on and on and on (I have never been able to write to a word limit – such a constant problem with my academic work :-) and whilst my punctuation is sometimes erratic, my style is rather formal. But, this being my blog, I can write however I like. And I think it probably reflects both the constant chatter in my head, and my love of richly detailed, more old fashioned literature (oh Charles Dickens – you can take as many pages as you like to describe a house!) Honestly, I do talk to myself most of the time. I think it comes from spending a lot of time at home alone – first as a stay at home mum, and now living in Melbourne where I have no family or friends to visit. Instead, I potter about, doing the chores, looking after Abby and Julian, writing essays, or making – a constant stream of quiet chatter keeping me company. Describing what I see around me, what I could do next, how I could proceed with a project, what tack I’ll take on a paper, what I’ll talk about with Abby when I collect her from school, what I’ll write about on the blog, what’s infuriating me in the news, what my worries are for the future … And so my writing reflects this same tumbling chatter. If you were sitting here beside me, I would sound exactly the same in person as I do in writing :-)

Why do I create the way I do – hmmm … I like to do things the old fashioned way. I don’t like our society’s emphasis on new and modern, fashionable and sophisticated, fleeting and disposable. My grandmothers and mum taught me the basics of all my making. Nanny Cottam taught me to knit when I was 8, crochet in my teens, and her love of patchwork inspired me when I was in my early 20s. We went to classes together and have spent countless days side by side at her place, running up clothes, curtains, sofa covers, patchwork etc. on the machine, looking through magazines and books together, plotting our next projects and purchases … my dear old Nanny Cottam is without doubt the most important creative force in my life. Her admonition when the going gets tricky “Now, let’s just sit down and we’ll have a quiet look at it” will guide my creativity for the rest of my days.

Nanny Dougall – who sadly died when I was just 11 – is another huge influence in my life. She was the queen of making do, making from scratch, using what she had, and appreciating beauty. She taught me to handsew when I was little – we made a wee doll’s quilt from little squares from her stash. She started me on my embroidery career – first with making wonky white crosses on blue gingham, then moving on to a Holly Hobbie embroidery kit. And whilst we cared for her during her last weeks, she taught me to make pompoms – I was so amazed with their cleverness. My little sister and I were devastated to wake up one morning and find that she’d died overnight – she was going to teach us to crochet that day. But whilst I never had the chance to spend the time with her that I have with Nanny Cottam, it is what she left me that helps shape my creativity. I have her crochet books, her carefully embroidered doilies, the beautifully crocheted and knitted jumpers and cardigans she made us, the fabric scraps she gathered, the spools of crochet yarn she inherited from her mother, pieces of pretty china, her piano stool, her tin chest. She appreciated what she had, she carefully gathered what was important to her, and she celebrated beauty.

And then there’s my Mum. She’s an exceptional seamstress. She sewed all our clothes when we were little and most of them when we were older. She sewed my school uniforms, my ball gowns, my pregnancy clothes, Abby’s bunny rugs … There has always been a sewing machine set up in the centre of the home, ready to go. Everything we’ve ever seen and liked is matched to the refrain “We could make that”. Mum gave me the invaluable belief that we could make whatever we needed or wanted, and we could make it beautifully. She also let me make stupid things really badly. When I insisted that WAS what the Vogue pattern said to do, she just shrugged her shoulders and said “alright” and I wore the jumpsuit with the lining sewed in with the seams visible and fraying. That was awesome parenting Mum!

So yep. I’m wordy, old fashioned, hopelessly sentimental, determined to do it for myself, and yearn for the days of old when people DID things instead of simply shopped for things.

How does my creative process work?

Hmmm … I think my work is very much shaped by my confidence with that particular genre. When knitting, I tend to stick very carefully to what the pattern says because at this stage in my knitting “career”, I don’t have a good understanding of how knitting patterns are created. All those shapes and increases and decreases are all a bit of a mystery to me. I mean, I know how to do them, but I don’t know how to put them together myself. Thus I am very happy to bow down to the creativity and skill of those that know so much more. However, I do spend a lot of time thinking about the magic of knitting – how did people come to think of winding yarn around sticks and pulling it in and out in different ways to create all kinds of wonderful stitches and build beautiful, warm, hardy fabric. I love that. It makes me feel incredibly connected to something that has intrigued, delighted and protected people for thousands of years.

In most of my other work, my increasing confidence with how things are put together has led me away from the patterns of others. I like to draft my own patterns and most of my projects are inspired by what I see about me, what my family likes or is doing, and especially thinking up ways to add extra handmade decoration to our home and the festivals we celebrate. I adore decoration – I remember seeing the film “Carrington” when I was at university in the late 1980s, watching Dora Carrington and her friends embellish everything around them, and thinking yes! That’s exactly what I want my world/home to be like. Colourful, rich, detailed, so very connected to the past, unique to me and my family (I have a loathing of the homeware catalogue look) and most importantly handmade. I want my work to please me and be lovely and useful for my family but I also want it to show the world what it is we love and value.

The grill door on an Art Deco block of flats in Fitzroy becomes a simple quilt. The photo of a fox in a English rural magazine marries the lovely rounded shape of a hard rubbish chair and becomes a piece of embroidered and appliqued upholstery. The lovely artwork of my Nanny’s Figgjo china collection inspires me to recreate it as embroidery. I see a pretty piece of fabric in the shop and wonder what it could be, what it could go with – it can be as simple as wrapping hebel bricks to make a bookshelf or trim a skirt. A book of antique samplers inspires the start of a huge and complex quilt with hundreds of tiny pieces and seams. A collection of coloured china on the draining rack makes me want to sew a quilt or knit a stripey jumper capturing just that light and colour. It comes from everywhere, my creativity

Most of all, it’s very spontaneous and cheerfully repurposes what was bought for another project because at that moment, it’s the perfectly right thing to do.

Wow! We made it to the end! Now. I am supposed to be linking you to another maker however, with the end of the school term, a quick holiday in Merimbula, and Julian’s departure on a month long work trip to addle my brain, I’ve not lined anyone up. I’m so sorry. However, I am sending out some emails right now so I will let you know where to visit next as soon as I can :-)

While you wait – go make something – it’s just so good.

all over the place

September 16, 2014Lily 15 Comments

I’m very unsettled at the moment. You may have noticed.

Each day, I bounce from room to room, from project to project. I hit upon something that takes my fancy for several hours – throw myself into it – it’s delightful – I’m delighted – I’m going to do marvellous things with it. Then, the next morning, I’m back to bouncing.

Feverishly filling in a giant crossword book I found. Spending waaaaaaay to long playing mahjong on the computer.

The one upside to this state, is that slowly, bit by bit, each room is getting a good shaking out and organising. This only seems to happen by creating an unholy mess first. And sometimes, the crosswords overtake me and the mess lurks about for a few days.

The reason for this chaos. I am at a completely loose end. You see, it’s a funny thing this nursing business. You know how there’s this perception that there are never enough nurses. Well that’s only sort of true. The degree we undertake these days, to gain our registration, is so very very university based – with so little clinical practice – that no one wants to employ a newly graduated nurse. She needs way to much training to be safe and useful. No one except nursing homes.

They’re usually desperate and will cheerfully snatch up a new graduate and put her in charge of 40 – 80 residents. She will be the only registered nurse on duty and will be expected to provide medication to frail and vulnerable people she’s never laid eyes on before and accept complete responsibility for their wellbeing. It’s a recipe for disaster – the examples of which hit the coroner’s court. Mention working in a nursing home and newly graduated nurses shudder with fear.

And so we have the graduate year. I think almost all of the hospitals have them. The big public hospitals have big intakes, the little private hospitals have little intakes. And they all have hundreds and hundreds of new graduates applying. And guess what – there are nowhere near enough graduate places for those who are graduating – at least a third of graduates will miss out. Makes you wonder where they wind up.

Do they just grit their teeth and head to the nursing homes, fingers crossed that they don’t kill a poor old soul? Do they go rural (another whole can of worms)? Do they do agency work – as terrifying as nursing home work – imagine a ward in a hospital where you know nobody, don’t know how they do things, have never walked those corridors, navigated that drug room, met those patients, and you have almost no clinical experience – nice! Do they go bank (casual work for a particular hospital – not quite as bad as agency – at least you stick with the one hospital)? Or do they wind up in all sorts of random places where they will never develop the skills they’ve studied for – like doctors’ surgeries and schools and occupational health and safety things. All of these alternatives to the real thing send chills down my spine.

Where does this all leave me? Well – I achieved a good GPA. I have great clinical reports and glowing references from really good placements. I put in my four applications for a grad year – you are only allowed four – and you can only apply one year (theoretically you can apply every year, but you will always be considered last after your first go – so given there’s a shortage of places … ) I received three interviews at 3 big public hospitals – all of which I had been to as a student and had great references from.

The fourth application – a private hospital where I’d also had a great placement and really clicked with the senior nursing staff – I missed out on an interview – they emailed me one hour after applications closed to advise me. I was HORRIFIED to have been dismissed so quickly so queried their decision. Turns out they didn’t like my clinical reports – I used my last two reports which were from the Royal Children’s Hospital and The Alfred ICU – two of the most sought after placements – this private hospital wanted general medical or surgical. Really? Bugger them.

I had my interviews. The first two were up quick. The third was a few weeks back. I think they went well. Hard to know. And now – I have no clue as to what 2015 will hold for me because we don’t find out until October 14th!!!!!!! Can you believe we have to wait that long. My first interview – at The Alfred – was on August 5th. That’s 2 1/2 months wait. Aaaaaaaaargh!!!!! And get this – the final joyful bit of the whole torturous process – we only get one offer. That’s right. Even if all the hospitals who interviewed you want to offer you a grad year, you will only hear from the one you listed first, so you better make sure you ordered that list just right. AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGHHHH!

For this marvellous process, we say thank you to the State Government of Victoria and their canny little program ComputerMatch.

So, until October 14th, I am bouncing around, fretting hourly about whether I will get an offer. Rehashing those interviews and thinking up 20 ways I could have answered each question better. Filling out yet another crossword. Wasting more time on mahjong. Not finishing my quilts. Not writing up my crochet pattern. Not working on my needlepoints and cross stitches. Not finishing off that yoke on Abby’s sweater or Mum’s stripey sweater or Julian’s Argyle. Not upholstering the footstool. Not painting the front porch chairs. Jeeez I’m slack.

Instead, I’m hating that here I am – with months of blissful home time – and I am not using it wisely. I am flitting about chaotically – perpetually lonely and seemingly unable to finish even one thing. Wanting the day to pass quickly so that Abby and Julian are home. Incredulous that another week has disappeared. Sad that the weekend vanished in the blink of an eye. Longing for the year to just jolly well slow down. Wishing I could hack into ComputerMatch and get an offer now so that I can stop THINKING about it all of the time and just settle down to being lucky Lily at home.

Man, I am all over the place.

the sort of gardening we’re good at

September 11, 2014Lily 1 Comment

Since there’s nary a green finger between us – I’m hoping they’ll grow when we turn our hands to gardening our own land – our best “gardening” is enjoyed in other ways. With wool, and cotton, and needles, and hooks, and books, and bikes, and tools, and paper, and pencils, and good food, and lovely company.

So, when a magnificent spring day burst forth, that’s just what we did :-)

Out we went, soaking up that sun and warmth.

And when, at last, the air cooled and the sun dropped, we celebrated the day and the lovely “gardening” we’d enjoyed …

Have I mentioned how much I love spring!

the loveliness of almost

September 2, 2014Lily 1 Comment

Silly old Melbourne’s been playing tricks on us lately :-) Delivering up late winter days of beautiful blue skies, heaps and heaps of sun, and warmth! Only then, just when we’re shoving the jumpers into the backs of the wardrobes, it throws us cold, wet, grey days – several in a row – just to remind us it is still only late winter and to put our slippers back on.

Oh all right. Fair enough. I’ll keep the slippers beside my bed and rejoice that I have lovely handknits to pull on when the cold fronts storm in. But! When that sun comes out …

… I shall sit on the front porch and soak it up.

I shall embroider my very summery Fox. Crochet my spring flowers. Fill in the background of my Kaffe flowers. I may even get stuck into some Christmas decorations and presents.

Because I have finished my nursing degree. I have been to all my grad year interviews. I have several months of nothing more important – and perfect – to do than look after my family, potter about our home, and throw myself into the myriad of unfinished crafty loveliness that fills up all the corners of Bootville . And summer is almost here.

Yes!

dates and needlepoint and interviews

August 20, 2014Lily 5 Comments

This morning was another cold, dreary, grey, flattening sort of morning. Melbourne specialises in these. I have to exert a lot of energy to rise above it. But the last few weeks, as I’ve been waiting for application acceptances and grad year interviews, I’ve been a little bit wobbly on the rise. Checking emails every 5 minutes. Fretting over imagined, terrible outcomes. Wondering how I’ll ever make it to October 14th without having wasted 2 months ripping off all my cuticles.

Oy! So, instead of working on the Spring House which continues to cover the kitchen table, I tipped my needlepoint wool onto the library table and curled up under the lamp to work on my Norwegian Queen. Did you know the Norwegian word for Queen is “Dronning”. I must say, to my English speaking mind, this doesn’t conjure up the most regal notions – instead, it makes me think of a right bore of a queen, “dronning” on and on and on in a pompous and repetitive manner to her ladies in waiting about all the things the King (Konge) does that annoy her.

Yesterday, when I was thinking of all the things I could do with this wee needlepoint, I looked up lots and lots of ways to say Queen. The similarities were mostly expected – except for the enchanting Hindi word. You want to know some? Course you do – in French they say “Reine”, in Spanish it’s “Reina” and in Italian it’s “Regina”. Yup – just as expected. But in Hindu it’s “Rani”! How cool is that!! That Sanskrit and European languages share the same root is so fabulous! Just tonight I heard that lovely Canadian astronaut, Chris Hadfield, say that the thing he really began to feel when he was floating above our improbable jewel like world was the collectiveness of it all. Such a beautiful thought – and precisely why they say Rani in India and Reine in France.

You want to know some more – all right! In Russian they say “Koroleva”, in Czech they say “Kralovna”, and in Turkish they say “Kralice. Must be a connection there. In Malaysian they say “Ratu” and in Arabic they say “Malikah”. In Japanese I think they say “Joo” and in Vietnamese they say “Nu Hoang”. The one that made me laugh was the Maori – “Kuini”! Isn’t that gorgeous! I wish my Norwegian queen was a “Kuini” but I suppose I’d best make peace with the fact she’s a “Dronning”.

Anyways – etymological diversions aside – the needlepoint. I was at a bit of an impasse. I had – improbably – chosen gingernut brown for the background and spent last eve furiously filling and filling and filling. Then realised this morning that I couldn’t possibly fill in around all those little red flowers – they would VANISH into the gingernut. As I sat there, calculating how many hours it would take to pull out all that gingernut, I looked up and realised what was clearly inspiring me when I first settled on warm brown – this here print on the library wall!

I’m afraid I cannot remember the name or artist, but it is from the early American colonial period – one of my favourite periods of art. I just love the wonky perspective and proportions – grapes hanging from huge trees ready to torpedo the small farm houses and the garden that looks ripe for sliding down the steep hill – of gingernut brown! I’ve always looked at this painting and thought how the artist must have painted and painted the brown hill and then got to that beautiful weeping willow and thought “bugger, I can’t possibly paint in between all those delicate leaves, I know, I’ll paint around it.” And at the moment I was GLAD I’d chosen gingernut brown and knew just how to deal with those red flowers :-)

Then, I practised that ancient sport of “well, before I start a new piece of brown, I’ll just check the emails again.” Do you know that game? It goes like this – “before I wash the dishes, I’ll just check the emails again”, “I’ll hang out the washing and then I can check the emails again”, ”I won’t check the emails again until I’ve added three more rows of bricks”, ”goodness, I’ve been out of the house for 45 minutes, it’s time to quickly check the emails again.” Course you do. But this time – oh thank my lucky stars – there was the email I’ve been waiting for. A grad interview at the Royal Children’s Hospital for next Friday. Yes! Phew! Now I can get on with life.

Folks, I waltzed into the kitchen. I cleaned up with a spring in my step. I laughed with delight at the thought of baking for lunch :-) And so I pulled out a real favourite – Hugh’s soda bread from his lovely “Family Cookbook”. It’s such a good, solid recipe that allows for all manner of interpretations – today it was dates and oats. I just followed the basic recipe – eliminated the sugar (I always do that) and substituted 50g of oats for 50g of flour. Yum!

Popped it into the oven and did some more washing up. I must admit – I do like washing up in winter. I love filling the sink with straight hot water – no cold – and then plunging my hands in. This year I’ve either developed asbestos hands or the plumber turned the water heater temperature down when he last visited. Either way, it’s bliss. Fogs up my spectacles. The steam rises around me and floats away from the dishes as I stack them on the drainer. Oh yes, washing up, one of winter’s pleasures.

Then, whilst the soda bread baked, I got to playing with the beet tops from last night’s supper. Chopped off the leaves for the rabbits. And then, was so entranced by the ruby red liquid that dripped from the stems, that I chopped them up too and boiled them up in a bit of water. I have plans. Next time you pop into blockaday I shall either be showing you something marvellous. Or you’ll be laughing until you cry over what happened to those beet stems. We’ll just have to wait and see which it will be.

In 25 minutes, out came the soda bread – all bursting with scrumptious, piping hot dates. I hacked off some thick slabs, carefully layered them with thin slices of cold salty butter and gobbled them up at the kitchen bench. Yum!

Washed the butter from my hands, wrapped the leftovers for tomorrow morning’s breakfast – Hugh’s soda bread is marvellous toasted – and returned to my Kuini-Dronning. Spirits lifted. Belly full. New ideas for birds and borders and purposes in my mind.

Take that you dreary, winter Melbourne morning!

block-a-day

stitch-cook-grow-love

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