Showing posts with label miscellaneous musings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label miscellaneous musings. Show all posts

Tuesday 25 February 2014

My Stash.

What is the saying - If life gives you lemons, make lemonade.
My eldest daughter left home last week to start university after a gap year mostly spent overseas - in Japan and Peru.
I am very happy for her - It is a wonderful thing for a parent to see their children mature into adults . My daughter is happy and confident and has a very bright future ahead of her. I could say a lot more about her but she would not like it so I will respect her wishes here.
However it does leave a gap at home and I am missing her .
So I took over the central part of her wardrobe and for the first time ever I have all my fabrics together placed on shelves.

I have sorted my stash according to fabric types . It is far from being a SABLE but with my current snail paced sewing this will keep  me out of trouble for a few years.
On the top shelf  I have a few pieces of flannelette , sweater type knits and garment toiles.
The second shelf has bottom or jacket weight fabrics on the left and various types of knits ( including another sweater knit proving I am not as organised as I think I am ) on the right. In the middle are some polys ( with one rolled up piece of cashmere wool on top !)
The third shelf has various cottons on the left, silks in the middle ( with some Japanese cottons on top ) and again proving my organisational skills are lacking pale fabrics of all sorts on the right .
The second bottom shelf has bags of remnants divided into small pieces and large pieces. There is a plastic tub and another bag of patchwork /crafty type material.
The bottom shelf holds my old sewing machine and over locker and the embroidery attachments for my Pfaff.

The rest of the wardrobe still has some of her clothes and bits and bobs she does not need so I have not been entirely awful in taking over the wardrobe :)

Work and helping my daughter move has taken up more time than I expected. SO far this year I have only sewn two garments ( my T shirt project was actually all completed in 2013). I have also made toile after toile for my youngest daughter to sew up some gorgeous ombre lace bought in Paris last year . I am so nervous to cut into this but we almost have the toile right - I am waiting for her to try on the latest version . I tell you trying to fit her simple top has almost made me want to give up sewing - except then I look at the above photo ! I have also made some home dec projects for my eldest DD and have just started on curtains as well - ugh.  I have four more projects to blog about - I would like this blog to be fairly complete sewing diary for me but I have just spent ages trying to get that above photo upright ! I think I may have learnt how to rotate photos so they stay rotated in blogger - fingers crossed.
Anyway Cheers Janine.

Saturday 22 December 2012

Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.



For a few years now my youngest daughter has pointed out to me that her christmas stocking is somewhat smaller than her two older sisters and I have been able to ignore these mutterings. However as she gets older  it also gets harder for me to put this aside and so finally I decided to correct this injustice.
I bought a chrismassy panel from a local patchwork shop and then trawled my stash to complete the sack. I used some cheap and nasty  dark green and white spotty  patchwork fabric that I have had for at least 16 years for the back and some much nicer vintage red and cream gingham cotton  to line it  and I couldn`t believe it but I found that I already owned a suitable christmassy panel ! ( SewYears Resolution - shop my stash before buying anything else )
Then because it is the silly season I went to town decorating it - using all materials from my bits and bobs box - glitter paint, fluffy sparkly pom poms, gold iron-on motifs, `toy` buttons and charms , lone gilt buttons and little bells rescued from the necks of chocolate Easter bunnies.
Now I hope it doesn`t matter that  this is not a stocking and that this is now much larger than my other daugther`s stockings otherwise I will get to practice my diplomacy skills AGAIN .

With the completion of this ( downright quick and easy ) project my Christmas preparations are done. Presents have been bought, cooked ,sewn and wrapped. The Christmas cake has been baked ( and eaten !) , the tree has been decorated and my daughters are cooking the desserts we need to take for the day. Now I get to sit back and relax and hopefully get to read Anna Karenina and watch the Carols by Candlelight.



Hope you and your families  all have a safe and happy and healthy  Christmas.
I also want to thank everyone for their kind words and awards even during the year. It has made blogging even more fun and enjoyable.
Cheers Janine.

Sunday 16 September 2012

Our Garden

I am excited to be moving in the next few months to a new house but I will miss my garden ( but not all the hard work ) . My garden is just starting to come to life with spring and I wanted to capture some memories so I can look back at all the plants and design that took some 16 years in the making .

A mish mash of bulbs - the upright bulbs came from my beloved Aunty Pearl`s garden and she has been gone for some 30 years .



Magnolias are amongst my favourite trees - I will definitely plant some in my new garden but it will take a long time before it looks like this. There is a self sown echium off to  the left. I also really love maples and viburnums. I love dogwoods too and planted a genuine Canadian Dogwood but our harsh Australian summers were just too much and it curled up its toes .Living on tank water I can not afford to water too many plants here - they have to be drought resistant and tough .

 
This is a part of my Japanese inspired garden. I have divided my garden into `rooms` - there is the native section, a woodland garden ( with small fairy statues hidden - I must try to find them before we leave ) , the japanese garden, a perennial section , herb garden, citrus area  and `secret` garden ( it has a pergola with a seat underneath - concealed by lots of climbers and shrubs and looks toward the valley and mountains to the south ) . The gardens all blend into each other.
 


This is a part of my perennial garden which is only just starting to bloom. I love the smell of wall flowers - like Johnsons Baby Powder and they must be the easiest plants to grow from cuttings. I also have lots of salvias , some lavenders , lilies , catmints, penstemons  and irises here. I tend to love pinks , purples and whites with small splashes of red and yellow .

 This is the herb garden - I have parsley, spring onions, pizza thyme ( I like the flavour  better than common thyme, ) varigated oregano, a spindly savory bush , curry plant , chives, garlic chives , a potted bay tree, a so called dwarf rosemary bush ( hah ! dwarf if you regularly prune it ! ) and a moroccan mint ( sweeter than common mint and not invasive at all ). There are sporadic cat mints as a border and self seeded feverfews and some decorative roses  ( although I have toyed with the idea of making rose petal jam ).

My Irises and the main rose garden ( and the good old washing line )  - the irises are starting to come out. Again irises are one of my favourite plants - they give so much for little return. I am torn about my roses - most of them I have obtained by cuttings or gifts . However everytime I go near them they spike me- should I take cuttings or do I just leave them. Off the side is a  part of the native garden - mainly indigenous natives but there a couple of ring- ins as well.

Well this is just a portion of my garden. I really bit off more than I could chew in making it .
Hope everyone is having a good day.
Cheers Janine.

Monday 26 December 2011

The Xmas Aftermath.

Xmas come and gone for another year.
I do love Xmas . - Watching my girls open their presents - they earn pocket money during the year for doing set chores and therefore apart from biannual shopping clothes trips, largely fund their own purchases, social life etc during the year. So I love a chance to spoil them a little.

                           - Over the top lunch - it only happens once a year !  This year we had roast garlic and rosemary lamb, home made baked ham , cold roast chook,  home grown  roast veges including  potatoes ( boiled , then roasted in duck fat and then fried - I don`t think there was much nutrition left at the end !) ,parsnips ( we sowed parsnips years ago and since then they have been self seeding - it`s great to go on a parsnip hunt in the orchard and vege garden ) and pumpkin. Then there were the desserts - dark and white chocolate tart ( made by my youngest DD ) , boiled traditional xmas pudding ( made by my eldest DD ) with brandy custard and trifle. Then afterwards there was the currant and cherry xmas cake ( peel free for my sister-in-law ) and gingerbread building ( a church this year ) and rum truffles ( not to  mention the pre- nibbles , drinks and obligatory healthy salads ) .This year I did not overeat ( finally learning in my middle age )  - just a little of everything and felt just right at the end.

                       - Kris Kringle surprise present - a relative who will not be named goes around her house and picks out unwanted stuff - last year she gave my middle DD a necklace - it just happened to be the necklace my same daughter had lost at her house ! This year she gave my youngest daughter a candle with a gift tag attached indicating it was obviously an old rejected gift.  She also gave a handbag to another relative  ( who is only 8 ) that had an old ( unused thank goodness )  tampon in it !  We actually find this amusing and spices up  xmas day . By the way it is not through lack of funds that this relative does this as she goes overseas sometimes  several times a year - she has been all over the world multiple times. This year it was Canada , the USA and Hong Kong and China.
 

                     - a family game of dictionary - someone chooses a word out of dictionary that no-one knows the definition of and then everyone makes up one - all the definitions including the correct one are read out and you score points for guessing the correct definition and  tricking people - it`s lots of fun and you only need a dictionary and pencils and paper.

At the end of this day  we were treated to a spectacular storm that had a rainbow at the end - quite fitting I think.