New Year's Day 2015

New Year's Day 2015

  Well!  A new year!
 

   It was so hot last night I couldn't sleep and wished I was in my tree house with a little breeze.  One of the reasons I was not is that there is that a big Huntsman type spider lives up there.  My daughter found out about him when she did sleep up there one night.  She slept quite well and in the morning she met him for the first time.  He was quietly sleeping beside her on a branch a short distance from her nose!  I think I will stick to daytime visits when I can see what is in the tree house with me.

  During the night, the power also went off. I was just settling down after seeing the new year in and turning off the lights and out went the power! Oh no!  It was so hot and sticky up in our bedrooms!  Fortunately it was back on quickly before I had a chance to feel it.  I wonder why that was? 

  Today I am going to open an Etse shop for my knitting and craft things.  I have been thinking about it for a while and today I am going to do it.  It will be quite a learning experience.  I will give it the same name as this blog and have a try at online selling.

  Knitting in the summer heat is hot on the hands and they tend to become all sweaty so I will work in the air conditioning today.  We installed it for the benefit of my mother when she was living with us but now we are so grateful to have it during the worst of the heat and humidity.  Unfortunately, it does not reach upstairs into the bedrooms and we are sweltering at night.  I am very grateful for fans!  I remember as a child having to go without fans in the summer heatwaves and my nylon shortie PJs (which were the latest thing at that time) sticking to me very uncomfortably.  There was no relief from the humidity until early morning.  

  When I have an Etse shop I will post the link.

  Happy crafting this year !

     



New Beginning

Wool Basket in the Trees

   It might be a New Year's Resolution or just something that had to happen but here I am at last!


  A first post on the last day of 2014! New beginnings tomorrow!


  I have thought for a while that I should write a blog about the things I care about and want to encourage in others.  I care the most about making things with my hands, followed by learning new things, or maybe it is in the reverse order. Next, I care about my family, friends and community and the land around me.  All the things I care about are in the context of my belief in my Heavenly Father and his Son and his plan for all things.


  When I was a very little girl my mother and my grandmother encouraged my deep love of making things and answered my incessant questions patiently.  My father kept me at his side while he worked the farm and garden and then tucked me in at night with his own bed-time stories.  Gran's hands grew knotted with arthritis but she never stopped using them to make baskets, write letters, or work in her vegetable garden.  A love for these things was planted deep inside me and nurtured as I grew.  I was forever wanting her to show me the new craft she had learned at the local C.W.A. or asking my mother to help me with a scrap book or school project. 


  I think showing tourists around our old homestead and explaining how the pioneers made do with very little made me realize that we have gone a long way from self reliance in this modern interconnected world.  It worried me that knowledge would be lost.  I collected many books on how to make things from scratch and tried out quite a few of the basic instructions.  I thought perhaps I needed to start an archive library to store knowledge about pioneering techniques such as how to make tools and grow gardens.  Now the World Wide Web has put everything in front of me without the dusty shelves!  I don't know if I need to worry about information being lost anymore.  Maybe it will be and maybe it wont.  Now the need seems to be to spark people's interest in making things by hand and show them the beauty and peace that comes from creating something yourself.  I hope I can inspire people to give making things a go.





  Each day I get creative with my hands.  At the moment I am knitting.  I have created a cute beanie for wearing in the cold of winter and I hope to sell a few on Etse.  Last year I couldn't help myself and knitted lots of scarves.  In between, I made my mother a beautiful soft blanket for her bed and then a soft green and white blanket for my newest grandson.
 Last year, a friend and I explored the possibilities of weaving Cat's Claw vine into beautiful and practical baskets of all shapes and sizes.  I also learned to spin wool and use a simple spindle to make primitive yarn.
 I tried some felting and I am sure I will do lots more of that.  There is always something interesting to try.


  I hope you will read this and be encouraged to get creative yourself.  Try something you always wanted to learn.  You will surprise yourself at how easy it really is to use your hands.


 

Wool Basket in the Trees

  How do I get the name Wool Basket in the Trees?

  I have a lot of trees around my home.  I have planted most of them myself and watched them grow tall and leafy. One of them, a Jacaranda, has a multi-storey tree house built in it which looks out across the roof of the shed.
  Another spreading tree shades the back corner of my garden and drops lots of musty dead leaves into the pond.  My father-in-law gave me some little palms which have now grown into really impressive trees.  On the little hill just outside my fence there is a wonderful Morton Bay Fig which my farmer father rescued from a crack in the paving years ago and happily presented to me in a bucket to plant somewhere not too close to the house.  I am still not sure if I put it far enough away. I have a couple of pesky Chinese elms which he gave me as well, and I really should cut them down as they spread all over the countryside, but at the moment they give a beautiful shade to the shed and how would I replace them? Scattered all over are the magnificent Silky Oaks and a few Gum Trees.  The birds nest in them all and feed on the sweet nectar. My bantam hens love the leaf litter.  The house gutters not so much!
  Baskets hold a lot of things.  I have a lot of them around the place.  This year I made some to hold wool.  I learned that Cat's Claw vine could be pulled straight from the trees where it is growing up and strangling them and immediately woven into beautiful and practical baskets.  This wonderful material is free and harvesting it is actually helping!  I made a big basket to hold vegetables but I have had to put my overflowing wool hoard in it instead!  The smaller baskets are wonderful for my smaller portable projects.  Everywhere I go my basket goes with me.  I always have something I am making.  Actually, I have multitudes of projects on the go at once! This year I must finish some more of them off.
  I think that I will do what my mother did when she was little and do my work up in the tree house.  The wool basket will be easy to carry up there and it is so peaceful and quiet up there alone with the birds and God.