Inspired by a Square Leather Button

Inspired by a Square Leather Button

   Tipping out the big glass jar yielded an old, square, leather, upholstery button.  It looked old and slightly used and as if it had a story to tell.  I knew I had to use it. It seemed to come together with the speckled forest beanie I had finished yesterday.  I knitted some squares as a background to the button and a contrast to the speckled background fabric.


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  Today was quite relaxing and the rain showers are still falling.  Friends have dropped in for chats and one more knitted ear warmer is finished.

 

Forest Beanie With a Poppy

Forest Beanie With a Poppy

 

    I felt this forest beanie should have something spectacular and bold so I found a pattern for a large, red poppy and put a jet black, fabric covered button in the centre.  It took some time, but I designed two feathers in chocolate and faun and added them to dangle down beside it.  I like the interesting effect of the trailing feathers and the twisty tail of my beanie.
 
                   
   Carol and I spent the day over cuppas and our craft work.  She is getting amazingly good at needle felting, but if I talk to her at the wrong moment she jabs her finger!  I went and found my great grandmother's silver thimble for her to try but I think she needs one on each finger!




   I spread my work out on the kitchen table to see what I have made so far.

 

   We were industriously working away when my daughter rushed in with a bleeding finger where she had cut it on a hand saw!  I rushed her off to get it looked at but the local doctor was still off on holidays.  The chemist sold me some tiny butterfly band aids and I taped the cut up tightly.  We decided to keep it still by tying a paddle pop stick under the bandage.  All fixed.
                                                          

Mushrooms After the Rain

Mushrooms After the Rain

  

  Sunshine filtered down through the trees this afternoon, exposing a variety of little mushrooms in the damp ground.  Some came up in the grass,  some came up in the driveway gravel, and some even came up in the discarded guinea pig litter!


                                         
 

  I love the smell of all those wet trees.  The rooster was standing in his caged area for a change and was spotlighted in a bright patch of sun.  The ginger hen scratched nearby.  This is the rooster that crows so early in the morning.  He is my daughter's pet and was the chicken from the chicken that she brought home from her preschool and hand raised.  At least, I think it was three generations, but it might have been four.

 

  I looked around for the bantams who were not in their pen, of course, and found the mother and six of her half grown chicks scratching in what will be my vegetable garden when I can face doing it in the cooler weather.  At least they are doing a good job of mixing in all the manure and straw I have spread out there in preparation.

 

  She would not stand still and let me take photos so I had to sneak around the corner of the buildings and quickly press the button.  After a few blurred images, I caught her in the sun.

  I knew she had been cackling again under the house so I looked in the bag of guinea pig grass from yesterday to see if she had laid another egg in that little hidden spot and sure enough, there was a little blue egg!

 

  Craft takes over my life most of the time, and I would rather make things than do house work any day, but every little while I have to sort out the jumble that develops in the craft room.  I talked it today, sorting out the big things and sweeping under everything.  I found lots of misplaced things and wondered why some things had ended up back in the room instead of at the op shop.  I think my daughter needs her own craft room as we both are accumulators of interesting crafty things.  How am I ever going to organise it?
 

  In between all this I knitted another of my cute ear warmers for the coming winter.  This one is knitted in the same browns as my speckled hen and I knitted a curled brown flower with a  button in the centre to embellish it.  Sorry, no pictures just yet.



Wool Basket is Inside Today

Wool Basket is Inside Today

  The showers have persisted and the tree house is too damp for comfort so I am working indoors today.  My forest beanie is coming along nicely.  I have the wools all near me for inspiration and the children chattering away nearby as distraction.  I can tune them out and dream of what I will knit next.

  The browns in this particular forest beanie remind me of my little cheeky speckled bantam.  Today I heard her cackling from under our house so I sent the children to see if they could locate her new nesting spot.  No success, but it had to be there somewhere.  I thought I would look myself.  You know, a mother's eyes and all that!  I began to tidy up the bits of rubbish that had accumulated.  The chewed up pool noodles and old bike helmets and bits of broken plastic toys.  (I wont show you a picture of this area!) I collected quite a bag full.  Eventually I arrived at the guinea pig feed area and the bags of grass straw stored in a pile.  There, in the top bag, was the little nest with its one new blue egg.  Smiling, I showed the children.  So cute.  I wonder if she will try there again?

  The rain looks like hanging around for a while.  It is making the back yard very squishy and I think the grass is growing faster than it can be mown!  My washing was piling up a bit, too, waiting for a sunny day that isn't coming, so I started some hand washing anyway and hung it on the veranda.  I washed a couple of my scarves which were a bit dusty and spread them out flat across the tables inside.  Lovely weather! We really needed the rain so I am not really complaining, just groaning a little.  It makes for very cosy indoor knitting, anyway.

  



View From the Trees

View From the Trees

  Fine weather today allowed me to sweep out the accumulated leaves in the tree house and take up a couple of comfortable chairs.  The round table my son made is now shiny and clean and his branch stool is perched beside it.  Out went some perished old pillows and the remains of the pirate flags from last year. I did not see that friendly Huntsman spider anywhere!

 

  The view from up here is lovely.  Every way I look I see green.  The big branches of the Jacaranda tower over me and through their lacy leaves I catch glimpses of the house and shed rooves, the chook pen with its scratching occupants and grassy paddocks where the horses contentedly munch their way through the day.
 

  I heard crowing!  There he is, that great escape artist.  Leading his ladies and  chicks astray!

         He is on the wrong side of the fence!

  Well, the chair is very comfortable and I have had one friend up here already. (Next visit she will bring her craft with her.)  My forest beanie is coming along nicely and it is so peaceful up here among the leaves.  I completed a mug cosy this morning and it matches the skirt I am wearing so I just had to try it with a coffee and feature it in a photo.  Cute, hey? 

 

 

My Rooster Alarm Went Off Too Early!

My Rooster Alarm Went Off Too Early!

The sun had barely risen when my deep sleep was loudly interrupted by a happy crowing beneath my bedroom window.  I grabbed the pillow and hauled it over my head but it was too late!  I was awake!  How did he get out?  I found out that the little bantam hen and her chickens had also escaped.  She was enthusiastically scratching in the leaf litter and encouraging her half grown chicks to find all the juicy worms and bugs.  The rooster was stalking about leading them to better foraging spots.

  Later in the day I found the hole they were using and mended the wire.  My little hen had also found a nice place to lay her blue egg.  I have a shelf outside my laundry and she hopped up there and sat it in a plastic tray filled with guinea pig hay.  It formed a perfectly dry nest for her off the very damp ground.  The old dairy from my childhood had a shelf just like this where a particular hen habitually went to lay her egg each day.  She seemed oblivious to the fact that my father collected it from there each afternoon and she continued to secretively make her way to the same dusty bare shelf.  Often, the egg just rolled off it and broke.  We could never work her out.  My bantam was behaving the same way today.  I watched her rearrange the hay one straw at a time to build it into just the nest she wanted, all the while attentively watching our dog Bella who was dancing around far below her and yipping with excitement.  After she laid the egg and left her little nest I collected her warm egg just as my father had done and placed it in the egg basket his mother made 60 years ago.  It has been constantly in use and I can't part with it.  It is part of my inspiration.

 

  The weather is still showery but not quite as hot and humid as yesterday.  I took the day off today from knitting and spent it mostly chatting with friends over cuppas.   We inspired each other and planned how to sell our crafts locally.  We think having a place in Kenilworth to set up every Sunday afternoon might work.  We want to have craft with us that we are currently working on and can demonstrate to those who stop by.  I would like to find other talented, crafty people to join us for friendship, inspiration and relaxation.  (Working with your hands is very good therapy for stress.)  By the time the weather fines up I will have enough items knitted to make a lovely display on a table so I am getting excited.  The table needs an interesting cloth and I will need a comfortable, portable chair and another for visitor to sit on when they stop to chat.  Keeping it simple to start with. 

 

  I have the colours worked out for my next forest beanie and I can't wait to begin tomorrow.  If the rooster escapes again and wakes me up as early as he did today I will at least have something to start on without having to think.  It takes my brain some time to realize it is morning.  With that possibility in mind, I am going to stop blogging now and hit the cot.  Goodnight!

     

Etsy Shop called WoolBasketintheTrees

Yay!  I have an Etsy shop!

  My wool basket is overflowing with lovely colours and I am skipping around the house humming little tunes, much to the entertainment of the children, who think I am a little crazy!  (There is nothing new about that.  I am a little unusual.)  This unusual activity on my part is brought on because I am very excited to finally have a place to sell my creations.  It is a big learning curve for me as I am learning to use technology one small step at a time.  Organising  my new Etsy shop has my head in a spin!  I named it WoolBasketintheTrees.  Here is the link.  Come and see some my scarves. 

https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/WoolBasketintheTrees?ref=hdr_shop_menu 

  Today I sewed the seams up on my latest original beanie.  I have designed a pattern for a cute forest beanie with a long twisty peak and special individual additions.  Some are decorated with whimsical flowers, some have autumn leaves, a few have unique buttons, and I am currently working on a design for feathers. I decided to knit my beanies in four head sizes.  There is a cute little baby size, a child's size, a medium size and a larger head size.  Each one will be different.  I don't like knitting exactly the same thing twice.  The beanies I am making at the moment are chunky knit and thick and warm for the colder weather.  I will have lots of them ready for when our muggy, summer temperatures finally give way to the cool briskness of autumn.

  It was very humid and a bit wet out there today so I didn't get up the tree as I thought I would.  Instead I spent time catching up on the cleaning and then enjoying a cuppa with my friend.  Before she arrived I managed to squeeze in sewing that seam up and finishing the red poppy to embellish its side.  I intend to add two knitted feathers when I work out a suitable design.  I am really pleased with the look of the poppy.  It is coming together nicely.

  All sorts of ideas flow through my head as I sit knitting.  I need to carefully keep count of where I am in the pattern, but in between counting stitches I am eyeing off my huge wool basket,  planning colour combinations,  and deciding which of the gorgeous buttons spread out on the table in front of me would look good in the centre of each flower.  My thoughts are too fast for my fingers.  I will need eternity to try out all the ideas that pop into my head!  Does that happen to you as well?



https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/WoolBasketintheTrees?ref=hdr_shop_menu