Treasures

How quickly are these weeks flying by all ready! It was just last Sunday morning that as Pete and I woke up he suggested we get ready and head over early to Barooga to the swap meet that was on.  It's about an hour's drive from here and we headed along the Riverina hwy (more like a country road) enjoying the morning drive.  Plenty of kangaroos grazing in paddocks on the way over! 


 Pete has often worked over this way doing various earth working tasks including some work on this channel which we drove over. I think he was doing the rock work.  The channels work well for farmers bringing water from the Murray River to help with irrigation in both Victoria and New South Wales.

Although a smallish affair, it was very well set out on the golf course and we found some great treasures to purchase, enjoyed a coffee while we chatted to various stall holders and had a really enjoyable couple of hours before making our way back home!  The first treasure was this lovely door knocker made by an old blacksmith. I really liked it, and the fact of the being made from melted down bits and handcrafted into this piece which will be going on our front door  in Qld!

Something else I really have been wanting made for some time now is a coat rack! Pete has been doing some slabs of red gum and when I made the suggestion while we strolled around he said we would need to find some old railway pegs ......... lol, he should have known that I'd already seen a pile at one of the stalls and the fellow there was happy to part with them as 50cents each so I was happy to take the pile!  Pete can make a few spares for gifts or to sell!  He also ended up with some small wood working tools, and he found this lovely bottle which is hard to see in a photo, but it can actually only old a single stem as the inside of the bottle is shaped inwards.

Another great find were these 2 old locks that Pete set to work on once we got home and managed to get the paint off and clean them up.  They came up looking fantastic don't you think!

And it was actually Pete who encouraged me to barter on a price to bring a travelling spinners wheel back home with us .......
While he managed to find a rather large jack that apparently is needed as well .....   Neither of us could believe how many treasures we found at such wonderful prices and with such friendly people!  It was a wonderful morning! 

Here it is now, a week later ...... Pete has been fishing up near Corryong the past couple of days while I have been here at home .......... where another treasure arrived ....... yep, a bag of yarn arrived in the mail from Deramores in the UK - all cotton dk

assortments to crochet up some various items!  

Since Friday was FNSI  I decided I might work on a smaller market/ shopping bag.  Summers are hot here in Australia, so I want to work them up with cotton rather than an acrylic or wool blend.  A 10ply would be better, but unfortunately you don't get the same colour selections with 10ply as you do with 8 - so yep, I'm working with 8ply (dk).  I'm making the pattern up as I go, starting with a round section which I then added some "wings" to make it a little more elongated.  So far it seems to be doing what I'm hoping for.
Yesterday late afternoon the temperature hit 50.7 degrees celcius here!!!  It's crazy burning heat is frying some of the plants and I've been spending a lot of time trying to keep lawns and gardens watered so the place looks good when potential buyers come to look!   February is usually our worst month for dry hot weather, so I hate to think what it might be like then!  I feel very blessed to have the air conditioner working to keep it nice inside at the least!  Since I've had the water going (and the

The Male up in the gum tree keeping watch

fact that the apple trees have small very unripe apples on them), these lovely red parrots (The Australian King Parrot) have been visiting us again.  They are always here once the apples begin growing - 3 apple trees and we have yet to get 1 apple to taste!!!  We did bird net them a couple of years ago which didn't go so well being in the chook run and under a large gum tree ...........  we haven't netted since that disaster!  Its usually almost impossible to get a photo of these guys, but somehow I managed to have my phone on me and get close enough to zoom my photo camera in ......... one day I will have a small, lovely little camera that does a fantastic job of zooming in! .......... one day ....
Till next time, take care,

The female Australian King Parrot.

Sharm
PS:  And for the first time, I'm linking up with Saturdays Critters because I just discovered it!

Dreaming a Plan

Summer Sunset

It seems wherever you go in Blogland at present, there is lots of planning going on!  Something about a New Year that sets everyone in motion - and perhaps that time of settled quiet we get when Christmas is over and many are on holidays or have some extra time off from the general busyness of life!  In a blink or two, January will be over and I'm still dreaming about plans.  Things once again got put on hold as we had somebody interested in the house, but it seems they were only interested if we would take a ridiculously low price - everybody wants two bathrooms it seems these days!!!  So we are debating and deliberating on the idea of putting in a small ensuite off our bedroom which could be done with a few minor changes ............  We will be

having a few discussions this week to see how viable that is as we look at our options and where to from here!  In readiness I spent today clearing out the little nook (it was the original wardrobe area when we bought this house 8yrs ago)..... I have way too many things!!!!  The difficulty lies in needing warm woollies for the cold winter we get here, as well as summer gear for the hot dry summers!  Clothes for working at the hospital, clothes for wearing around the yard, clothes I'm trying to fit back into so don't want to get rid of them as I really do want to loose about 5 kgs which will get me into these things again!  Urggghhh!!!   Clean eating is what I need to be doing. 
For me, I'd really like to get back to growing more of our own food again.  Things around here went all askew when we decided 18months ago that we would purchase a house up in Queensland and sell our place here - hence food gardening discontinued until I bit the bullet not so long ago and put in a few vegies again! Not many, some tomatoes, a cucumber and butter beans .......

 These capsicums all grew from seeds that were the remains of a purchased capsicum a few months back - I basically just tossed the capsicum top with its seeds into the garden bed allowing it to do what it wanted (if anything), hence the reason they are all so close together!
I'd previously been given a single capsicum seedling which I had put in this pot beside the lemon verbena (I think - very yummy lemon smell to it), which had been struggling in the garden for the past few years - both seem to be doing well and the capsicum is flowering too!  I must have a look and see just what I can do with Lemon Verbena- presuming this is what it is - I may need to look at that too!!  Anyone know from this photo??  Very pretty white flowers

And more potatoes are sprouting in the pantry - so out they come to this tin in the garden which has no bottom to it - I cover them with dirt and once the green leaves begin to grow, I continue to cover them with dirt - continuing this growing/covering process all the way to the top of the bucket and then wait for them to die off which means I have a lovely crop of potatoes ready to use!  I'll be taking this rusted out tin with us when we finally move from here so I can use it in the next vegie patch!

Apart from that, I have a few other herbs, including this society garlic which had a lovely show of flowers.  Pete came home with quite a bit of garlic the other day that had been dug up from a farm he was working at!  Such a blessing when he is given produce and other goodies! 

The 3 girls left have not been laying any eggs at all since the fox attack a few weeks back which is rather disappointing!  With us trying to sell, and an interstate move in the future there wont be any new hens purchased until things are sorted out!   So I think I'll go and get my home binder out, perhaps look at getting it set up ready for when we do sell and move north so that things will be planned out just a little ..........  Dreaming the Plan!  Building the footings for what is to come in our next chapter ...........

Farewell Holidays

Yep, it's sad to say I'm back to work this morning! I've soooo enjoyed having 3 weeks away from

Pete seeing to the grapes

the stress and red tape and nonsense and I've tried to make the most of it .......  lots of R and R; time in the garden and the sewing room, time reading, getting back into some crochet, picking up my exercise, time just sitting watching some movies and TV shows, beginning another round of 12WBT and catching up on a few letters and just pottering around at home ........ It's also been nice to have a couple of weeks at home with Pete here to!  He decided to check out how the grapes were coming along and get them netted before the birds start eating them - even though it will be a while before they are ready for eating ...... we couldn't believe how many there were!!!

 Ok, so the pottering may have been a number of "keep the house clean ready for prospective buyers" and a tad bit of sorting of various spots, but hey!  Any how, thought I'd quickly show a few of the yarny goodies I've been working on as well as some I uncovered when I sorted through the sewing room hunting for the hexie tablecloth ........  I've started a queen size crochet blanket that will be for our bed!

 And then found the one I started a few years back and had put aside ........... I guess I'll be getting back to it at some point this year since I really want to address the UFO's

Of course when you find 1 UFO, you tend to find others ....... a pair of fingerless gloves still waiting for the 2nd glove .......

and the sweater I started in Winter and put aside .....

And of course I still have 2 more cushion covers to finish crocheting for son and DIL to make the set of 6.  Since I recently saw a photo they had on FB with the other 4 in use, I best make these last 2 a priority!

Hoping to link this post up with Janine over at Rainbow Hare who is hosting Wool on Sundays (even though I'm a couple days late ......)
The animals have also been enjoying having us at home ......Cliffy (lorikeet) has been spending time getting around the back veranda area and just loves this old ironing board Pete picked up a couple of months ago from a clearance sale!   And with that I bid you good night xo

January FNWF

What a great way to begin 2018 but with FNWF (virtual sew in) hosted by Chez.  After a bit of a

search through the crates I located the signature Hexie Tablecloth I started work on a long time back - before we had decided to put the house here on the market - Mid 2015 I think!.  There were still a number of hexies to attach, and more still that had to be made to fill in the blank spots - so I got to work firstly attaching those already done and then working on making new hexies

This morning I decided since it was going to be 42 degrees outside today, I would get back to the tablecloth to keep working at it.  I have no real idea what the original plan was or the way the colours were meant to be, so it's ended up more of a scrappy combination together with the lovely signature blocks provided by several other blogger friends who were so wonderful in making up a block and sending it to me to make the tablecloth.  A big thankyou to: Lin, St Victor Quilt Blog, France ; Susan, Susan's Sewing Space from Brisbane - my home town in Queensland! ; Kerrie, Channelbank Creations from NSW; Narelle,  Pins and Whiskers blog from the North Burnett Area of Queensland - which is very close to Maryborough where we will be moving to when we sell here!!..... I'm hoping for a bloggy meet up at some point in the future!  Sheryl,  Sewing After Seven  from Spain; Ruth of Green Twiggy from USA; Jo of ButterZ , Victoria ; Maria, of Life on the Block in West Australia; Anthea of Hibiscus Stitches and also from West Australia;  And Lynda from By the River in Tasmania.  Thankyou so much girls for taking the time to do these lovely signature hexies for me -  you will be a constant reminder each time I use the tablecloth ....... which now just needs to have a thin bit of wadding and some backing and I will do some top stitching to attach it.  I'll have to wait till I'm in Wangaratta next to pick up the thin wadding material - so hopefully it will be finished by the end of January!!

As a bit of a change I also did a tiny bit of work on the Mochilla crochet bag - its going to be a very very slow process as each stitch needs attention with so many constant colour changes and carrying of yarns!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend and perhaps visit some of the other blogs either doing the FNWF or the girls that sent the hexies to me
Hugs Sharm