daisy chain

This is...the Space in Which I Create

My space isn't usually quite this tidy-especially when I am half way through something (I often spread out all around the house!) But because I am now officially on holidays for five weeks-yes five weeks!!!How lucky am I?-I decided to have a bit of a tidy up and make some plans for some serious crafting. The last few weeks have been somewhat hectic to say the least but that is about to change. Here is the study where I create...

It is pretty organised and when it gets in a bit of a mess is easy to tidy as most things have a "home".Thank you Michelle for this week's suggestion.   

Last weekend I went to a wonderful workshop on how to dye and print your own fabric. The artist Dijanne Cevaal was oh so talented, generous and amazing. We learnt how to make interesting effects on fabric including scrunching, tying and folding and used natural foliage, stamps and lino cuts to make one of a kind designs.

The fabric sat in the assortment of dyes for an hour.

The best part was rinsing them and seeing how they turned out.

Another highlight was seeing  Dijanne's amazing quilts  and listening to all the stories that go with each quilt. Her designs are stunning and her machine quilting is just extraordinary. Here are a few samples....

Some close ups..

She has a book called, "Seventy Two Ways not to Stipple or Meander(Ideas for Free Machine Quilting)." Here is the sampler that demonstrates the designs...

One of my favourites was this one...

Close up sections...

She has a blog-well worth a visit or two.There are so many clever people out there!

This is......A Day Late!

Because of the two day fabric dyeing workshop I am a bit late for my travel memory post. Thank goodness for long weekends! My workshop was wonderful, inspiring and fun-I'll post about it later.

Thanks to Hila for this week's great suggestion and of course to Angela who thought up the whole This is...idea in the first place.

One of my favourite travel memories is when I went to Borneo in 1993.I was single then and went by myself but joined a small group of other travellers from around the world to experience an amazing cultural bombardment of the senses. We had a guide with us who was Australian but had married a Malaysian woman and could speak the language fluently.

Climbing Mt Kinabalu was one of the many highlights.

You start at the park headquarters...

And spend the whole day climbing...

And climbing...

And climbing...

Surrounded by the most amazing rainforest terrain that changes the higher you climb.

We stayed the night here...

And got up in the early morning darkness to get to the summit by sunrise...

It was like another planet...

And here I am climbing all the way down again! It poured and poured for most of the day!

You feel quite shattered but exhilerated at the end. To this day I have never had the same kind of leg ache that I  experienced after that climb (and lasted for quite a few days)

Another highlight for me was the Orang utan sanctuary...

And I could go on and on....

In our group of ten I got friendly with a fellow traveller called Tom, from England. He was an amazingly fit, funny and cheeky 73 year old with so many interesting stories to tell about his life and his many, many travelling adventures-hiking and climbing all around the world. We kept in contact and I'd regularly receive his postcards from various exotic locations. We always sent each other Christmas cards without fail. Sadly, the last two Christmases I have sent mine but haven't received one from him. If he is still alive he would be 91 and probably still tying up his laces of his trusty old hiking boots ready for another adventure!

Friday doesn't take long to come around again!

Happy Long Weekend everyone-I hope you have a good one-that extra day makes all the difference! I have been looking forward to doing a two day workshop called Dye and Print Your Own Fabric run by The Quilters'Guild of SA.The visiting artist from Melbourne is Dijanne Cevaal and it is well worth a look at her blog. I can't wait to turn this....

...into colourful fat quarters (thank you to my trusty assistant in the right hand corner!) A couple of years ago I did a similar course and still have some of the results of that workshop in my stash.

I have been oggling my new Japanese Crochet book and have been delighted with what is inside. Even though the patterns are in Japanese there are many pictorial representations that I might be able to work out. I love the designs and simple photography.

OOOO!!! Ahhhh!!!

I continue to be amazed by our Hakea and have enjoyed watching the stages of the pincushion's development. It is such a lovely tree.

The bees think so too!

This is.....My Pet

Six years ago we bought this little energetic bundle of cuteness and called him Kobi...

He is a Hungarian Vizsla and didn't take long to fill his baggy skin.

His favourite things are exploring the beach(which I'm sure he thinks is his!)

And of course sleeping in front of the window in the sun!

One of my favourite quotes is,"My goal in life is to become as wonderful as my dog thinks I am!" And we all  think he is pretty wonderful. Thanks again to Angela and Kyla-another great choice this week.

I really enjoyed making a couple of Softies this weekend....

We had a lovely clear blue sky and warm sunshine for our first day of winter here in Adelaide. I hope your first day of winter(or summer) was a good one!

Another This is.....

Thanks to Flossy-P and Angela for this week's This is.....which happens to be This is something I got, but still haven't used.....This is my pile of tiles ready to do some Mosaic work that I dream about and have ideas for but I haven't actually done anything yet!! I even have the special tile cutter thingy, grout and glue but that is about as far as I've got!

Another thing that I've had for ages is this beautiful candle made in Africa that I thought was just too lovely to use but now it is out of it's cellophane and all ready for me to take the plunge and light it!

On Saturday my lovely sister and I had a wonderful day doing sisterly things like visiting this art gallery/cafe at McLaren Vale. They had an exhibition of objects painted with henna which was just amazing.

One of my favourites was this paper weight by the visitor's book.

We stopped to have a glass of wine in the garden setting.

Another favourite was these ceramic Babushkas.

Thank goodness for the sanity of weekends!

Not Much Crafting Going on Here!

I have been  busy writing mid year reports and it is such a relief that they are done! Yay! Now I can attempt to get some balance back into my life!! School kind of just takes over sometimes.

The other day one of my mums from last year came to see me after school with a brand new book she had borrowed from her library for me! Such thoughtfulness. Anyway, when she showed me I got very excited indeed.......

Here is a glimpse of what is inside-sweet indeed!

It seems like a useful book to buy to me (any excuse to add to my craft library!)

I went walkabout with my camera yesterday....

The bridge I cross on the track to the beach.

I must find out what these actually are-I think they are the leftover outer skins of these blackish caterpillars that hang around in clumps on Eucalypts that we used to call `Spitfires` when we were kids or they may be some kind of grub casting......will have to do some research!

A bit of a sandy post.

Bark of a lovely tree in our garden called,`Silver Princess`.

Bougainvillea hanging around.

And I'll leave you with some Joyfulness!......

This is....my way of Recycling

Lots of recycling happens in our house. We empty the washing water on the lawn, have 3 bins (one for green waste, one for recycling and one for items that go to landfill.) We are also lucky in South Australia that we have a 5c deposit on drink containers such as iced coffee, water, juice and drink cans, etc. It is surprising how it all adds up.You drop them off at the depot to be counted and drive away with extra cash! Any money we get from this goes towards buying plants for the garden. I quite enjoy visiting the recycling centre as it is extremely well organised and runs efficently and smoothly.

We have a compost bin also but I have just been intoduced to a new way of composting using a Bokashi Bucket. I have just started one for the classroom and one for our home food waste.

The food scraps are mixed with Bokashi Mix and then they ferment in the bucket.The contents are dug into the garden where it breaks down to create highly fertile soil. During fermentation a vinegary liquid is produced which is drained off and used as a liquid fertilizer.So far, so good and you can add all kinds of things like fresh fruit and vegetable waste,prepared foods like sandwiches and leftovers, bread, coffee grinds and cheese! Not that there is ever many wasted leftovers at our house but it is nice to know they have a place to go rather than in the landfill bin!

My toilet rolls that I mentioned a few posts ago now look like this....and are nearly ready to plant.

Happy recycling everyone!

Had a lovely Sunday today at the RSPCA Million Paws Walk-a great turn out(I think there was an assortment of more than 4000 dogs and dog owners all walking around the River Torrens!) And the weather stayed fine after all yesterday's rain. My dog hasn't moved since we've been home-except to eat dinner-I imagine it was olfactory overload for him!(a bit like too many chocolates at Easter time!)

Camping

Last Friday and Saturday we managed to get some R&R at one of our favourite camping spots Innes National Park.We had two wonderful days and nights and were back in time for Mothers' Day. I crocheted all the way there and back on the four hour trip!

We had Shell Beach camp site ALL to ourselves!

Walking track to the beach.

This is why it is called Shell Beach!

Lots of lovely treasures lying about.

We had frequent visitors of the furry kind.

We cooked our freshly caught fish and potatoes in alfoil on an open fire.Five star meals for sure!

Freezing cold nights and mornings but lovely sunrises.

The weather was glorious.I even went swimming!

The Sooty Oyster Catchers were busy.

Always love a good web.

I would like a garden shed like this one!

We were so lucky with the weather-lovely warm days. Good job we are not going this weekend as the forecast is hail, storms and rain!!!

This is...What Reminds me of my Mum

So many things remind me of my mum many times a day. Everyday things, long ago things, special things. Probably one of the main things is roses....especially this one...Angel Face.

Mum gave me this card awhile ago and I will treasure it always.

Happy Mothers' Day to my beautiful mum.

Small Mums

At about this time last year I was inspired by applehead's wonderful smallpeople postcards.They are amazing collages made with all sorts of different papers and all have a quirky phrase accompanying them. Last year I took my set of postcards to school and the students had a go at making their own smallmum collages for Mothers' Day. I did the same this year with my year one class and was pleased with how they turned out-hope their mums are too!

My mum is beautiful and likes flowers.

My mum likes to go and look at flowers.

When I am happy my mum is happy.

My mum likes putting out the washing in our new big back yard.

Thank you mum for making sure we have clean clothes.

Thank you again Marianne for continuing to be so inspirational!