A small diversion to the sewing machine

There's no denying I love fabric, just as most of the bloggers I follow and love.  However my downfall is that I have so many fabrics I can't bear to use yet, they're still too beautiful to cut up.  Therefore some of the untouched fabrics I own are nearly 20 years old.

Sad, scarey or just plain bonkers, I can't help it.  I can still pull out these fabrics and hold onto them, remembering when and where I bought most of them and at what stage I was in my own life.  I guess they've become keepsakes, but I've always believed that the right purpose for them would present itself.  Which in most cases is true (and I still hold out hope for the pure linen knit fabric that I only have 2 metres of..... too beautiful and too expensive not to use!).

So to prove myself right I came across a pattern on Pinterest the other day for a wool bunny.  Then digging around my old stash of wool blanket off-cuts I discovered a piece that would fit my pattern perfectly, with little to spare, and enough fringe to make a cotton tail as well.

The girl was stoked.

Giving in to my whims.....

Even though the weather has cooled favourably the outside 'to do' list is somewhat overwhelming.  Add to this a nearly four year old who sticks to me like glue and wants to know about everything I pick up.  Although thankfully I seemed to have avoided the "why.... why..... why....." phase as I mostly try to answer questions with a question.

So what do I do?

I knit....

...and come up with this -

for my boy (Ravelry link here)

Plus this -

because my girl asked for yellow socks.

Then something for my sister which I dare not show yet because her birthday is next week.

And now this -

for a friends little girl.

Even the sewing machine has taken a back seat.  Every time I approach it I loose all enthusiasm (except for the family mending - for some reason I still enjoy this...), so I figured "why push myself?"  Why struggle through a project only to make mistakes and burst into tears when I'm not happy with the end result.  I'm happy knitting at the moment, it means I can be with the children with needles in hand, ready to put aside when I'm needed.  The outside 'to do' jobs are still there, but my children are only young once and I need to make the most of that while I can.

Indian Summer

 I'll be the first to admit that I'm not a summer person.  Autumn, winter and spring are my forte.  I can tolerate summer for only so long, and then my patience wears out.  The constant heat, not being able to sleep comfortably, having to stay inside to keep cool, and try to keep little ones entertained while stuck inside becomes all too much.  I start pining for autumn.  In all it's golden splendour, crisp mornings and turning leaves.

In the meantime, late in the afternoon, I throw and few buckets of cold water into the paddling pool and let the children do their thing.  It's been the highlight of their day (I'm not a fan of public pools and we're too far from the beach), and seems to release a lot of tension.  For all of us.....

I'll happily sit by with a cold chardonnay and occasionally dip my feet in (yep, that's my hammer toes in the top photo....), but I usually try to have knitting needles in hand.

Ravelled here.

I often find myself knitting as much as I can in summer.  Maybe it's a futile attempt to bring winter on early, or a reminder that winter will come, in all it's chilly glory.  It also reminds me of when I was a teenager, watching the winter Olympics whilst munching on ice in my water.  I liked the fact that these Olympics are always in the northern hemisphere so it's on during our summer.  Seeing all that snow and ice probably didn't make me any cooler, but I liked to imagine it did.

New beginnings

So time has passed and things have changed.  Since we last spoke (nearly a year!) I thought my broken molar was the cause of my misery..... turns out it wasn't.  In July, and after breaking down in the doctors office, I was sent off to pathology for a full blood workup.  Turns out my thyroid is badly underactive.  My GP was very excited because "this can easily be fixed!", which it has.  Although just as I was getting my spring back into my step and started to get stuck into the garden I got a cold, a very nasty chest cold that lasted for weeks.  Maybe it was whooping cough, maybe it was bronchitis, but as a reluctant doctors patient (plus it's difficult to get early appointments with him) I knew I had to take it slow and look after myself.  When I came good it was nearly Christmas and too hot to work in the garden, and that's what I've been doing this long hot summer - staying cool indoors, keeping my children entertained, knitting, crocheting and sometimes sewing.

So for a while there I didn't see the necessity of maintaining a blog.  It's not like I've got wares to sell, which in a lot of ways I feel blogs are perfect for.  I just kept the old thing open so I could leave comments on my friends blogs, when and where I could.  I'm on Intagram, Pinterest and Facebook (oh and Ravelry too) so really, why did I need a blog?

But then a few days ago I whipped up a quick table runner,

and started a new quilt (see top photo).  I thought this was worth blogging about.  More of that next time...

Although the main reason why I've started again is because we recently bought an old caravan.

Thankfully a lot of it's original features are still intact, but I wanted to document it's restoration before (and after) it goes to Bruny Island as our lodgings at the oyster farm.  It's got a lot of potential and the children love it.

I also bought this book for inspiration.

Here's hoping I can keep this going!

Yeah but.... yeah but.....

So I've been a bit AWOL over the past few weeks, and I'm sorry I haven't been stopping by and visiting/commenting on everyone's blogs.  You see it all started with a bit of tooth ache, and a filling that didn't achieve the desired effect.  Then there was a tooth pulling followed by 10 days with a painful jaw.  Then just as I was coming good our broadband was all used up for the month, mainly because some little person can't get enough of Peppa Pig via Youtube on Mummy's ipod touch (that's been banned now....).  So here I am, minus a molar, broadband at the ready, and bursting to share with you some photos of a recent trip on the Don River Railway -

Sadly Tasmania doesn't have passenger trains.  With a total population of about 500,000 it's easy to see why the state couldn't justify a passenger network, so we only have freight trains (here's an example my Mum loaded onto Flickr the other day).

So it became a family day out, because we all love trains.  That's two of my sisters, father and nephew there.

I think the train love affair is in the blood.

Angus was a little unsure at first but it didn't take long.  Bless him.

It's not a very long trip, which I think is good as far as the little ones are concerned.

Thankfully for my sister Renee, things have changed.  In more ways than one.....

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savour and remember.

If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

. . . . . . . .

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savour and remember.

If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.