Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Lazy, sunny days

On Sunday we had lunch with our friends Inn & Adrian and family. It was such a nice afternoon: lovely company, gorgeous weather, fantastic food.... *sigh*

We've spent most of this afternoon out in the sunshine. I'm trying to get that darn grass in the veggie patch under control. The children have been setting up a shop and trying to convince me to buy my own watering can and flowers from them! I have serious doubts about the produce from our veggie patch making it to the table - so far we've just been eating the peas and broccoli straight from the plant! Ah well, best raw & fresh as they say.

We were at the doctors earlier in the day, and I asked the nurse to check out a big black spot in littlest chicken's eye, that she had not allowed me to get out. After much kicking and screaming she managed to extract, can you believe it, a dead ant! How the heck do you get an ant in your eye?? When chicken no.2 was this age I was quite expert at extracting rocks and things from his nose, but ants in the eye is a new one for me!

No sewing photos today - it's either boring or top secret!

Friday, August 22, 2008

What to do with 7 children on a wet afternoon...

I had seven children here this afternoon (unexpectedly), while it was raining. After 5 minutes of children screaming up and down the hallway, I said "STOP!" We had a group meeting and decided a puppet show was the way to go, or Aunty Kathy would go around the twist! So they got very busy making Mr Men and Little Miss puppets, and put on a (hilarious) puppet show. Chicken no.3 had a delightful time disrupting the show and (of course) eating her puppet (she just can't help herself with paper).

Earlier in the week when it was sunny, we decided to make a solar oven. It worked pretty well - well enough for s'mores, anyway!


It was so warm, that littlest chicken could model her apron without any clothes on. Not bad for winter.

And we've also been busy filling our Christmas Boxes for Operation Christmas Child. Yes, it's that time of year, and a very worthy cause.

Monday, August 18, 2008

Bracelets & aprons

Yesterday chicken no.1 (with a little help from me) made a bracelet for a friend's birthday. It's a pretty funky thing! One of Molly Chicken's bracelets inspired us, so we had a go. We might go to a warehouse type shop and see if we can get dangly earrings/beads and other groovy things to decorate the next ones. We basically just put different fabrics together and stitched across them with a decorative stitch (Well, as decorative as my poor little Elna gets!). Next time I might use a bit of light interfacing to give them a bit more strength.


I can also post a picture of two of the aprons I made earlier in the month - using the amoeba pattern from A is for Apron. It's such a groovy shape! I have a real love/hate relationship with bias-binding - the hate bit won out for the second apron, so I lined it instead!


Friday, August 15, 2008

Chocolate Friday

I've just been trying not to eat an entire block of Green & Black's chocolate... which is hard, seeing it's SOOOOO yummy, and the blocks are rather small.... (We won't comment on the chocolate cake I ate this morning....)


We saw a whopping great hare outside this morning. It appears there is a hole in the fence, which was great for the hare to escape, but means it can get back in again just as easily. Just as long as it doesn't eat my beautiful new broccoli, or I might be applying for a gun licence!!


I'm enjoying the sun streaming in the windows at the moment. It's nice to curl up with a magazine and have a little snooze... Chickie no.1 has spent an industrious rest time (a compulsory after lunch activity in our house for mother's sanity...) making another game, complete with tiny people and cars. :) The phrase 'pig in mud' comes to mind. Now that chickie no.3 is up from her nap (yay - she did sleep today!) she is having fun with my sieves... Toys really are completely wasted on her. And the boy who loves his sleep is still asleep... I'm going to have to grit my teeth and wake him up soon. He's normally very easy going, except when I do his chores for him, or wake him from a nap. Then he very much resembles a bear with a sore head.


I've been making so many things lately, but haven't been able to post any pictures of them as they are mostly birthday gifts and haven't been given yet. I'm going to risk it today, though (If your birthday is this Sunday, then stop reading right now!! That's you, Inn. No peeking!!), and show you a little purse I made which I'm quite pleased with as the shape came out quite nicely. (Thanks to Lisa for her wonderful tutorials on purses and bags.)

Friday, August 8, 2008

Flu season

It's been a long week - we've been going down one at a time with the flu. It's really hard to believe sometimes just how many boxes of tissues you can go through in a week. Or how quickly you can go through those bottles of children's panadol. Nasty fevers with this flu, tell you what.

Anyway, despite this there have been nice moments this week, one being that we have seen Nankeen Kestrels flying around our place again. One day one of them was perched on our fence and we were able to get quite close. I was fascinated by it's bright yellow claws. I love watching them dive-bomb the mice in the field next to us.

I've been quite glad to take a break from sewing this week. The last two things I made before I came down sick I made really stupid mistakes with and was just about ready to throw them in the compost (well, you have to put them to some good use!). I think I'll hide them in the back of a cupboard for a while so I don't have to look at them! Thankfully the two things I made yesterday turned out very nicely, but I can't show you because they are gifts and haven't been given yet.... So instead here's a photo of chickie no.1 in the apron I made for her (which did work very nicely: thanks to the MayFly for the pattern), busy making a pompom for her little sister.



Speaking of making good use of things, check out this prolific veggie patch belonging to our friends Renee and Mark in the States! Some people just have green thumbs. (Time for a holiday in Australia, eh, Renee?)


Mind you, our veggie patch here is prolific too. Just that it's mostly with grass, rather than veggies....

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Discovery Sunday

I made a couple of discoveries today. The first one being that 2 year olds and knitting don't mix (I know, you did try to warn me, Nicki). Although I was glad the knitting was handy when she fell asleep on my lap. The poor little thing is not well at the moment.

The second discovery was that some peas and broccoli have started appearing in the veggie patch! I took some pictures because I'm so proud of them! Our 6 year old (chicken no.1) discovered how much better fresh peas taste than those from the supermarket.



Our 4 year old (chicken no.2) discovered that you can go so much faster without training wheels! For the first time we made it all the way around our riding/walking circuit without any complaints or having to push him on the bike!

And here is a little clown dolly that I made from my niece's blankie, hiding in the bag ready for her birthday suprise. I hope she enjoys the dolly as much as the blankie!