Random gardening

It's still a bit hot and humid to do much gardening ... but humid is good for growing. We had some proper rain finally and the plants are relishing it. And I am doing something I have never done before - growing from seed!!!! I cannot imagine this will work but seeds are cheap. 

These are very hardy perennials for the new bed that I haven't finished yet. I'm not sure if I'll plant them in the bed this year or leave them in pots in a sheltered spot until spring. We were planning an overseas holiday in spring but now we're reluctant to fly anywhere ... most flights from Australia go through the Middle East or you can go the other way through the US and who wants to do that? They don't do transit and I will never be in the mood for US immigration. First world problems, that are making me second guess my seed planting and propagation schedule. Did the various regimes think of that? They did not.

This is the tomato bush that mysteriously popped up in the middle of the rose and hellebore bed off the verandah. We have harvested five very delicious tomatoes and there may be more. 

This canna lily is looking lovely in the big blue pot. I like pots in garden beds, and cannas are tough enough for anything. 

And this little fellow came to quilters this week! It is a brush tailed possum joey - about 90 days since gestation so eyes not open yet, and would normally still be in the pouch but his mum was killed. So now he sleeps in a little fleece bag and gets carried around to events in a calico shopping bag and drop fed ten times a day. Super cute, although in NZ possums are a feral pest and we kill them, so I have had to do some mental adjustments.

Basketweave strings

Sorry Pam, but here's another quilt - if it's any consolation it is a real utility one. When we were sorting out all the donated material and trying to get it in shape to be sold there were all sorts of odds and ends going into 'the tub'. So a couple of us decided to make string quilts from the tub and this is mine! The scraps are pieced over squares of calico (there were two whole tubs of that) without any thought or design.

Not pretty in any way! But a quilt, that can be used for something, and all from real scraps.

We had a go at the stash sale up in Gunning over the weekend. There's a big craft group there that puts this on every year but this is the first time our little quilt group had a table. We did OK - didn't get rid of masses of stuff but certainly got rid of some, and made a few hundred dollars to keep the lights on for another month or two ... and the material is all prepped now so we can try again in our own town later on.

I had quite a fun day chatting with crafty people. Gunning is about an hour and half's drive away so it was an early start (still dark! lucky I didn't hit a roo) but quite an interesting drive on roads I haven't been down for a while (if at all). I was resolved not to buy anything but I failed. All yarn! I have finished my first sweater and will take photos of it when it's blocked, so now I'm looking for the next project. Just what I need, another hobby.

There's been a lot of driving this week - Thursday we went in to Canberra to pick up our new (not new, new to us) ute! Very exciting. We bought it off a friend's 17 year old daughter, who chose an enormous diesel twin cab as her first car ... and after about six months has realised it is not the most practical vehicle for suburban life so we happily took it off her hands. It is a tank but our cars were not cutting the rural life. Friday I went back into Canberra for drinks for a colleague who is stopping work and lunch with another friend who has also just gone on long leave pending retirement. I enjoyed both but not as much as these pigeons enjoyed outside the Vietnamese cafe where we had lunch.

Big gardening and little gardening

It's been hot and dry here for the past few weeks - this afternoon yet another set of storms managed to sweep to the north and the south with just a few showers for us. A few showers are good, but a day of rain would be better. The little gardening is a new garden bed over in the west paddock where it's rocky and dry, with lots of wind and western sun. At the moment it's mostly grass - struggling - so we're going to create more beds around the rocks and put tough things in them. 

This is the one that we're doing first as proof of concept. It looks tiny but by the time I mattocked and spaded the edges, then killed the grass (with round-up) and spent an hour this morning mattocking/spading/forking over about one quarter of it ... I think it's good we just started with one bed. I'll keep turning it over and put some compost in it, then put in some perennials in March and fingers crossed they survive the winter and take off in the spring. I do not know what I am doing but that is what the internet is for.

And this is the big gardening - for an eyewatering sum we are slowly getting the big dead pine down. A massive branch (about eighteen inches in diameter) had broken off and was just dangling there, which gave us the push we needed to finally get someone in.

They have taken down the broken one, and some of the others, but to get the remainder they need to go away and get other equipment. Or something, I don't get close enough to understand. They are trying to avoid squashing the garden shed which is good - I would be VERY CROSS after spending all that time painting the inside. 

At least there's plenty of firewood! But the strawberry bed was a bit of a casualty.

Central coast

We had a weekend away somewhere I'd never been - the Central Coast of NSW, which is an hour or two north of Sydney (about four and a half hours drive from here) and seems to be an aggregation of small towns, beachside villages, bad roads and wonderful views. A friend has moved up there so a few of us went to stay for a weekend and have a nose-about.

This is the most stunning view from her house. Cursed steps and a terrifying driveway ... but worth it when you get there. Much wine was drunk on the balcony.

We went for lovely walks along various beaches (too cold for swimming), a couple of pub lunches, fish and chips on the waterfront... it was lovely. A very relaxed vibe, although our friend commutes into Sydney twice a week - two hours each way! I can't imagine, I used to get cross when my twelve-minute commute turned into 15 at rush hour. 

This is the light pole at the local boat ramp - like a trophy wall? But with fish skulls? Some of them were high enough to need a ladder, which is an awful thought. How (and why) would you do it?

We stopped for a night in Sydney on the way back to test drive another car - we are buying an electric one - but didn't do anything exciting there (it was raining).

Bicycling ensemble

I have been biking about in any old thing, which is fine, but skirts tend to whoosh up at the front and flash your underwear at people, wide-legged pants get caught in the chain, shorts ride up your bum and I am far too fat to do my errands in leggings. Actually I am think I am just far too old to do my errands in leggings; nobody under the age of about 35 seems to worry about body shape, which is good for them, but I cannot revisit my ideas on showing the shape of my fat arse at this late stage.

So I made some knee-length culottes! Bloomers! Bicycling pantaloons! They are very practical and comfortable and they have flowers on them.

I bought the cheap rayon at Rathdowne fabrics in Melbourne last July and it was easy to sew and is lovely to wear. My pantaloons even have pockets. 

"Who sent you?"

This is a scrap quilt called "Who sent you?" from some song lyric, as usual. It is a floribunda block which I have done a few times before, but this time in old-school browns and creams with a bit of red.

I love the block and I love the colour scheme, so this was fun to make. The only problem is my machine went on the fritz half way through the free motion quilting - nothing serious, it just needs a service and kept skipping stitches - so it is partly quilted in flowers and partly just straight lines. 

It doesn't seem to matter too much. Cat included for scale.

Heatwave

We've had a nasty heatwave in Australia where temperature records were broken (again) and even our shady corner got uncomfortably warm. I took off to the coast for a few days where it was still hot but you could always jump in the ocean to recover. I took absolutely no photos but it was very very nice - especially because school went back for a new year!!! Hahaha I do not miss that, not one bit. Other than swimming I had a sewing frenzy - including some fabric that I'd lifted from the quilt shed, they are happy to be rid of it - and read some of the two dozen books I got at the book fair.

Art classes continue on, and I continue to attempt faces. This is Susan Sonntag. It is not terrible but also not very good. The teacher makes me change things if they're not right (not something I do for myself, I tend to throw it in the bin) so I spend the full two hours smudging away at my latest victim. And the next week I did this bloke, who was a life model from many years ago. 

It doesn't look like him at all, it's hard to describe how it manages to be both the shape of his face and a completely different person. Sometimes you capture the essence and sometimes you really don't. 

We also had a friend to stay for a few days which was a real treat  ... he parked out front and made the cottage look MUCH classier than it usually does! He took my husband for a few spins with the top down but I have informed him we are much too poor for a mid-life crisis convertible.

Garden shed inside transformation

Here is our little garden shed, that used to be the laundry, and still has a part-brick floor for the copper. It also has hot and cold running water and is weather tight ... but there's not a lot else to say about it. Small and shed-like.

It was also very filthy, had a lot of gaps where critters could come in, an uneven floor, dodgy sheeting on the walls (probably asbestos tbh) and was generally held together with paint and optimism.

Some of the uprights are timber, some appear to be actual tree trunks, and some were just split in half where a big branch must have landed on it at some point. We decided to have a little project because it is just too hot to garden, and did an incredibly bodgy job trying to fix it up. We used quick dry cement in inappropriate places.

Where the cement dried too quickly we used cornice cement to fill in the most obvious of cracks, in ways cornice cement was never intended to be used.

After a thorough scrubbing I discovered the absolute joys of expanding foam. That stuff is amazing, you just shoot the little nozzle in and whoosh! No more rat-sized gap between the roof and the wall. Looks like shit but an astonishing amount of fun for $13. 

Then we painted the ceiling a mix of all of the ceiling white / primer / antique white  that we had in the shed (quite a lot as it turned out). The walls were a mix of more leftover white and two of the blue sample pots that we bought for the hallway. It turned quite a violently bright blue. It's hard to tell in the photos but it is much much brighter than the previous colour.

The floor was a full tin of "terracotta" something that we found in the shed -  that you use on driveways, or concrete planters, to make it look like terracotta? We thought it sounded promising, so did two coats, and it went a violently bright orange that does not work with the walls AT ALL. Each coat took about two days to dry and even then it looked a bit damp but we were over it by then so did a coat of concrete sealant (which we actually had to go to the hardware store and buy, shame).

Then we washed the furniture, moved it back in, and my husband spent a day putting up hooks and a pegboard and arranging it all so beautifully! It looks amazing. The whole thing took two weeks and was a bit of a pain but we are very pleased with ourselves and our project ... as long as you don't look at any part of it too closely. 

Two of my favourite things

This weekend I have been rampaging through other people's unwanted stuff ... fabric and books! Does it get any better than that.

The fabric is donations to the quilter's group that are starting to take over the shed. We are going to try and sell it at a destash sale in a few weeks but first it has to be ironed, sorted, measured and priced. This is part fun treasure hunt and part wake-up call for those of use that hoard fabric. If you can't use it all ... it ends up not treasured, no-one wants it. It's a bit sobering, especially when you see things that were clearly precious projects in progress.

And the books were the town's book fair which has been on the Australia Day long weekend for a very long time. The amount of books is staggering - I volunteered to help with the stocking and tidying. The books can't all go out at once so as they sell we go to the stash and re-stock. It is just mind blowing ... but again, all the gardening books and cook books were on super sale because no-one wants them. 

I had a lovely time and volunteers are positively encouraged to snaffle books for themselves. Everyone has an increasingly tottering pile in the kitchen (volunteers also get cake, it's very social) and pay up at the end. Awesome ... I will read my way through my tottering pile and donate it again for next year. 

Johnny Depp

Art classes have re-started and I have decided this term to focus on faces, because my faces are dreadful and some actual instruction would help. So I spent two hours creating this woeful mockery in charcoal from a black and white photo of poor Johnny Depp.

I feel like I should write to him and apologise. The reason why I am focussed on faces is because my mission during the break from art classes was 'a nude a day'. I didn't quite make one a day but got close ... and they were pretty terrible, especially if I tried to draw the faces. I ended up sketching a lot of bums (much easier) and backs of heads. Here is a representative sample: I'll start with the better ones.

These look like people. This second lot are a bit rough but also look like people ... no faces though.

These ones don't even look humanoid, they look like misshapen aliens.

It's all a bit difficult - there are websites that have reference photos for artist's models and a lot of the poses are far too complicated. Swords? No. I have enough trouble with arms.

Contemplating 'pants' and 'vests'

Pam left a comment on my dyeing post saying that for her 'pants' are only underpants, and those would be called 'trousers'. I found this quite intriguing, because for me 'pants' are all things you wear on your bottom half that aren't skirts ... the superset. Trousers are a subset, and not really a word I would use very often, although it's not an unusual word. Trousers are generally full-length, although I suppose you could say 'three quarter length trousers'. But you'd generally say pants for everything, and specify more if needed.

Underpants are definitely 'underpants', and never 'pants', but I would most commonly say 'undies'. Occasionally 'knickers', and in my house we also say 'pundies', 'grutlies' and 'jocks' ... but I accept that is likely to be a local usage (i.e. local to my house). The words 'panties' and 'briefs' also exist but are not to be used by right-thinking people (shudder).

Vests are sleeveless garments that are worn over other clothes and almost always close up the front. So you would have a hi-vis vest, puffer vest, or fleecy vest. If it is a bit fancy (tailored, buttoned and lined) then it would be a waistcoat although you could use vest in a pinch (but you'd probably have to say 'suit vest'.) You could use 'sweater vest' even though it doesn't do up the front but I would probably say 'sleeveless jumper'. 

If a sleeveless garment is worn under other clothes to keep you warm it's always a singlet. If the garment is worn on its own - like a basketball player - it's still a singlet, but you can also use 'tank' or 'tank top'. This is more likely as the garment gets more about fashion - 'singlet' carries a bit of the underwear nuance to it. 

Thank you Pam, this stuff is endlessly interesting to me! I mattocked around a new garden bed yesterday and I was thinking almost entirely about clothing names :)

Knitting

I've finished the socks and moved on to my new, big, scary project - the world's easiest jumper. These are the latest pairs, firstly a self-striping number in pretty colours.

I really like the colours and the stripes but it was a bit harder to knit because it's ever so slightly fuzzy. You can't really tell but I could feel it on the needles, and I stuffed up some of the pickups.

And the last pair were a Malabrigio sock yarn I found in the magical tub of yarn under the bed in the beach house. These were lovely to knit with although the colours are a bit odd. I can't remember buying it at all. After four pairs I think I am done with socks for now, although they make a very good travel project so I'm sure I'll have more on the go in the future. I certainly have more sock yarn to use up.

The big scary project is going OK so far - I went with the "Step by Step" sweater because it is super easy, has been made by thousands of absolute beginners, and has an hour and a half video on Youtube where Florence goes through each bit with wonderful thoroughness (and slowly! it's amazing).

It's top down on circular needles so I've done the folded collar, the shaping at the back (german short rows! I had to watch the video about fifty times) and I'm moving on to the increases for the yoke. It's all one colour and all stocking stitch, so couldn't be simpler (we shall see!). I bought the 10 ply from Bendigo Woollen Mills and it is a nice clean wool that I'm enjoying knitting with; although it feels like absolute rope compared to sock yarn. I don't know how I'll go when I have an entire garment on the circulars, it will be like hauling around an elephant. I will keep you posted in about six months when I reach that stage...

Dyed some pants

As part of my ongoing series "nothing is too trivial for the internet" may I present some pants that I have dyed a different colour. Here is a before shot of my favourite three-quarter pull-on linen pants (rolled up, wrinkled) that I have worn at least twice a week for the last four summers.

I never really understood linen until I got these pants, and washed them and wore them and washed them and wore them, and they went all soft and drapey and gorgeous. I thought linen was scratchy and rumply and hard to wear ... but when the colour finally started to wear out of these pants I put them in a dark green dye bath and will keep on wearing them until they literally fall to bits.

Which won't be far off, the seams are starting to go and even a new dye job hasn't stopped the wear. But I will count this as a success.

Heatwave

We have had a few days of 40 degrees - the first of this kind of heatwave for a few years, after a couple of wet and cool summers. Some fires near us but nothing too worrying, unlike Victoria. The smoke coloured the sunsets for us for a couple of days.

The heatwave was forecast a good week out so we planned on a few days down the beach and it was gorgeous. The water was freezing cold but it was high thirties in our little beach town which is really hot for us, and only comes from nasty strong westerly winds. For a couple of days each year we think we really must get air-conditioning (like the couple of days each year we think we need better heating there) and this was absolutely one of those times. It's one thing to sleep with the ceiling fan on, another to sleep with no sheets and no clothes, but you know it's really hot when you get a wet towel, wring it out and cover yourself in it while the ceiling fan evaporates the water ... it sends you off to sleep just fine and then you wake up two hours later under a dry towel. That is the kind of hot I do not need in my life.

So we had some excellent swims, drank many iced beverages, read some books and lolled around in sarongs until the cool change came through Saturday afternoon and it dropped fifteen degrees in an hour. And yesterday on the way back up the hill it was misty and 11 degrees ... much nicer. Now all we need is a few days of solid rain.