Another First

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Posted on July 6, 2014

Following on from my first attempt at patchwork, I decided to try my hand at some bunting. My thoughts on making this is exactly the same as patchwork – it should be about using up the scraps that you have – not buying a bundle of mix’n’match fabrics for a ‘perfect’ look.

Miss O and Izz are here tonight and they were keen to help. They both gave their opinions on the fabrics we chose to use and Miss O was able to turn the triangles after 2 sides had been stitched. I completed the turning with the aid of a knitting needle to fashion the point of the triangle. She also helped to arrange the sequence so that there was a good combination of patterns.

This is what we ended up with – a couple of metres of decorative bunting in a selection of pink tonings. There are large and small florals, checks, stripes and abstract prints. Some of the fabric is very lightweight and other is quite heavy. All of it has been salvaged from the offcuts of other projects – some new and some used.

It is a quick and fun project which uses a relatively small amount of fabric and produces an almost immediate result. A perfect school holiday activity if you have small helpers!

Something from the Garden

11 Comments

Posted on June 29, 2014

Back to one of my favourite topics – eating what is in season.

Last night we had salmon for dinner. While the salmon is not strictly local, it does come from Australian waters. It is farmed in the clear water of the Huon River estuary in southern Tasmania. The salmon could hardly be considered a budget meal as it costs about $10 for enough for 2 serves. We always barbeque the salmon and season it with a little salt and some lime juice to enhance the flavour.

I served it with pumpkin mash, stir-fried pak choy, balsamic roasted cherry tomatoes and avocado slices. I poured some of the balsamic/tomato juice over the salmon as a glaze to finish it off. All of these ingredients came from our garden so you can’t get much more seasonal or local than that. It also means that a meal of salmon is quite a reasonable price. What would you pay in a restaurant for a meal like this? $30 – $35 perhaps?

Not every meal contains as much of our own garden produce but I do try to include it as much as possible. Tonight we are having pizza which will be spread with mango chutney (made from the neighbour’s mangoes) instead of tomato paste and have balsamic roasted pumpkin as the main topping.

We have had a bumper harvest of pumpkins this year so I am constantly looking for creative ideas to use them. As well as the ubiquitous pumpkin soup, pumpkin mash and being used on pizza topping I have also made some pumpkin scones recently.

What do you have a glut of? Do you have any pumpkin suggestions?

Housekeeping – How To?

14 Comments

Posted on June 23, 2014

What is housekeeping? The literal definition would be ‘keeping house’. According to the wonders of Google it is ‘the management of household affairs’. This is a fairly broad definition but allows for everything from shopping, cooking, providing meals to cleaning, organisation, paying bills and filing. Does this sound familiar?

I am not planning on getting into a debate over the merits of mothers who stay at home versus those who do paid work or male versus female workload within the home.

My interest is more about what you do, how to do it and where you learned the skills/methods that you use. Today I was at home and it was a sunny winter day here. I took the towels and bathmat from the bathroom and hung them on the line where they could air thoroughly and dry.

This got me thinking about how often I wash the towels and why. We have one towel each and a bathmat and these are washed once a week. I do this because this was the routine my mother used when I was growing up, and I suspect, her mother before that. That is not to say that that I have religiously followed everything my mother did. An example is the 3 pegs on the towel: I do this because I can’t stand the way the towels go out of shape if you just peg them with a peg at each corner.

We have a climate where it is possible to line dry the washing virtually all the year round. As you can see from the photo the line is undercover which gives protection from the rain and when it is cold we generally have the fire on at night so the washing is finished off indoors.

So, where did you learn your housekeeping routines and skills? Have they changed and evolved over the years? Do you ever discuss things of this nature with others – friends or family? Have you intentionally taught your children or do you just expect that they will work it out for themselves.

Shopping & Sewing

8 Comments

Posted on June 22, 2014

Firstly, thanks for your kind comments on my ‘Hollywood’ outfit. I am really pleased with it and quite looking forward to the occasion. I am considering keeping the skirt as well as the top because I am thinking that there could possibly be other occasions for which it will be suitable. Also, I dislike being cold and it can be quite difficult to be warm and glamorous so this would definitely fit the bill. I could even add leggings under the skirt.

I am not keen on shopping but sometimes it has to be done, so yesterday we made a bit of a pilgrimage to a couple of the larger shopping centres which are about 30 minutes drive from where we live. I won’t bore you with all of the details but I did manage to buy this piece of fabric at Spotlight. I will make a camisole to go under the black top of my Hollywood outfit.

While I was at Spotlight I also bought a round plastic tablecloth. It was reduced in price and I had a discount voucher so ended up being priced at $5.70. It is to go on a plastic outdoor table that previously belonged to my mother. I wanted a permanent cover on the table so I decided to cut it a bit bigger than the table and attach elastic to the outer edge.

Here is the piece I cut off the cloth.
Coincidentally, there is a discount clothing store in the same complex as Spotlight and The Duke bought some new underwear and discarded several pairs that were looking the worse for wear. I salvaged the elastic and used that to attach to the plastic cloth.

Here is the finished article on the table – and no sign of the Bonds underwear elastic!

Simple Pleasures

9 Comments

Posted on June 18, 2014

I have been absent a bit recently for no reason other than the fact that I have a life to live as well as a blog to write. I am busy at work and it is a little over 7 weeks until our overseas trip and the days are filling up fast with appointments as diverse as dentist, retirement seminar, work conference, tax accountant, haircut and so on.

I am able to work away from the office some of the time and yesterday was one of those days. After spending the best part of the day at my desk, I ventured outside in the mid-afternoon. This is the peak season for the citrus that thrive in our climate.

The netted tree in the foreground is the mandarin. The birds do not touch the oranges, lemons or grapefruit but they love the mandarins. It may be because of the thinner skin but the scrub turkeys would take them all if it were not for the protection that the netting offers.

I picked some mandarins for our lunches and then took an opportunity which was too good to pass up.

I sat one the step in the winter sunshine and savoured a sweet, juicy mandarin picked straight from the tree. Delightful!

By the way, this photo was taken yesterday and it has not been edited or altered in any way. That is really what the day was like – perfect.

Patchwork – Part 2

2 Comments

Posted on June 9, 2014

It is a week since my last post and I have not even replied to your kind and thoughtful comments. I think work got in the way last week. I also went to a community meeting about solar power one evening and spent time with members of my family so blogging has taken a back seat.

Today I did some more of my patchwork. I now have 22 of the 36 squares I need. I have decided that I will just join the blocks directly rather than putting sashing between them as I am looking for a random allover pattern. I spread the completed blocks out on the floor to get an idea of how it is going to look and I am very pleased with the result so far.

I also mended a pair of jeans for DD’s partner. They were brand new but the stitching had come undone for about 3cm on one side seam. I completely reinforced both side seams so hopefully they will be OK now. There was a pair of The Duke’s socks with a hole in the toe so they are now fixed too. Finally, I put my skills to the test and replaced the legs of this bear.

It was signed by DD’s friends when she finished school and we were moving interstate so it has some sentimental value for her. However, I think my granddaughters had been ‘playing’ with him and the buttons that hold his legs in place had come adrift. Luckily the thread was still through his torso so with a bit of ingenuity and a large curved needle I was able to reattach the legs. I don’t think I will repair dolls and bears for a living!

It has been a long weekend here and I have enjoyed the break from work.

My First Attempt

16 Comments

Posted on June 2, 2014

It is never too late to learn something new so today I have started some patchwork. I am hoping to make a quilt. It is not entirely true that I have never done patchwork before but it has been generally on a small scale and my own ‘design’.

Following some basic tips that I gleaned from Frugal Queen and this Youtube video, I set about making my first disappearing 9 patch square.

I did not buy any fabric because I believe that patchwork should be the ultimate in making do with what you have, not an excuse to rush out and buy all of the latest mix’n’match patchwork fabrics. I am using leftovers and offcuts from many of my own sewing projects as well as some that my mother gave me recently. Some of the pieces in the bundle are over 40 years old.

Here are some of the first squares I cut out. I was starting to arrange them for the block.

I chose to use mostly blue in my first project as that is the colour that I have most in the available fabric. It is also the colour of our bedroom so the quilt will look perfect on our bed if it reaches completion.

The first nine squares sewn together.

The disappearing 9 patch depends on then cutting the block into 4 squares, rearranging them and then sewing them together. This is the result.

So far today I have made 4 of these blocks and I am really happy with how they are turning out.

I think I am hooked but there are other things I need to do today as well. I will be back tomorrow with more adventures. In the meantime, let me know if you quilt or sew. Is it for fun or frugality?

Redistribution of Resources

Recipes and Restoration

2 Comments

Posted on May 27, 2014

In response to the comments from my Clean & Green post the links to recipes for both the cream cleanser and wool wash are under the tab at the top of the page marked “Recipes – Other”. Unfortunately, the wool wash one does not have any photos as they were a victim of my culling photos some time ago 😦 I do need to make some more again before long so I will take some new photos. Also, I have found that the mixture sets quite firmly so I will be experimenting to make it more like a gel or even semi-liquid. I will let you know how I go.

Since we finished restoring the silky oak dressing table we have been searching for a similar unit for The Duke’s clothes. Many that I had seen on Gumtree (online buy/sell site) did not have enough storage space. I was hoping for a silky oak piece but that was not essential.

On the weekend we bought this piece. The thing I really love are the small, deep drawers at the top. They will be perfect for separating socks and underwear.

The seller had owned it for about 20 years and never restored it. We will need to replace the bases of some of the drawers and do a bit of structural refashioning. The piece is not original as the top left-hand drawer does not match the others and the front of the unit looks as though it was once the back of a piece of furniture. Apparently it has come from Coober Pedy (an opal-mining town in the outback of South Australia) and there is clearly a lot of history so I believe it deserves to be restored. It needs a lot of work but we are confident that it will come up nicely. We intend to replace the wooden knobs with metal handles to match the dressing table.

We do not intend to embark on this project at the moment as we are trying to get things ready before we head overseas in a couple of months. So we have covered the piece with a heavy drop-sheet and left it until we have more time.

Clean & Green

10 Comments

Posted on May 21, 2014

In an online discussion group of which I am a member, the challenge this week was to make some changes in your routine to make your life a little greener. It was noted that actions that are good for the environment can also be beneficial to your purse.

When I stopped and thought about this, I realised that most of how I choose to live is a result of making the best choice I can in the prevailing circumstances. Some of these things are what I have always done and others are changes I have made but it is so long ago that I do not even consider them as particularly green.

Here are some of our household patterns.

Use locally-made, environmentally-friendly washing liquid, laundry soaker, dishwashing liquid and dishwasher powder from Kin Kin Naturals.

Make my own wool wash and cream cleanser.

Use bicarb and vinegar to clean most surfaces.

Hang clothes outdoors to dry or in front of the fire. Use clothes dryer rarely.

Run our home on tank water, grid-connected solar power and solar hot water service.

Grow some of our own fruit and vegetables. This week I have picked lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, radishes, pak choy, lemons, oranges, mandarins. grapefruit and avocadoes.

Compost all our scraps or feed them to the chickens.

Keep chickens for our own supply of eggs.

Catch public transport to work.

Complete multiple errands when making a trip in the car.

Re-use as many resources as possible.