Mastered!

Fingerknitting with multiple fingers, by myself and Miss G.

But not quite mastered by Master R.........teehee!

Native Bees and other ramblings.

Native bees were always something we wanted to get, and luckily for us when we bought this place there was already a hive here-I think they're trigonia carbonaria. You don't get any honey from these little guys (well, you can, but it's in very small amounts and quite difficult to get, but apparently the taste is fantastic) but they are absolutely fantastic pollinators. And they don't sting, but do bite, as the husband discovered when he went to have a poke around in their hive, and got a headful of them in his very thick, very black hair.

They spend much of their time on the perennial basil, but as you can see above they're also partial to the kids portaluca. For those who know the plant yes the bees are tiny compared to honeybees, and miniscule compared to bumblebees-about 4mm long.

AussieBee are a great resource and also sell hives.

AND..........i've just stumbled across what looks to be an good homeschooling blog, Camp Creek Blog.  I've been mostly devouring Montessori resources lately so this is refreshing, and still my style.

It also seems i'm not the only one having a busyness hissy fit, it's a common theme-check out here and here. I'm feeling much better already, and think I understand deschooling perfectly now. I'm deworking myself. I've found myself slobbing around reading chicklit and lots of otherwise aimless stuff, but my mojo is beginning to show signs of reappearing. I have strictly shut myself up whenever i've started to berate myself for not jumping straight into all the personal projects I wanted to do, and just done whatever i've felt like. It's working!

But I did make this

A crocheted headband to celebrate getting my old 'do back again.

And I really need to stop rambling now-this was only supposed to be about the bees!

Peasant dress

Terrible pic, but I don't have a camera ATM, so this was quickly snapped pulled straight from the (clean) washing pile. A neat little sundress for Miss H, made using the free Oliver+S Popover Sundress pattern. They're ladybugs on the yoke and straps :)

As usual, the size that fits them in length is too wide, but that's easily fixed. It's a really cute dress, I didn't like it to begin with but it's grown on me, it's very little-girlish and innocent. The husband has christened it the peasant dress. And it only took an hour or so to complete so i'll definitely be making more!

The next 12 in 12 challenge is a softie, which works out beautifully for me-I was going to make Master R an bee-bah ambulance for his birthday early next month. He adores anything with wheels, especially if it makes lots of noise. It just means i'll have to listen to his very piercing deaf voice allllll day!

I'm awesome, go me!

Life is insane at present. This is coming from someone who had twins turn five today, with all the associated effort and cake making and such over the last few days. BUT...........I fulfilled the February challenge, and made something with knit. Better yet, it's something for myself, so surely I now fulfil January too?

I started off by wanting to make that*darn*kat undies, but only had old t-shirts to use-nothing with lycra for the waist/legbands. So I pulled out some fabric from the stash and made myself a half-circle skirt, with attached waistband with cased elastic. I've been trying to be less of a perfectionist so it's not absolutely perfect, but you know what? No-one else would ever notice. Even I don't now it's finished.

 And I know 'the rules' say not to use a directional print on a circle skirt, but you know what? Rules are made to be broken, i think it looks great.

So from now on it's deep breath, relax, doesn't matter if it's somewhat wonky-I need to make more stuff as I have seven in the family who all want clothing/toys/dressups, so speed is more important than first-quality topstitching. Or topstitching at all!

Now to check on the March topic.............

Oops..........

Well, here we are in February, and I sort of haven't done the January challenge for the 12 in 12 in 2010. I feel like a naughty schoolkid.

I had the best intentions, honestly I did. I sat down one night when the husband went to bed early and started doodling-I had a pile of kids clothes ideas in my head that I wanted to get on paper and start refining. And one of the ideas for a pair of pants looked really, really cool. So cool that I want it for me, but as shorts.

 Now I know it's not the sort of artsy concept drawing that one is supposed to blog, but it was all I could be bothered doing at 10.30pm. I'm thinking I may be able to squeeze them in as February's challenge, which is knit fabric, as I wanted to do them in a t-shirt style fabric anyway. The only problem may be finding some of sufficient quality-all the Spotlight stuff has no stretch memory. Hopefully with a stash of great knit fabric, i'll also be able to finally make some That*Darn*Kat undies for my skinny butt kids-I only bought the pattern a year ago.

Now, to tear myself away and back to work-oh, it's so glamourous being able to 'work your own hours'. Snort!

Food gardens, January 2010

If i'm going to hit my target of 20% of our food being home grown this year, I need to expand! The current gardens are below. We let everything die off when we went to Melbourne in October, and it was too hot and dry to start again until the rain hit in late December. So it's pretty woeful ATM.

The vegie beds-the left is under a green manure, the right has malabar spinach climbing up the reo, a few ramblers, a round zucchini and a couple of strawberries. I just can't seem to get out there ATM-there's room for another three beds to be marked out and dug.

 

The herb bed, right outside the door-chives, garlic chives, society garlic, perennial basil, parsley, italian parsley, curry bush, a tiny red malabar spinach and two cherry tomatoes.

 

The food forest, more of a hodge-podge of permaculture ideas crossed with Jackie French's groves. Off the top of my head, mandarine, lemonade, malabar chestnut, Darwin bush lime, jaboticaba, wampi, pomegranate, black sapote, white sapote, native tamarind, macadamia.........and I forget the rest.

 

A lime, plus tropical apple, peach and pear, with mint and lemongrass in the pots. The chooks have had a mulch party by the looks of it, they've already eaten all the lemongrass.

 

More fruit trees ready to go in........somewhere. Plus a purple and yellow passionfruit to cover the ugly shed wall.

Apart from some nasturtiums and native flax in the fairy garden, a lemon tree in the middle of an unused (unfenced) circle bed and the bananas and paw paw around the mulch pit that's it. There's not much in the way of soil here (think gravel over solid rock) so establishing beds takes a bit of work. We're also concentrating more on low-maintenance perennials as i'd rather easy food that doesn't die when I don't get around to looking at it for a few weeks!

Trees are awesome