Rural bliss

Last Summer our clan house-sat for extended family in Cowaramup, a little slice of rural W.A., and it was  wonderful.
There is nothing quite like the beauty of the Australian bush; the light, the scents, the colours - just gorgeous.

Today I'm going to share a little slice of this rural idyll:

Dawn in the Australian bush. The mist was still rising from the ground and the light was stunning.

An Aussie farm gate; I love old gates :)

The view from the verandah. Words can't do it justice so I won't bother trying! Just take it in (we did, every day).

This old bath was on one end of the verandah and is plumbed up and useable (we weren't game to do so but the owners used it regularly).




I'll share more of our rural house-sit holiday in future posts :)

Musical warmth

My better half (and he truly is) and I recently celebrated our 27th Engagement Anniversary.
He gave me a bottle of my "signature" perfume and I made him a scarf (not the usual present in the middle of an Aussie Summer but there you go!)

His scarf was my way of justifying doing a crochet pattern I'd not before attempted; musical note appliqués.

My hub is very musical (as I'm writing this I'm listening to him playing his cello) and loves anything connected to music, especially if it's of the classical kind, so I wanted to personalise his scarf accordingly and, to toot my own horn a wee bit, I'm quite pleased with the results:

The scarf pattern was from this blog: https://hearthookhome.com/simple-scarf-for-men-free-crochet-pattern/ and I adapted it to U.K. terms as that's my preference.
The treble clef symbol pattern I found on a short youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=j2SeEtH0t3U (not easy to find one but I finally did).

I could not find a pattern for the bass clef symbol so I ended up making up a pattern myself.
Easy, peasy Bass Clef appliqué pattern:
Chain 45,
Dc in 2nd chain from hook and across to final five chains.
Htr in the last five chains and slip stitch to fasten off, leaving a long tail for sewing on to scarf, etc.

Dots (I'm sure there is a precise name for these little symbols but I don't know what it is):
Chain 2
8dc in 2nd chain from hook (that should make a big enough dot. If you want a bigger one, do another round of dc.)
Fasten off and leave long tail for sewing on to scarf, etc.

Feel free to use the bass clef pattern but please link back to this post 😊, thank you.



My wonderful hub loved it, as did my musical progeny, although one son did ask me to make sure I placed the treble clef on the correct side if I ever made him one! (Who knew there was a "correct" side? Not me!)


Make a joyful noise unto the Lord      Psalm 100:1a (KJV)

Fine china

In January of 2018, which is the middle of our Summer, we (my clan and I) house-sat for three weeks for some extended family members of a member of our extended family (if makes sense if given some thought!)

The home was on 100acres of land in a part of the world we'd never spent much time in, so, besides being a sort of "working holiday" (lots of animals and gardens to care for), it also gave us a chance to explore the surrounding region in a leisurely, off-the-beaten-track manner (not "Tommy-Touristy" where you generally only spend a few hours or days anywhere but also not in the nonchalant manner of those who reside in the area and, often, never check out any of their local attractions. I stand guilty of the latter, myself.)

We had the time of our lives; it was memorable and blissful and so revitalising.
Even mucking out the animal areas took on an aspect of enjoyment, even fun. We loved that holiday, every single moment :)

I'll post some photos of the holiday in a later post but, for now, I wanted to share a part of the holiday that I particularly (and peculiarly) found wonderful: Op. shops.

I love op. shopping.
A large part of my wardrobe consists of clothing found in second-hand establishments, as well as quite a portion of my yarn stash! I've also got paintings, ornaments, books and various other sundries from these little places of pre-loved goods.
But, during our house-sit holiday last January, my focus was on crockery; plates, to be precise. You see, the owners of the home we babysat had mismatched dinner plates.
I don't know if this came about due to natural attrition or whether they just liked an eclectic look when they sat the table but, once I got over the ingrained "everything should match" attitude, I began to really enjoy setting the table at mealtimes, thinking about who was going to get which plate this time around and which plate I wanted to use myself today/tonight.
By the end of the first week of our stay I was so enamoured of the mismatched crockery look that I decided to adopt this idea for our home; and so began the "Great Crockery Hunt" of 2018!

I browsed every op. shop I could find in every town we visited during our three-week sojourn and, thank you, Lord, I found some absolute treasures.

Let me introduce some of my favourite finds:

I'll never forget the day I bought this plate: It was a Saturday morning in a tiny rural town, so small that their op. shop only operated three days per week (Saturday being one of them, thankfully). The outside temperature was in the high 30s (Celsius, that is) and the temperature in the op. shop, an unlined, windowless shed, must have been pushing mid-40s (110+ Fahrenheit). I stood in line in sweltering, airless heat for about 5 minutes (only two ladies behind the counter and half of the district wanting to buy something that day, or so it seemed!), clutching my plate close to my heart before handing over a whole Aussie dollar for its purchase. I was ecstatic! 

I knew nothing about crockery manufacturers (still don't) but was happy to discover that my plate was made in England by a company called Alfred Meakin (one of my buying criteria was no mass-produced "Made in blah, blah, where everything seems to be made nowadays" plates, unless I really loved the pattern).

Then, a few days later, I came across some lovely saucers in a gift shop (in the same tiny, rural town), also made by Alfred Meakin. I bought the lot for about $5-$6 (can't remember the exact amount). I didn't need saucers but I loved the painting on them.

I also found a dinner plate made in Portugal in an op. shop in a bustling regional city; all white but I liked the idea of it being Portugese and so it made its way into my Great Crockery Hunt (GCH) stash. There were some other lovely finds, both in plates and saucers and, occasionally, bowls and cups (some of which, alas, have now gone on to crockery heaven) but I didn't want to bombard this post with umpteen pictures of plates so they will wait for another entry.

I do want to share this one last treasure, though.

Technically, it does not fit in the GCH category because I did not find this until after we'd returned home but I think it is worth sharing because I was still in "eclectic crockery" mode and when I saw this plate in a local op. shop I immediately clasped it to my heart (like my first one) and made it mine, after parting with the princely sum of $3. 

I love this plate; it is beautiful, possibly my absolute favourite plate (though sometimes I look at the other rose one, above, and hum and haah over that title). But, no, I think it's this one and it was not much of a surprise for me to discover it was another Alfred Meakin. 

Both dinner plates feature roses which, I've recently realised, I am drawn to when featured on crockery.

Rose is my name and china roses are my jam, it seems!

Seasonal cushion

My baby turned 18 earlier this week and, as a special surprise, I made him an Autumn/Winter cushion.

The Autumn side, with an Autumn-coloured background and leaves.

The Winter side, complete with raincloud :)

I love the colours and shapes of the various leaves.

I fastened the cushion cover with two buttons from my op. shop collection!

I can't wait for Autumn to arrive, it's my favourite season...

More waffle!

The green blanket is finished!

The pattern is a waffle stitch I followed from a Bella Coco tutorial and the border is my own concoction - a mix of treble moss stitch and double crochet (U.K. terms used).

I used Caron Cakes Tea Cakes, a mixture of acrylic and wool, in the colour Green Tea. All in all, just over four cakes' worth. This yarn is beautiful, soft and heavy, perfect for a rug.

I realised not long into the blanket that I'd made it too wide for a lap rug so I decided to turn it on the side; having done that I then had to make a rather large border to compensate for it being too short the other way (excuse me if that sounds like gobbledy-gook, it worked out in the end and that's what counts!).

Improvisation is the mother of crochet success 🌝

...complete with "label" ⛯

I like this pattern so much that I also used it to make a pram blanket for a friend's grandbaby.

(I don't bother blocking blankets, hence the uneven look. They're meant to be soft and squishy and uneven, in my opinion.)

A softer label for this one.

This blanket was made by rolling together six (yes, six!) balls of 4ply baby yarn, making for the softest, squishiest baby blanket ever! This would make a wonderful underlay for a baby's pram or cot, it's soft and thick and scrumptious. My whole clan scrunched it and loved the softness!

Honestly, the hardest part of this blanket was the actual winding of the yarn but, believe me, it was worth every moment as it was so easy to work with when it came to the actual crocheting part.

I thank the Lord for creativity, it has been so much more than just a hobby recently.

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.    James 1:17 (KJV)

A "Green" day

No.1 son's birthday is not far away so I have decided to make him a blanket - my thought was shades of green but I checked with him first, just in case he preferred another colour. Turns out, green is his preference, too :)

So, I headed off to a yarn store this morning and bought four balls of Caron Tea Cakes in Green Tea, a rich, deep, variegated colour scheme, perfect for our young man, methinks.

This yarn is thick and soft and lovely with which to work (yes, started it already!) and I am very much looking forward to seeing the colour change as it progresses.

Big, soft, squishy balls of yarn - love 'em :)

Wonderful (and different) colour variations throughout each yarn ball.

The first few rows already done!

A close-up look at the pattern - the waffle stitch (courtesy of a Bella Coco youtube tutorial; she is a great teacher) The yarn calls for a 10mm hook and I'm using the Boye brand, one of my favourites.

As well as starting a green blanket I've also been stewing the first batch of home-grown rhubarb that I've ever harvested from my garden!

I planted the plants two years ago and, according to the gardening experts, it takes two years before they grow well enough to be harvested. I can vouch for that as last year there was not much growth, stalk-wise, but mostly foliage. 

My first crop of rhubarb

Bubbling away nicely :)

It's cooling at present but I'm already planning stewed rhubarb and custard for a special dessert treat this evening. 

Memories of childhood comfort food...