Scatterbrained

A camping weekend

It was our friend Jesse's birthday so we went camping with him on Saturday night.

 I made the campfire with the help of Dustin and Palle. I was proud to get it lit with one match :)

Getting the camper trailers in on the soft sand of the beach was a challenge this time.

The fisherman were not very successful.

There is one little person missing from this shot. She/he was due to be born on this day. 

It was a nice weekend. Very hot here but on the beach we had a cool breeze which made it nice. There were a lot of flies though. While I was talking I accidentally swallowed one! Actually, it got stuck in my throat and I had to get a glass of water to wash it down. Someone reminded me of that nursery rhyme... 'There was an old lady who swallowed a fly... but I'm not old!

I turned a dress into a skirt

Ruby had this cutest little dress. I bought it for $2.50 in an op shop. It looked vintage but i think it was a vintage reproduction. Still, it was so cute and made out of a soft cool cotton. She grew out of it though so last night I turned it into a skirt.

Now she should get a couple more summers wear out of it as a skirt and that makes me happy.

Remember this yarn I spun recently?

 

Well I turned it into this little purse.

It is just the right size for my camera, car keys, credit card and my phone:)

Today we have to go shopping in our local town. Groceries, a bot fly knife from the saddlery, the library to drop back some audio books, a parcel to collect from the post office...

These are the very last photos from our Flinders Island trip.

The kids rode their bikes around the boat.

The sea leaving Flinders look rough and I though we were going to be in for a bumpy trip but it wasn't at all!

Here we are again. It is such a looooooong trip.

We finally saw land but then we had to wait two hours for the tide to come in so the boat could get into the channel. I did embroidery and poured a glass of wine.

The kids played on the fork lift and got filthy!

That was a new dress!

The trip was long but the kids didn't mind at all. They had a ball.

Crocheting bowls

I have made a few of these in the last week or so. Also hats. I made two hats yesterday. Almost. One needs a little redoing as it isn't quite right. The other one needs more yarn I think. Not sure if it is quite big enough.

The bowls are fun little things that I can make really quickly and they do come in handy.

I was going to felt this one but I thought it would turn out too small so I left it as it is. It sits on Scott's bedside table for his Ipod shuffle. I crocheted two different yarns together for this one.

This one I did felt. It is in my bedside table draw holding lip balm, hair ties and my engagement ring. Very handy!

This one is my favourite because it is 100% made with wool from my sheep which I washed, carded, dyed and spun myself :) It is also in my bedside drawer and is especially for holding pencil erasers which is one of those things I always loose. Along with eyebrow tweezers! I can NEVER find those!

I have my own studio for all of this stuff but it is still all over the house so this one has come in handy for the 'stuff that never makes it back to the studio'.

I used this yarn which is also spun from my sheep's wool except the locks which I've had for ages.

I'm not sure what projects are on the list for today. I'll just have to wait and see but I think I might have to get the sewing machine out :)

Now some more Flinders Island. This is the morning I got up really early, before everyone else was awake and took photos of the sunrise.

On our last night we stayed in one of the islands two hotels so we could freshen up before the long boat trip home. It was great to have clean kids and warm showers.

More Flinders Island

 

Vampire Petunia

I finished her yesterday while I was listening to a Stephen King audio book. I think she turned out nice. I am going to frame her in a painted black hoop.

I really enjoyed this project. So much so I have already done a design for another vampire.

More Flinders Island holiday shots

I realised the scarf I made the night before looked just like the seaweed on the beach.

Shhhhhhhhhhh, don't wake him.

They just lay their eggs in the middle of the beach. You can see how close we came to stepping on them. We put up a stick to show us where they were.

The second egg hatched the next day and there were two!

There were a couple more just a few metres away. So cute.

Flinders Island Day 6

The not so great weather of the day before cleared and we were back to blue skies and sunshine.

I made scones. I don't have a picture of the finished product. They must have been good because they didn't last very long.

And did some laundry.

There were horses on the beach!

 

And then...

We went to Tasmazia. None of us had been there before and we thought the kids might like it. They did!

 

All the little houses are made out of cement and bricks.

Here they are making a new one.

This one was Ruby's favourite.

We went into the mazes.

The thing about these mazes is that once you get in you have to find your way out again.

We had a race in the big maze. Ruby and I teamed up and we almost won, but just as we came running through to the Three Bears Cottage, Mel and Jason came running in the other side. So the four of us were the King and Queens of the maze race!

This place was called 'Cubby Town'.

The Spook House was my favourite. It was pitch black inside and you had to feel your way through and there was spooky music and monsters at the end. Scott jumped in and screamed and we all screamed back. Poor little Dustin got such a big fright he screamed and cried and needed a hug and he went mad at his dad.

After a few minutes he got over it and laughed and went back in a second time :)

If you can get the sword out you become the King or Queen of Lower Crackpot and and ownership will belong to you.

Dustin tried so hard :)

Another weekend

The weekend we went to pick up Jasper was after our long New Years party. We went to Railton on the Sunday which is two hours drive away and took along some friends and made a fun day of it. First we went to the Raspberry Farm. A popular cafe in a pretty spot. Scott and I have never been there but our friends were regulars.

The kids loved the menu because it had pictures. Ruby chose a raspberry muffin with raspberry butter and a hot raspberry. See her little hand there ready to go! She could barely hold off while I took the picture.

When Dustin saw this chocolate raspberry mudcake he wouldn't even look at the rest of the menu because he wanted THAT!

I was corrupted into having a raspberry champagne with Deb.

Meanwhile, Dustin was enjoying his raspberry chocolate mudcake :)

It was good too. I had a taste.

The people responsible :)

We went for a little walk around the gardens which were pretty.

Next door the the Raspberry Farm was this old abandoned house.

I'll show you what we did next tomorrow.

A weekend

We had a pretty boring weekend at home. How was yours?

I thought we might have had calves as our two very pregnant freisans were getting around very slowly and well, mostly laying around. Scott called me to the window and Willow was walking down the hill to the water towards the house and he said, "Look! She looks like you when you where pregnant". Poor thing. She did too.

I also have a friend who is the same amount pregnant although she is doing much better than my cows. I am still working on The Secret Project for her.

I also began another smaller project for my market stall. A pocket for a vintage apron. I bought the apron from a thrift shop last week. It was cute but the pocket was ugly. It had a horrible Hobbytex painting on it so I unpicked it and am embroidering a vintage design on what will be the new pocket.

Flinders Island Day 5

The weather changed. Not a lot of photos because we moved camp and I was cranky as hell. I'd been bitten by mosquitoes and I was getting fed up with sand in my bed.

The weather cooled right down and we sat around the fire.

Our new camp was right on the beach and the sand was white instead of dirty grey/black like we had at our other campsite.

We had mangoes and ice-cream for dessert though.

Pincushion!

Yesterday I did some more work on The Secret Project but I got distracted because I needed a pin cushion so I made one out of scraps from The Secret Project. Then I made a whole bunch more. They are not stuffed yet but I thought I could sell them for a few dollars at my market stall. At least they will add a little bit of interest and colour.

Flinders Island Day 4 (cont)

Scott was really impressed with this river crossing. He wanted me to take a photo of it because he was amazed at the work put into making something that is mostly going to be covered in water or mud. The fresh water on Flinders Island is very scarce and what there is doesn't look very appealing.