One was a broken rib and the other was a sprained hand. Both these injuries restricted what I was able to do outside, so I have been pottering along as best I could with some creative crafts.

One of the things I did was to take a class named “The Amazing Plait Bag”. The bag is a really good size and very sturdy, and the handles are done in a seven way plait that looks …well, quite amazing.

We plaited the handles on an old CD with slots cut out of it, and once I got the rhythm it was a simply but tedious job.

The main bag was pieced straight onto the pellon and then the seams were covered with embroidery stitches. The original pattern had the cell phone pocket in the front quite small, so I enlarged it just a little and instead of using a button and button hole stitched on some velcro dots and just put a button on the top.

Over all I was quite pleased with the finished result and I can see myself using this bag often.

My first attempt was pretty hopeless, I seemed to be having a bad day and the instructions required thinking about as I made it.

After scraping that bag I had another attempt with some nice Fairy frost fabric that I really liked. Needless to say the end result came out much better

It is a cute little bag that can be just slung over my shoulder when I go to classes.

It then opens up like a basket and will sit open while I am working.

It even has a couple of pockets on the inside so small things don’t get lost.

And a flap on one side that opens to show a place to put needles and pins. Nice and convenient.,

Now Maureen I will make you one when you let me know what colour you would like. Thank you for the pattern.

We are still in drought conditions so no grass, although we hope that will change soon.

While we wait, I have begun and new quilt, that I have found quite captivating. It is called a Dear Jane, and is a reproduction of Jane Stickles 1930s quilt.

So far I have done four columns, with 13 rows to a column. I am joining it as I go so that it will not be such a big job later.

As you can see there are a lot of interesting blocks in this quilt and it is proving to keep me wanting to do more.

First the unavoidable, the schoolwork. We managed to finish up all our themes from last year and so will be starting a new theme when we start up again later in January. We will be doing the Sea and Sky Theme, from WinterPromise. It will be on science and history of the sea and sky. We like these programs as they give us a lot of choices in how we learn and provide us with lots of good books and  fun activities. Although sadly this may be the last year we use them, depending on what new programs they bring out.

On the craft front, I probably spend way too much time in front of my sewing machine, but I did achieve several quilts, some gifts and started on the gift bags, that we want ot be using from now on.

We have enough chickens at the moment, so we are not planning anymore chicks this year. Maybe next year, but we will see. They have started to get out of the orchard so we will have to upgrade the fencing quite a bit to keep them all where they are suppose to be, before they start finding the garden.

And on the subject of gardening, now that I have put the sewing machine away for a while, I am finally starting to tidy up the weeds. Production is down, due to my own neglect, but it is also picking up as well. I really like the whole chicken dome idea, and it seems to be working quite well.

The kikuya is a bit more of an issue, as the chickens managed to kill it off, but did not dig the roots up at all, so that is something that I will have to work on for some time yet.

They left us with a lovely cleared, fertilised and mulched area that was all ready for planting.

These photos were taken at the beginning of spring and shows the gardens just starting out.

This was the first circle planted, and many of the plants are due for replacement. In saying that, it provided us with fresh peas and salad greens for christmas, and is now producing cherry tomatoes beetroot, and some very beautiful cabbages right now.  I have just added some more tomatoes and spring onions but will put more in over the next couple of weeks.

This was the next circle, we have had an almost endless supply of pumpkin plants out of it, which is not so bad since most of my seeds failed to germinate this year. The pumpkins have mostly been transplanted, and I have lots of tomato plants going crazy in there. We have a few green tomatoes on them, but mostly they are just starting to flower.

We have had several meals of broccoli, and there is celery hiding under the broccoli leaves. I seems to like it under there and is doing very well. We are already eating the outer stalks while the plant is continuing  to keep us supplied with celery. The lettuces again need replacing (will probably happen today) as they are all going to seed with the hot weather.

This poor circle has sat neglected for all this time. I didn’t even get around to putting the edging on it. Yesterday I planted some bean seeds, and I have some more started in trays to go in here. I also have some more broccoli plants and well as few other things that are waiting to go in. Good to start getting some production going in here.

On a more positive note, I did get around to planting corn on the other side of the house, and it is doing really well.

It is just starting to form its top flowers so I am looking forward to getting lots of corn of it this summer.

The sheep are still here, they were shorn again at the end of last year and are running in the orchard out of the way. I haven’t decided if I will do lambs this year or not, that will have to be decided closer to march when the ram goes out.

The cows have consumed the most time this year, and also have brought us lots of pleasure and some sadness.

Liquorice is still at the neighbours after being weaned at 10 months, he is looking very good and is very settled there for now. Poor old sweetie did not take kindly to Ollie, when she lost her own calf.

We milked her up until three days ago but now we are drying her off.

Little Ollie seems to only be loved by Murray, but is doing well sneeking feeds from Daisy while Murray is feeding.

He is still much smaller, but is certainly not hungry at all. We will continue to have Daisy feed both the calves for another few months before we wean them off. If she starts to lose too much weight we may take Ollie off sooner, but again to be decided later.

Daisy loves being a mum to her own baby, but will only tolerate Ollie. She has slimmed down quite a lot now that she is making milk, and sometimes I feel that she could do with a rest before she has another calf. We did not intend to have her feeding two calves, it just ended up working out that way.

Neither Daisy or Sweetie Pye are in calf at the moment. We could detect the heat cycles the whole time the AI techs were working, and of course the week after we could get them any more, the both came into heat on after the other. Very frustrating.

This is Sneezy. She was one the calves we got in as week old, late born babies last year. She was always very friendly and seemed to want to be a house cow, by the way she kept coming to see us, for a scratch, and would lick me if I let her. As a last gasp effort, week after the AI techs officially stopped working, she came into heat, so I rang the tech, and he agreed to come an AI her.  At this stage it is looking like she has held, and so she could well be our house cow next year. She was just 15 months old when we had her inseminated, and although we would have liked to wait a bit longer, none of the other cows were coming to the party.

The weather is very dry here at the moment. We had a very wet winter, not much of a spring flush, and now we are going into drought conditions. This is not good for our grass situation, and we are hoping of a few days of rain soon. At least we sold two of our yearlings, so that has eases things slightly.

Overall we have had quite a good year. The biggest high was Daisys baby being born, the biggest low was Sweetie Pye slipping her calf. We are hoping for another good year and not too much excitment, just more chugging on and getting on with life.

I started out making just a couple for Bevans birthday, and went on to make some for christmas as well. The plan is to make some each year until we have enough not to need paper wrapping at all.

One of the big advantages is that they can be made according to the size we need, and I am enjoying putting the pictures on them.

They are like a reusable extention of the christmas stocking that I made for lots of kids for christmas this year, as part of our homemade christmas gift ideas.

Here are three of the type of stocking that I made, they are all quilted and so should last the test of time without falling apart. Some of them even had the childs name embroidered on the top. I made puppets, bathbombs, soft toys and of course stockings for the different children.

]]> http://www.dreamforthree.co.nz/2009/12/no-more-wrapping-paper/feed/ 0 http://www.dreamforthree.co.nz/2009/08/that-time-again/ http://www.dreamforthree.co.nz/2009/08/that-time-again/#comments Sun, 02 Aug 2009 03:34:35 +0000 admin http://www.dreamforthree.co.nz/?p=118 It has been a while since anyone has written anything on here, so time for an update.

We are still patiently awaiting the arrival of Daisy’s first calf. We are all prepared for it with the milking bay functional, and Daisy willing to go in and eat in there. We have calcium in case of milk fever, and a one calf feeder to aid in teaching Daisy to let down her milk for us. In the meantime she is getting her daily dose of magnesium sprinkled on her hay.

Bevan has managed to destroy yet another car, which once again leaves me with a less than reliable car to use. Even more so at the moment since it battery is stuffed and needs to be replaced.

Most of winter has been spent at the sewing machine. The decision was made to make christmas gifts for people this year, so quite alot of planning has been going into just what we want to do.

Firstly let me say that I want to avoid making food related gifts, so we have to lookk at other possibilites. Secondly, although Bevan came up with the idea of making a play garage for a little boy, in reality he will never get around to it, and I would not be very good at it.

So firstly I have been making quilted christmas stockings for all the children, some of them are even named so can double as the wrapping for the gift. The good thing about this is that after spending all the money to buy material and a whole book of patterns for Sammie last year, I can say that we have had our money’s worth now.

Then comes the problem of what to put into the stockings. But more on that later when I have finished a few more things for it. In the meantime, I have quite a few ideas of things I can make, as well as still being on the lookout for more.

Out of the same pattern book, I am also going to make a tree skirt this year. Something that every year I wished I had, but never got around to.

I have also almost finished painting the main bathroom, a job that was well overdue to be done. Now I have to listen to Sammie complaining about how plain it looks compared to the old fashioned flowery wall paper that we on there. Still she will get over it.

Now I have decided not to have any lambs this year. Last years lambing was not a great one for many people, and we were no exception. So I politely declined the use of a ram for this year, so that should lower the stress levels somewhat. It also means that Daisy’s calf will probably be the only baby born here this year, as we won’t be doing any chicks either I don’t think.

kThe chickens are slowly starting to lay again, and we managed to sell our first dozen surplus eggs of the season last week, with another ready for the coming week as well. The unexpected demise of the rooster, will give us a chance to take stock and decide if we still want to continue with the same breeds and everything.

Now as for the garden, well I am still waiting for the finishing of the garden boxes. In fact it is fair to say that they are no closer to being done, and it is time for a new plan since Bevan does not like doing the boxes. So for me it is a chance to encourage the making of a chicken dome instead, and then I can garden more in the style I wanted to before we moved here.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love that this place already had a chicken house, orchard and garden planning already done, it is just not all laid out in the way I wanted. So now is my big chance, and maybe the only one I will get, to finallydo something they way I wanted.

It all started a few years ago when friends of ours came over from England for a holiday. Although Jason and Nicole had been married here a few years earlier, their visit at that time was consumed by wedding plans and the ceremony. This was Nicole’s first chance to get to see a bit more of New Zealand.

After just a few days Nicole had concluded that there was no such animal as the possum. It appears that the squished things on the road were knitted bags, put there by the government to keep up the myth of the existence of possums. In all her days here she had not managed to see a single live possum! On the other hand, she had seen many live pukekos and had very much fallen in love with them.

Jason and Nicole’s first child was a long time coming and it was not the easiest of times for them. Fortunately all worked out well in the end and I was pleased to hear from Jason earlier this year that they were expecting another new addition to the family. I remember Nicole’s love of pukekos and I had seen a pukeko quilt hanging in The Applebasket Quilt shop in Kaiwaka.

I discussed it briefly with Sharon and we decided to buy a kitset version, which Sharon would make up and we could then send to them, hopefully before the new baby arrived. I must admit that Sharon worked long and hard on the quilt, managing to complete it in just a few months.

Finally, with just two weeks to go before the new baby is due, I managed to post the completed quilt off to England. Given that they are not that far off from heading into Winter time, Sharon put in a double layer of wool filler, ensuring that the baby will be snug and warm in the cold English climate.

It should arrive this week and I’m hoping that it will serve them well.