Crafter Fail

Oh dear, this is embarrassing. I've seen a few blog posts and tutorials about reclaiming wool from garments and it instantly ignited my thrifty, crafty, op-shopper, good-for-the-planet senses and I was desperate to try it. I finally found a jumper with yarn I liked at a local op shop and it seemed to have the good seams I'd read about.

I spent several evenings unravelling the wool and was finally ready to wash it yesterday. I soaked the yarn in wool wash for a while before throwing in the rest of my wool items that needed washing and ran the machine on its wool cycle. Ba-bowwww fail. What an idiot - of course you're not supposed to run it through the machine, it's in such a vulnerable state! It came out quite matted, not felted, but not easy to roll into a ball.

So devastated was I that I couldn't yet admit defeat and spent the next two and a half hours unmatting one of the skeins and rolling the damp wool into a ball. Yes, it took me two and a half hours to get one ball and I have no idea whether it will knit OK. In fact I'm only just learning to knit so even when I do knit it I still won't know if it's bad or if it's just me.

I have four more skeins of matted wool that is now dry and I don't think I can face trying to get any more balls out of it.

I'm not so smug now about paying $1.50 for a full jumper's worth of wool when I've spent so many hours just to get one ball of questionable yarn.

Birthday season is approaching

My baby is eleven months old today.



The four of us have our birthdays within seven weeks of each other with Christmas in the middle. Our wedding anniversary is thrown in there as well so it's always a busy time of year. The rest of the year stretches out like a wasteland compared to our jam-packed summer but I love that we get to celebrate one after the other and all have a turn to feel special - separately, but also kind of together, it's nice.

What I'm reading

Mitten Strings For God by Katrina Kenison

It's like a meditation, I'm reading a chapter each night and letting it resonate. This book is a beautifully written reminder of how hard it can be to slow down but how valuable it is to do so.

Snapshots...

Snippets...

Meet the cast:

Tavis is the do-er - drawing, painting, fixing, building, gardening, riding, running, working, playing with the kids. He can't sit still for long. But he likes nothing more than just hanging out with the family, he doesn't need a million activities and events.

Rohan is the singer. We know he's happy when we can hear him off in the distance trying out some new song he's making up as he goes along, or singing one of the hundred or so others he knows. He's note, rhythm and word perfect, I am continually impressed. He's in the land of imagination at the moment, creating worlds and stories all the time.

Angus is the explorer. He's taking everything in and doing new things every day. A few weeks ago he started crawling, the next week he was pulling himself up to standing, last week he learned to climb steps and today he is starting to reposition his hands and feet when he's standing (ie moving). My prediction is that he'll be walking before Christmas but we'll see.

And me, Holly, I'm the observer (hence the interest in photography). I treasure those moments in the everyday when I reflect how perfect and wonderful the present moment is in it's ordinariness, where I hold it in my mind momentarily like releasing the shutter of the camera. It's a daily challenge to be present - I am naturally inclined towards planning, being organised, trying to 'get stuff done' but I am realising that I can use those traits to make time to enjoy right now.

Family snapshots tomorrow...

Snipping...

This is what I've been snipping at lately...



1. Lavender
2. First attempt at sewing from a paper pattern
3. Broad beans

The lavender is absolutely abundant in our garden at the moment and the hum of the bees can be heard whenever we're outside. This is a particularly lovely variety with the wispy petals at the top.

I am not a great sewer and I tend to find it a bit frustrating that when I sew something I spend more time at the ironing board than at the sewing machine, but there's a definite pull to create.

This tunic style dress/top is from a vintage simplicity pattern and was easy because it is reversible. I chickened out with the button holes though (which I've never done before) and fastened with a snap so it's not really reversible.

The broad beans are rampant and I need some new recipes to get creative with using so many of them. I actually enjoy the double podding, it's quite therapeutic.

First Post

Snipping - because I'm a wannabe crafter and learner gardener
Snippets - of life in my neck of the woods
Snapshots - because I'm into photography

We'll see where it goes :)