Back Home Again

We are back home from Sydney! It's good to be back home again and away from the smog of the city. Wow, it makes me appreciate the farm all that much more after being in the big city for a week. I find it interesting that what people in the city pay big money for; for example, organic food, space, parking, good views, etc., is out here in the country for next to nothing in comparison.

It was a thrilling feeling to come back home and check out the garden to see how the plants are growing. We have a pumpkin/squash patch down by the river that we have been trying to get going, so that is one of the first things I wanted to check out. Such simple pleasures out in the country.

This is a picture of a Kangaroo in our backyard that I am posting especially for Amy since she said she would like to see our wildlife. If I am lucky, I might manage a picture of one of the platypus down by the river one of these days...

Curtains Finished

I finished the curtains yesterday. Here are a few pictures of the progress of tea dying the backing fabric. It's the cheapest way to get a large amount of material in a neutral color. In this batch I used 8 teabags for the entire amount which produced as much color as I probably would be able to get from tea. You can see a bit of the river view we have from the deck in the second picture. I am happy that I now have something to cover the mirrors and I really like the curtains but I do have to say that I am aware of imperfections! They ended up measuring about 2 inches too short so I had to hang them lower than I would have liked! Oh well, we are off to Sydney for a short vacation for a few days tomorrow. It's one year on Australia Day that we moved into our house! Hard to believe, it went so fast...

Curtain Progress and Puppies

I can't resist posting a picture of our puppies that we've had now since July. They are only a couple months old in this photo. The brown one, Teejay -- short for Tommy Junior, is named after one of our top sheep dogs that died early last year who was also all brown. The black one is Moxie who has definitely lived up to the name I gave her! She is a clever little thing and my husband says she can nearly work the sheep on her own at six months! Teejay is handier in the yard and can really bark and get the sheep moving.

I taped up one of the finished curtain fronts to see how it would look in the spare room. It seems to be a good fit. Now I need to tea dye the backing fabric and sew it together with the fronts. After that is finished I will attach a hanging sleeve so it will be ready to hang up. I'm sure it won't be perfect, but at least it will be unique.

Batik Curtain

My fabrics arrived! Now I can start making the needed curtain for the Africa room. The first picture is of the fabrics that I have to use and the second picture is from a magazine that I will use as the design. I'm looking forward to getting this project underway!

Spinning

Happy New Year! We had our first house guest of the year this week and had a wonderful time catching up. I didn't do much quilting since I didn't want to have a mess all over the house, but I did a little spinning as you can see here from the photos. I have wanted to try spinning roving for a while now, usually I spin the wool as soon as it has been skirted so it is still dirty and needs to be washed. This wool was a luxury to spin being already cleaned and combed! This wool happens to be a bit harsh though, so I am thinking I will knit it into a jacket or an overcoat jumper for myself if I have enough of it. We will see...