Finally Finished!!

Yay! I have finished Zach's blanket (see entry from 26 april) to go with his doggy) that I had to stop knitting (see all entries on mean osteo - sorry James - take it with pinch of salt - you are worth your weight in gold - & bad neck....). It is just in time for his baptism this Sunday! Hip Hip Hooray! I love the way the variagated wool has worked in this pattern!

Saw the osteo yesterday & he did notice that I had been sewing a little bit .... maybe a little bit too much at once... must take more breaks.

Anyway - am really excited about the market bags that I am working on - hope to have some in the shop by the end of the week!

Only one day left for the 50% off sale! Get in quick!

Sewing again

After 6 very long months of not sewing due to neck and shoulder problems, and finally coming clear of 10 months daily migraines, I picked up my sewing scissors and ... heaven. I felt so excited and peaceful at the same time. I am really excited about what I will be producing. I am looking at the most environmentally sustainable fabric available to use that is light & all I keep coming up with is "found fabric". I know that production wise it has it problems, however, all the research that I have done into bamboo, cotton, organic cotton, and hemp, leads me back to the fact that each of them have their issues AND, each of them need to be transported from somewhere, usually from overseas, which leads to emissions....So, more environmental issues to contend with.

Watch this space & see what I can do as I take baby steps forward with my sewing, researching and designing.



Don't forget that I am clearing out the stock in my esty shop while it is all on sale for 50% off!

Chow mein, chop suey or kai see ming?

After a big day of driving to out to the country with three kids kicking the back of our seats fighting and moaning, we had dinner at my brother's place. My sister-in-law had made "chinese food" from her grandmother's recipe. Fantastic. Mince, cabbage, bit of this that & the other with soy sauce. Quite different from my family's chinese food. It got me to thinking about "australian chinese food", and in particular chow mein, chop suey or Kai see Ming (and any other so-named derivative) and how every family seems to have their own completely different recipe.

I would REALLY love to hear from anyone who has a family recipe. If you do, could you please drop me a line on the "Contact me" button with:

1. your name
2. your memory of who made it
3. the family recipe
4. what you loved (or hated) about it
5. do you make it now
6. anything else ( special ocassion? same day each week? something fancy? other?)

I'll keep you up to date on my hunt for australian chinese food!

Sale Sale Sale!!!

I am having a huge Sale in etsy, so if you like the stuff in there, jump on in. It is all 50% off for the rest of June to clear out the stock & make way for other stuff...

Happy Birthday to me!

A nice little birthday present for me. LittleDickensDesign decided to have a treasury list of Meg Meaghan Megans on Etsy and had one of my buttons on it! Wow I was honoured! There are all these other creative Meg's out there!

Winter retreat

I love a good fire in winter at least once to sit around, get warm, toast marshmallows & drink hot choc & just 'cause we live in the inner city doesn't mean we can't do it. We use our old copper & fill it up with Matt's off cuts from the shed, stuff from round the garden, the boys call Granny from down the road & woosh!

I also took the time to get covered in ash & pull out the non-indigenous (local native) lawn grass that was trying to choke my indigenous lawn & proceeded to do an intensive planting from the clumps that were being choked. Any guesses how many tiny plants? It's like guessing the number of jellybeans in the jar. To me it felt like 1000. All I can hope is that it will form a nice thick mat.

The great thing about this lawn will be that once it is completely established, it will need no water (that's right - NO WATER), and will survive the drought, you can choose to mow or not to mow as it will not grow too tall, and the seed eating birds absolutely love it! You cannot get better than that. No dust bowl in summer & green all year around. Oh, and did I mention that it is soft? Oh, ok, I am a just a little bit passionate about the indigenous planty thing....

Hoarder

I have just come to the dreadful realisation that I am in fact a great hoarder. Now, to those who know me very well, this may not actually be at all at new idea, in fact, it is probably quite a yawn. It came to me in amongst the cleaning up of my old emails & realising that I in fact had 220 in my inbox - sorry, I am embarrassed about the number, and then there is the sent messages - and that I would have to go through and delete all those lovely old words from friends. I hate to delete words. I love words. I also love fabric, buttons, pictures, books, old clothes, found objects, basically anything that has a story to tell. I really do find it hard to just chuck them out. The Man in my life tells me that if I haven't touched it in 6-12months then I should just chuck it - eek! That does make me want to stop breathing. In a way it does become all the more precious the longer I have it.

I wonder if there is such a thing as hoarders anon?

List of things to do in order to deal with my "hoarding"

1. clear old emails

2. get rid of fabric that I really will not use

3. same for yarn

4. same for buttons (is that possible?)

5. clear out house of other "things" that I may well have gathered along the way & not dealt with appropriately (ie chucked out)

6. resolve to be a little less like a magnet with things

In my frustration at not being able to sew or knit at the moment due to neck & shoulder "issues" I have changed my room around and come up with some do-able projects while I wait for the injuries to heal.

We chopped a tree down that had died & my man made a gorgeous wall sculpture & the boys (7yrs & 4.5yrs) made some too.

I live vicariously through them.