Settling in nicely and ScrapHappy

Into my new home, that is. 

I took this photo of what is now my home, one foggy winter morning, long before I had any idea I'd be living here one day. It sits right on the river, and has a wonderful outlook onto parkland.  

I wrote my last post the day before settlement, and life sped up after that, as I had a month to finish packing up my house, while renovation and restoration work was getting started on the new house.  I thought that part  would be easy, just let the tradies get on with it, but it ended up being incredibly busy and quite stressful at times.  It was a few of the hottest weeks of the year, and I seemed to spend the days going back and forth to the new house to "site meetings".  While my head was still pretty much at the old place and focused on getting out of there and leaving it spic and span, it was hard to think about where I might want a light switch or a power point at some hazy time in the future. The photo below was taken from the front window of my new house, and there's the old one, across the road and up the hill, behind the frangipanni tree.....not a great distance, but in nearly 40C ( 104 F) and 90% humidity, it might as well have been a million miles.

The new house is in really good condition, but was old and tired, all rooms had musty old wallpaper, which I thought was going to take forever to remove, but a lovely surprise was that the wallpaper was attached to plywood panelling, which was in turn attached to  beautiful old original tongue and groove boards, making the job an easy one of just ripping that panelling off.  The old carpet and vinyl were pulled up, to reveal more beautiful wood, which has now been sanded and sealed.

I'll do some more posts about before and after, and the progress of the renovations, as this post, to launch me back into blogland, is about scraps.....fabric scraps, and to link up with Kate and others for ScrapHappy Day, which falls on the 15th of each month.   In the few weeks before I moved, for some reason, I mostly ignored the packing, pulled out my scraps and started a scrap quilt., just as if I was going nowhere.  I think some of that was the sense of disbelief that I was actually moving, it had taken 18 months of being very unwell from my ex-neighbours cigarette smoke ....I wrote about that here ......to being so close to moving away from her for good, that it felt unreal. Although it was around 12 months ago that my offer on this house was accepted, there were many delays until settlement, including a long drawn - out probate process, and waiting for documents from Council, to actually selling my house. Talk about 2 steps forward and one back, no wonder I couldn't quite believe it was actually going to happen.

So, the scraps are technically February's project, but since last month's ScrapHappy Day was the day I moved, I was far too exhausted to think about writing a blog post.  Since then, I've done some more work on the blocks this month, so I think it can now qualify for March. I cut 2 inch squares and 2 inch strips, and made these square in a square 6 inch blocks.

Seventy of them........

And have been joining them into sets of 2, then 4 and now I'm onto the rows. This part will be about 40 inches square, so I'll add a couple of borders to make it a bit bigger. It'll end up going to a charity asking for kids quilts for winter.

I also made this small prayer flag together from scraps for a friend's 60th birthday last week.

This is put together from op-shop linens and lace, an old tea-towel that had the bird and music on it.......Wendy's a singer and a musician, so this and the musical note charm were appropriate for her........other scraps I pulled out, lots of stitching and old buttons.  I chose the bird theme and stamped the word 'soar' because Wendy is building a new life for herself after her divorce....flying free!.... then to finish  I stitched a red thread through it, for protection.

Joining Kate  for ScrapHappy Day......check out the links on Kate's page to see what others have been doing with their scraps, maybe you'll be inspired to delve into your scraps next month, and reduce your stash. a little too.

Till next time........

It's curtains for you, chicken!

 

Don't worry, it's not as drastic or blood thirsty as the title suggests.  This handsome black chicken is Brenna...she's loud, greedy, a bit bossy but quite a character.  I also suspect she might be an egg eater!  She does all the right things...sits in the nesting box, makes appropriate noises then struts about looking very pleased with herself.  But when I check the box, there's just a soggy mess and bits of shell.  What little is left of the shell is quite hard, so she's not laying soft eggs that fall apart, and anyway, there's no evidence of yolk anywhere.  I did some searching online, and the only suggestion that I thought might work was curtains on the nesting boxes. The idea is that the interior is dark so the naughty hen can't see her egg and the curtains are meant to be on the inside and hanging down a bit, hence restricting the hen's movement....if she gets up and tries to turn around and fossick for the egg, hopefully she'll bump into the fabric and be put off going further.  My nesting boxes are covered cat litter boxes, and where the lid joins the base is too low to hang the fabric on the inside, and being plastic, no easy way to attach the fabric.....so this will have to do.  I don't know if it works yet, as Brenna decided today she was not going to produce ! So I'll have to wait and see if this works, and maybe try to work out a way to have the curtain hang down inside as well.

 

 

Early morning in the hen house.. with Lola photo bombing from the left

 

***

 

 Apart from annoying the chooks in the early morning, I've done some more dyeing in a jar.  This time some red cabbage plus a few red onion skins.  I folded the cloth around a lid as a resist, and I'm hoping I'll end up with a circle on the cloth.  It's only been brewing since the weekend, so I'll give it a few more days.  I hope the rich colour lives up to it's promise and leaves a good colour on my fabric.

I've not checked the blue -with -turmeric- to -get- green  cloth yet, maybe a job for tomorrow.

 

 

I go to a sewing group once a week, where we all just work on our own hand stitching projects, knitting or crochet.  On Monday night I quickly put this little cloth together so I'd have something to do.  I cut a number of patches roughly the same size and basted them onto a background cloth. As most were from thrifted clothing, I decided to make a feature of the hems and seams. I bundled these predominantly whites and creams into a jar of weeds and rainwater and left them overnight, then rinsed and ironed them, all ready for stitching on.  A couple of the pieces were already dyed so took the colour more strongly.  If you're looking closely for that stitching it's not there....I chatted all morning and did no work at all! Never mind, I now have a little cloth all ready to start on next week.

And I finished the prayer flag I posted about last week, and a friend snapped it up right away as a housewarming gift....

It has rained heavily on and off all week and more is predicted.....lovely for the garden, as I've just planted out silver beet, bok choy and cabbage seedlings....I hope they don't drown ....and my water tanks are full and overflowing.  There's been good steady rain out to the west as well, where farmers were suffering badly from drought, so it's good all round.  I have a day home tomorrow, so at the top of my to-do list will be the pink quilt which I haven't had a chance to work on this week.

take care, see you next time......