speed quilting

twenty-four hours is all you need to make a quilt
(and supervise chores and knit a few rows and do some shopping and visit friends and cook dinner and read a chapter and grab some shuteye....)




presenting.....




the twenty-four hour quilt......
(complete with fluff that needs to be picked off but I'm oh-so-impatient about getting it onto the blog!)


Laying it on top of the Blue Quilt was probably not the most aesthetic thing to do, but I can't put it in the garden as it's raining! And I really *wanted* to lay it out on the dark brown bark...coz this is The Ghecko Quilt for The Ghecko Boy, who is turning five next week.


But I don't think it's *ever* going to stop raining, which takes me back to the impatient comment above.


TGQ is a leftover quilt: leftover ghecko material from the boys' shorts last summer, leftover cord from our lounge suite, leftover brown cotton from my pants, leftover checks and plain brown from the boys' jackets, lots of leftover suede (which never got made into what it was bought for - heehee) and a little cord that wasn't leftover, but *was* a bargain from the Sallies.

The back looks just as good as the front.....in spite of me throwing all caution to the wind and just picking up random pieces (Very Not Me, but it's how you Get It Done in 24hrs...and more importantly, Before The Birthday!)

God Bless the Sallies

What a find at the Sally Shop....
(BTW, last week it became apparent that some of my smaller kids think the Sally Shop is so-called, because they *sell* things)

$2 for a bag of Very Useful Bits and Bobs.

More specifically, a latch hook hooky thing (OK, so not too much more specific!).

Not one, but two, darning mushrooms. Just yesterday J12 had brought me ER's wooden stacky toy thingy and suggested the base of it would make a good darning mushroom if only it were smaller. Well, now we have one each - and one of them is even red with little white dots. (Who said all preteens are into playstation and Harry Potter?)

There are self-cover buttons....just last week J12 learnt how to use these and made herself three buttons for a vest so her beady wee eye spotted them pretty quickly in the bag.

But wait, there's more.
Zips, thread, bias binding, Metal Things and a very cool wooden and metal contraption,which will probably need an Engineering Mind to devise a use for (or at least explain to me the intended use....all I know is it's something to do with a bobbin).

ah the agony

The maths books had to be abandoned.
There was a Big Lie Incident.
How can you concentrate on Exciting Books when you're sleuthing and refereeing?
That's no rhetorical question - I have an answer.
It's quite simple really - I can't!

I can, however, make up a knitting pattern.
Looks quite nice don't ya think?


And while we're on the knitting theme, I finished this hat and vest this morning while the kiddos ate breakfast.


J11 has kindly offered to make the requested-by-M4-for-whom-the-vest-and-hat-were-made- pompom to dangle off the end of the hat. I valiantly started it myself, thinking how sweet it would be for me to make a *whole* something for my darling M4 all myself, but crikey, pompoms are BORING (and that's a word we don't use round here - except, of course, in Exceptional Circumstances - and this is one of them). J11 doesn't know it, but I would PAY him to do it! (I told you this was an Exceptional Circumstance). Now don't anyone go letting him know, OK.

(And yes, the vest is enormous for a four year old......but next week he'll be five....and next year when he's allowed to start wearing it he'll be six and I hope it'll last two years, by which stage he'll be eight....so methinks it's just perfect! Goodness me, it's nearly only one year till we go away!)

One last comment - I know I shouldn't have bothered doing a cable in a variegated wool, but I was finding the going round and round all the way from waist to armpits to be rather monotonous so I needed something *different* to do.......a pocket eventuated....and then I thought I'd better repeat the cable pattern at the top of the vest too. So even though you can't see it, I know that little labour of love and creativity is hidden in there;-) I had intended doing it up the hat aswell, but plain ol' forgot. So the hat is just plain ol'.

I really shouldn't have.

No brand new purchases-this-year-n-all-that-jazz.

I needed a button for my Kaffe Fasset-inspired blue bag. It used to be an open bag,

but I'm using it all the time and it bugs me that things *could* fall out (never mind that the whole bag fell off my shoulder in the carpark ~ I would never have noticed except that a lovely big burly workman shouted out to bring the misadventure to my attention. Bless his woolly worksocks.)

Anyway, I had added a "top bit" in very funky wool....


....and just needed two buttons to make it a closed bag. One had to be not too big, because one of the buttonholes didn't really work (not sure what I did wrong), so it will remain The Permanently Closed Side. The other one needed to be enormous, coz the buttonhole was gigantic (not sure what went wrong there either). I'd raided my own stash and found a suitable Permanent Button and put on the biggest one I had as the other, but it was too small and the bag kept popping open.

So I checked the local op shop clothes for Big Buttons.
No joy.
In an effort to support local business rather than The Big Red Shed, I ventured to Knitworld and they had Just What I Needed.
What's more, it was only 70 cents.

But did I have even a dollar on me?
No, not me.
And I felt silly using my Eftpos card for 70c.
So I had a quick sneak around hoping to find a cheap ball of wool to use for my last Sock Knitalong pair (it would be a reward for finishing all the unfinished socks, y'know)

There was no cheap wool.
But there was this:


Real sock wool.
Not chunky.
Will require more than 36 stitches to make a sock;-)
And needles so tiny you could mistake them for toothpicks.
But at the end of it I will have a pair of REAL socks.
Actually I hope to have four pair, all different.
All the girls have some purple in their Trip Clothes so this wool will be perfect.

I'm keen to knit both socks at once to avoid Second Sock Syndrome and I was fortunate enough to realize that if I did that working from opposite ends of the one ball of wool, the pattern would turn out upside down on one sock. Hence the TWO balls.
And that should be enough for six small socks and hopefully the tops of the last two!

I like this kind of weekend

Yesterday I had my winter Out Day. Father Bear was unimpressed that I should wake about 6 and he informed me there was nowhere I could go in the rain before the sun was up! So I snuggled in bed for a bit longer. I even managed not to remind him of the time he told me it was half past six when it was only half past five. It was on the tip of my tongue. But then I remembered that a) *that* day turned out wonderfully b) it seemed to go on and on and on (that's what happens when you leave the house at 5.45am) c) it wasn't raining on that occasion and d) the sun was virtually up despite the early hour. It must have been summer. All in all I concluded I would not win if I were to pursue this unnecessary argument and decided to take some Biblical advice - "even a fool is thought wise if he keeps his mouth shut"
But in the end I just couldn't lie still any longer and I got up.
I scrambled around in the dark (not too difficult as I had laid everything out the night before - pays to be prepared for the big day out) and tiptoed out of the house, embracing the possibilities of the day. I had packed the car with a couple of knitting projects, an art book, some trip stuff, my current read and most of my scrapbooking paraphernalia, as well as my pile of scrapbooking magazines for inspiration. I wasn't sure what I'd end up doing, and I sure didn't want to limit myself!

I didn't have far to drive and then spent a couple of hours sitting in a carpark waiting for The Warehouse to open (as a matter of principle I am trying to avoid this place - I think this was the fourth or fifth visit for this year and I put aside all principles as I went in and purchased plastic scrapbooky stuff which came inside more plastic wrapping and had pieces of unnecessary cardboard aswell.......I encouraged myself to learn the art of calligraphy, but, knowing my previous attempts at this art, which clearly requires some discipline to acquire, I bought stickers for this particular project - and precoloured papers as well seeing as I am not yet an accomplished watercolour master either) Wow that was a long sidetrack, wasn't it? (Maybe I should have just left out this whole paragraph and you wouldn't need to know about my lack of resolve.....but this is meant to be REAL!) Back to the story.

That done, I was ready to Make The Scrapbook.
So I went home!
Well, not quite. I ended up spending the rest of the day Next Door To My House at Father-in-law's place. He kindly let me spread all over both his dining room tables (two tables, that is, one dining room).
Occasionally a child appeared at the door - I tried hard not to shoo them away too quickly.
Once or twice I needed to return to My House for the one or two scrapbooking bits-n-bobs I had thought I wouldn't need. The kids actually looked pleased to see me - that was nice!
I built up their excitement by leaving immediately.
And not coming home for dinner.

Best of all, I got finished. One complete album in one day. Well, let me qualify that. I got all the backgrounds done, all the page headings and even a few other extra bits. I just haven't done the photos. In fact, some of the photos haven't even been taken yet. But at least now I have a list of what I need to do.
So one more morning to *take* photos, another hour to send pics for developing, the rest of another afternoon to stick photos in and one evening to embellish and it'll be totally done. One album, two days.
"a Kiwi Life", a nice little record of our life in NZ to take with us wherever we end up going. We had been going to buy a book to take, but none of the many we flicked through in Borders reflected *our* life. So we've ended up making our own.

That was all done by the time the last kids headed off to bed.
I realised I was hungry and heard the local Turkish kebab man calling, so I left the guys watching rugby (yawn) and enjoyed the solitude of being the only person in Mr Turk's restaurant for half an hour. There happened to be a real estate paper sitting on one of the large slabs of treetrunk that double as tables and I happened to pick it up.

Armed with that piece of information you don't need to know about the knitting I completed Saturday night......fast forward to just before noon Sunday. There we were wandering around ten acres looking at a three bedroom house and a two beddy cottage. I told you it was a nice weekend!

We raced home to have lunch with friends. We just hung out together all afternoon, enjoying each other's company. The children played, the adults chatted.
We'd done similarly on Friday night - different food, different friends, same enjoyment. Plus we saw *Amazing Grace* together too. Not often you get a movie with good theology, great costumes and sets, accurate history and a jolly good yarn to boot.

It really was my kind of weekend.

to do take two

aka Listmaking 200

Principle 1:
You gotta cross things off (would be great if someone could teach me how to do those little crossing-out-lines on your blog)
Principle 2:
You gotta revise what's already there in case you've changed your mind
Principle 3:
You gotta add some more

So here's the revised list a couple of weeks on:
TO DO LIST
Sub-heading 1: SEWING
*winter clothes All done except for three buttonholes, which J12 could do herself. So consider it done - it's no longer on my list!
*summer clothes definitely too cold to be thinking about summer clothes yet - put on hold
*The Trip clothes cannot be started before Summer Clothes are finished so Put On Hold.
*Christmas stuff I've been doing for three years *this is the year* but not till December, so I don't even need to think about this one yet either.
*pencil rolls soon....sooon.....these ones are making me feel guilty
*quilts (should be a subheading of its own given that there's Father Bear's to bind STILLaha, maybe it doesn't need binding - Sharon got to use it when she was here and it's been on our bed ever since....., J12's to finish before her birthdayI went so far as getting it off the shelf to show Sharon....oh there's still soooooo much to do on it...as soon as the Blue Quilt is bound I'll be working on this one....September will be here before I know it, a pink one cut out and half sewn, fabric for at least four more sitting thereno hurry on these - they are now officially packed away for A Rainy Day (of which we have been having plenty!))
*redwork embroidery wall hanging suffering similar fate to above quilts
*snowman wall-hangings...don't ask! December

Sub-heading 2: KNITTING
*vests (ER1, M4, L6, K8, K9, J11, J12) M4's is very nearly done!! wool is wound into balls for the girls' ones and L6's.
*hats (L6, K9, J11, J12, me, Father Bear) mine is done, but now I add another one for M4 coz I've imagined-up a funky pattern to match his vest and there's gonna be stacks of wool left over
*mittens for J12
*cardy for me (just a plain old sensible boring one....and if I ever get time, I've seen some really funky patterns for wild ones - it's no longer going to be totally boring - I'm going to do some Nicky Epstein fancy patterns on it somewhere)
*socks progress made - remember this?
*giant cooking bag that'll be the summer camping project
*needle holders (really not an essential item at this point in time, but I started on this project and would like to FINISH it) and I'll take them camping too!
*cotton dishcloths (some for us and some for Helen - as promised) eager to do some in the pattern I used for the collar - might just happen soon
*nativity collection (well, when I bought that booklet, I *knew* it was a put-away-until-much-later thing, but I just love it and so I can hardly wait to start) definitely not yet. Plus I can't decide whether I want to do it all in cream wool or in bright funky colours. Not to worry, I have a few years to make up my mind!

Sub-heading 3: READING (books on my shelf that I want to devote some serious time to)
*Don Quixote
*The War on the Poor
*American Adventure Series all 48 of them
*Mollison on Permaculture
*The Blessing
*Endangered Minds we've lent this to someone and I haven't written down WHO...if it's YOU, please drop me a line and let me know coz Father Bear is asking for it.
*The Hurried Child
*The Overload Syndrome
*Complete Charlotte Mason Series
*Houses That Change the World
*A Landscape with Dragons
*Is There Life After Housework?
*Pilgrim's Progress
*PET
*borrowed The Long Emergency from the library. RIVETTING. Nothing happening with any of the others! Expect a review.

Sub-heading 4: THINKING
*non-adversarial parenting now also called non-confrontational in my mind, but I'm looking for a positive term
*response to The Continuum Concept formulating - does talking about it this weekend count?
*my work

Sub-heading 5: OTHER
*Christmas scrapbook
*J12's childhood scrapbook
*have purchased materials to make an Our Life In New Zealand Scrapbook - add it to the list so I can cross it off! Then add "Our Life In New Zealand Scrapbook".
*Website
*Garage sale collecting items
*Book purchases all done - and then some! Got some real bargains on ebay. $85 book for $4.99 and the $30 accompanying workbooks for 99p. Latin here we come. Plus the textbook seller offered us any help we should ever want - she's a Latin teacher. YAY. I'll do a "books purchased this year" post when they all arrive.
*sort through photos DONE. totally completely finished
*the paper pile (sigh) stacked in a banana box!

something for *me*

I was meant to make *My* Travelling Things last, just in case I ran out of time - I don't mind freezing my own ears off, but it just wouldn't be fair for it to be one of the kids with no hat. However, I needed to start something easy-peasy and thoughtless while Sharon was here and I had just wound my wool, so that seemed a good place to begin. Besides, I had a pattern on hand and the right sized needles hadn't been put away from the last project. As it was, I had to start it twice because I cast on the wrong number of stitches. By the way, what is with The General Population? They all seem to think that women can multi-task. Either I have a few chromosomes mixed up, or I am a Different Kind of Woman (No rude comments thanks). I cannot multi-task.
End. Of. Story.

And the fact that I had to cast on my stitches twice just proves it. Actually, it's not QUITE that bad. I cast on the right number according to the pattern. But whenever have I been known to follow a pattern? They told me to change my needle size to get the right gauge (does that mean I did a tension square? You've got to be kidding! I just measured another item I'd already made out of the same type of wool). I liked *that* tension, so I just upsized the pattern a wee bit.
FYI, JUST was used rather ambiguously in the last sentence. It does not mean "only" or "that's all I did to the pattern". As well as upsizing, I knit "just a wee bit more" before decreasing (and I'm so glad I did) and then instead of casting off "in knit" at the end, I did a fancy little number - I do love picot points. They are not only for baby pants (I could've said JUST instead of "only", eh) ....they are for Big Grown Ups too!

But I haven't finished with it yet; it needs to be a bit longer at the back. If I don't run out of wool, I'll use more of the same, if I do run out before the cardy is finished I'll use a contrast - the same as I'll have to use on the cardy. And what will I do with it? I'm going to add another flappy-brim-type-thing to the back, gently easing round to the sides. Well, that's the plan!

PS Do you like the collar? It's not getting any rave reviews in my face-to-face encounters! As far as I can see, either it's too *different* or my temperate-townee friends just cannot imagine being really truly cold. Yes, that must be it. I'm sure if they knew the meaning of COLD, they'd think it was a Fantastic Creation.

what a wonderful weekend

It started early on Friday morning with a trip to the airport to pick up Sharon. I had only met her face-to-face once before and on that night the time had flown by all too quickly. This time we would not be returning her to the airport until Monday evening - and the children would have a car-picnic on the way home.

She was the Most Wonderful House Guest Ever. She made her own bed and took the sheets off on the final day, she washed dishes and vacuumed floors and made her own coffee when I didn't think to, she engaged children and even offered to take one of them home, she didn't leave anything in the bathroom sink and she didn't snore.

Not that we slept much.

Friday night I had a group of friends over ~ Sharon went out to visit with her own sister, but left us Brand Spanking New Only Just Arrived From Amazon The Day Before craft books to pore over......and she still managed to spend a couple of hours with us all as the other friends* didn't leave until their customary 12:01am......*these ones: Jenna who doesn't blog, Jess and Karen.

Saturday night we had even more crafty-type friends over. Fifty of them if you count the kids and partners. For Dinner. But my Father Bear went out! Well, do you blame him? He marched back in the door along with Midnight before All The Guests* had taken their leave.....*I'm not listing the blogs of all that lot!
On Sunday we dropped some kids off at church, picked up Karen and headed out. Sharon and Karen disappeared for the morning to a slightly-disappointing eco-tour. I took J12, K8 and L6 to make felt in a friend's garage.


This was a Massive Hit and there are now Big Plans to make a fullsized blanket! Thankfully the expert-felt-making-tutor who had never done it before, but had googled a lot was happy for me to sneak inside to the house and play with yet another friend's swift and wool winder.

Was it the wildly spinning swift or the bright roaring fire or the two-late-nights-in-a-row to blame? I wondered if I looked as cross-eyed as I was feeling to the girls sitting round the table with me - girls whose blogs I would link to if they wrote them, but they don't.

Dropping off Karen after lunch was.........well, it should have been deeply-something. I mean, it was the last time it would happen for a Very Long Time. She would be leaving town the very next day. Maybe the momentousness of the occasion was softened by the fact that she'll be back for a midnight craft night in three weeks!

We returned home to Chocolate Cake in the Late Afternoon.

The problem with this is that it always means dinner is late and the smallest kiddlies who didn't get chocolate cake end up scratchy. But hey, as I said, Sharon was an impeccable guest and her only comment was that her own son squeals much louder and longer and at a higher pitch. How polite can you get?

Fortunately when you get to that time of night anything is bearable, because you know it's now a matter of minutes and not hours until the angels will be tucked up in their beds! And so it was not long until we were sitting in the lounge with yet another bowl of chocolate cake (*bowls* this time, to contain the overly generous dollops of whipped cream).

We sat. We knit. The tv was on. We browsed through the craft books again. We knit some more. We hardly even talked. I realised it was a moment of "companionable silence" I had first read about in Trixie Belden (at the time I thought I'd plagiarise that phrase one day! The Day Has Happened!)

Monday we sat, knit and talked lots. It was The Last Day. So we made the most of it.

Sharon finished a wonderful baby cape, I finished a project I had started the night before from one of her new books (using wool I had wound into balls that afternoon). It will always remind me of Sharon, of the weekend, of the new friends....even when I'm wearing it in deepest Mongolia!

You see it's a little collar to keep your neck warm - just like a scarf but without being as big as a scarf - we're trying to keep our packs Not Too Heavy remember! This will be just perfect.

But back to the present...yesterday's airport trip was just to the domestic terminal.

And Sharon flew home.

a personal challenge

Look what I'm doing!

I've joined up for the Sock a Month Knitalong.
Actually that's two socks you're meant to knit every month!

And I'm on target. I joined two days ago and have already finished the first one. But I can't finish the second for a couple of weeks - because it has to come off the needles during the month of August. The problem with this is that I'm all keen to get my next one done and actually finish a PAIR....for once, I'm not suffering from Second Sock Syndrome.

Generally speaking, I tend to start things with a whizz and a bang and loads of enthusiasm.....and precious little thought about whether I actually have the time or resources - and I have proven time and again that I don't have the staying power to see most things through to completion.....(everything seems like such a good idea when I hear about it)....but at least on *this* occasion I know I have the resources, socks take so little time and I'm sure I can do a five-month-challenge...it's not like I have to keep going for my my whole life!
Maybe I'll start my September pair now as well while the interest factor is sitting on HIGH...and perhaps even the October and November and Christmas ones too; then I'll really be ahead of the game! In fact, in my possession are three or four carefully-knitted-but-still-waiting-for-partners-socks, so I am halfway there already. I'm going to use this challenge to finally finish the sock-mates.

simply stripes

Friends have just had a little boy.....but I didn't want to do a "little boy blue" present.

He's got a manly stripe blanket!

And it's got to be the ultimate in simple.

DIRECTIONS:

Fold a piece of polarfleece in half, wrong sides together.

Cut along the fold.

At one inch intervals around the edge snip the fabric two or three inches in towards the centre (3 inches on the not so stretchy sides and 2 inches at the stretchy ends)

Tie the two layers together. Don't tie too close to the end of the cut or it will pucker up and not lay flat.

I had visions of applique-ing a big r for Riley on it...or even a giraffe...but the cable pocket I'm knitting was calling!

double trouble

Virtually once a week I get asked if these two are twins. For the record, they're not. They are, however, very often partners in crime;-)

But that's not the point of this post.

The point is:

I just made two sweatshirts in two hours. Go me!!!!

Special thanks to Sandi at Portabellopixie for giving me fantastic instructions on The Easy Way To Set A Sleeve In A Small Hole - it worked perfectly! I think I love sewing again!
OK so if you look very closely you'll see one of them isn't hemmed yet...but give me another five minutes....they were done *enough* to get the camera out....and once you've got the picture you might as well do the blog-thing. (Please to announce I finished the hem while the pictures were uploading...AND I put the camera away - wonders will never cease!)

I did a wee applique on the sleeve - just for fun.

And now a wee note to myself, something I don't ever want to forget.
M4 has been having "laughing parties".
He starts to laugh and he laughs and laughs and laughs.
It's actually infectious and others join in too!
Yesterday he laughed so hard he fell off his bike.

give us this day our daily bread

We have been through a many-week-stint of purchasing French sticks after church on Sundays.....so much so that it has reached Habit Status.
Why have we ended up doing this?
We started the year buying ABSOLUTELY NOTHING with hydrogenated oil (and if I wasn't sure, I just didn't buy it - I still don't know about French sticks, but my suspicions are......well, obviously they are merely suspicions, and certainly of less consequence than my principles!)
We make perfectly good bread ourselves. Much better even than store-bought-fluff-that-leaves-you-hungry-in-spite-of-eating-twice-as-much-as-usual.
And to top it all off, we end up coming home with a plastic bag which is really not good for anything other carrying French sticks in - and we all know what I think of that!
What is a girl to do about it?
a) stop buying French bread until all ingredients are identified
b) take plastic bag to church in anticipation of the spontaneous bakery-drive-by on the way home
c) buy two linen tea towels at an op shop while you're waiting for KnitWorld to open (I wouldn't have been early if the clock in the car hadn't been running six minutes fast, so you could say that it was the car's fault that I ended up in a situation that lent itself to making an unnecessary purchase - oh, where HAVE my principles gone?)....then you come home and turn them into French Stick Carrying Bags.

By the way, that's not French bread in the bag. That's perfectly good homemade sourdough bread. Do you want to know how to make it? It's easy-peasy. You just need flour, water, salt and a big dollop of patience. Good things take time.

Mix together two cups each of warm water and flour. Cover with a cloth and set aside somewhere warm until it's frothy (could take a few days or as little as a few hours, depending what organisms you've got floating round in the atmosphere....stirring it every day is a good idea if you can remember to)

Take out two cups of this gloop (which is also known as a starter by Expert Bread Makers...you'll see I call it gloop). Feed the rest of the gloop with a bit more water and flour and put it in the fridge if you're not going to want it for a few days (which you won't, because you've already taken some out to use now). When you're ready to make more bread you can omit this first step and just take your gloop container out of the fridge and join the recipe at this point. (But before I go on, let me tell you that from here on in it's really hard to go wrong. Your gloop will appreciate being fed a bit of flour and water every few days if you're not baking, but it's not absolutely essential. You might think it's getting temperamental if it develops a black layer on top - this is called hooch - really, truly, it is. But don't worry - there's nothing wrong with hooch - just stir it in to your gloop and away you go. In fact, you can stir your gloop whenever you think of it if you like.)

So you've got your two cups of gloop in a big bowl. Add two and a half cups of warm water and four cups of flour (I use organic ground-at-home whole wheat, but you can use what you've got) Leave it to go frothy (this is where the patience bit comes in). You can leave it anywhere from 8-24 hours without causing any damage; and you can stir it if you want to. When it's nice-n-bubbly, add a teaspoon of salt and another four cups (more or less, depending on the humidity and temperature and type of flour and which apron you're wearing) until the dough is not sticky. Knead for about ten minutes (or longer if you get distracted and realise you're pampering the dough rather than kneading it).
Put the dough in a greased bowl, cover with a damp cloth and let it rise in a warm place for a few hours - you'll have to be patient to wait for it to get at least fifty percent bigger than it was. Trust me, it will happen and it's nothing short of a miracle.
Split the dough into two loaves and pop them into greased bread tins (or I guess you could just plop them on an oven tray if you don't have tins).

But you're not ready to bake yet! I told you, you'd have to be patient! You need to wait for them to rise for another few hours (one would be a bare minimum......five would not be too long....I'm not sure about longer as I haven't waited any longer than that).

Preheat the oven to 200*C and bake for about 40 minutes (or a bit longer if it doesn't sound hollow when you tap the bottom of the loaf).

Once it's cooked, you still can't eat it though. You won't be able to cut it tidily for another hour.
But once you cut it and smother it with butter you'd better get that gloop container out of the fridge and start again, because these loaves are not going to last long!!!

I realise it sounds like a massive long drawn-out process, but really it's not. Yes, it takes a lot of time...but most of that time you can be weeding the garden, making preserves, darning your socks, cleaning the toilet, sleeping, reading War and Peace, visiting your friends, feeding the poor...oh yes, feeding....the bread.....it only takes about 15 minutes hands-on time, and that includes grinding the flour. Give it a go!

PS this is the point in my blog-life that I realise I am actually writing TO you...it has turned FROM me putting my ideas into a plastic box TO a conversation with you (well, with those of you who comment and talk to me in real life and email me). I guess you're the ones I feel I'm writing to - there are plenty of lurkers according to my Stat Counter, and I suppose I'm writing to you too, just I don't know who you are!

tada....to do

Here followeth an awfully mundane organisational post.
I certainly don't expect *anyone* to read it....but I want it here on my blog, because then I can be certain I will not lose the piece of paper it's written on if there is a backup copy elsewhere....and frankly, here seems as good a place as any!

TO DO LIST

Sub-heading 1: SEWING
*winter clothes (really must finish them before winter is over...on the other hand, I've learnt the boys can get by on two pairs of trousers each)
*summer clothes
*The Trip clothes
*Christmas stuff I've been doing for three years *this is the year*
*pencil rolls (started right back at the beginning of this blog....hmmm, the kids keep asking about them)
*quilts (should be a subheading of its own given that there's Father Bear's to bind STILL, J12's to finish before her birthday, a pink one cut out and half sewn, fabric for at least four more sitting there)
*redwork embroidery wall hanging (though I did tell Father Bear I wouldn't have time to do it and so he really shouldn't get it for me for Christmas last year and that was before we even decided to do The Trip and so any spare time I thought I might have had has gone into that...and rural-block hunting which we also were not going to be doing up until a month ago...so no wonder that one's not done...but I do feel a bit bad about it coz I haven't done ANY since Christmas Day and it was the most expensive present I've ever been given!!)
*snowman wall-hangings...don't ask!

Sub-heading 2: KNITTING
*vests (ER1, M4, L6, K8, K9, J11, J12)
*hats (L6, K9, J11, J12, me, Father Bear)
*mittens for J12
*cardy for me (just a plain old sensible boring one....and if I ever get time, I've seen some really funky patterns for wild ones)
*socks (I sooooo want to learn how to do two at once - I suffer badly from Second Sock Syndrome, a condition that disempowers you from making the matching sock once the first one has been completed)
*giant cooking bag
*needle holders (really not an essential item at this point in time, but I started on this project and would like to FINISH it)
*cotton dishcloths (some for us and some for Helen - as promised)
*nativity collection (well, when I bought that booklet, I *knew* it was a put-away-until-much-later thing, but I just love it and so I can hardly wait to start)

Sub-heading 3: READING (books on my shelf that I want to devote some seroius time to)
*Don Quixote (it's only been three years so far)
*The War on the Poor
*American Adventure Series (I need to know why my eldest two enjoyed every single one of the 42-or-so books so much! 42 is a number I plucked out of the air, but it really must be close to that...they take up almost a whole shelf)
*Mollison on Permaculture
*The Blessing (I borrowed this one from a friend adn then came home to discover I already owned a worn second-hand copy - now to read it!)
*Endangered Minds (funny thing about this is I think I've read it all, but I can't remember what it says!!!! oh the irony)
*The Hurried Child (haven't found the time to finish this one yet!)
*The Overload Syndrome (in light of the above two comments, this should probably be further up the list, but given that the list is in no particular order, I guess its placement doesn't matter, except in a metaphorical sense)
*Complete Charlotte Mason Series
*Houses That Change the World
*A Landscape with Dragons
*Is There Life After Housework?
*Pilgrim's Progress
*PET (well, it's not on my bookshelf, but I have asked to borrow it from a friend...I don't even know exactly what the letters stand for...something like Parent Effectiveness Training)

Sub-heading 4: THINKING
*non-adversarial parenting
*response to The Continuum Concept
*my work

Sub-heading 5: OTHER
*Christmas scrapbook (so very nearly up-to-date...quick finish it before another Christmas arrives)
*J12's childhood scrapbook (actually I've filled one album and hardly made a start on her photos...I'm wondering about getting all the photos we want printed out and then presenting them to her to do herself! Or maybe we'll work on her pages together or something)
*Website
*Garage sale (or do I just take everything to the Sallies and cross this off the list?!)
*Book purchases (Latin, Sonlight, watercolour text, ?polyface books?)
*sort through photos
*the paper pile (sigh)

anticipation

T3's vest is DONE....all ends woven in and buttons attached. She loves the buttons....and I remember having some exactly the same when I was a little girl! Red, I think they were.

But she doesn't get to wear it.

For one, it's too big.

For two, it's a when-we-go-away-item.

All the when-we-go-away-items are residing on a shelf that is standing as a tantalising reminder of Things To Come, Adventures To Be Had and Places To Be Visited.

soTOASTY

toastyTALE #1

M4 won't be cold again this winter! He wore his new longies last night and LOVED them.

"They were soooooo warm Mama"

toastyTALE #2
Father Bear was cold last week and nearly bought a beanie...he wouldn't be convinced that I could make him one for well under the $30 they are in the shops....well, he knows I *can*....it's just that he would like one with a funky little tag on it! After seeing some young surfie dude on tv with one just like I was proposing to make, he conceded to let me give it a go so long as it is very fine and not at all bulky. That means teeny tiny needles....sigh....and the first one I started just wasn't big enough, so it's now undone *double sigh* and I've started something else! I'll come back to the 130 stitches for his big-full-of-knowledge-head after I've done a vest for a little boy!

before the un-ravelling party

LOLLIPOP LOVE

I am having such fun knitting up the lollipop wool.

The pants and mittens I did almost entirely in hospital a few weeks back with L6. Although I must admit the legs went on F.O.R.E.V.E.R.

Then I started the vest (my first time ever using a real bought proper pattern), but it just wasn't going fast enough for me so I whipped up the soaker for a wee break. My parents brought me up to finish something before starting something new....but it's just not me! I believe in having at least three projects on the go at once!

an easy-peasy-no-thinking-one

a need-to-concentrate-one

and a long-term-one

I had lots of fun trying to create blocks if colour interspersed by only a row or two of contrast...lots of short rows and knitting from three balls of wool at a time! And having worked out how to do it, I then forgot to on the crotch and just zipped back and forth. Ah well, never mind, I like it all the same. I'll do a cord once I've finished the vest - don't want to run out of wool!!!!!

it's quiet round here

I've got no energy to climb up on any soapboxes today!
And even if I were able to do so, I've got no voice!

I've noticed all the children are talking quieter! I didn't think I was that loud!!!

Racing round my head are ideas for our travelling website......thoughts about a house auction Father Bear is threatening to bid at on Saturday.......musings about another house we were shown but was withdrawn from the market and seemed pretty ideal.....travel plans.....a couple of conversations I'm taking part in on a discussion board......what's for dinner....wild dreams of moving to Simpler Times Village and doing something like this (and we're not even farmers....at all....not even a little bit)......wondering why J11 has taken himself off to bed three afternoons out of the last four......more travel ideas....all topped off with an itching to scrapbook and crochet and knit and sew all at once!!!!

treasure trove

I just popped into the Sally Army shop and came home with my best treasure ever. The lady said "$1 each, that'll be $8 for all of those. Is that OK?" I replied, "I'll give you $10 and you keep the change"....and I still felt bad about it!

I haven't even looked closely at the portfolios yet - couldn't tell you how many pictures there are or what they are like - except for the ones in these photos! I only had to see one to know it was a bargain worth snaffling up. There are teacher's notes which may or may not be useful - but I bought them for the pictures, so I don't mind if they are not worth reading!

Looks like our "home education" will be taking a cultured path for a wee while! So while we're full of inspiration, I thought I'd spend the next few posts up on my home ed soapbox. If you're not interested, try popping back next week!

Any burning questions you want to ask?

Whip Up Competition

There's a little story behind this little piece.
I cut out hundreds and hundreds of two-inch squares to go around my first big real quilt.......it was only AFTER I had sewed them together that I realized I had multiplied the length by two instead of dividing it by two!!!! If I recall, it was late at night!
Anyway, that left me with HEAPS of little squares to use up!
I had always wanted to make prairie points, so figured this would be a good time to learn! So. I. Did.

knitting round the world

the needles are continuing to click.......hats hats and more hats.....

these are a bit on the big side....because....it really doesn't get cold enough here for hats so these are for when we see winter in China and hopefully Mongolia and Europe...and that's 18 months away.....they should fit perfectly then!