Kelly

I Heart Faces “Pet” photo challenge

I wasn’t planning to enter the pet photo challenge on I Heart Faces. Our lovely ginger cat passed away this week after a brief illness and I haven’t really been in the mood for photos. But today THIS happened, my husband brought home this gorgeous little guy. I had no choice, I had to capture that cuteness!

And then, I couldn’t leave this little guy out! He’s rather taken with his new playmate.

One project finished, onto the next!

by Kelly 4 Comments

The rose path scarf is finished!

It felt so good to cut my first project on my new loom off and finish it.

It’s the first time I’ve woven with Bambu 7 as well, it is truly beautiful – so soft and a gorgeous sheen.

The reverse side.

The front.

And now I’m working on some more luxury face cloths for my Etsy shop. They were so popular last time, I’ve been wanting to restock ever since.

I must say, it was really nice to direct warp the rigid heddle loom after going through the debacle of warping the 8 shaft loom for the scarf. So many errors! But, as I’ve heard many people say, you tend to learn more from mistakes than successes.

New loom progress

by Kelly Leave a Comment

Image source

Did I tell you about my new loom? I’ve been saving for this one for a while! It’s an 8 shaft Ashford table loom, and it’s a beauty. And a real learning curve. I’ve had it for a couple of weeks, but only yesterday did I start weaving on it.

The warping and threading process is very different to the simple old rigid heddle, so I’ve had to learn warping on a board, reading pattern drafts, threading texolv heddles and following lift plans.

Lots of reading, watching videos and asking questions on Facebook groups. But it’s all starting to come together and…

The results are stunning. This is a rose path pattern on only 4 shafts (soon I might be brave enough to use all 8 shafts, but oh! the threading time is so long!) I’m starting out with a scarf using Bambu 7, which is just gorgeously soft and shiny.

I’m sure I’ll have my next project planned before this is finished, but for now I will just enjoy having it warped, threaded and the weaving!

The winner is…

by Kelly Leave a Comment

The first time ever that Random Integer has chosen the first comment to win!

Congratulations to Stephanie P.

I‘ll be contacting you with your voucher very soon.

Thanks to all entrants and once again, thank you all for your support, encouragement and kind comments 🙂

100 sales giveaway

by Kelly 30 Comments

I recently reached the milestone of 100 sales on Etsy! I’m so grateful to all my supporters who have made this possible and to celebrate I’m having a giveaway.
You could win a $50 gift voucher for my Etsy shop.
Leave a comment on this post to enter. A winner will be randomly selected in one week’s time (30th September).

Open to all earthly residents. You are responsible for any taxes or fees incurred for your country and please remember to factor in postage costs as well.
Good luck!

New woven garments

by Kelly 11 Comments

One of my new favourite pieces, this wrap just wove up beautifully. I used Australian 3ply merino and dyed a gradient of blues and purples for the warp.

Then a lovely teal-ish green for the weft.

This is the first time I’ve woven with 3ply and won’t be the last! It worked up into this most beautiful, soft and light piece of cloth, I love it!

And this one – a 1/3 warp float pattern using a pastel gradient and a commercial grey merino, both in 4 ply.

The reverse side.

The front. I’ve also been putting my new fringe twister to work and have a video in the editing process on using a fringe twister, so look out for that one if that interests you.

Both of these pieces are available now in my Etsy shop. By the way, I am very blessed to have 99 sales in the shop now – I think hitting 100 will be a cause for celebration, perhaps a special giveaway?

This morning I dropped off this scarf to be judged for the Melbourne Show in the spinning and weaving scarf category. It’s the first time I’ve entered my weaving into anything, so a bit nervous, but it’s a good way to challenge myself.

Hope you’re having a great week, if you’re enjoying sunny weather and blue skies where you are, please send some here, Melbourne hasn’t realised it’s Spring yet!

Linking up with Yarn Along!

The week that went so fast…

by Kelly 4 Comments

The word “busy” is a bit overused these days I reckon, but I will admit that it was a very “full and varied” week for us! I was looking forward to today and thinking of the sewing I need to do, that great looking cook book I got from the library I haven’t had time to browse, and of course, I could warp up the loom ready for a new project. The reality of the day has been taxiing my son to kung fu, walking the dog (well that was relaxing at least!), shopping, laundry work and cooking up huge batches of bolognaise and stew for next week, which also promises to be very “full”.

I started to reflect, in my tired and slightly overworked state, that I didn’t give enough time to the kids this week, I didn’t get to help my son with that maths he’s been asking me about, didn’t get time for much reading with the girls, didn’t get to do much preparation for my daughter’s up and coming First Holy Communion…

But then I had a little reality check, that is that God was so good to tap me on the shoulder and say “wake up and check the facts”. I was really busy this week, it’s true, but what was it that kept me so occupied?

My vocation of course!

A wife, a mother, this is my vocation and this is what I do. I may not have been able to do everything that I thought was necessary, but it was because I was actively caring for my family and home, something that takes a lot of time and work.

I thought of my future self, when the children are grown and making their own way in the world. Will they say “Mum, thank you for making us study so hard, I feel so much smarter for it”. Is that what I want to hear?

Or would something like: “Mum, thank you for your constant love, care and sacrifice. Thank you for letting us be children, for enriching our lives, for being fun, for passing on our beautiful faith by your example” be more pleasing to my ageing ears?

Bring on next week!

Gallipoli study

by Kelly 3 Comments

We’ve been studying Gallipoli all together over the last week or two. I was never interested in Australian History at school (oh, those boring text books!!) but now, not only do I find it very interesting, I think that, as an Australian, it’s my duty to know the history of this great country.

The Australian War Memorial website has some great information and in particular, this page about the food that soldiers would have eaten at Gallipoli provided us with inspiration to hold our own Gallipoli lunch.

As you can see, the younger ones weren’t too pleased with my soldier’s meal of rice, Spam, hard tack and jam. For drinks we had the choice of water, milk, cocoa and tea – all with powdered, not fresh milk. My littlest one declared that she definitely does not like soldier’s food!

But they were pretty good sports about the whole thing (except aforementioned little one) and ate their soldier’s meals. We imagined how grateful the troops would have been for a meal like this after a hard day of battle and misery.

In addition to researching with some library books we also watched a Gallipoli documentary on Youtube which was informative. Please note, there are images of corpses on the battlefield in this video – although they are in black and white and not too graphic they could be upsetting to some viewers.

I call our study a complete success and appropriate for each of us, regardless of age. My next topic idea is the Early Settlers with a bit of a focus on the gold rush. If it all goes well I plan to surprise the children with a visit to Sovereign Hill as none of them have been there before.

If you’re looking for ideas for study topics or ideas to share with your children I highly recommend you head over to Sue’s blog- Stories of an Unschooling Family where you will find a plethora of blog posts and many podcasts related to unschooling. Sue’s blog is a real inspiration to me.

Cauliflower muffins

by Kelly 2 Comments

They’re not actually muffins, but I don’t know what else to call them. They were a happy accident. I was steaming cauliflower with the intention of crumbing and baking. But I had too many things going at once and oversteamed it so it was soft. Wondering what to do, I tried this experiment and it worked!

Ingredients
1 cauliflower, broken into florets and steamed until fairly soft

2 eggs

3 rashers of bacon, chopped into small pieces

parmesan cheese – the amount varies to taste, but 1/4 to 1/2 cup roughly
Breadcrumbs to top
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 180 degrees (C). Grease a 12 capacity muffin tin with oil or butter.

Steam the cauliflower and mash with a potato masher. Allow to cool for 15 minutes. Stir in the bacon, cheese, salt and pepper to taste and beaten eggs. Mix thoroughly.

Fill each muffin cavity with the mixture and sprinkle with breadcrumbs. Place in the oven until golden brown, around 25 – 30 minutes.

Ease each “muffin” out of the tin with a spoon and serve 🙂 They make a great accompaniment to any meal.

Another video tutorial

by Kelly 4 Comments

This video is all about achieving neat edges while weaving, I hope it helps someone out there.

It’s a long time since I bought new fabric and Spotlight was having a 30% off sale so I couldn’t resist! My eldest daughter has a birthday in a few weeks, so I have plans 😉

This is my current weaving WIP – a merino scarf with a pastel gradient warp and solid grey weft. I started out weaving in plain weave with black yarn but hated the result, so I “unwove” and restarted with the grey and a warp float pattern – so much better!