Six, eight and nine.

Back in April I wrote about how I finally gotten the whole appeal of wearing shawls as shoulder-wear, and by May I had decided to get involved in the crazy scheme over on Ravelry to make ten shawls in 2010. That's right - I was going to crochet ten shawls before the year was over, and I was going to enjoy every second of it, dogammit.

I've shown you most of my progress on crocheting six of the shawl here, here, over there, yonder, and also wherever. Today I realised that I haven't shown your shawls six, eight and nine. So here's a little show and tell.



Number six was a simple shawl called "Country Cotton" by Lion Brand Yarn, a free online pattern and it was made in a month. Instead of cotton, I used Elsbeth Lavold Silky Wool 8 ply in the Thundercloud colourway. It is divine yarn to crochet with - I have some more in red that I have grand plans for. The pattern was easy, brainless, and therefore perfect for watching the rest of season one of "Gossip Girl". It's also the biggest - and warmest - shawl I have made and it's the most perfect thing to wear on blustery winter days while walking along a seaside clifftop. Or down Northbourne Avenue. Whichever.



Number eight was another Lion Brand free pattern - Bridal Shawl. I crocheted this shawl with a Crazy Zauberball in the Burnt Almonds colourway. This yarn was perfect. Unlike the Noro I used for the Painted Mountain Shawl, it had no breaks, no unevenness, it was smooshy soft and it bloomed beautifully on blocking. I started it in mid June when we started watching season two of "Gossip Girl", and finished the rest of it while I was in the Northern Territory.





Number nine was done as a crochet-a-long with a friend. I had two skeins of Wollmeise Twin in Vamp red, and we decided to both crochet a shawl in the same yarn. My friend made a South Bay Shawl (which I had already made) and I made a Glorious Morning shawl, which I had had in my Ravelry queue for a while. I actually love my friend's shawl a lot more than I love my own, but I'm still really happy with how mine turned out. I crocheted this at the same time as number eight, and also finished most of it while sitting on a bed with my friends in a wooden cabin with a granite stone floor in the Northern Territory. This shawl has a lot of friendship in it. It was an easy pattern, but I kept making mistakes and could only crochet this when I could concentrate (therefore it wasn't the perfect "Gossip Girl" project). I had a few problems with running out of yarn and having to rip back several rows TWICE *sob* but all in all this is a lovely shawl, in a fantastic colour and as I wear red most days of the week it's been a great shawl to wear to work.

This photo was taken when it was sleeting, a month or so back. Do I look cold? I was!



Stay tuned for shawl ten! Soon! Or tomorrow. Whichever comes second.

My creative space - remembering the hexagons

The Fassett Fascination quilt from last week is on hold as I wait to see if my Fassett-stash will be improved courtesy of an impending birthday. So this week I've dragged out an old favourite and put it squarely in the middle of my creative space, to remind me to finish the bloody thing.

Remember the twisted hexagon quilt? I think the last time I spoke of it, I had 10 days to go until by 40th birthday and I was looking forward to finishing off the top. Well, here I am with 11 days to go until my 41st birthday, and I haven't worked on that quilt for almost a year. I never did finisjh the top before my birthday last year, and I never did enter it into the 2010 Canberra Quilt Show. Heck, I didn't even go to the 2010 Canberra Quilt Show.

I'm aiming now for August 2011. See what other people are aiming for in their creative spaces.

My creative space - Fassett Fascination

The last-ever listings for my Etsy store are completed, and now it's time to stroke some fabric and dream of what I can make for myself.

I have collected Kaffe Fassett books since I bought three at Powell's in Portland, Oregon several years ago. Since then I have built up an impressive library (of eight books), and also some very beautiful Kaffe-designed fabrics have come into my house. It might be time to stop admiring the books and fabric, and do something with them and make that quilt.

And now I have the time and capacity to do it. This closing-down-business thing is very liberating!

Want more fabrics, yarn and other creative spaces you can poke a stick at? You know where to go!

Girlfriend in a coma

I have been on the go since dawn this morning, with a madly busy day at work, a long walk to the bus stop and then home, running errands once I finally got home for a husband with a really awful case of man-flu (which I thought was a bit rich seeing as he had the car all day) and then I cooked dinner and just about fell asleep in my mashed potatoes.



Once I awake from my coma (I'm sleep-typing at the mo, don't you know), I'll be photographing and listing this stuff for the Etsy shop. It arrived from the gallery in Braidwood today.

And then once that's done I'm going to treat myself to a good sit down and read of this, which also arrived today.



Can't wait for this coma to be over.

And that's the show, folks!

I've made a big decision. I'm shutting down Buttontree Lane. I actually made the decision back in May, but it has taken me this long to work out how to actually shut it down.

I am waiting for some bags to arrive back from Material Arts in Braidwood (now sadly closed as Kate wanted to spend more time on her farm with her family) and I'll be putting those in the shop. I have a lot of sack bags cut out and ready to sew, but to be perfectly honest I'm not that keen to make them at the moment. Perhaps one day soon, when I'm at a loose end. But the shop will close, and once the bags are gone, they are gone.

I'm sorry to be disappointing people. Buttontree Lane, while it has been a lot of fun, gave me a creative life I had only previously dreamed about. Sewing project bags was a major part of who I was for over two years, but now it's time to move on and start sewing for myself and my family, and become my own person again.

The blog will stay for now, so you haven't seen the last of me. I'm hoping that with this decision finally out there, it will unblock my sewmojo, and I might be able to finish a quilt or two (and stop talking about it so much).

Stormy Sunday

We've had wild, wicked, wonderful weather all weekend. The kind of weather you crave when you are hoping for an excuse to sit under a rug, crochet, and drink hot chocolate. Not so great if you have a leaky roof or a wayward gum tree that likes to lose it's limbs when it blows a gale - and you have to feel for those people who have really suffered as a result of this stormy weather, including our emergency crews. Here, we've been fine. No leaks, no power outages, and an overflowing frog pond is our only concern for the moment.

I spent this morning, not gardening, but taking photos in the wind, while a shower passed overhead. With the warm weather this week, we've noticed a lot of growth in the vegie patch. The strawberries I planted last weekend have already started shooting, and I expect flowers very soon.



I have four rhubarb plants which hibernated underground over winter. They are all starting to emerge with the warmer weather - except mine look like they have a pest. My bet is snail or slug bambinos. They will be attacked with an organic pest remedy - a sharp spray from the hose - later.



The spinach I planted a month or so ago has been kept safe from the possums by our tried and tested fencing method, and is finally starting to grow. I'm looking forward to a season of spanakopita and spinach and ham tarts.



Lettuce - if this rain keeps up it won't bolt as quickly as it usually does, and we won't be faced with bitter, sappy lettuce.



And finally, the nectarine blossoms have really come on in the last week. They are the most perfect shade of pink, and they make me happy with the promise that spring is finally here (even thought I really, really love winter. It was just time for some colour in my garden!)






I've joined Bellgirl in Veg About. If you have a vegie patch, or want to start planting, come and join in and see what the other bloggers are doing.

Sunday in the garden

It's only a few days away from spring, and time to get back in the garden. It's all mad planning and planting and digging around this place. The fact that the local nursery had a big sale on this weekend also helped inspire us to get out there.



After doing his last spraying of the nectarine tree for leaf curl the Mister discovered this spiderweb, all pretty and sparkly from the blue spray.



I had to dig out all my old strawberry plants from one of the wine barrels a couple of weeks ago as they were finally slowing down after years of solid production, and the barrel was infested with cooch grass and lilac suckers. I've replaced them with a different type of strawberry (and I've improved the soil and removed the weeds) , and I'll be interested to see how it goes.



And for the first time ever, I remembered to build a supporting structure for the snow peas before they were planted. Let's hope our local possum doesn't take a liking to my little pea seedlings tonight, as I totally forgot to protect them with wire netting. Whoopsie.

After all our little jobs in the garden were done, we popped over to our friends' place up the road to have some morning tea and "inspect the property" (as we say around these parts).



Bindi the dog is auditioning to be Australia's next top model. She's just so beautiful and she loves the camera (and the camera loves her!)



Magnolia stellata. I think I want one of my own. But where to put it?



I've never been attracted too much to Euphorbia before, but I may have changed my mind after seeing Susan's.



This is Susan's Pieris japonica. We have a few of the cream form at our place but they are nowhere near as old or majestic as Susan's. I'm looking forward to ours growing more and flowering as spectacularly as this one.



These are the chooks. They used to roam free around the garden until a fox attacked them. So the three that survived are safely behind chicken wire. I long to have chooks but I'm losing that battle with the other gardener in this place. Some excuse about responsibility and barely remembering to feed ourselves at times, let alone living animals, apparently. He may have a point.

Seeing gardens like these, and constantly planning our own makes me so glad that we made the big step four years ago to own a bigger block of land so we could have a garden. We spend so much time out in it and it gives us so much joy and back pain. Oops - did I say that? But seriously, I'm looking forward to spending time outside over the next few months, feeling the soil in my hands and picking lots of produce for the kitchen. Just so long as those allergy shots work.

My creative space - waiting

Half past eight in the morning. I'm dressed and ready for work, but I'm also waiting for the electrician to turn up and determine cause of death of the 34 year old creative space in my kitchen - my stove top and oven. Nothing else to do except crochet some of my latest shawl (my tenth!) at the kitchen table until he arrives.

The good news is that the oven has been brought back to life with some nifty work on the circuit board, and the stove will have it's two blown elements fixed by the end of the week. And here I was thinking it was terminal. So relieved, as I haven't been able to cook since last Friday and I was more than a little lost!

Kirsty has all (and I mean ALL) the creative spaces in the world at her place.

My creative space - recycled

Most of my creative space at the moment seems to be on Flickr, where I am still busy downloading photos from my trip to Central Australia. But since I've been back I haven't enjoyed being on the computer too much, so I've been spending time planning and making a new cardigan.



You may recognise the yarn. Yes, it's from this.



I decided I couldn't, and didn't want to fix it. So I ripped out the yarn I could salvage. I found a better cardigan pattern, made from the top down, and I'm happy with it so far. It's fairly slow going, but for someone who has recently made nine shawls in five months, and seven beanies in a fortnight, it's the perfect project.

And speaking of crochet, head over to Kirsty the crochet queen for more fabulous spaces!

Desert songs

My trip to Central Australia was wonderful, heartbreaking, beautiful, harsh, and astounding. Even after a week of being back, I still haven't found the words to describe my experiences because they are in my heart and head, and I don't think it's anything I can, or will, be able to share with anyone who wasn't there with me anytime soon. Instead I'll let my photos tell some of the story.

We based ourselves in Alice Springs but by day two of our trip, my friend Helen and I were at Uluru.





On day three we embarked on an OMG O'clock sunrise walk of Kata Tjuta (also known as the Olgas). It was warmer than we were expecting - t-shirts and shorts, not thermals and polartec jackets.





We never got sick of seeing red sand.



Or spinifex, for that matter.



I'm a bit of a nerdy geographer, and Central Australia provided lots to be fascinated about. All that rock and sand and the birds and the plants, oh-my-giddy-aunt, the plants. On the fourth day I walked along the creek at Kings Canyon to see things from down below, while Helen walked up on the rim to see things from up above. One day I may have to compare the photos we both took in a post. If you too are a nerdy geographer, you will love them as much as I do. But in the meantime you just have my photos.



There was a massive storm passing overhead while I waited for Helen to return from her walk.



We went back to Alice Springs and met up with our friends Susan and Julie, as well as Anne and Barbara and Colleen and a few other surprise friends we knew from Fiji, in Todd Mall. As you do.

And then we drive out to Ross River for a few days of singing in the desert. Except it was green and a little bit rainy, and finally, cold. With about 90 of our newest friends, we sang in one of the most amazing places on earth - Trephina Gorge. Afterwards we took our shoes off and waded up the gorge. Getting frozen feet was totally worth it.







There was a gobsmackingly beautiful sunrise back at Ross River.



And when the singing was all over we danced a crazy dance, even though were were really, really sad to be leaving.



We headed back into Alice Springs and I unexpectedly ran into extended family in the hotel. As you do. Amongst many other things we did while back in Alice Springs, Helen, Julie, Susan and I checked out Desert Park where we happily spent 6 hours there photographing, walking and being constantly amazing by the birds, plants and views of the West Macdonnell Ranges.





And then it was time to come home. The End. Or is it? I'm already my planning my next trip ...