Warm

Well,
after being given some gorgeous presents
which included these beautiful flowers

and lots of heartfelt goodbyes,
I've left work for six months of Long Service Leave.
(Long Service Leave, for those of you who don't know, is additional leave that is given in Australia and New Zealand if someone stays with an employer for a certain length of time. It's to do with our colonial past; it used to be a way of enticing public servants to come out to the furthest reaches of the Empire...and it's a fabulous institution!)

This is a real change of pace for me
and it's started beautifully ~ I spent my first weekend at a retreat in a lovely, secluded property on the outskirts of Perth. It was wonderful to reconnect with Nature out in the bush and in the gardens:

Proteaceae


Lichen on granite


Xanthorrea


Winter narcissus

I also felt blessed to spend time with some truly wonderful people. I caught up with old friends and made some new ones. We meditated and walked and danced and shared delicious, lovingly prepared meals. We also created mandalas. I drew one in white pencil, using the beautiful camellias and sweet alice that were growing in the gardens as inspiration:

Camellias

Mandala in progress

Molly, poor love, had to go to the cattery.

As you might be able to tell,
she's terribly timid and it was horribly cold
so she was very, very glad to get home.

Since then we've been doing a lot of snuggling on the couch,
Molly and I,
and
in~between~times
I've been making a Monroe Lacy Stole:

I can't wait to get to the edging ~ I'm going to put in some small glass beads.

I've also been keeping warm with this beautiful, hand dyed, feather and fan scarf, which I couldn't help but buy from Spacefrog's etsy store:

What's bringing warmth into your world?

Prisons, Pictures and Great Grans...

....with some crochet, of course!

I thought I'd take another break from work
and all the filing, packing and shredding I have to do
to say hi.
Hello!!!!

Since I last posted, there's been a bit of crafty action here at Chez Inkberry.
I've made yet another simple dischloth:

I do like making these cloths.
I can crochet one up in an afternoon, which is satisfying,
and I use them for dry brush massages which, I've been told, are good for my immune system. (In my version, the washcloth takes the place of a brush.)

I've also been working on something for the Victorian Bushfire Appeal.
Meet Bluey:

I'm using Crochetroo's pattern, a 3mm hook and Shepherd Colour 4 Me wool.
He's lots of fun to make.
He'll probably be very hard to give away too.

...and I also thought I'd share some photographs taken at Fremantle Prison museum, which I visited recently.

Fremantle Prison used to be a maximum security gaol and, before that, housed convicts sent out from Britain. Not surprisingly, it's a pretty grim place but its history is fascinating and, unexpectedly, it has some amazing artwork. There are pictures that were painted by the last men to be imprisoned there:

and there are delicate drawings,
rendered secretly onto the walls of a cramped, dark cell
by a nineteenth century forger called James Welsh:

Beautiful, aren't they?
(Thanks to J for letting me use her fantastic prison photos.)

My paternal great grandmother's family came out to Western Australia around about the time James Welsh was drawing on the prison walls
...but I can't claim any convict heritage ~ they were all settlers.
My great gran loved to knit and crochet however and,
although I never met her,
I feel a sense of connection with her because of that shared love of yarn. I remember, when I was little, admiring a hexagon blanket that she had made, which might be why I'm so fond of the pattern now.

Here's a photo of her, knitting by the fire, with my great grandfather:

and here's a picture of my (very sombre) grandmother and great aunty, wearing her lacy socks:

(My nanna's on the right.)
I would imagine my great grandmother would have loved the internet, especially Ravelry!
Do you have any family stories to tell?


Have a wonderful week everyone.

Surfacing

I'm posting this very quickly before plunging back into paperwork and packing. There's only two weeks to go before I'm on six months long service leave (hurrah!) and, as we're only half way through the academic year here in the Land of Oz, I'm preparing a handover for my replacement
so I am busy busy busy with work
but taking lots of little crafty breaks in between.

So the hexagon pillow cover has grown:

(By the way, you can find a link to a tutorial on how to crochet the hexagons here. ... and Andrea, who asked if I thought this would be good for people who aren't very experienced with crochet, my answer is yes! The second row and the joining row are a bit fiddly but the tutorial's so explicit this shouldn't be a big problem. )


I've started to make a new scarf:


which is based on the Romantic Wrap pattern (Ravelry link) from Crochet Today! magazine.


I have managed to get out into my garden and to enjoy,
if only for a little while,
the Winter sunshine and my beautiful, bright red, ivy geraniums:

and I've baked two batches of a quick yet delicious slice called Cammy's Father's Favourites.

I have also started to get ready for my wonderfully long holiday.
I'm planning lunch and dinner dates, and weekends away, with long neglected friends,
I've booked an overseas trip
and I've enrolled in (big breath)
a pastel drawing course,
a nuno felting workshop,
a glass bead making workshop
and a silversmithing workshop.

I'm so excited!

Have a wonderful week everybody.

Hexagonal Happiness

I've been crocheting hexagons
and it's fun!
Like lots of people in Blogland, I've long admired moonstitches' beautiful hexagon throw.
I also really like Linda Permann's crochet hexagon pillow
and,
now that I've discovered knittingnonni's half hexagons pattern
and Lucy from Attic24's excellent tutorial,
I'm making a hexagon cushion of my own:

I can understand why so many people are making these.
I love the flowery shapes and I'm really enjoying being able to play with different colour combinations.

The pottery shard,
by the way,
is from a hand painted pot,
made by a woman called Jo
and, sadly,
broken in one of last year's Winter storms.

Here's another little painted pot that I bought from her:

My work load's becoming crazy again
(I'm seriously thinking of working part time to get a better work~life balance)
but,
along with a little crochet,
I've managed to bead (yet another) memory wire bracelet:

(I love burnt orange!)
and taken photos of the pointsettias that are blooming outside my kitchen window:



and beside the front gate.:

(I love scarlet too!)

Hopefully, I'll be able to get enough time away from report writing to be back here soon.
Have a wonderful week everybody.
x

Pinkberryblue

This is another post brought to you by the colour pink!

I have almost finished my coral~coloured Chevron Lace Cardigan.
I've sewn in all the ends but I haven't blocked it yet.
I haven't come up with a way of closing it (that I like) either.
Here it is left open:




and here it is closed with an organza ribbon:

I'm thinking about making a floral pin to finish it,
something like the one from Interweave's Spiderweb Cardigan.
I'd love to hear your opinion.

...and now for some more rosiness,
in the form of close~ups of jewellery that you can see me wearing with the cardie.
One of the button necklaces:

(the other button necklace can be found here)
and my sequin and seed bead cuff:

I bought the necklace from a gorgeous, eco~friendly stall called Starfish Designs. You can, sometimes, find them at Kalamunda Markets. The necklace is made entirely from recycled buttons. The cuff is a Christmas present from my dear friend Felicity.

Tomorrow is forecast to be one of the last fine and sunny days of the season
...so I'm planning on wearing my cardigan out!
Today was a beautiful, light~filled day,
perfect weather for being in my garden.
Here, in a final burst of pinkness,
is a picture of some of the apple blossom hibiscus that I found blooming there:

Have a wonderful, joy~filled week everybody.

Buttons, bags, biscuits...back to business!

I'm very happy to report that my new bamboo floor has been installed.
It's taken a bit of doing.
There's been a lot of dust swirling around,
much packing and unpacking,
a weekend spent wading about on a gritty concrete pad
but it's all over
and I love it!
It's shiny,
beautifully patterned
and it even smells nice (in a woody sort of a way.)

(The first photo best captures the real colour.)

Molly,
who's terribly timid and who's spent a lot of time hiding under the bed,
is very glad it's all over too:

Renovating has been unexpectedly time consuming but,
since the floor's been finished,
I've had more time and energy to devote to being creative
and my chevron lace cardi now boasts a sleeve:

Incidentally, here's a close up of the button necklace I'm wearing with the cardi:

I made it, stringing the buttons with fine wire, a few years ago.

I've been keeping the cardi in this gorgeous bag that I bought from the Station Street Markets out at Subiaco:

I love the applique flower, the polka dot lining and, especially, the vintage corduroy fabric ~ my mum made me a butterfly sleeved smock out of material much like it in the seventies.
When I've finished the cardigan I'm looking forward to wearing it with the bag.

I've even been baking. I made these orange and poppyseed shortbread fingers for friends who came over for morning tea:

They're moist and tasty
and my visitors left with the recipe, which is always a good thing.

Have a wonderful week everybody.
...and thanks for dropping by.
I haven't been posting a lot of late, I know, and I really appreciate that people still take the time to come and visit.
Blessings.
x

Small is Beautiful

I'm sitting typing this in the middle of an empty living area. Everything but the telly, the laptop and the fridge has been put into storage so that new bamboo boards can be put down. My horrible old flooring is going to be pulled up tomorrow, and I can't wait!
...although someone around here is going to miss the carpet:

(It's OK ~ I've got a new rug at the ready so that she can roll around on that instead.)

Much of the past week has been spent packing boxes and moving furniture, but I have spent a little time out in my neglected garden which, despite having grown even wilder and more tangled, is still pretty.

The potato flowers are blooming,

the pomegranates have ripened

and I've unearthed a wire candle holder that I like, made at a Saturday workshop a few years ago, and I've hung it from my little gum tree so that I can see it from my bedroom window. The glass is very reflective and glows in the sunlight:

I haven't been doing a lot of crochet but, when the floorboards have been put in, I would like to start making some new scatter cushions. I've decided that I want to make something like the first pillow you can see here. I'm going to use motifs from a Japanese craft book I own called Crochet Motif Item. (Sadly, it's now out of print.) I particularly like Motif Number 30, which I first tried crocheting last year:

I want the cushion to be sturdy so I'm crocheting the motifs out of kitchen string and I am planning on felting the backing.

...and of course, in between all the packing and moving, I've still been gaining lots of inspiration from the internet. I've really enjoyed visiting lucy at attic24. Lucy creates colourful, joyful posts and has put together some excellent crochet tutorials. I've also been loving jek in the box for her exuberant, quirky photos...and when I've been feeling tired of renovating my cramped little unit I've been going over to Apartment Therapy and reminding myself that small really can be beautiful, as you can see here and here.

Have a fabulous week everybody.