Holidays!!!

After a record long first term, the holidays are finally here. While parents around Tasmania are tearing their hair out, school staff such as myself are rejoicing - free time! Holidays! Yes, my child is at home with me, but being with him is fun and he still has a day sleep :)
So... I finally got around to taking some photos of my latest works:

These are trousers for Anders - made from my mum's old skirt. I was so sure I'd fail, I didn't want to waste money on new material. He's worn them once and EVERYONE commented on how great they were - having no idea that I made them (of course I proudly told them all, whether they cared or not!) I was surprised at how easy they were to make, and how persistant I can be - I stuffed up the waistband, had to unpick the whole thing (and I'd stupidly used 1mm stitches thinking it'd be really strong - almost impossible to unpick). I nearly gave up then, and there are some holes in the material where I unpicked the trousers not the stitching, but they were ultimately fixed and finished. I'm definitely not buying trousers for him for a while when they're so easy to make!

This is my giant cushion - I just loved them in the shops and wanted one, but two other upsides are that it helps relatives of mine who can't easily get up from our very deep, soft couch and it's sooooo comfortable to lie on and watch telly when I'm too tired to do anything else :) 

I have a lot of pregnant friends and decided to try to make bibs - I never had enough, even though I had at least 20. I only had to buy terry toweling for the back-sides (so they absorb spew and dribble) and the front sides were from bits of material I had lying around from previous abandonned projects. I've made 15 and have another 1 or 2 to go, and again I was surprised at how easy they were. Maybe they'll fall apart in the first wash or actively repeal spew, who knows, hopefully the recipients will be too polite to tell me if they do!

More bibs, and a little bunny I knitted with leftover wool from Anders' jumper. I'm going to try to make a bunny for each baby too as they're little and cute, easy to make, and safe for babies.

The patterns and instructions for everything I've done I've found on the internet - usually on people's blogs. I'm not good at research and I don't spend much time on the computer, yet I've found all these simple, reliable, free projects with very little effort on my part. Yay for the internet!

Botched Jobs:

I've stuffed up pretty much everything I've made so far.

- My soap has rusty marks from where I dried it on metal racks - next time I'll use plastic ones.

- Anders' knitted jumper was too short - I should have measured it but I didn't. It took me two nights and a lot of guts to pull the bottoms apart and knit some additional rows.

- The trousers were too long, Again, I measured them against other trousers of his but should have put them on him. I'll have to take the hems up before he wears them again.

- My cusion was over-stuffed and felt like a brick. I had to unpick the inside pillow section, take some stuffing out and sew it again. 

- the toy astronaught I made Anders was really cute but I forgot to pull out the arms when I turned it inside out (photos next time) so the arms don't have any stuffing in them. The eyes are also a bit wonky, but I figure he's an alien - they can be however we imagine them to be.

I have started so many new things and done each one of them once. Of course the first attempt at most things isn't going to be perfect, and it's been really frustrating at times, but I keep telling myself that I'll know how to do it better next time (and I will) and I've really surprised myself at how patient I've been and how willing I am to problem-solve and fix something when - if it was something I'd bought that didn't work - I would have just thrown it away.

I've also been busy in the garden but I'll save that for next time! :)
Happy holdiays everyone who has them :) x

Photos of a housewife's work



Yes, he is holding a dust-buster, helping with the housework already!



Hmm, I haven't managed to work out how to get the photos and writing in any sort of order so... Here's my son's debut as a knitwear model. I think he's done quiet well, although there are plenty of other photos of him scoffing the biscuit that he's got in his hand here that weren't so photogenic. I painskakingly knitted this jumper, had to re-do the front 3 times becuase I kept chatting or getting engrossed in something else and made mistakes, and yet at the end of it, after saying 'never again' during the whole process, I decided I wanted to make another! I'll do it next winter.

The jumper is a bit short on him, so I'm going to try to stretch it somehow. Anyone got any ideas?

This is the quince paste I made - a huge batch that will hopefully last until the next quinces come into season in 12 months time. I haven't go the hang of making it properly - some of it was not cooked enough, this batch was proabably over-cooked, but the only difference is the colour. It tastes amazing, is a hell of a lot cheaper than buying it ($5 worth of quinces and some sugar is a year's worth of qunice paste) and it gives me an excuse to buy cheese...

My son again, this time modelling the home-made playdough tomliboos (from a TV show similar to Tellie Tubbies, don't ask) I made this beautiful playdough with orange escence accidentally, thinking it was yellow food colouring. So now it smells great too! He doesn't look very impressed with my Tomliboo-making skills, but I had to make them for 90 minutes, while he squashed every one of them and then asked for another. This was a rare moment when I had three un-squashed ones together :)

I'm now tyring to sew. I have my Gran's beautiful 70's brown sewing machine with immaculate case lined with bright yellow daisy wallpaper. It's very simple, which is good as I just randomly pick a setting and hope it works. I've made a huge cushion (I always wanted one and they're over $150 in the shops, I can just imagine my husband saying 'you spent WHAT!? on a CUSION!!!???') this one cost me $10 at the Salvos, buying old cusions to use for the stuffing. I'll take a photo of it for next time. I'm also making bibs as 7 of my friends are pregnant, 6 of them with second children. I discovered you can never have too many bibs, and they're too gross to re-use after one child has spewed on them consistently. So I'll see how I go. I have made 3 so far and they're not perfect but hey, I'm learning, and they're only going to get spewed and dribbled on, I think they'll do the job just fine!

The chickens are going well, still not laying but they're happy and it's nice looking out the window and seeing them there. They're also helping us to plough through the hundreds of self-sewn silverbeet plants (phew!)

Off to bed now, what an exciting life!

x

and then there were 4...

Newbie, our fourth chicken, has finally been accepted by the brood. I suspect she won a few fights to get there, but I'm so happy that they're all getting along. She was completely ostracised for about a month and I even had to put her on the perch to roost at night as the other girls wouldn't let her on. But somehow, one day, she went from outcast to best buddy, just like that!

One of the chickens is lame now though, hobbling around. It's happened before and I reckon she'll get better, but she may be chicken stew if she doesn't recover. None of the chickens are laying now becuase the days are too short, but at least they're also not eating much. The food scraps from our next door neighbour and ourselves seem to be enough as I haven't topped up their pellet food for ages, and they used to go through it in about a week.

I'm also knitting my son a jumper - he's nearly 2 and will still wear whatever I tell him to (except shoes, he's very particular about those and prefers mine). Like most new things, I got it a bit wrong, spent 7 hours untangling the massive ball of wool I'd bought and decided I didn't need to untangle before starting, and I've knitted the front of the jumper 3 times (thank god he's small, an adult jumper I would have thrown away in a tantrum by now) I'm now doing the hood and it's nearly done! There will be photos, and he WILL wear it every day during winter to make it worth my while :)

My husband and I have also made a toy kitchen out of a very large cardboard box, with other boxes inside and bells and whistles which make an oven, cupboard, sink and tap. I have some old CD's which will be the stove's hotplates and I think it looks really good! We've used nearly evey cardboard box in the house (and I'd saved dozens) and lots of egg cartons to pad the inside and make it strong. I'll put a photo of it on here too when it's done. I wanted a toy kitchen for my son and a nice one costs $400, this one is made of only what we have in the house so it's free!

Have to go to they gym now, will definitely post pictures next time
x mum to 5 now (4 chicks, one boy)
PS happy easter and enjoy the wedding if you're into that

chicken troubles

By popular demand (!) I'm writing another blog update. I forget this is here, mainly because I don't have my own computer. Anyways, the chickens have FLEAS! I noticed little critters on an egg recently, then on their water bowl, then when we looked closely, on the chickens too. My husband had agreed to do all the 'vetinary' jobs with our girls, so he cleaned out their house (which we'd planned to do at easter anyway), sprayed everything with anti-flea mixture (from pet shop) and powdered the ckickens with anti-flea stuff too. So far, so good, although we may need to do the chickens again as the fleas may have laid eggs on them. Despite feeling itchy every time I think about it, the fleas didn't spread to us (thank god) and apprently they don't bother the chickens too much either.

One of our hens has also stopped laying. We got our next door neighbour to check her out, as they've had chickens before and know a lot more than we do. She commented that the pale comb (the red bit on top of their head) indicates that the chicken isn't laying, but doesn't mean they're sick. We had been worried, so that was good to know. I've aslo noticed broken eggshell where the chickens lay their eggs, so I'm hoping they haven't started tasting their own wares!

All in all, although this stuff is annoying, we're still enjoying our lovely eggs, albeit less of them, and we're thinking of getting another chicken as we have the room and we just have so many requests for eggs!

Our vegies are also going really well - I've never grown leeks before but I have about 30 in the garden, an impulse buy, and they're ready and yummy. We're processing the last of our tomatoes and just freezing them to use in soups, casseroles, whatever over winter. We have soooo much preserved food from our efforts over summer which is great - I open the fridge and have so many choices for what to put in a sandwich, what sauce to use on my dinner, which fruit to put on my pancakes, it's great! The down-side is that with more choice often comes 'well, I'll just have one of each' and two people have asked me if I'm pregnant lately!!!! I'll have to get used to this new surplus - the food isn't going anywhere so I can always have it tomorrow.

I'm not cooking for the op-shop or CWA any more as I've started working 2 days a week. I was also getting a bit bored with making biscuits, although new recipes always kept me going. I think it may have contributed to the preggie look so there are no more left-over biscuits in this house, and no tempting bowls to lick! 

I've also started knitting again. I'd made lots of fruit and vegies for my son, who thinks they're balls or frisbees and throws them around, but now winter's coming up I've realised he doesn't have many clothes, I don't like the ones in the shops, and I've probably honed my skills enough knitting food that I can try a jumper. There are so many great patterns on the net (a lot nicer than in the booklets you buy in knitting shops) so I've downloaded two patterns and I'm having a go.

Next time I'll try to upload some photos of the knitting  - if it goes well!
Happy easter everyone x

Preserving

Here's a photo of my first attempt with the Fowlers Vacola, preserving a mix of berries, cherries and some apple. We've been eating it on pancakes with yoghurt and it's great!

We've only been getting one or two eggs a day - our next door neighbour says that when the weather changes (it's rained a lot lately) they will stop laying. I actually had to buy some eggs today! :(
I want to include more photos, but it's too slow on this computer, and I don't have much patience.

My latest projects include: knitting food for my baby. I don't want to buy plastic toy food for him, but I'd like him to play with cooking and serving food, so I've knitted some celery, lettuce, tomato and eggs so far. I'm going to try to knit everything in our vegie garden and maybe a sandwich that he can put together. I'm just using scraps of wool from people I know and op shops so it's really cheap. I'm not a good knitter (he won't know or care if it's not perfect, real vegies are all imperfect anyway!) and I'm having trouble understanding the knitting patterns I'm getting for free off the internet, becuase it's in 'knitting language' that I barely know, but I'm getting the hang of it. I'm hoping that if I can increase my skills, maybe I'll knit some clothes one day.

My vinegar attempts have been pretty pathetic, I've grown some amazing pink mould that looks kind of rubbery. I've thrown 3 lots away and am trying white wine vinegar now with some leftovers. I haven't looked at it lately but I think it's OK so far. At least none of these had any set-up costs and the only time comittment was pouring liquid in the jar and throwing it out a few weeks later.

I've also made more jam, relish and tomato sauce. So far it's wonderful - my husband loves it more than I do, but I don't think we'll be buying tomato sauce again for a while, ours is much better! I was really skeptical about that, I have my favourite brand of tomato sauce and thought I'd hate the home-made stuff, but I was wrong - just as well, we have nearly a litre of it!

We've also started swapping things with our neighbours - it was actually their idea. They also grow vegies and we've been giving them eggs and garden stakes (from trees we've cut back) and we've received potatoes and rhubarb in return. I've been asked to bake a cake, which I love, as there aren't enough cake-lovers in my family to eat all that I make, and we've been promised zucchinis. It's nice that we all get a bit more variety without having to go and buy it - just pass it over the fence instead! We also get lemons and mandarins from the other next-door neighbour and have given home-made biscuits and eggs in return. We've been giving away garlic as we grew way too much, and my dad gives us his excess potatoes and pumpkins.

One of my friends has started vegie gardening too, after buying her first home. It's exciting to see someone else embarking on this for the first time. She has some leeks from me, and lots of other things to start out with. She also has a young child so there's another new-generation vegie gardener in the making!

I'm hoping for less rain and more eggs tomorrow...

Eggs!!!

Our chickens are finally laying eggs. After a week of getting one or two per day, we're now reliably getting 3 eggs a day. The chickens are in the good books again (we were threatening to eat them instead of turkey at Christmas) and they're getting lots of lovely leftovers. Their favourite is definitely dairy products and once they've had a bit of cake or cream, they turn their beaks up at silverbeet.

We're picking peas, garlic and silverbeet from our garden. I only have a couple of silverbeet recipes left to try (and am sick of the old ones) and I'm looking forward to the end of broad beans - they're as bad as I remembered them, although if you double-peel them, they're beautiful. It's labour intensive though. My baby enjoyed helping peel the broad beans and even ate them straight from the pod!!!

I've started using the home-made soap and it's great. I'm looking into making liquid soap, but one of the ingredients is apparently hard to get...

Now that it's school holidays and both of us are home, my husband and I have started making lots of new recipes. After a couple of years of house-sitting, being pregnant and then having a baby, we have just made quick, easy, repetitive meals and I can't stand any of them now. It's been great trying new things, but I seem to spend half my life cooking and the other half washing up. Once we have a shortlist of good ones though, it'll be good again.

We've also applied to have a Japanese uni student stay for a month. I'd like more people to cook for, seeing as I'm almost a professional housewife, I need more people to look after! We'll get them in February if we're matched with one.

That's all for now. Merry Christmas everyone x

cooking

I'm making much better use of my vegetable garden this year. I bought two cookbooks - a Stephanie Alexander one for kids and a French cook-book that featured in the film Julie and Julia (didn't like the film but love the cookbook!) and they both have lots of recipes that rely heavily on one vegetable - perfect for vegie gardeners with a few hundred silverbeet plants or several kilos of potatoes to use up! I could write a book now '101 ways with silverbeet' as it's self-seeded in my garden. I'm finding I can either hide it in normal recipes or make nice ones that feature silverbeet - a vegetable I wouldn't normally eat.

As well as tailoring our cooking to what's in the garden, I'm buying a preserver, a Fowlers Vacola, which will only preserve high-acid foods (fruit and tomatoes) but that's mainly what I want to keep. It's also cheaper and more easy to use than a more versatile 'canner' and seeing as I'm running around after an 18 month old, I need things to be as easy as possible. I dream about one day getting a canner when my child's at school, if I'm still into all this housey-stuff.

I've bought an Easiyo machine, only $20 and you can make home-made yoghurt (yum!) at half the price of store-bought yoghurt. I can buy flavoured packets or make up my own flavours! I'm also making bread more often in the bread-maker. As much as I'd love to make bread and yoghurt from scratch, again with a young child it's just not feasable at the moment. I'm also cooking biscuits - after eating a bought and home-made biscuit one after the other recently, I realised how much nicer home-made ones are. I've actually dug myself into a hole - the other day we ran out of bread, yoghurt and biscuits and my husband was very unhappy as the bought ones taste horrible in comparison! I had to get on and make some quickly. I have to point out here that he also makes bread, cooks dinners sometimes and helps out in general, I'm not a traditional house-wife; if I'm cooking, he's baby-sitting or vice versa.

I've also been experimenting with making my own vinegar. My red wine vinegar is very mouldy and is obviously not working, but the pineapple vinegar is fizzing and looking very interesting - hopefully in a good way!

I've also started selling some biscuits, herbs and other bits and pieces. I was extremely surprised when I went to the local op-shop at the end of the day to collect my biscuits and found they'd all been sold! Same with my jam and most of the herbs. It's just pocket-money but seeing as my new lifestyle requires lots of setting-up costs (although it's much cheaper in the long-run) even pocket money is good.

The chickens have grown and are eating us out of house and home, but haven't laid eggs yest and I'm getting impatient! They're very entertaining for my son, who is now feeding them loads of silverbeet every day so they're not entirely useless, but I use at least a dozen eggs each week in cooking and it would be nice to get them for free!

That's all for now, hope you try some of this stuff. I'm happy to give recipes or instructions for any of this stuff if asked - and I got it all on the internet myself so you can just look up anything you like and get advice.