this and that

THIS is where I live in springtime. In this little room made of recycled windows and doors. I spend my`days sowing seeds, watching them germinate, talking to them, watering them, pricking them out and waiting patiently for the soil to warm up and the danger of frost to be over so I can plant them outside. It's been just over a year since we built this space onto the side of our house, it's hard to even imagine life and growing before.

THIS is a little glimpse into what it looks like inside the greenhouse at the moment. Trays and pots and planters of fruit and vegetables and flowers, putting down roots and growing up leaves, getting bigger and stronger every time I check in on them.

THIS is the greenhouse overflow. Last week or the week before I filled up every inch of space on the table, every shelf and window sill, and much of the floor space too. So I moved some of the big guys into the sun-room. Now you can hardly walk in there. The forecast is looking promising though, so get ready garden, here these guys come.

THIS is the badge Miss Indi made me to wear on my birthday last Sunday.

THIS is the pile of hair pins my farmer boy made me for my birthday. The light one in the middle is made from sycamore off my parents' old farm in Tasmania and the other three are from wood from around here. As anyone who wears wooden pins in their hair knows, these things are incredibly hard to come by and having four crafted by those hands that I love makes me feel like I've won the lottery. I'm rich!

We had the most wonderful few days away at the beach last weekend. We walked everywhere, we ate a late breakfast and an early dinner out every day, we read books, we watched the whole first season of Succession, we did face masks in the bath, we played games, we talked and talked and talked, we saw A Star Is Born at the movies, I knitted, I was sung to by all of my favourite people, I cried, I laughed and I felt incredibly lucky to have the luxury of so much time alone with my boy. It was the absolute best.

THIS is what my washing line looks like now that I'm a beginner spinner. That's fleece inside those laundry bags and the thought of pulling out the staples, flick carding them, drafting them out and spinning them, washing and then knitting them, kept me up last night. I've got that excited, addicted, can't think of anything else, need more time in my day, butterflies in my tummy feeling about a craft again. 

THIS is one of the little projects I'm busying my hands with while I wait to have enough handspun of my own to knit. It's the Mimi hat by my friend Sabine - Frisabi Knits - the details are here.

THIS is the new shelf in my studio.  The one above the window. It goes across the back and along the right wall to meet the door. I'm going to fill it with plants and books.

THIS is the strawberry bed that I look at from my studio window. It looks like it's going to be a bumper crop this year.

THIS is one of the self seeded patches of spring onions that feeds hundreds of bees every day. They love that stuff.

THIS is the book I am reading the moment, my sister Abby's copy of - The Arsonist: A Mind on Fire by Chloe Hooper. One of the stories of the Black Saturday bush fires of February 2009. I've only read about 50 pages so far but already it feels like a horror story. It is harrowing and devastating and heartbreaking, but it also feels insightful and moving and important. It's probably a good thing for me to read at the start of this fire season: I've already started making lists of things to prepare.

THIS, right now, feels like such a huge moment in the life of our family. Next Monday our Indi starts her final school year exams and by this time next week will be completing her last one and finishing with high school forever. Next Thursday Indi will celebrate her 18th birthday which means Bren and I will have parented a child all the way through from babyhood to childhood to adulthood. In just over a week our Jazzy will return from her six week overseas trip. The emails and photos have been sparse but from what we can gather it looks and sounds like she's been having the most unbelievably incredible adventure. This week our Pepper got to meet her little buddy. As part of the oldest class in her school next year, she gets paired up with one of the youngest. It's so funny to think of our youngest being the oldest. She's so ready though. And in the middle of all of that me and Bren are rushing around trying to balance the farming, parenting, crafting, building, cooking, playing, making, exercising and growing, all while trying to hold onto the magic we felt last weekend.

And that's that.

And THIS dear friends is my thank you to you. Thank you for your birthday kindness, for your wishes, for your sweetness and for your sunshine. I love ya's all!!

Before you go tell me what's going on at THIS time in your world? What's keeping you up at night? What have you got on your shelf? What are you making? What are you learning? What did you get for your birthday? How will your life be different this time next week?

Wishing you luck and love and adventures.

Kate xx

blossom

And wouldn't you know it, while last week I felt sick in my heart and couldn't stop crying, this week I was struck down and felt sick in my body and sick in my head. A winter cold snuck in just when I was feeling my most vulnerable, I was an easy target. So instead of following my days of tears and heartache with walks through the forest, gardening, and other activities that are good for my soul, I went to bed and barely got out for a few days. 

This morning though the sun is bright and shiny and the skies are brilliant and blue. I sat in the sunroom before to drink my morning coffee and had to go and find my sunglasses and strip off some woolly layers. This little glimpse of spring feels precious and has somehow reminded me of some of the good bits of who I am and what I love to do. My head and heart feel better than they have for weeks. 

But I'm still not there yet so I'm going to make this another short one. My head feels so full of muck that it's making it hard to think clearly. It's taken me so long to write these few short paragraphs and I'm not even sure they make any sense.

So a few catch up photos, a few words to explain and then hopefully I'll be back to regular programming next week. Fingers crossed anyway.

Bren has been turning out the most beautiful wooden bowls on his lathe. I love how he incorporates and makes a feature of the wood's natural patterns and markings. Such a gift.

There was one day this week, I can't remember if it was yesterday or the day before, where I had a few hours of feeling slightly better so I rushed out to the greenhouse and started planting seeds into soil. It almost didn't matter what I was planting or if it was even too early in the season, I just had to get my hands dirty and I needed to feel like I was moving forward.

Next autumn I hope I remember to plant more bulbs in pots in the sun room. Just having these little bursts of colour popping up has made such a difference to our late winter states of mind. Call it colour plant therapy if you like.

I could barely do anything while I was so sick this past week but thankfully I could read this 480 page book. May We Be Forgiven is one of the best books I think I've ever read. I absolutely loved this crazy roller coaster ride, it starts with a bang and I was fully engrossed until it came full circle at the end.

I'm so grateful that my speed-reader mum passes her favourite library books over to me.

This week I received a copy of Japanese Knitting - patterns for sweaters, scarves and more from the kind people at Tuttle Publishing and New South Books.

Japanese Knitting includes 23 of the sweetest knitting and crochet patterns you ever did see. Colour work sweaters, cute cardigans that can be worn front-to-back and back-to-front, shawls, hats, slippers, gloves...flicking through its pages makes me hungry to cast on in the same way a cook book makes your tummy rumble. The design and styling is beautiful, the photos make the patterns look fun and easy to wear, hopefully I'll cast one on soon and let you know what they're like to knit...I just can't decide where to start.

In the meantime I'm comfort-knitting socks.

And I'm thrilled to report that we found our first blossom this morning on the ornamental almond outside my studio. One week until calendar spring. Thank goodness. I might just make it after all.

Thank you all for the incredible messages of kindness and empathy and support and love you left on my last post. I'm never sure about posting the difficult stuff. Especially last week when I felt so distraught and defeated. But you guys never fail to say the stuff I need to hear. You are my community and reading through your messages was so heart warming and soul nourishing. I'm so very grateful.

And with that I'm going to sign off for another week. I'm going to have lunch with my boy in the sun, I'm going to hang some washing out to dry and then I'm going to sort through our seeds. I've seen people online pricking out their tomatoes and I haven't even planted mine yet.


Be kind to yourselves and each other my friends.

Lots of love,

Kate x

piece of the pie

Hello friends,

It's so lovely to see you. How's your week been?

My week has been good mostly. And a bit of bad now that I think about it. And then some in the middle too.

Actually let's do this: if my past week were a pie - one piece would be dealing with matters of creativity, one piece would be the bleak never-endingness of winter, one would be the absolute joy of my studio, one piece would be worrying about the state of the world - droughts, bush fires, violence, poverty and cancer, one would be the routine, one would be the joys and stresses of parenting, one would be Bren and his bowl turning, one would be the garden and farm and one would be family and friends. After you lift those nine pieces from the pan, the bits that get stuck to the bottom, the crumbs, and the bits that fell off the spoon are all the other stuff that makes up a week in my life, the ups and the downs, the exciting and the mundane, and the other details.

So let's get to the photo a day, hey.

august four

Last weekend we stayed in the most beautiful house, with the most gorgeous views, on the side of a mountain. It was Jazzy's musical weekend and there were many, many drives to and from school, so we decided to stay somewhere near by. It's amazing what a difference a change of scene can do for the state of mind. As forest dwellers usually surrounded by trees, none of us could stop looking out of the windows and admiring the views and the ever changing weather conditions. 

We discussed changing our fireplace and heating set-up, incorporating a grey wall somewhere, the difference double glazing makes and how much easier it would be for the girls to live closer to their friends.

It was such a lovely break from the rhythm.

That mountain in the middle of the picture window is Hanging Rock.

august five

On Sunday afternoon we returned home, and even though we'd only been gone for three days I searched every plant and tree for movement and signs of spring. 

Look at that peony go!

august six

On Monday I spotted this little vignette on the kitchen table and it looked so wintry I just had to take a picture. From the middle in a clockwise direction; the first seven eggs of the new season in one of my farmer boy's turned wooden bowls, my scrappy sock blanket, Kath's salt pig, a bowl of native limes, two overripe avocados, another of Bren's bowls and a branch of Hebe from that morning's flower arranging class.

august seven

Late last week before we went away, I started to worry about the wintry mess the farm is in, how the rush of spring will soon be upon us, and how we know from past experience that the best way to greet it is with neatness and organisation. So we made a list and slotted jobs into days in the family diary.

I must admit that due to the most unpleasant weather over the past week, many of the jobs did not get done, however the cleaning of the greenhouse most certainly did.

On Tuesday we pulled everything out, we washed everything down, we oiled the table, we cleaned the windows, and then we neatly put a lot of things back.

It's almost time to start the spring planting.

august eight

Sometime early this week in-between splitting wood, hanging out the laundry and driving the girls to school, I had a bit of a crisis of creativity. It occurred to me that my only creative expression these days is knitting, and aside from the original choice of pattern and yarn, that sometimes feels a bit mechanical.

Watching Bren turning a round of wood into a bowl feels like something different. Each cut is a decision, each shape a design. It's like he's working with the wood, sometimes he is the in-charge and sometimes the wood makes it known that there is no choice. It's beautiful to watch him work, the shavings flying through the air and piling up like carpet under foot, the lines and markings becoming exposed, the knots taking charge, the final shapes always different.

As I type this I can hear the sound of the lathe from his studio. I look forward to watching him walk past my window when he's finished to come and show me what he's made. I love watching the bowls in his hands as he shows them to me and discovers them for himself, turning, noticing, acknowledging, learning.

And so it came to pass that I needed to push myself in a new creative direction.

And so one day, after I had driven the girls to school, I clipped a branch of eucalyptus leaves on the way into my studio and then sat down and drew it. And then painted it in for good measure.

It's been years since I drew and painted and the connections between my eyes, hands and brain are rusty to say the least but I pushed on regardless. Focusing on the shapes, on the negative and positive space, on the light and shadow, and trying my hardest to draw what I saw rather than what I knew. All those art school lessons came right back to me.

I drew the stem standing in a vase, lying on the bench and upside down. I shaded in pen, coloured in water-colours, and painted in acrylics.

I gave myself permission to be bad at something and not see that as a waste of time.

I challenged myself to try to return to the process once a day.

And after a few pages in my sketchbook something amazing happened. It felt like the creativity door in my brain opened up. I started noticing and looking at my life in a different way, I started dreaming up other unrelated creative projects, I started itching for time to knot and sew and design, I felt itchy with all the opportunities and options. 

That page of branch painting is from yesterday's session. It killed me a bit when my family told me it was great. They love me and want to encourage me, but it's not great. Not by a long shot. But it is great that I'm pushing through. Painting and smudging and trying to capture something. I'm a bit happy with that. 

august nine

I started reading People of the Book. I read March earlier this year and felt lucky to find this book in an op shop a few weeks ago. I'm about 100 pages in and so far I love the way the story is being told. It feels like a treasure hunt and I'm looking forward to seeing where it leads me to next. I'm not sure how I feel about the main character though, I hope she strengthens and develops.

august ten

Today. I always thought I'd sit in the window seat in my studio to write and read and knit, but so far I haven't, not even once. Mostly I find myself sitting in a chair in front of the big window with my knitting or computer on my lap. I do hope to find a little table to sit up at soon.

But in the meantime the window seat has become a display. Glass bottles of flowers and leaves, Bren's newest wooden bowls, my just cast off and just cast on socks, and up the other end books, and wool and paints and brushes.

I've still hardly moved anything into my studio in terms of furniture or art supplies. My usual pattern is crazy messy chaos and I'm desperate to keep things simple and clean in here. But I do love the look of a bit of crafty mess too: inspiring photos torn from magazines, bits of yarn in colour palettes I like, a tiny sweet posy picked from the garden, a reminder note in beautiful handwriting...I guess the key is to find a way to keep these items in a neatish way without drowning under the weight of their clutter. It might be time to pin things to the wall.

In any case there is just enough time to collect a load of wood before school so I must go.

But how about you?

How are you feeling creatively at the moment?

What's your favourite creative way to express yourself?

When was the last time you allowed yourself to be bad at something? Isn't it freeing?!

And just for fun, how would you divide your last week in terms of pieces in a pie?

I hope you have a gorgeous weekend friends. I hope it is filled with the perfect balance of productive and restful. 

See you next week!

Love,

Kate x

in june

Hello lovely ones,

I've had a bit of a nostalgic week this past week. In preparation for my presentation at Soul Craft festival tomorrow I've spent time going through old photos, old blog archives, old projects, and really thinking about the gifts that living and sharing my craft-filled life online have given me. It'll be nine years this month since I started posting to Foxs Lane. Nine years!! 

And although blog friends have come and gone, and  although the trends have come and gone (hello Kirsty's granny shrug), and although my style has changed a million times (I'm no longer wearing skirts made from tea-towels), and although our girls are so big now that it's hard to even remember that I used to be able to knit them a cardigan from one 200 gram ball of Bendigo Woollen Mills cotton, and I could go on and on...the one constant has always been community. You guys. Us.

Creativity, connection, community.

Our stories, our opinions, our skills, our families, our makings, our ups and our downs. So although my talk will be mainly about my relationship to craft, I can't help but feel it would be completely different, and not nearly as fulfilling, without you guys travelling along beside me.

Which is why it meant so much to me when I opened my post office box this week to find a parcel from Rhonda at Down To Earth, one of my favourite bloggers and possibly one of the blogs I've been reading longest. It means the world to me to think that Rhonda thought of me when she came across this book in her bookshelf and knew that I'd love it. It felt comforting flicking through its pages at 3 this morning and wondering if she was awake and reading too. But the best part of all is, after all these years of reading her typed words, to read her inscription in her own hand writing. 

Thank you dear friend. xx

june second

As you can imagine, a huge chunk of this week has been spent preparing for my presentation and my sock knitting class at Soul Craft tomorrow. I've written questions, thought of answers, found diagrams, prepared instructions, printed pages, taught two friends, gone through old photos and blog posts, had my hair cut, found an outfit, knitted lots of samples, endured the crazy tummy butterflies, breathed deeply, mixed some essential oils, questioned my ability and my authority, written lists and made plans.

june third

All I can remember about last Sunday is that Bren and Pepper made some wooden spinning tops on the lathe, I planted loads of spring bulbs, Indi wrote an essay in Melbourne, poor Jazzy wasn't well and we ate fire-baked potatoes for dinner.

june fourth

I remember being halfway through a conversation with Bren last Monday when I looked behind him and saw the light coming through the window and hitting the cyclamen and I had to rush out to take a photo. I guess that's a big pro for the taking at least one photo every single day. They can't always be the big moments.

I look at that macrame so often and wish for the time to make more. Hopefully when I'm housebound over true winter I will.

june fifth

The greenhouse is in a bit of a post busy season mess, as you can see in the first photo on this post, but somehow through the lattice of windows everything looks just as it should. I love that.

june sixth

On Wednesday, due to the luck of her timetable and my need to escape the distractions of the home and get some serious work done, I spent four heavenly hours in two cafes, sitting across from Miss Indi, drinking coffee and then peppermint tea.

Back at the height of my crochet obsession in 2012, I would have written an entire blog post about those tea cozies!

june seventh

This week three windows went into my studio and three walls were clad in the old car-port tin. Next week the shingles will go on the front and then I think it'll be time to fit out the inside. So far everything but the battens is recycled. I am ridiculously in love with every single detail and ridiculously grateful to my farmer boy and to Jobbo. xx

june eighth

Today. One more sleep til Soul Craft!

It's funny how much I enjoyed hanging out the washing this morning when I knew I had a bazillion other things that I should have been doing to get ready for tomorrow instead. How I shook out every piece to make sure they dried right, how I admired all of the stripes and colours, how I made sure there was nothing long hanging in the back row to get in the way when we carry loads of wood through, and how much an undercover, out-of-the-living-area washing line has changed my life. On Sunday the housework will probably drive me crazy again, but for now, anything but the should is good.

Which brings me to now, 3.26pm on Friday. This time tomorrow I'll be two hours into my class, with one still to go. Wish me luck!

For now I have to go and charge my camera battery, finish printing and collating the instruction sheets, organise my samples, pack my needles and yarn, go through my presentation, wrap my dad's birthday present and take some deep breaths.

Hopefully I'll be seeing some of you tomorrow.

Do you have any last minute public speaking or teaching tips for me?
Do you have any questions you think I should address in my talk?
What's your best procrastination trick?

Hopefully I'll live to tell the tale and see you back here next week with all the gory details...

Love,

Kate x