custom made fabric items

Hi there,
In between gardening I have been doing lots of sewing. Me and my sewing partner, T, have had a few custom orders of late, here are some pictures of what we have made.

This set of 12 placemats and matching table runner have gone to Gidgegannup in Western Australia. I love that name. I was close to buying 25 acres there about 25 years ago, but decided I didn't like my partner at the time enough to get into debt with him.
These are made from fabric sourced from factory offcuts. Huge amounts of this fabric was being dumped. It is beautiful stuff.
In April we did all this bed linen for a lady.

This one is a doona cover and matching cushions

This is a traditional quilt and matching cushions.

 She brought the fabric back from Africa during a holiday, also made this table cloth and a couple of cushions from this African fabric.

Last year I made these tablerunner and placemat set for her from this Asian fabric.

And just recently we are working on 4 baby play mats in boys colours. Here are mine.

Flannelette fabric on the top and wool wadding in between with a linen back on one and an old but good sheet on the other.
And these two are T's.

I think we did marvellously to make two 108cm square quilts each in a week. Especially as T works 3 days a week and we were finishing the placemats at the top of this post.
So feeling exhausted right now but on a high. So much so that I quickly made another one.

 This one is to go into our shop for sale. It was easier to make than the others as the front is one piece of fabric, not pieces joined together. The back the same and a nice whole piece of wadding. And I wrapped the backing around the front to make the binding. Pinned with my no melt flat head pins and ironed the hem down flat and triple stitched it for good effect.
It looks very busy but I think it will hold great interest for a baby to crawl around on. Hope so anyway.
cheers
Dayla

Garden snap shot!

Hello and welcome to Badger Farm,
A mixture of photos of the garden this time.

I have been busy redoing my half baskets on the fence. This is my view from the kitchen window, so I want it to look nice. It is also a place which is protected from most of the wind. Is squeezed between the house so it holds its heat and is a warm place. Although the sun is on it at midday for only 2 or 3 hours all year.

 

Cactus and succulents in the green pots at the top. These can handle the heat and so provide shade for the more sensitive below them. The orchids have really loved this spot. This is their first year and they are flowering so beautifully considering the upheaval 1 year ago.

I have got some planter boxes set up out here too to try and grow a few herbs in. You know what its like, the sun has gone down and you're cooking dinner, "Oh I need some parsley!" But its in the veggie garden up the back. So plant some outside the back door, with some rocket and spring onions, maybe a tiny tim tomato too.

The Rhododendrons have been amazing again this year, here is a beautiful pink one. Enormous they are.

And this little pink one is my favourite.

See the kookaburra in the bottom of the shot?
And some more garden scenes.

So there is a snap shot of the garden.
More soon.
Dayla

Dinner tonight

Tonight I didn't have to cook, which is nice!
M did instead.
I gathered the ingredients together for him, starting with eggs from our girls.

Made a wonderful omelet and chopped it up and put to one side.

Veggies included broccoli, carrots, baby corn and more. Nearly all from the garden.
With that we had these delightful things.

Parsnip chips. oooh so nice.
And here is the cook himself. M.

Was a yummy dinner, although I don't think he was that impressed with me jumping around with the camera in hand. I was at a loose end having the job of cooking most nights.
I don't mind doing it, not when the ingredients are so good. The local butcher here is really fab and growing your own is the only way to go.
I had some fun recently cooking with goose eggs!

The huge one above weighed 235g and the little one was yolkless and the first egg of the season for our french wheaten marans. Start off gently sounds sensible to me.
So I made vegetable fritters with the goose egg yolk, it was so big it sat in my hand from fingertip to wrist. It was too big and slipped off. I whipped the white and added it just before cooking. The goose egg had no discernable flavour, just like a giant chook egg. Really great to use. Came from a neighbour.
Hope you had a lovely meal tonight like me.
Dayla

The Winter Garden

Hi there,
I was reading a blog today from some one who lives in the sub tropics. And they were saying that they can grow stuff all year round, not like those who live further South where they can only grow veggies in the Summer.

Well I live in the mountains in Victoria and over Winter we have been enjoying the sweetest parsnips,

OH Parsnip chips are delicious!

they love the cold, it makes them sweeter. Carrots ditto.

Interesting specimen on the left. See how the others keep away from the different one. Mimicking human behaviour!

Celeriac which is so velvety in soup, sweet and nutty roasted.

The broccoli is just coming on, and yes again so sweet and nutty.

Rocket with large peppery leaves, not the stringy stuff in restaurants.

A wall of rocket.

Silverbeet, when we beat the chooks to it.

Rainbow chard. Not very big as we keep picking from them.

Most of our girls. That's Julia on the right, she is a french wheaten marans hen. Very rare I found out. Google them!

The cauliflower was a disappointment, not sure why.

They headed but were small and flat, they looked like they were old, but they're not.

Parsley so profuse it is almost too beautiful to pick.

So much parsley, this is my hybrid. A partly curly leaf. We like it a lot.

I am watching the globe artichokes putting out their lovey lacy leaves and I am dreaming of their produce in a few months.

I sowed the seed for these last year so we should see some fruit this year.

Broad beans emerging

Sowed the seed in June but it has been so cold they have taken a while to get to this size. I am not worried though. I planted the seed in between the old corn stalks for support.

and garlic reaching for the sky.

All the fruit trees are flowering or just about to with bulging buds of the darkest pink on the peach trees and white for the apricots.

My tomato seedlings are up and being potted on along with lots of different chilli's and many other things.

I sowed all my tomato seeds, some as old as 1998, a couple have germinated from those. The little pots are just potted on from punnets.

This week, in the week leading up to the full moon I will be sowing my pumpkins and squashes for Summer. So a wonderful productive Winter and hopefully Summer to come. All year round gardening here in Healesville.
Dayla
ps I ate my first asparagus spear today!

Rag Rug finished and in position

Hi there,
Here are some snaps of my finished rag rug.

The photos are taken from each end.
It is about 3 1/2 metres long and is in 3 sections. Laced together so I can undo a section if I need to chuck it in the washing machine.
It took a month or two but was good to make. Very therapeutic actually, in 2 ways. The first is the repetitive action, focusing on the process. And secondly I used up a lot of otherwise ugly or unsuitable for patchwork fabric.
I have made round ones before but this was my first rectangular one. Made going up a side and flipping it over and going up again and flipping, etc.
I did have a problem with some of the edges though. As the fabrics were of different weights the stitch size was quite different and this meant the  width started to vary. I got so caught up in the doing I didn't pay much attention to the sides and as you can see, it bulges in one spot. But that's ok because there is a doorway there and the swelling helps to keep it in place. Mind you it is very heavy and thick and isn't going to slip around at all.

Had to snap the suns rays shining through what I thought was smoke from our chimney but M thought it was mist from the mountains. He is such a romantic!

Just beautiful!

Dayla

Rag Rug fun

Well its been a while since I blogged.
Don't know why, just been busy with things and forgetting to photograph stuff when it happens.

The weather has been so cold and wet staying indoors is a real good thing to do. Although I itch to get out into the garden again. But you do what you need to do.
I had lots of bits and scraps of fabric I have collected, found and been given over the years and every now and then it gets on top of me.
So I went through my collection/stash and pulled out all the bits I can make yoyos out of and all the strips for putting into a rag rug. Some were not strips but just ugly fabric which went ripped into strips would fit in well with other ugly fabrics. So here are a collection of photos of the progress of my first rectangular rag rug for the floor I have made.

Here you can see the fabric piles arranged in a rough order of how I will put them together.
I decided to do light then dark so when the light is low and it is on the floor it will look stripey.

To get you started have a look at this site http://www.alpacabytes.com/2010/01/13/how-to-make-a-rag-rug-toothbrush-rug/
The video they offer is really good. There are lots of you tube videos for how to do it. That's where I got started.
So you can see the brown strip is like the foundation. It is not seen when finished so can be anything at all. It is an old sheet torn up.

Anyway here are the pictures of the rug as it grew. You can see the sides go in and out. That is rather unfortunate. When doing a rectangle you must pay attention to your edges and before you turn over to start the next row. Measure it to make sure it is the required size. You can add and subtract a stitch as you go to do this. I just got carried away and didn't really care, just wanted to get this fabric used up. But it is rustic and so I don't care. It will insulate the corridor at the end of the house where we can't get underneath to insulate the floor. It will insulate from the top.
Stay tuned for rag rug 2 that I will join with this one when it is on the floor. Making them in 2 lots will make it easier to wash them.
They should fit in the machine ok.
Dayla