Change in depth of field

In photography the talk about "depth of field" is constant. It really refers to the area you wish to focus on and how wide or close that focus is. Lately my depth of field has been too close and I find it has taken some of the joy away. This photo is of a garden bed that we have found an insidious weed in. My husband has been working so hard on removing it as he knows it stresses me.

But when you look at the garden by standing back and expand the depth of field, it is a lovely garden. But I had lost the focus and just saw all the areas that I have not dealt with, focusing on the negative not the positive.

Focusing on the weeding, the dock and greeblies in the lawn, the rampant items and not the flowers, fruit and overall pleasure. I have been doing that with the house too. What needs to be done, cleaning etc, instead of enjoying the space.

Aaron has an area to relax and we have a lovely deck and great vege garden. But all I had thought of is what was not planted and weeded rather than enjoying what has been.

Peasgood nonsuch apples

Fabulous Feijoas

It has affected my craft as somehow I see the crafting as work, rather than pleasure again. Maybe making list of what I need to do is not good. I need to pick up and do something that I want to do.

I want to focus on being fit and healthy after my Operations but feel that the everyday and mundane somehow take over and don't allow that time.

I saw an article about the best hot cross buns in NZ - My kids still think mine are the best!!!

A finished scrap quilt

I have finally sandwiched, quilted and bound this patchwork. Another quilt ready to be sent to the orphanage at Hope Homes International. This quilt I made totally improvisational. But to give it some structure I used a 1 inch strip of red in random places. It has a lovely flannelette back to be snugly on a bed. Pleased to get it done as it has been sitting in the wardrobe for a wee while.

I just stippled it as the batting was a lot of leftover bits, so stippling for quilting keeps it altogether. I am trying to do all my mending and bits lying around. I have a new overlocker I have not yet used because I just cannot start another project. But have cleared it to the point that there is a space to put it. So when I come back from my work trip I will have some fun with it. In the meantime my mending meant I had to learn a new skill. 

I taught myself how to do shirring. I love shirring but have just been too scared of it as it looks so complicated. But it really is not. The blue is the practice and the shirt is now mended. Four not quite even or straight rows, but I am pretty pleased.

Linking to these places and Crazy mum quilts. and 

An new hall seat from upcycled chairs

Last night I finished this. Completely upcycled hall chair. Hammered, nailed, glued, painted and upholstered by me. I asked Aaron to come and see the result and he actually liked it. He thought it was going to end up being a tacky piece of ick that he would have to destroy somehow.

Eli determined to be able to sleep on it

9.20pm when I finished and it was put in the Hall 

Eli's comment was "A seat is only good if you can sleep on it. So he decided to try that and ended up with his foot stuck through one of the slats and had to have parental assistance to extricate himself!

I am particularly pleased with the material and paint match. From my favourite store - Femme de Brocante - I purchased the Annie Sloan chalk paint (paris grey with a 1/3 paris grey and 2/3 old white mix on the middle slats) and the fabric for the cushion. There was a much "safer" fabric choice of grey with white dots. But after a bit of debate I decided this fabric would at least give it some individuality. 

reupholstering - really pleased with my neat finish.

Some of my tools at this stage. Cutting the foam for the seat was not easy.

You win some and you loose some. I really wanted to get this right so after painting and waxing the chairs I used the previous seat tops to template on cardboard and then put in situ to set the correct space for the joining blocks. If I had looked closer I would have realised that seats were straight so all that time spent shaping has left a rounded seat that slightly protrudes. Blast! 

Painted and ready to create seat base and topper - see the joining blocks in the middle.

So this hall seat started as two broken $5 chairs from the dump shop. I had to construct and glue a new strut in and then do various other gluing and filling as well as a bit of pattern making to work out how to get them to hold together the best. I found using power tools really relaxing as my concentration meant a clear mind at the end, not muddled by other things.

Linking to these places and Crazy Mum Quilts

My latest adventures

beach art

So my eldest turned 14 - wow how did that happen. The next weekend while the youngest was at Soccer trials Jakob and I went for an hour and half walk to the beach and back. Even though it is summer it was cool. Jakob picked handfuls of tiny tiny stones and threw them specifically to make artistic patterns in the sand. We then took photos to analyse whether it looked good or not

The beach always has driftwood houses built. This one was well past high tide and survived well. If the weather was icky it would be the place to retreat to.

The walk goes past about 25 plum trees. A couple still had some very ripe plums on them to snack on the way.

Post operation I have now been permission to get back in the pool. So am doing a couple of mornings at aquasize and then some family length swimming time.

Turning these two chairs into a hallway bench seat is well in progress. Loving it so far, just need to finish.

There has been a lot of travel for work to catch up on the time out from the operations and so a bit of stitching has occurred on a few flights. Sometime I have been too tired on the way home, to do anything.

I wanted to get into running and was managing to get started when my calf muscles pinged a couple of times. Not good. Now I can do these things my body is letting me know that it is a bit old!!

A walk on a hot day to our favourite place. Two days after the walk a huge fire raged and thousand of people were evacuated. The area is now just burnt out.

This was climbing almost to the top of Sugar Loaf. I have not been able to go up for five years. I was so thrilled to be heading back to getting views.

My gorgeous boys.

One quilt leads to another...

In my last post I showed a scrap quilt made of my big bag of strips. Thrilled that the patchwork was finished, I completed a blog post. The next day I found a pile more strips from that same scrap bag that in my sorting I had put elsewhere.

So all inspired, I thought I should crack on and get all the scraps used. 

I sewed them as before but into a long oblong that when folded in half created two squares. Then I put the squares right side together,. sewed it as though I was doing half square triangles.  

And I got it wrong!!! I wanted the stripes going the opposite way. 

So a bit of unpicking and some resewing and I ended up with a different pattern.

I had seen this on someone else's blog but can't remember whose. If I find it then I will add the details to this post. 

In the spirit of using every single one of my scrap strips I then sewed the remainder around as borders. It still needs to be a little bit bigger. So as I cut things wrong in the next few months I will add them on to finish the quilt. So another quilt for Hope Homes International. And a finish enough that this can go into the cupboard until later.

Linking to these places and crazy mum quilts.

Never ending strip quilt - Finished

Finally another patchwork top finished for the Orphans at Hope Homes International. I still have one waiting to be quilted and bound but decided to do some simple sewing instead.  Over my two convalescences I have found it very hard to concentrate on projects etc. So I wanted something that would fill a need but help me to be creative without being taxing. 

I emptied my entire bag of leftover strips. slowly over weeks I put them into piles of their respective widths. Then I chain sewed them together. From there I used the technique that Missouri Star Quilt Company call - The jelly roll race.

It is a very quick assembly, though because I had different sizes I had to put it together in sections rather than one whole. Using a whole bag of leftovers has been great - BUT there are still some leftovers so that might be the beginning of the next quilt!!!

Thrilled to have a finish, it has been great being able to craft without it being taxing. This is a finish for FAL2017 and I link to Crazy Mum Quilts and these places.

An upcycle finish

For a while now I have been upcycling shirts into other clothing. The one I consistently do is to make business shirts into nighties. I choose linen and cotton so they are lovely to wear. This is three shirts into one nightie.

I actually had it cut out before I went into hospital last time, but did not get it made. My other ones are wearing thin so I had to hop to it.

I started with these three shirts

It has been a good time to sew as the summer weather has been like winter. Colleen and I at the river on a day which was meant to be 26 degrees C but, like all other days, ended up cold and windy.

Linking to Crazy mum quilts and these links as well as being my first 2017 FAL.

Cooking from the books - Annabel Langbein

We have a lot of pork mince at the moment as we grew a pig on Aaron's Aunties Farm. So when Aaron gave me Annabel Langbein's latest Celebrate Summer magazine while I was in hospital, I noticed this recipe: Banh Mi Burgers. We love Asian flavours and I had all the ingredients.

I did not want to do burgers so I chose one of her "go free range" options on the page - turn the meat into meatballs.

As it was going to be a meal on rice I made a slightly larger quantity of the salad and added some finely shredded cabbage to the veges when marinating them. 

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It made a gorgeous meal which Aaron and I loved. One of the boys like the salad but not the meatballs and the other boy liked the meatballs but not the salad. I would definitely make this again.

Another Maker in the family

Although I encourage both my boys to be doers and makers of things, it is only my youngest who is really interested. This year he has decided to be retro and make his own skateboard. It has taken a huge amount of work. Pattern drafting, template making, sanding, a big mistake with the holes for the second set of trucks.

The back

The front

The pose!!

He has persevered and with a little help from Pop to fix the mistake - WOW. Diligent, persistent and consistent in applying himself. I am so impressed.