HAND DYED SALE




Using the code WOOLLY10 you will receive 10% off your order on hand dyed yarn or hand dyed wool felt in my Etsy shop until tomorrow night.

*Please note - you must use the code to apply the discount and it does only apply to wool felt and yarn :)
Happy shopping!


Sewing marathon

OK, I exaggerate with the whole "marathon" thing, but I am pretty happy with my sewing this week!
All the tops are made using the Mareen pattern by Cinderella zwergen mode - one of my faves for the girls. All the fabrics are from Crafty Mamas unless otherwise specified.


Butterflies and pink striped jersey by Lillestoff 




I just had to buy this fabric for Mary. It may be hard to see, but it's farmyard animals, and she is a great lover of animals :) Farmyard knit is Lillestoff and pink stripes are Gita. I made it into a dress to really show off that cute print.


I hand dyed the fabrics for this one, I wasn't sure about the yellow neckband but I really like it now. The little mushroom is an iron on velour from Crafty Mamas.


Not a modelled shot for this one, as the little recipient is really under the weather. Isn't it cute though? I may have a hard time getting her to wear it, she won't take off her knitted rainbow dress, even in this warmer weather!

I did make a top for myself too but I'm not happy with it and am currently consulting with some knowledgeable Crafty Mamas for alteration opinions.

What do you think? My husband thinks I'm an amazing sewist, but really the trick is in getting beautiful quality fabric that speaks for itself.

Til next time, God bless you :)

Random creativity

I thought I'd share with you a few of the things that have kept me creatively busy this week (and no, obviously blogging has not been one of them!)


A little weaving cotton.


A little dyeing cotton.


A little watercolour painting.


A little cloth dyeing.


And a little photography.

Not bad for one week hey? I squeezed a fair bit of sewing in too, but that is unfinished.

How about you? Did you get any time to be creative this week? What did you do?



Soft and squishy!


Here are my new yarns and they are all guaranteed to be very soft and squishy! All available in my Etsy shop now :)

Have a great weekend, God bless!

From teacher to student

                                                                                             Image credit

"Oh, so you were a teacher before you became a Mum?"

"You must have a teaching degree, right?"

"Which university did you go to?"

If you're a home educating Mum you've probably heard these statements or almost identical ones at least a hundred times - I know I have.

The questioner's face falls into a sort of bewildered disappointment as I reply in the negative. I'm "just a Mum" after all, so my choice to educate my children at home does not seem legitimate to the average person.

Is a university education always all it cracked up to be? If an individual spends 4 years and thousands of dollars at university in order to become a teacher, does that mean they are a great teacher? Does it mean they know everything and are capable of passing that knowledge on to each child who walks through their classroom door? Certainly, in my experience (all 13 years of it in state schools) that has been far from true.

I don't consider myself to be smart. I have a lot of skills and a few God given talents, but have always been just average when it comes to academics. I'm pretty poor at maths. I'm OK in English. Science is not my forte. And history, well I just find it really hard to retain all that information.

I went to university to do a Bachelor of Early Childhood. I left after 8 months. I hated it. It was boring, confusing, annoying - like a slightly older version of high school and I had had enough of that. I couldn't stand being taught to care for a child that was only viewed as a child, with predictable thought patterns and behaviour, completely ignoring the beautifully created individuality of each child as a person.

Why I am I telling you all this? Because my IQ or ability to perform academically have nothing to do with my aptitude for home educating my children. I don't consider myself a teacher. I do consider myself a student. I learn alongside my children, we share knowledge, we pool our skills and most of all, we enjoy each other's company, living this wonderful life together!

So you see, an institutional qualification is not necessary to home educate successfully. Much more important is a strong faith, a big heart and a huge smile!

Weaving on a rigid heddle loom


I know a lot of you are fascinated by the idea of weaving but are unsure about the whole thing and whether you could actually do it yourself. So, I thought I'd share some of my latest project (my second) with you to help de-mistify the process.


First you set up the warp. This involves clamping the loom and the warping peg to a table, tying the ends onto the warp beam, and then around the warping peg.



This is what the warp looks like when it's all set up. I have used 2 colours for this project, but you can use one colour or many, it's versatile!


In my mind, the warping is the "hard" part (and not all that hard) and the weaving is the "easy" part (which has it's own challenges but is repetitive and relaxing). By weaving one inch red and one inch blue for the weft (the horizontal part) I was able to achieve squares (because I had already set up the pattern in warping by using the same 2 colours).


After cutting from the loom and knotting the ends to prevent unravelling (you can also hem stitch the ends) your project is washed, dried and ready! This is a sweet little table cloth for the cubby house which has been a great practice project. Next to come is a mat for the floor, and I may even try some different techniques - the rigid heddle is just full of possibilities!

So, what do you think? Are you interested in weaving? Perhaps you weave already? I'm looking forward to teaching this art form to my girls, I think they'll love it!


Darker yarns


I usually do bright and light colours, so I thought I'd delve into some darker colours this time. These are available for sale now, though not loaded to my Etsy shop just yet. If you're interested you can leave a comment here or visit my Facebook page :)

Knit and weave


Lots of yarn activity here lately! I finished a Rainbow Dress using my hand dyed yarns in 10 ply. I love the look of it but I'm not sure how much wear she will get out of it now that the weather is warming up. Being 10ply, it's pretty thick and heavy. As others have said, it will make a great long tunic next winter.


I'll absolutely be knitting this pattern again, perhaps a cotton one for the warm weather. The pattern is by Tikki.



And this is my first ever project off my new rigid heddle loom - a stash busting scarf. I intentionally used a wide variety of yarns to see how they perform differently for weaving. 


I learned so much from this project, and it doesn't look nearly as rough as I expected for a first piece. I discovered that hand dyed and handspun yarns are perfect for weaving :)

My joy of all things yarn is not showing any signs of slowing and I'm very happy to say that my hand dyed yarns are selling really well. I'm waiting on my next order to arrive so I can start dyeing again, there will be cotton too :D

The spring weather is so fabulous here at the moment and there is so much good, productive work to do. I hope you're enjoying it as much as I am.
God bless!

This blog is closing!

All posts will now be found at my new site.  Click here to go the the new site.