It's raining!

After a hot weekend, it's raining at my house. Our last Adelaide house (2009-2010) was on a main road. We had never lived on such a major road before, but we didn't mind it at all. In fact there were some things that I just loved about living on a main road. Well, not the carpark that it became in the morning peak hour traffic, but I really did love our main road when it rained. I love the sound of rain. Rain on the roof is such a soothing sound I think. I also love the swoosh sound of cars driving by and there's more of that swoosh sound when you live on a main road! Our new house here in Melbourne is not on a main road, but it is a busier road than the last house and I am enjoying that swoosh sound this morning as I sit in my sewing room. Rain on the roof, cars swooshing by and I'm sewing. What a life!

view from a window

Pasties for Father's day.

We had pasties for dinner tonight. They were a joint effort between a bunch of us here at Rosemary Hill. Three types of fillings, two types of pastry and about 50 to 60 pasties. (There were quite a few of us! And we all love leftovers.) We had chicken, pork and vegie pasties, lamb and vegie pasties, and beef, bacon, cheese and vegie pasties. We started out with sheets of puff pastry and when they ran out Mrs 25 made some shortcrust pastry to finish up with. She and Miss 13 were pastie builders extraordinaire! They tasted wonderful. My favourite vegies for pasties are carrot, sweet potato and zucchini, which my Bradley grated up for me with the trusty food processor. See, a joint effort.

There was no sewing here this weekend. Sad, but true. Yesterday we went for a drive to see water. We have had some wild weather here this weekend with plenty of rain and the creeks are rushing with water. Dams are overflowing and there is lots of water! Doesn't happen that often here so I was keen to get out and about to see it. There have been rooves off, trees down, and blackouts. Not very serious fortunately and I can still hear the cars outside swooshing on a wet road. (I love rain!)

Cloudy, with rain.........

Woke up this morning to a gloomy day. Never fear, least you think this may become an Eeyore kind of post! I loooooove gloomy days! (I also happen to love Eeyore. I much prefer a sensible, down-to-earth pessimist any day! I'm also quite partial to the anxiety-ridden Piglet. Hmm...... wonder what that says about me?) No sun shining in my eyes as I walked out the door this morning. Lovely. And then, it rained! Just to complete my day! It has been a wonderful day!!!

• I just want to point out here to all those of you who think I may have lost my mind, we don't actually have that many cloudy days here. Mostly the sun shines so brightly that you have to wear protective eyewear (sunglasses!) whenever you venture out. If the sun was hidden from us for long periods of time, I am sure I would miss it. As it is.........
  

"Give me a home among the gum trees......."

These leaves were part of my view through Cheryl and Ian's window whilst away. (They are friends of Loz and I loved being able to stay in their pretty cottage while we stitched! Thanks guys!) I sat and stitched and loved the gum trees outside the window while I stitched. So very Aussie to me, but I think Cheryl and Ian's neighbours have made their gum trees look even better with their paint job! The green and blue just looked so wonderful together!

Whilst we were there it rained. Not much. But when you live in South Australia, you enjoy every drop of rain that comes your way. We listened to the rain on the roof and ventured outside to smell and feel the rain too! I'm off to sew!

Raining!

Just incase you hadn't noticed while reading South Australian blogs, I thought I might mention the fact that it has been raining here. We just love rain. We don't usually have much rain normally, but after the past few years of drought we appreciate rain even more than usual. So, we don't get much rain, but it's more that.

1. I love the sound of rain on our tin roof.


2. Rain smells so good. So fresh.


3. Puddles are such fun. And versatile. There's the kind that is perfect for little feet to splash in and the kind just made for cars to splash up onto the footpath. Then there's the kind of puddle that forms a pond and calls to ducks.


4. Being inside, warm and dry, is such a cosy feeling when it's cold and wet outside.


5. Playing in the rain is exhilarating, and fun! Especially when a hot bath or shower is nearby as a secondary activity.


6. Rain makes waterfalls gush and fills our local river with rushing water.


7. It also fills our reservoirs so that we can drink and shower.


8. Rain makes my garden green. It makes the hills green.
   

So, in short, I love rain!!! This has been a great winter for rain. We South Aussies just feel so blessed to have had as much rain as we have had. Hope it continues!

A little more driving

When we left Adelaide yesterday morning it was raining. Looks like we took that rain with us to Ballarat because when we woke up this morning it was raining. Ballarat is on level 4 water restrictions and is very dry, so we felt it entirely appropriate to get excited about the rain in an Adelaide way. The photo of the leaves on the wet bituman is a tribute to the rain in Ballarat.

Our first port of call this morning (Okay, after the breakfast stop and after the jumper buying stop - did I mention that it was cold and that a certain child didn't think I meant it when I told him to pack 2 jumpers? In fact he so didn't think that I meant it that he didn't even bring 1 jumper!) was the Ballarat Botanical Gardens. The Gardens are across the road from Lake Wendouree which is quite strangely an empty lake (with jetties and rowing club houses and fishing clubs lining it's edges). We didn't bring anywhere near enough rain to fill it unfortunately, so it's still strangely empty! Just after we entered I was very taken with this lion. He seems to be an incredibly happy lion, but looking at his face fills my head with the song "Never Smile At A Crocodile". He is obviously an anthropormophised lion because he seems to have the kind of teeth you get after having been to an orthodontist for some years, rather than the kind of teeth you need to tear flesh from bones!

Everyone was happy at the Botanical Gardens actually - despite the cold! We had a good look around and then we drove to Melbourne. Melbourne is big. (I guess you all know that!) And colourful. I think if I had to describe it in one word colourful would be the word I would use. Colourful freeway barriers, colourful buildings, just colourful! We are here for a couple of days so hopefully we will see some sights!

Rain and STILL Inspired Stitches!

For the last week or so we have had rainy weather. This is very exciting (in a really sad way) to Adelaide people! At our house we had about 84 mm of rain in April and have had 12 mm so far in May. The rain in the photo below was last Saturday.

Yes, I am STILL talking about Inspired Stitches. I was reading Peg's blog tonight about her weekend away with her sewing friends. She said that she was very blessed to have her stitching friends in her life and I thought that I hadn't conveyed to you just how much fun it was to meet other sewers at Inspired Stitches. Each unit at Westminster school slept 4 people and our unit was so much fun! It was also a wonderful feeling to be in a room full of people who love to stitch. On a swap note I sent off my Redwork Cushion Swap (that Maree organised) and it was received by Chookyblue on Friday. (So relieved! I worry until they are received. What can I say? I could worry for Australia!!!) She should be blogging about it today or tomorrow so go over and have a look at my stitching and cushion. I designed my own redwork stitchery (you may remember the drawing I showed a little sneak peek of) because I know Chookyblue loves wildflowers! I was quite pleased with it when I finished. I am spending some time this week getting organised (translation - resurrecting my trashed sewing room!) and then I will sew! Hope your week is wonderful too!

A quiet month blogwise.

It has been a quiet month blogwise for me this month. Not much has been happening here. Not much blogworthy anyway. (I'm figuring no-one is really interested in the washing I have done. Clothes, dishes or floors.) One of those times when just existing seems to take all of my time. I read the blogs of those who have recently had babies and marvel at all they do.

I did finish the rug for Mrs 23's as yet unborn child. I am really pleased with it. It's a great pattern and I just loved all the knitting and the complete absence of purling. (You see, no matter how many things I knit, deep down I'm not a knitter! I hate to purl! It just doesn't come naturally to me.) I crotcheted an edging which I was really pleased with too. I used Cleckheaton Country 8 ply, a 5.5mm circular needle, and a 5.5mm crotchet hook. I enjoyed knitting it, but did get sick of it. I think that's why I like to have lots of things on the go at once, but I was determined to finish it so resisted the urge to start another project. It doesn't take much to distract me!

As soon as it was finished I rushed to my local yarn shop to buy this Cleckheaton pattern book. Miss 16 fell in love with a cabled beret at the shops. She loved the cables, but not the colours they had, and asked if I could knit her one like it. I had a look around on the wool company websites at their patterns and discovered a pattern close to the one she liked in this book.

This is a brilliant book! Heaps of hats, berets, socks, mittens, scarves and even the odd pair of slippers and hottie covers! Most of the sized items come in four sizes. 6 months, 2-4 years, 6-8 years and woman. This week I knitted the cabled beret and I'm sure I will be using this book a lot more!

Here is the cabled beret. Sideways. I don't know how this happened, because when I put this photo into blogger it definitely wasn't sideways, but there you go! I think you can still see what it's like, so it stays sideways. Fortunately Miss 16 loves the beret. She is off on a school camp next week and wanted to take it with her and was anxiously awaiting it's completion, so I'm not sure if she REALLY loves it or is just relieved that I finished it.

It has been raining here again in Adelaide. So far this month we have had 45mm. We are still excited! I don't think that rain's novelty has worn off yet. Maybe it never will.

Baking

Okay, I have to say up front that I'm not much of a cook and that this is actually a photo of Miss 16's baking, not mine. However, one of my goals for May is to bake more for my hungry and appreciative children. I made cheese puffs and vegetable soup for lunch today. Cheese puffs are a favourite around here. They're kind of like scones except quicker and easier!



Cheese Puffs

2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
dash of pepper
1 cup of grated cheese
1 cup of milk

Preheat oven to 230 degrees celcius. Sift flour, baking powder, salt and pepper into a bowl. Mix in grated cheese. Make a well and add milk. Stir and place spoonfuls of mixture onto baking paper on a tray. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes or until golden. Great with soup!

Oh! Speaking of cheese puffs and soup, it has been raining all weekend! (Perfect soup weather!) Last night we even had hail! Boy, was it loud! We have a tin roof and it's lovely to be in a nice warm bed listening to rain on the roof! So far today we have had 17mm of rain, something we are all really excited about!

Remember this?

I finally got to my sewing machine today. First time in more than a week! I know, how did I survive? I was not well last week and busy too. There always seems to be so much to do. This photo was taken last year when I finished sewing the first cushion covers for the window seat Bradley built me. (Did you always want a window seat? It was my fondest dream from a young age, and Bradley made my dream come true!) My window seat is quite wide because the window it sits infront of is 2.7 metres long! So I needed five cushions, not one as you see here. I made the five back cushions and four of the seat cushions (so nearly finished!), but seemed to get stuck on the fifth seat cushion. Nearly 12 months later I've finished the fifth seat cushion! I'm not sure why this cushion was so hard to do, it wasn't hard to make today so what was my problem? I think it's something to do with my superhero alter-ego, the Procrastinator. (Ever watched the Amanda Show? "I'll save you.... e-ven-tu-ally!") I'm so glad to have them finished! Now I want to make another set of covers so that I can wash them easily!

It's hard to believe that today is the last day of March! This year is really rushing by. Thank you for your kind comments about Miss 11's bunnies that she made! She was thrilled by them! She was worried that her bunnies wouldn't get any comments, I don't know why, because they are so very sweet. Well, here's looking forward to April. In April I plan to shun the Procrastinator and sew lots of warm clothes for my kids to wear. (It's finally thinking about being cool!) The weather bureau is forcasting 'rain' for Wednesday. I'm very excited! They haven't forecast 'rain' for a long time. Normally they only forecast 'showers' so I'm hoping for more water this week!

It Rained!

And here is the proof. A total of 8.8mm yesterday and today. Such excitement at our house. Mr 7 grabbed a golf umbrella and paraded around on the paths out the back. Miss 11 and I were much more civilised. We waited till the rain stopped and tiptoed out in our bare feet to feel the puddles. Everyone else is much too grown-up to get excited about rain. Rain always used to be such a given. Growing up in Adelaide autumn and winter meant rain. Galoshes, raincoats and rainhats, rubber boots, walking to school and wearing slippers in class once you got there. Dad watching football on tv and Mum knitting whilst it rained outside. Washing drying infront of the gas heater. All of them happy memories. Now we wonder and talk about rain. I think we talk about it much more than it rains! We are expecting more rain over the next week or so and we're talking about it a lot. Maybe we talk about it so much because we can't water our gardens and our reservoirs are half empty. Maybe this winter it will rain so much we will complain! I hope so!

Quilt-in-a-day

This is a small section of my shaggy flannel quilt. As you can see it is one of those "cheat" quilts. My word, not yours! I always swore I would never make one, but I have and I love it! In fact, I'm going to make another one. It's so warm and quilty so quickly. When I think of all those UFO's insulating my cupboards I feel like flinging open the doors and screaming - "Soooo, yah wanna see what a real quilt looks like? Take a look at this....." Okay, for all of you feeling a little uncomfortable at this point notice that I did say "feel like" not that I have actually done anything so completely loopy or discomforting!!! So, roll on cheat quilting. It's my latest thing.

I also have been looking at the scrappy cabin challenge at Melly and Me and thinking I would like to give it a go. Then when I tuned in to their blog on Friday I discovered that they have a fabric swap going! What's better than having fabric? Getting some different fabric! So race on over to their site before the end of May so that you can join in and get some different fabric too! Today was cool. Well, cool for us (17 degrees celcius maximum) here in Adelaide. Over the last month we have even had some rain which has somewhat revived my sad garden. My seaside daisies have new leaves on them now. Some of them are really dead, but some like this one (above) are coming back. We had 2.4 millimeters of rain here at RH today. Not a lot, but every little bit helps.
Who knew that my rosemary could flower? It never has before, so I was pretty excited to see these flowers. This has been a busy week. Quilting, making birthday presents, visiting homeschooling friends, journaling ;) always, buying fabric, homeschooling, and painting. Xam is using acrylics for the first time on a large scale artwork and is finding it an overwhelming experience. ("I know you can be overwhelmed and underwhelmed, but can you ever just be whelmed?"-Gilmore Girls) Ooops! Sorry. I just "quoted" you. It happens a lot here and you have to be able to do it to keep up with the teenagers! I hope to get his permission to show you his artwork when it's done. I think he's doing a great job!