Old and Large Wooden Hook

This special hook once belonged to my great-grandmother. Now, that could be Mary Margaretta or Elizabeth Jackson, I'm not sure but I will find out!

this large wooden crochet hook once belonged to my great-grandmother

My mother gave this to me recently, I've only used it once to try a rug idea with some thick yarn I have here. That yarn is too stiff to work with, so I hope one day to come across some thick yarn that I can make into a rug using this hook. This old wooden hook is such a special thing, I do appreciate old things that have stood the test of time.

My Parent's Orchard, Spring 2012

As promised, here is an update on my parent's fruit orchard, which we have offered to look after. My mum and dad are finding looking after these an extra burden, but we think this might be a good thing for us to do for several reasons. Besides these citrus trees, there is also a mulberry tree, two mango trees, a lychee bush, a chocolate pudding and a peach-cot.

we started work on these four citrus trees, one lemon, one lime, one mandarin and a lemonade tree

This is the second time we've worked in the orchard, if that is a word you can use to describe these dozen or so scrawny trees that resemble saplings more than the 10 year old trees that they are. Last month I didn't get any photos, but we simply pruned off some bulbous growths on the citrus trees, known as gall wasp. A large amount of growth was removed from the lemon tree unfortunately loosing a lot of flowers. It will take longer for the bug to kill the tree, but its best to remove as much of it as soon as you can.

a promise of things to come, one fine lemon specimen

For this second visit, we concentrated our efforts on a lemon tree which has proven its ability to produce fruit. There was one brightly skinned, fully formed lemon on the tree as testament that our efforts should not end up entirely fruitless. We started by clearing the weeds underneath the tree in a circle from the trunk, that was wider than the tree branches. We used a rake and shovel to remove as much as we could.

the old wooden stairs leading to the fruit orchard

That didn't take too long, especially after wetting the weeds with a hose, so we did a few more citrus trees, a lemonade tree which also had two fruit on it, then a mandarin tree, and one more citrus tree that we think is a lime. Later I went back and did the other lemon tree. I then sprinkled two handfuls of citrus tree fertiliser around the outer circle of each of these five citrus trees. You shouldn't put the fertliser too close to the trunk.

view of the orchard from the top of the stairs

Finally, I spread some sugar cane mulch around each of the five trees on top of the circle we have cleared. I pushed the mulch away from each trunk. We had planned to use a mulching machine to make our own mulch from green and brown leaf matter from elsewhere in the garden, but the old machine wouldn't start despite my father's best efforts. We also had planned to use some old chicken manure as fertiliser, but my mum bought a bag of citrus food to use instead.

I wonder what this adventure will bring, we hope to learn how to look after fruit trees. One day we might have fruit trees of our own, hopefully we will have room for a couple of dwarf varieties, because unfortunately the properties we are considering are around 600m or less! We've promised my parents to return in about a month, and we'll check up on the fruit trees then.

Our Potted Garden, Spring 2012

Spring is drawing to a close so I thought I'd do a mini update on what's happening. We finally have success with tomatoes!

today's cherry tomato harvest, along with a capsicum and a lime

The yellow cherry tomatoes have been the most successful tomato we've managed to harvest from our potted garden. We cut the tiny fruit up and put them on toasted cheese sandwhiches or pop them on top of cheesy veggie pasta bakes. While it grew, I draped the fruit on top of the mesh to keep them off the ground.

potted cherry tomatoes draped on top of some mesh

The lime tree also has fruit on it. From time to time, we take a lime off it to use in cooking, like in David's meatballs and spaghetti, which is one of my most favourite meals.

detail of potted dwarf lime tree fruit

The garlic didn't work out, so we removed it when Brian was here the other week, and in its place I planted some beetroot seeds, under the supervision of my father-in-law. Now they have sprouted, I'm looking forward to some freshly baked beetroot and steamed beetroot leaves.

beetroot sprouts planted a week ago where the failed garlic was

Finally, another job we had to do this spring was to repot some chilli. Potted chilli prefers to be repotted every year if you can manage it, we managed to transfer some that were in the smaller pots into the 30cm pots which is more like the size they need. We get so much chilli fruit constantly throughout the year. My favourite use is to dry it and blitz it into dried chilli flakes which is great for cooking or even added at the last moment to a bowl of pasta for some extra zing!

some of our chillies have been spoiled with new large pots

4 week old potted cotton

Here is a picture taken today of my potted cotton, the eldest sprout is 4 weeks old today. I now have 3 potted cotton sprouts, I planted 3 seeds a week ago but only one of those has sprouted.

3 potted cotton sprouts

 The 4 week old sprout is already showing signs of pest damage, I knew it would be bad but I didn't think it would show this soon. I was hoping to grow organic cotton by removing the pests by hand, but now I'm not sure if I'll be able to do that.

4 week old potted cotton sprout with pest damage

I wonder what this adventure will bring? Will it be a success, or just a bundle of useless fluff? I guess we will just have to wait and see ...

Easy Outfit for a Teddy

I'm not sure why my mum gave me this teddy bear, her arm was off and she needed repairing. Mum said she thought I might like to repair it, so I have. Then of course she needed a new outfit!

a repaired and dressed teddy ready for a new home

The dress is simply two 6 round granny hexagons with a skirt added to make a dress. After joining the shoulder seams and the two pieces together at the back, I over lapped them at the front and added the pink skirt. I did all 3 parts in different colours so you can see what I mean. Then I lengthened each sleeve with a contrasting colour.

I decided she needed pants to go with it so whipped the trousers while my toddler son slept. I used a tiny bit of vintage floral print my mother gave me. The pants came out a lot better than the last pair I made, so I must be getting better at it! I think I might try and give this back to my mum, I wonder what she will think?

Cotton Bow Tie with Pink Stripe

I made this bow tie up quickly a week or two ago. I love men's ties that have a little pink in them, I just think they are so pretty!

cotton bow tie with a pink stripe by Teena S. Murphy

This is the first bow tie I've made in multi-colours, I just made this one to see how the stripe would look. The next bow tie needs to be stouter and shorter, so it bunches up better. This time, I just wrapped some chains around the middle part. I popped this into a package I sent to Ronda, who won my first giveaway on my facebook page. I know she is a crafty person, perhaps she will find a use for the bow tie.

Variegated Wool Scrap Yarn

Here is some more variegated yarn made from felted wool scraps. This is time consuming to do, and produces a yarn that is tightly spun. This time its just white and pinks, similar to the first variegated scrap yarn I made.

variegated yarn made from felted wool scraps

I made this yarn to test my new poplar drop spindle my father-in-law made for me. I quickly made it into a 5 petal flower to see the result straight away. I'm keeping all my wool scraps separate from other scraps so I can always make my own variegated yarn if I want.

a simple flower made from variegated wool scrap yarn

Poplar Drop Spindle

My father-in-law has made me a second drop spindle, this time its smaller than the first and is made from a raw piece of poplar from his property. The raw natural bark is left on t he spindle creating a rustic look.

drop spindle made from raw poplar wood

I love this new drop spindle, as soon as I found a hook for it I put it straight to work! I had a go spinning some felted wool scraps into variegated yarn. This smaller spindle actually took me more time to get used to than the first drop spindle, which is larger.

detail of the spindle hook and natural poplar bark

A Sweater for Scout

I made this sweater by joining 4 small granny squares, for a toy called 'Scout'. I made it up quickly so my son could take him to bed with him as a comfort toy.

a sweater for Scout, made of 4 small granny squares

This toy is perfect for Thomas to take to bed because it sings him songs to go to sleep, and you can programme them to say your child's name/ I would never spend this much on a toy like this though, so its a special gift from Aunt Debbie to enjoy.

back detail of 4 granny square sweater

I simply did 4 granny squares, each have four rounds. Because the toy is short and stout, it had to be a short, wide sweater. Two pairs of squares were joined with invisible stitch down the sides, then the pairs were joined at the corners to form arm holes. Lastly, I did 6 rounds of sc to form a turtle neck. I quickly chose colours from my acrylic stash that matched the toy. Now my son can grab the short of the toy to comfort him at night.

Recycled Magnet Puzzle

I've been saving these magnets to make a puzzle for Thomas to play on the fridge. I didn't buy any of these magnets, they were free.

puzzle made from recycled magnets

I simply printed up 4 pictures of the first eight words Thomas can now say. They were up, dada, mama, baba, cheese, milk, banana and apple. For now, he points to the pictures and says the words. When the time comes I can cut off the words to make two magnets that can be matched together for a puzzle game.

recycled magnets found in junk mail

These magnets are on our fridge, I'm not sure how they will last because I simply glued the printed pictures on with craft glue. To make a durable game I will need to laminate them, but I don't own a laminater. Maybe I should get one?