cut come again

cut come again

serendipity this evening when preparing dinner...first barbecue of this lovely weather weve been having...burgers, check. burger buns, check. salad? ummm...bugger. then up pipes frank, dont worry mum, ive grown some in my greenhouse...god love 10 year old eager gardeners, eh? it was blooming delicious, too.

cut come again

Jam time again

Jam time again

I came home from a week on the Gold Coast for work this weekend to a raised garden bed overflowing with rhubarb. Time to make jam. It was very timely, because I just ate the very last scrape of the last batch on yesterday mornings toast. Now there are six jars of the stuff cooling in the back of my cupboard. Rhubarb is my favourite jam and it is super-easy to make. Now to use the rest of the crop... I foresee crumbles, cakes and tarts coming up.

Jam time again

The shed gets shared again!

The shed gets shared again!

I just got a CD of photos off to RelaxShaxs Deek Diedricksen, who is working on a new book on tiny homes and buildings and asked if Id be willing to share some of the photos of our shed/sanctuary/studio (and a few of my old original cabin too...)

Deeks a great guy, full of talent, energy and plans--if you havent seen his Tiny Yellow House videos on YouTube, youre in for a treat.  Theyre fun and funny and inspiring!

Deeks like a throwback to my back-to-the-land days, willing to try things, exploring outrageous solutions that actually WORK.  Ive just been reading his Humble Homes book with its energetic drawings--as he describes it, “Gary Larson meets Bob Vila” housing/fort/small house/shack book.  

Ill admit its got me thinking, too...

And by the way the photo is from yesterdays artwork at the little desk...


The shed gets shared again!

when leaves turn to boobs and back again

when leaves turn to boobs and back again

i promised you a funny story about the quarter quilt didnt i? well, once id pieced all of my leaves, which took forever, i wasnt really sure where i was going with it, so i took it to mums and laid it on the floor for advice...she took one look at it and very regretfully told me that one or two of them looked like boobs in silhouette...well, of course once id seen a boob in one of them, i saw boobs in all of them and realised all my hard work had gone to waste and sat down to cry. but then i decided theres no way i was going to be flummoxed by a load of boob blocks and that i HAD to come up with an alternative...i started slashing and re-piecing so my boobs looked more like leaves again (now theres a sentence i didnt think id ever write!)

sometimes i think i get so involved with something i forget to take a step back and take in the whole picture - it took fresh eyes to see something that i just didnt notice until it was pointed out to me. but actually i relish a challenge like this and once id got over my disappointment, the discovery of trying something else out and pushing my imagination was quite a buzz - and a bloody relief when it worked!

please excuse the quality of this photo, blogger seems to turn
a perfectly lovely image into something weird

when leaves turn to boobs and back again

The Shed gets around yet again!

The Shed gets around yet again!

I didnt realize wed been featured on the excellent Shedworking blog back in September till I looked at the stats for this blog and saw the link--you can find it here: 

http://www.shedworking.co.uk/2010/09/shed-of-reality.html

The blog is already  in our list of links in the sidebar...a great place to visit!

If youre interested in a shed of your own, you may have noticed Ive linked to the book of the same name (and from the same folks), Shedworking, by Alex Johnson. (As he says, no relation!) 

I loved it...full of great advice and inspiration, and dozens of links.  (In my copious spare time, I plan a book review...soooooon...)  Meanwhile, check it out!





The Shed gets around yet again!