Happy New Year

Fireworks displays every where tonight to say good bye to 2009 and welcome in the New Year and New Decade
but have you noticed the very best light display tonight is
a big, beautiful full moon.



Down here in Tassie she is slightly veiled behind a light mistiness and slips behind the clouds and then peeps out but when she finds a comfortable place to be she is the sweetest moon of the softest, plumpest yellow and I am sure she is smiling for the year we have had and the year to come.



May your New Year bring love, happiness, a life of purpose and heart of giving.

Happy New Year to all my dear readers and all who you hold dear in your hearts.

Don't you just love the plants in your garden that just grow.

They don't ask for lots of attention, or any at all,
they produce flowers and new plants but no one thinks they are a weed.


As long as there is some occasional rain they are happy
and they make me happy too.

The year is almost over and I am

...gently easing back into the land of dollies.



A special little doll will be travelling over the seas to New York to help celebrate sweet Janie's first birthday.








Here is one of my Christmas dolls with her new best friend.

Thanks Mary.

And more Christmas dolls here.

Thanks for sharing Martha

vintage doll clothes

When I was snooping around looking for the ultimate second hand books to give Stephen for Christmas I found a bag of old magazines and knitting patterns for $3.



I was going to save it for Christmas day but I decided I deserved a little present for my dedication to making Christmas so I opened it on Christmas Eve.



There were some rather boring 80's knitting patterns and torn out patterns from magazines, some of which I already had but then I hit paydirt - a series of magazines all turned inside out so I couldn't see their covers but they looked hopeful.



Hopeful indeed.
All were magazines from the mid sixties, all were full of dolly knitting patterns.
Plus an Enid Gilchrist book of knitting and sewing patterns for doll clothes.


How lucky was I?







I think my mum actually had this teen doll mag.

















Some of the patterns are repeated but I am not complaining.

Thank you Op Shop Angel

Vintage shopping

"Every year the same thing happened.
At the beginning of November she made up her mind that this time, for once, she would get her Christmas shopping done early.
She went as far as writing out a list - and there, for several weeks, the matter rested.....


Besides, successful present-choosing depends very largely upon the right atmosphere, upon the contagious zest of crowds, upon sudden inspirations and perceptions, heightened rather than otherwise by a certain sense of pressure in space and time.
To do it cold- bloodedly, in a half empty shop, without any difficulty or competition, is as joyless as a mariage de convenance.
So perhaps it was just as well,
she told herself consolingly,
that she had,
as usual,
left it till the middle of December."


from Mrs Miniver by Jan Struther 1939



So nice to know I am not alone, rather I have vintage shopping habits.

Boxing Day Bliss

Ah, Boxing day.
Is this not THE perfect day?



Cricket on the TV to keep the menfolk happy.
Plenty of left overs, no cooking required.



Presents to explore and enjoy.
This year, lots of books to read.



A totally lazy day, no one is expected to do anything.


I read Mrs Miniver, a Christmas present,
on the new garden seat, a Christmas present,
while sipping tea from my new china mug, a Christmas present.


I think the whole world was still asleep.
It was just me and three black hens and Charlie the duck.



Eventually I was found by two black cats as well and then unfortunately the mosquitoes found me.

Kate mooched out to join me too.
I put my book aside , we talked about yesterday.


It was a really nice day.

Early morning presents.

Mum and Dad came round for breakfast.

I made my contribution for Christmas lunch: prawn cocktail with THE most delicious dressing, a recipe straight from the pages of a 1970s recipe book and a silverbeet salad topped with a red onion and ham marmalade and an interesting red dressing - very festive.



Lunch at my sister's, she did a mighty job with very little help.



Home to eat whatever we could be bothered to get,watch a movie, ring distant relatives and for me, a very early night.

I think I have managed to catch Louis' bug that has been making his life difficult for the past couple of weeks.
Oh well, it's a good time for a rest.

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas Day
and that you can enjoy these lovely , slow days that lead to the end of the year.

A Merry and Joyful Christmas to You

Mum and Dad came round to visit late yesterday.

Mum had some photos that Uncle Ron had sent to Dad, pictures of Dad, his three brothers, Fred, Ron and Kevin and his Mum and Dad, Ada Jane and George.



Juts how cute was my Dad, little Dessie.

I had seen the photo above before but not the other two.

My dad is the second oldest and I think he said there was 16 months between each child.

My Dad was born in 1927 and they lived in the Melbourne suburb of Richmond which was hard hit by the Great Depression in the 1930s.








Look at these little suits, I think Dad is about 12 here.
The baby of the family, Kevin is still in short pants.
This is taken outside their house in Kelso Street Richmond.







And here he is again, in his early twenties.

I think he is rather gorgeous.


Mum was tired yesterday, it has been a hard year for her with Dad's health issues.

She runs the household and cares for Dad.
She has to make all the decisions and take all the responsibilities and lately she has been feeling overwhelmed.


She is almost 80 and still does gardening for other people as well as some volunteer gardening and she is starting to think that it is time to slow down a little.

Went to the market yesterday.






It was quiet but we had fun, even met a couple of blog readers.
I had to leave at the busiest time to go to the opening of the Artrage Exhibition and be a proud mama.
Andy had his photo taken for the paper so I must remember to get a copy.







Kate got lots of lovely feedback about her cards and even sold a few.






She has been working so hard on these.







All set up at the market and in a dream waiting for everything to start.







She only has a tiny space to work in at home and she produces wonderful work,
my goodness it is sometimes hard to remember that she is only 12.

Look who I found getting ready for a snooze late last night.
Shackie once again sleeping on the Little Golden books.
She may be just an ordinary looking Tabby cat but she is the cutest cat around.
She has fur so soft it feels like a little fluffy day old chick, she has the sweetest nature and the most pathetically sweet miaow.
She was the first born of Maggie's litter, also the tiniest and the most adventurous hence her name Shackleton named after Ernest Shackleton the antarctic explorer.
Sweet sweet cat.



Today I plan on spending the whole day making Christmas goodness for the Homespun Market on Saturday.
My Kate and I are having a little Christmas stall , the market is at the Pilgrim Hall in Paterson St, Launceston from 9ish I think through until 3pm.
We were supposed to go last week but Kate's social life got in the way.


I have to duck out from the market between 10.30 and 12 because it is the opening of Andy's Artrage Exhibition at the QVMAG Inveresk.

I am trying to get Louis to put in a guest appearance at the market to help Kate while I am gone. This would be Louis' idea of hell on earth but we'll see.


Now I have to pop down the street to get some more pipe cleaners and embroidery thread and hopefully avoid the rain.

Christmas at our house

I was up quite early yesterday morning.
Not unusual for me but instead of heading into my work table to get a little quiet sewing done I ducked out into the garden.

We are moving towards the longest day, the summer solstice and the sun gets out of bed around 5.30am with daylight savings.
Does that mean it would be sunrise at 4.30 if we didn't have daylight savings?

Sunset is around 8.40 pm and here in Tassie we have a wonderful twilight, so the days are long at the moment.
Long and summery and lots of opportunities to do things like cooking or gardening at unusual times of the day.









So the crazy woman was out in the garden at 5.30, pulling a few weeds but mostly wandering around enjoying the smells and colours of the day.
At the bottom of the garden we have a medium size gum tree that is ablaze with its pretty rose red flowers at the moment.
It is also a magnet for birdlife and me stumbling down there when they were all going through their morning routines sent shockwaves through this distant part of the garden and the birds were ducking and diving and shouting to one another.









The garden still feels so lush though we haven't had much rain lately and the telltale signs of things starting to dry off are there.







Badger found me after a while and we walked together until he and Maggie had a game of chases through the blackwood tree.




















I watered the vegie garden and then headed in for some early morning Christmas cooking, the best time for it , when the day is still cool, the house is quiet and the rest of the family ( and assorted guests) wake to the smell of freshly- cooked- but-not-to- be- eaten- yet fruit mince pies.

This is for Kathy

Yesterday Kate had her Christmas Party,
which now seems to be an annual event begun last year.







Five friends came to stay the night,
go to the pool,
eat tons of food,
giggle and talk most of the night
and generally have a sweet old good time.








I supervised at the pool with help of my trusty pick up and put down crochet work
until Stephen took over so that I could come home and organise tea.










We had sausages, hamburgers and salads, easy stuff.









Lucky I had my super groovy 1958 Camping and Outdoor Cooking to help me out.









Sausages. the essential outdoor cooking ingredient.








Isn't this just the cutest little bird singing on one of the pages.

Calendar Girls

So exciting.
Late last year I joined a website called Red Bubble, a show place and selling venue for lots of beautiful photography.

My old camera was not sophisticated enough to take photos that could be used for anything more than notecards.
That camera became Andy's camera toss camera.
Around the middle of the year I got my wonderful Lumix DMC-LX3 , such a pretty camera.



It has been a huge and often frustrating adventure getting to know this new camera and I am still totally befuddled most of the time but I am learning by trial and error.
Because the photos are much better quality now, a higher resolution, I have been able to make a calendar featuring some of my dolls.








The calendar arrived today and it was so exciting to see my photos of my dolls all bound up together in such a professional looking format.
There is one photo for each month and honestly I have looked at this wonderful thing , oh, about 999 times today.









If any of you should want a copy you can go to Red Bubble and purchase a calendar of your own.

I think you can also buy cards and things featuring my photos too but I haven't really checked that out.


Plus you can explore all the other much more wonderful photography there as well.








This little one is wondering whether she will be Miss July in 2011.