I love....

I love these creative ways to use pallets.....I would love one in my new work room....yep it is happening....

I can't wait to  have more space and BE MORE ORGANISED....

photo's via here...

What do you think?

♥Jo

happy Sunday......

My shop at Shearwater closed on Friday.....school holidays have begun so I am functioning at a slightly slower pace this weekend. It is sooooo nice. I have been totally consumed with my little Indigo world and while I can put the rest of my life (and my poor family's too ) on hold for a little while I look forward to thinking and doing something else.

On Thursday night two gorgeous 'just left school' Austrian Wwoofers arrived at our house. We have lots of wwoofers (not sure what they are....click through here) and love having the extra help and learning new things about how other people live in other countries. Camilla and Florentyna just graduated from a Steiner School in Austria so I thought they would be perfect at helping me with my Indigo 'stuff'. I do all the painting of wool (my kids do some) and tracing and cutting of the kits and it is very time consuming. How excited am I!!!!! If only they arrived a few weeks ago....or if only they could stay!!!!
They have done some filing, painted wool, painted fleece, made heaps of felting kits and traced loads of horses and mice AND cut them out.....

here is Florentyna painting wool 

and Camilla making felting kits.....

The best bit (well one of the best bits) is that I had some time to open my eyes to other things around here....

Thought you might like an update on Curly.....mouth stained green from eating grass all day.

here he is again with the stunning Salt 'n Pepper

I even had time to notice that baby pumpkins had begun to grow again....yay

and the Poinciana Tree was flowering

and we had a huge bunch of bananas growing - yay again

and the mango tree was bare of fruit....looks like not one mango this season......not so good.

I just picked up the new Donna Hay Magazine because I wanted those biscuits in my kitchen - like real ones not just on the cover of a magazine. Wow I wonder if time will allow that to happen....only time will tell.

but I got this instead.....two tim tams as I felt like some chocolate.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Don't forget if you need anything from Indigo online I am taking orders until the 18th of December and then will be closed until the 16th of January 2012.

Is your life a little crazy too or is it just right????

Lots of love ♥Jo

Today....

I know I have spoken about my Mondays and Tuesdays before and this week was no different....I could totally use a whole other person on these days but instead I rush and rush and some days like today I feel like I haven't really completed anything. I have done lots, but completed...not too much. And it is the completion which has the 'feel good' effect.

Just because I am half mad and not busy enough already I thought I would take on something else....I have become involved in another wonderful opportunity. A space in the beautiful heritage listed "Old Bakery" building in the heart of Mullumbimby town became available and 10 of us are setting up shop full of amazing local, hand made crafts and art pieces. I am sooo excited BUT it means making sure I have enough stock for two shops....ahhhhh.... it will all  be OK.....but more on that next time.

Today I have been receiving more stock and pricing and dyeing mohair for dolls hair and dropping parcels off at the post office and, and, and.....

But I thought I would show you my Night Time project because that is more fun....

At night I am working on a new babies blanket in my Coconut Ice - hand painted chunky, super soft, unplyed yummy wool and mixing up the squares with the natural cream in the same wool. I am using a 10mm bamboo crochet hook so that "completion" comes around quicker. I am loving the colour combination but will have to do a more boyish one next time. 

Oh....and I did have a quick lunch. I have given up bread again....I do this every so often and I definitely feel better for it but then I just give in to temptation and toast and tea is back on the breaky menu. So sea salt and cracked pepper vita grains with local avocado and tomatoes from the garden with more sea salt and cracked pepper on top is my favourite at the moment.

Oh.....and here is the latest autumn rainbow hand painted mohair I have been working on.

Hope you are all well...would love to hear what you are up to.    ♥Jo

wool. wool and more wool.....

I close my shop in school holidays.....I open it up again tomorrow until the end of this school term and "oh my god" - until Christmas. For those of you that are new here, I have a small shop which is jam packed with wool and felt and other craft goodies, books, children's toys and puzzles. I take up a large area outside the shop as well. It is on the grounds of Shearwater - the Mullumbimby Steiner School and is open to everyone....I have customers who travel quite a distance because of the difficulty of finding natural, quality craft items and especially wool felt and I post world wide which is pretty exciting.

Which brings me to today - my last day of frantically trying to restock my supplies of hand painted wool. I had a wonderful customer a few weeks ago who almost took home all my wool in stock so I had a lot to replace. It is quite a time consuming job. I buy all the wool in different plys, soak it, paint it, cook it, rinse it, dry it and then it usually ends up in 50gm balls ($10).....(that is a sit in front of the TV kind of job).  I also sell it in 100gm ($19.50), 200gm ($30)  and if it comes in it 250gm ($36) hanks.

I also sell it in my ETSY store and on my website and am continually experimenting with colour combinations for new listings. I sooooo love what I do!!!! and feel very, very lucky especially on beautiful spring days like today.


Happy about: I have just received a copy of Pip Lincolne's Sew La Tea Do book and can't wait to make a new dress from it. (not her latest book - I haven't won that one yet.)
Reading: the latest issue of Papier Mache Magazine.
Favourite blog post I have read lately - Ivy Nest
Listening to: (sad but true) Australian Business Women's Network Podcasts.
In my craft basket: still stitching together my crochet blanket.....I will get there by next winter, I promise.
Grateful for: the sun and the rain.
Watching: The slap.....have you....what did you think??


Would love to hear from you  ♥ Jo

Jack (John/Sasha) of all trades.....

My little Sasha is a bundle of enthusiasm and energy. He is the family researcher and the family doer. I was going through my photos today while trying to clean up my desktop (ha) and realised how versatile he has been over the last few weeks. 

Firstly, he built a house with Pa for Curly the Sheep to sleep in ....

and here it is again with its bunting ♥♥

Then he made a pair of groovy shorts - red with white pokka dots....

The finished product......he hasn't really taken them off yet.....love the undies.. 

He fell off his scooter (while riding down a hill) and landed himself with 4 stitches in his knee but that didn't stop him from getting behind the sewing machine.

Then their was a cupboard to make with dad....

                            

And sheep to look after.....

and chocolate covered strawberries to make......and eat.

oh and here is Curly at school ♥

School holidays are almost over.....I am a little sad as I am soooo enjoying the house full of laughter and plans for what to make next. I purchased an overlocker a few days ago so am looking forward to having time to make more clothes...

Thanks so much for taking the time to read through my blog....I really appreciate it.

♥♥ Jo

a day of sewing.....a day of joy!!!

I love school holidays.....no getting the kids out of bed, out of the shower, out the door. Everyone can slip into their own little routine. They can wake up when they are ready and I CAN SEW ALL DAY if I want to. Justin's mum is staying with us at the moment and is an amazing knitter/sewer - an all round clever person when it comes to 'making.'

So for Wednesday Jude, myself and Rani all booked ourselves into a day of sewing on the verandah. It is the perfect location as it has huge tables and plenty of room to spread out and cut out, and pin together and what ever else needs doing on a 'SEWING DAY'.

Rani actually was still outside well into the evening as I think I 'kind of' dominated the sewing machine during the day. She chose a beautiful piece of fabric that I had stashed away in my fabric cupboard for about 15 years. I had bought it from an op shop just after she was born and it was perfect for a bag...

And here it is.....she is sooooo clever and extremely patient.....much more than I am when I am sewing.  

I made my first skirt with a zip..........out of a sheet I picked up at the op shop. 

and my first bunting......I was pretty happy with myself. I had fun shooting a 'bunting photo shoot' 

Guess which one is my favourite....?

Have you dedicated a whole day to something lately? 

Would love to hear from you ♥Jo

breathe out....it is school holidays.....

Well I think this....I think "yah school holidays" - time to breathe a little and slow down and get some of the much needed jobs done around the house and get on top of my business. I am fooling myself really as I always over extend myself and therefore everyone around me. I am a bit of a workaholic (I know where my Sasha gets it from) and I can always organise both Justin and myself and also the kids.

I have high hopes of painting the house..this is one that I really don't think will happen. For starters everyone is quite happy with it being blue - I am ready for it to be white. We are having building steps days and walk in wardrobe building days. The beauty of old weatherboard farmhouses is that you can cut out here and add on there and it all works out. We are also doing renovations to the chook house as the chickens keep going into Curly's (the sheep's) little bedroom to lay their eggs and then he comes along and squashes them which is not good.
Amongst all this I will be dyeing wool and felt to try to get ahead a little. Which brings me to today. I was going to spend the day sewing and crocheting my blanket together but instead I am a little tired. I heard an imaginary phone ring at 1.30 this morning and ran to answer it in the kitchen. Both my teenagers were staying out for the night so I immediately thought of them. But as I said it was all in my head...I must have been dreaming it. As a consequence I couldn't go back to sleep and ended up listening to podcasts of Women in business - Australian Business Network at 3am. I am working on an order for Luisa from Dance in my garden and she mentioned them the other day so what else is there to do at 3am (except sleep of course). It is the "can't waste a moment" part of me which was still working at that hour.

Here are some photos of the amazing vintage fabrics I picked up yesterday - some from op shops and some from a specialty fabric shop. The second one is of some Christmas bunting I have just started working on....don't you just love bunting?

And an update on the new family member.....he is sooooo cute. He comes for walks around the block in the mornings and afternoons with Puddles (the dog) and Sasha and myself. Sasha has been getting up at 6ish to feed him his bottle. Here they are....

Sasha is out there now with Pa building him a shelter. I will show you that next time.

Hope you are all enjoying your weekend were ever you are. 

I would love to hear from you so please leave a comment.

♥Jo

introducing our new family member....

This is "Curly"...... our new little month old lamb. My son Sasha has been quite obsessed with wanting a sheep since we spent a week at his Uncle Curly's farm near Croockwell in the Southern Highlands of NSW when he was about 9. He came home from that holiday and announced he wanted to change his name to John. 'Why' we asked (as it took us 4 weeks to finally choose his name when he was born) 'because I want to be a sheep farmer and I don't think Sasha is a good sheep farmers name'. Who could argue with that? His friend Mia from Sydney was visiting us at the time and decided she was going to be John's helper so she should change her name to Mary......

Sasha/John has researched everything....made lots of phone calls to farming equipment businesses and timber companies in his search for getting the best item at the best price as we didn't even have a fenced area for him.. He has also had lots of long conversations with Curly (the human) making sure he had all the right info. So after working in a 35 degree spring day yesterday with his dad and his Pa, we now have a wonderful 60m fence to keep Curly (the sheep) and as a bonus, the chickens in as well.

So here are a few adorable photos of our new little CURLY.

 He is still bottle fed so Sasha/John was up at 6.15 this morning making his bottle and feeding him.

  His mum was unable to look after him and his twin died not long after being born so Sash is his new carer.

I am looking forward to when he will need shearing so I can spin the wool and crochet a blanket to keep us warm in winter.

And I am sure this will not be the end of posts on Curly and Sasha (it really is hard to call him John).

What do you think...are we mad??.....maybe just a little???

I would love to hear from you ♥ Jo