A Box of Grandma's Goodies

My parents have been having a clean out and found a box of stuff from Grandma that has now been passed on to me.

My Grandma passed away nearly 17 years ago now, but I still remember all her craft projects.  Her house was filled with them, we all had and frequently wore jerseys and cardigans knitted by Grandma and I recently found a pillowcase with one of her liquid embroidery pictures half finished on it.

The Knit'n Sew Time Saver

This box of goodies was like Christmas for me.  First there was the box of knitting needles, well, at first glance it was a box full of knitting needles, but further investigation turned up a treasure trove of crafty tools and memories - there were crochet hooks, sewing needles of every type imaginable, a knitting needle gauge, tailors chalk, row counters, stitch holders, a bag filled with safety pins and a "knit and sew time saver" still in it's original paper bag.  I found the pair of hopeless blunt children's scissors that I was sent outside with at the age of three or four and told to trim the edges of the lawn while Grandad had a nap.  There are some of the short knitting needles that I used when Grandma tried ever so patiently to teach me how to knit - again at about the age of three or four.

The next smaller box contained more knitting needles and crochet hooks, in sizes I wouldn't have thought were made.  One pair must be at least 20mm.  There are also several that look like a knitting needle at one end (the end with the knob), but have a crochet hook on the other where there would normally be a point.  I'll find out what they're for I'm sure, they seem a bit unwieldy to use as a normal crochet hook.  If anyone does know - please tell me in a comment as it's driving me a little crazy.

Yet another box was more interesting.  All the gadgets you can think of and probably a few you wouldn't have.  Buttons, elastic, vilene, pinking shears, cotton tape, small flowers made of felt and some that you'd expect to find on underwear (actually, I think I used to have some nighties with these on the front), the "Speedy Stitcher" Sewing Awl - a tool for sewing canvas and heavy materials, "safety cutters" - officially for letter openers but also cuts textiles, fabrics, vinyl etc, and a "palm loom" (what ever that is for). 

The rest of the box though is magazines and books.  Craft books, pattern books, crafting magazines, the works.  Some are older than I am but still in fantastic condition!  I'm tempted to have a go at the baskets made with pine needles and raffia, but not so sure on the macrame shoes (even down to making the wooden sole/wedge).

One of the books that I've leafed through has really caught my imagination.  Bright Ideas For The Home by Per Dalsgaard and Elisabeth Erichsen.

This book contains patterns and instructions for making your own furniture - including lounge suites and a four poster bed.  Each design is simple and quite easy and inexpensive to make.  The fabrics used show the era that the book was published in (1978) but fabric choices aside, most of the designs would still look fabulous today.  Those designs that scream 70s could be easily adapted to something more timeless.

There are more that I haven't gotten to yet.  I think I need a rainy day (or week) to explore them all.


 

Updates and Winter Blues

I've really fallen away from my plans to write at least five posts a week for this blog.

There have been a number of reasons for this.  I'm not going to think of them as excuses, because when it comes down to it, I still could have written.

I still have a piglet living in my bath.  She's doing well, but still rather small for all that she's nearly two months old.  I've been taking her outside most days and trying to convince her to nibble on grass instead of just the fallen autumn leaves that she comes across.

It was recommended to me by a pig farmer that I start her on milky porridge to try and get her eating solid food.  In the bath (where I normally feed her) this was an unmitigated disaster.  She doesn't look down and in the space of maybe 20 seconds there was porridge everywhere except inside my piglet.  So I thought I'd try doing this outside.  She saw the side of the bowl as a place to have a scratch and this time it came closer to being inside the piglet, but it was still on the outside (as a rather interesting coating).

I have been caught up in my teenage son's depression and related issues.  This went beyond mopey drama that most of us expect from teens and became rather serious on a number of levels.  Hopefully, we're on the right track now and things will get better from here on.

I'm also rather busy with setting up TimeBank Hurunui.  I've probably been the least active of our committee, but still find that there is plenty for me to do.

I have a calendar that I should have finished months ago (actually, I thought I had finished it late last year) that is due out shortly.  This has led to a last minute panic because this isn't an ordinary calendar, this has a heap of astrological information that I need to calculate and enter into the calendar.  At least our artist is onto it and producing top quality work as always.

I've also been in a bit of a funk.

With all the dramas of the last few months I've found it hard to care about a lot of things.  Some of this may be seasonally affected - I'm very much a sun bunny and shorter colder days tend to do something to me.  Fortunately, I've discovered that we have field mushrooms popping up here and there.  While I don't eat them (I'm allergic) Hubby and Miss Seven love them, so walking through the paddocks looking for mushrooms is a useful activity that inspires me to do more.

On the plus side, we bought a bale of straw.  When Hubby went into the garden centre to get it, it never occurred to me to specify what type of straw - we got barley straw from them last year - so it wasn't until we got it home that I realised we had a massive amount of pea straw.  I'm hoping that it's going to be okay for bedding for pigs and hens but I'm not certain.

The pigs pull any straw I put in their little houses straight back out again and then put it back in when (and how) they want it.  I haven't been back over to their house to see how the pea straw has fared, but the chooks keep emptying their nesting boxes.  I haven't figured out if they're pulling it out because they don't like it or they're scratching it over for all the dried peas.

Which leads to the plus I mentioned.  All the dried peas.  Massive amounts of them.  Just in pulling this bale of straw apart so that I could shift it into the shed (a 2 inch slice at a time) I collected at least 2 kg of dried peas that fell out.  That wasn't even half of what is still in the straw.  I keep asking Hubby where he thinks we should grow peas, he suggested a (tiny) patch of vege garden.  I said that wasn't going to be big enough - pick a paddock.

Where this is a really big plus - the bale of straw cost $65.  We've collected (and some have sprouted under a piglet) at least $25 worth of seed already and as I said earlier, that's not even the half of it.  Growing peas from seed is cheaper than buying peas and we've got so much seed that is an added bonus coming from something else that we did need to buy.

I've also reached a point where I'm making the effort to set aside time for things I always mean to get done but usually don't seem to do.  Friday mornings I bake for the week.  I fill our big biscuit container up to the top (and usually a few left over on the bench) with a variety of bikkies to keep the hungry hordes happy.  Every second week, I make a batch of water crackers too.  I've found a few really simple recipes and the kids love them.  I'll post the recipe soon - it's too good and simple to keep to myself.

I've discovered sock wool.  I'm sure this was around and probably right in my face for a long time, but I only just found it.  Instead of darning holes in socks that I've made, I'm now pulling them apart to the ankle and re-knitting them using sock wool for the heels and toes.  I also went looking for another pattern for socks (which I found).  I wasn't happy with the two that I shared here - the heels just didn't quite work for me in the pattern using circular knitting (nearly every pair wore through to a hole very quickly at the heel) and I couldn't quite figure out how to turn the heel from the two needle pattern into a circular one.  Now I have a pattern that does that and the socks are comfortable too.  I've made everyone in the house two new pairs of socks each and will continue to go through fixing the old ones.

A visit from E-Can and a notice to clear up some of the gorse (but not all of it) led to a flurry of activity that took me away from what I wanted to be doing.

Hopefully, here's to a better couple of months and a bit more blogging.