Rag rug experiment

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A couple of years ago I attended a workshop on rug making. It was a somewhat random decision, inspired by fabulous display of rag rugs at the annual Perth craft fair, and by the people actively working on rugs to show how it’s done. The workshop was organized by the Rugmakers Guild (yes, it’s totally a thing) and was held in Mandurah. I opted to avoid a hour of driving each way by catching the train from Perth and then the free shuttle bus to the venue and felt just a little smug about that as the train whooshed past the peak hour traffic…

The Guild President, Judith Stephens, was over from South Australia to attend the craft fair, show off her beautiful hand made rugs and to run some workshops in conjunction with the local chapter of the Guild. She told us that it was common practice for Australian families to recycle old clothing, blankets and left over fabric back in the 1880s, turning them into rag rugs to warm their homes. Although the craft petered out over the years, there has now been a huge resurgence of interest in rag rugs worldwide – both as an art and craft.

rag rug workshop_27may13The workshop was fun, as was learning some of the very peculiar terminology used by rug makers, e.g. proddy, proggy, hooky and clippy. It’s a whole other language! We learned a few different techniques and most people managed to complete a sample – a sort of mini-rug. I came home super enthusiastic about taking up rug making as my new hobby. The idea of recycling old t-shirts and the like into something useful had enormous appeal.

It also sounded like a plausible pastime for someone planning on moving out to the back-of-beyond. It ticked the craft, recycling and creative boxes perfectly. So, when DaughterDearest’s birthday arrived not long afterwards, I purchased her all the gear for her to get started. Did I ask her if she’d like to do it? Of course not! Motherrrr knows best…

Yeah. Not so much. This was one of those times when I was actually buying something I wanted. What she really wanted bookshelves. So, since I hadn’t bought myself any of the gear, we swapped: I simply reclaimed the gear (so that I could start a rug) and purchased the shelving (so she had somewhere for her overload of books). Everyone was happy.

But somehow time passed. Lots of things happened. More things happened… and my roundtuit didn’t ever quite manage to fit unpacking the gear and using it.

Finally (yes, getting to the point at last), inspired by a desire/need to come up with a craft-related #blogjune post, I hunted all the paraphernalia down over the weekend… and started my first fledging bedside rag rug! It’s still fun, still easy and Himself had a couple of t-shirts he didn’t need anymore…

Rag rug started June 2016

I haven’t quite figured out how to use the rug hooking folding lap frame effectively, finding it easier to just hold the hessian in one hand as I hook the strips of t-shirt fabric through it. I may have to attend one of the Guild meetings to get some tips on that.

Lap frame for rug making

Roses should be red…

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Mr Lincoln in bloomIt seems I’m a bit of a traditionalist in some ways. This must be the case because, although I love roses in general, red roses are – and have always been – my favourite.

When we moved into this house (many) years ago, there were three standard white roses out the front of the house. All very Homes-and-Garden, really, and altogether to orderly for me. In due course they were salvaged by a friend and replanted in her garden, where they fitted in perfectly.

I’ve always meant to replace them with some not-at-all standard red rose bushes, but have never found just the right variety. Then, when I was in Tasmania last November, I came across Mr Lincoln – the perfect red rose for me. It’s a hybrid tea rose, produces beautifully fragrant long stemmed blooms, and grows to 1.8 metres of untidy rose garden beauty. Bellissima!

So towards the end of summer I went hunting for Mr Lincoln and found a bush that was perfect for one of the few remaining spaces in our garden. I was a little concerned as to how well it would do there, given that the spot is only part-sun, but it’s thriving. Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been gifted with a few late autumn blooms and have revelled in finally having my very own red roses to enjoy – both in the garden and indoors, where they fill the air with essence of rose-happiness 🙂

Apparently I should prune the bush back by 70% this winter to ensure good growth for next season… eek?

Winter sunshine

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Winter’s well and truly here. We know this at a core (and rather chilly) level as a result of our ongoing crack-of-dawn excursions to the great outdoors. At four months, the puppy still needs encouragement (aka company) to use the lawn rather than the laundry floor… We’re winning, but our feet come inside well and truly chilled.

Despite the cold mornings and drizzly weather over the past few weeks, Perth winters aren’t all doom and gloom. There’s sunshine for part of most days. Admittedly it is sometimes a rather weak and pallid sort of sunshine, but the contrast between the crisp air and the few precious hours of warmth is glorious. Getting out into the sun on those days, even if just for a little while, makes a huge difference to my general sense of well being. I can see why the dogs go and roll around on the grass in the sun, or just lie out there and look contented.

This week I took Cassie-puppy down to the river on the pretext of going for a walk in some of that lovely winter sunshine. In reality I was catching up with a friend I haven’t seen in since January. Even then we didn’t spend much time together as we were both super busy at a conference. It was more of a hug-in-passing and a promise to get together soon. But life seems to roller-coaster everyone along at an increasingly crazy pace these days and sometimes important things can get lost in the cracks.

Fortunately for me, this particular friend decided that the cracks weren’t going to win and emailed me to organise a meet-up. We chose the nearby river café as it has a dog-friendly verandah and garden area. Cassie and I arrived a little early in order to have a pre-coffee stroll to get rid of some of her energy, then annexed a good spot – in the sun, close enough to the grass for puppy convenience, but not too close to the bevvy of small children in the play area.cassie at loquay_8june16

The puppy had to take a back seat while we chatted, but as I am wise in the ways of distracting small children (and puppies), was happily distracted by a rawhide bone I’d brought along.

It was a good catch-up. We talked about everything and nothing, setting aside the years in which we’ve had little in the way of direct contact and anchoring our time together in our shared history, genuine caring and humour. Future plans were explored and promises made not to space our catch-ups so far apart in future.

We only spent an hour or so together, having coffee and then taking the puppy for another quick walk along the river, but it was a shiny, happy time and made my week.

Note to self: don’t let the cracks win!

 

Cumquats galore

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No sooner have we harvested hundreds (!) of limes and grapefruit, found homes for most of the fruit and pruned the trees, than the next episode begins.

Cumquats June 2016

Our cumquat tree’s overloaded with fruit… and it’s all starting to colour up. The calamondin (cumquat/manadrin cross) is catching up fast. This means yet another harvest coming up really soon. Looking back, I see that the trees were as overburdened with ripe fruit in mid-June last year…and the year before…

Over the past few years I’ve been a veritable cumquat-queen, making just about every imaginable (food) product I could think of. Last year I branched out and made raspberry and cumquat jam, but I’ve also made marmalades and chutneys, candied the cumquats to produce delicious sticky glacé fruit, brandied them, baked assorted cakes and scones and even made cordial.

cumquat chutney_2014

Since I still have a fair amount of jam and chutney stored in the fridge, I guess I’ll be baking and candying again this time around. Something new would be fun though, so maybe I’ll try Vietnamese-style cumquat flowers – they look pretty special. I also had a prowl around the recipe books in the local library this week for ideas and came across Homemade by Anna Gare, which includes a recipe for ‘Dad’s Cumquat Cake.’

Most of the cumquat-related cake recipes doesn’t use a huge amount of fruit and this is now exception. But 500g isn’t bad – and if the recipe works out and is super tasty, there could be many, many cumquat cakes distributed around the countryside… Failing that, I do still have recipes for all the other things we’ve made over the years!

Perhaps it’s time to prune these trees too – and to do it very thoroughly – in the hopes that reducing the tree size will likewise reduce the crop we get next year. After all, that worked soooo well with the grapefruit and lime trees… (not!)

Interweb mystery solved

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A friend contacted me this week to ask how to get hold of a print copy of my recently published book, Girdle of Bones. Since it’s supposed to be available on Amazon, I went hunting to see if I could locate it for her.

My interwebs hunt was no more successful than hers. Whilst I did find the eBook version (and some great reviews – thanks, folks), I too failed to find the print version. Much frustration and a follow up with Amazon solved the mystery. They’ve tucked it away on their direct print site, making it a tad had to find. If you’re interested, you can track it down here.

Anyhow, in the process of hunting for Girdle of Bones, I happened across an interesting blog on the same subject (joint replacement). It was put together by Steve Blanchard, a retired engineer and photography enthusiast living in Berkshire (Massachusetts), to record his joint replacement journey.

Steve’s blog presents a detailed account of the nuts and bolts of total hip replacement surgery. It’s a first-hand account from the perspective  of someone who has had both hips replaced, and his experience overlaps with my own in many respects. I imagine that he found the process of keeping the blog and updating his progress cathartic – it certainly was for me when I documented my own story.

The way Steve imparts his information show’s the difference in our story-telling outlook. I came to mine from a sociological perspective, embedding the information in a memoir format. Steve’s engineering background has informed his, making it more detailed and analytical. This includes the way he discusses everything from why one might have a hip replacement to pre- and post-operative issues, exercise and pain management.

For anyone about to embark on surgery and wanting some specific, detailed information on the joint replacement experience, I’d suggest that it’s well worth taking the time to have a look at Steve’s blog and following his journey. The information has been well thought out and Steve has been very generous in sharing so much detail.

steve blanchard hipblog