craftiness and cuteness

A new dress for the markets
made from op shop cotton reel fabric!

It hasn't all been about roller derby, food and bluegrass, there has also been some crafting happening about the place. At the last market a lovely new customer, Anjou and her mum requested ever so nicely that I use the last of this very special green and white leaf fabric to make a dress which was pretty much like the one at the market but just a little smaller. Because of the fabric, it hung really well but for it to look totally awesome we decided to take it in at the waist a bit. This fabric is part of a retro score I found at an oppy at Nambucca Heads (or as Ilo calls it, Nutbutter Heads) but there was only enough of this green fabric for two dresses. Because of this I  decided to do a trial run using a faded blue and yellow floral sheet, just in case I totally stuffed it up. But as soon as Anjou put the sheet frock on, her mum and I gasped, it looked totally awesome, the kind of awesome that conjured a field, frolicking, daisies and sunshine.  So I knew that she just had to have this dress "mock up" as well. Anjou was super stoked that she ended up walking away with not just one dress but two pretty cool dresses and I was happy as she was happy and I get to try this new pattern out on some unsuspecting sheets.

I then spent Jay Day (Thursdays, I go to yoga and then spend the day sewing) at Wabi Sabi with Bell and Danielle, it was really lovely to just sew, chat, laugh, exchange ideas and brainstorm exciting adventures.

These two have so much fun together. Oh so sweet. 

And then today Woo and I spent the afternoon at Weave, they had a crafternoon, complete with chai and cake. I was working on this new embroidery series I have been thinking of, a series inspired by vintage Johnson Bros crockery, of which I have a few. Will give you a peek soon.  

110% enough

Have you checked out ABC open's 110% lately? If you haven't, well have a look, Joelle's roller derby doco is now online and it is wonderful, visually stunning and really captures the essence and speed of Lily's derby experience, well as much as you can in 2 minutes.
For those of you who are getting weary of the derby pics (don't know how that is possible but....). this will be the last one for a while. Enjoy the film.

take 3

Ah Kasundi, how we love you so. Woo found a great recipe and I couldn't help but invite myself to the Kasundi party. Unfortunately at the time we only had enough tomatoes for four jars, but have no fear we put an order in for 3 x 10kg cooking tomatoes, get ready friends, we will be sharing the love. Kasundi, for those of you who can't be bothered to link through is a super delicious indian chutney, the kind of spicy relish that you want to smear on everything, yes everything.

When life/Kombu gives you a box full of banana chillies,

 you make sweet pickles.

 Yes, I am partial to rotting/extremely soft/slightly aged but totally delicious produce.

a seriously amazing vegan chocolate avocado pudding, would be really great as a tart or with some yoghurt, yum.

Tracey, I'll be making this for you soon. xx

Scott was invited to umm, spin some bluegrass cds (?) one compilation cd in fact (yes, it makes no sense), at No. 5 Church St (at last a link, now you can have a close up peek). 

Was really lovely, lots of toe tapping happening. 

Have you heard about Take 3? It is a clean beach initiative (or clean waterways, clean land etc), with a view of encouraging people to basically pick up at least three pieces of litter wherever you see it, hence 'Take 3'. Tim Silverwood, is one of the awesome people behind this initiative which began after he became more and more aware of how much plastic ends up in waterways and then from there, the extreme damage it causes (ending up in the stomachs of fish and birds, around the necks of seals, turtles etc). 

Tim definitely has some amazing tales to tell from travelling the world and seeing this growing problem of disposable plastic through to going on a research expedition to the Great North Pacific Garbage Patch (if this means nothing to you, check this out). Tim is currently heading down the North Coast doing a speaking and film tour, The film Bag It, is an American film about how much plastic is in our lives  and how dangerous it is for us and our planet, even though these are very serious issues the film approaches it in a really engaging and entertaining way.  Poe and I went along to watch the film and hear Tim talk on Sunday evening and really enjoyed the film. Unfortunately Bellingen on this Sunday night was mostly tucked up in their homes, which was really disappointing considering how active Bellingen is on this subject. However, this week, I have been spreading the word about the film and it's amazing how many people were disappointed to have missed it (not sure whether the low numbers were due to a Sunday night, poor advertising or apathy). We are currently talking to a few people working out how to get this film in town again, but on a more regular basis; in the library or being shown at No. 5, so we will see, considering Bellingen is running plastic free April, it is vital more people see this film in town. 

Even though we are very aware and active with regards to this issue, as I am sure so many of you out there are, I definitely recommend making an effort to see this film and ideally hear Tim talk (such a relaxed, inspiring and passionate communicator). Tim is actually a friend from the Central Coast, he was a good friend of my sister's at school and is the brother of a good friend of mine, I am so excited by the amazing job that Tim is doing and it was such a pleasure to have some time to chat and toss around some ideas with him. What a wonderful and beautiful human. 

a little ray of sunshine

I was delightfully surprised and honoured to have a bit of sunshine delivered to me via Che and Fidel, one of my most favourite blogs, in the shape of a sunshine award.
To accept there are questions that need some answers, here we go:
Favourite colour? I am quite partial to mustard but have a hard time straying too far from anything green.
Favourite animal? Hmmm, of late I have fallen in love with frogs, green tree frogs to be precise.
Favourite non-alcoholic drink? Rooibos, soy dandy and a range of herbal teas, especially the blends you can get from Alfalfa House; ginger bliss, blue moon.
Facebook or twitter? neither, for some reason they freak me out.
Favourite number? i never thought to have one
Favourite day of the week? friday
My passions? parenting, crafting using recycled materials, caring for our earth as a daily practice, music, reading, my partner and my friends, phew.
Getting or giving presents? giving handmade treasures closely followed by receiving heartfelt gifts.
Favourite pattern? too many to mention, am currently in love with a pattern on a sheet, yellow dandelion accompanied by yellow and red stripes.
Favourite flower? dandelions, daisies, flowers that grow as vegetables go to seed, beautiful weeds that grow in fields that can be picked into a perfectly messy posy.

Now my turn to sprinkle some sunshine to these lovely people,
Cass
Kate
Lou
Pepper

the aftermath

The days following the launch (and for me the market), felt a little flat, the planning, the lead up, the craziness had all but stopped and things felt a little empty. Luckily, once we gave ourselves permission,  it also allowed for some more relaxed and easy catch-up time with my mum, Patma (my aunt) and for a couple of my days, my dad, so we were able to be pulled from the flatness into loveliness. 

My dad arrived with a basket full of goodness from their garden and their chickens. From the garden came raspberries (grown from a cutting from our Bardwell Valley home), beans, snake beans (and yes I did pretend it was a real snake to Poe and Ilo, Poe fell for it, Ilo did not, evil mum), cherry tomatoes, mountains of limes, massive cucumbers and these amazing mushrooms, oyster and shiitake mushrooms grown from a mushroom log purchased from here. So delicious and exciting, it made me yearn for when we have a bigger garden to play with and the chance to grow copious amounts of food. At the moment, due to us renting we only have a small garden available to us, where we have some decent and interesting bits and pieces but not in abundant quantities. We also haven't really managed to work in the garden bit of our juggle yet, well not as much as I would like, time seems to be sucked away by crafting, creating music, parenting, etc. But yes, I know, it can be done, I just have to make it happen, get this slack arse into gear and create a vision and make it a reality. Hmmmm. Watch this space. 

Ilo and Pepper. Sarah, although it has been months I blame you for Ilo's pose!

After a couple of weeks of eating delicious food cooked mainly by mum* and Scott we all decided to have a break and headed off to No 5 Church Street for their new Super Tuesday organic banquet and Film night.  Unfortunately due to limited time with loved ones, we were missing the film Fuel which looks at how the world is addicted to oil and how to break the addiction, would have loved to have seen it, such a serious and very real subject, wonder how they approached it, hopefully we will be able to borrow it from the local dvd shop soon.

 

The banquet/ spread put on was super delicious, the type of meal where all the flavours just sit up and scream at you, "eat me" "no me", "no me" and you have no choice but to keep coming back to all these delicious tasty bites and then after eating more than your fill, you feel wonderfully awesome inside and out and you can't help but smile.  

love a line up of crock pots

A new dessert on the menu, made by the amazing Amy (mother of Pepper, and generally a beautiful and smiley soul), named Naughty Autumn, raw and delicious. 

* The reason why there are no photos of mum's meals is purely because my eyes and my stomach had a battle and my stomach won, hence by the time it gave in, the photograph wouldn't have really shown much. But think fish curry, rassam, potato masala, fried fish, cabbage and mustard seeds and all other sort of mouth watering meals. Thanks mum. 

swearing and pushing

I couldn't resist, I had to see more and although this wasn't a full comp game (I think the next one is in June), it was pretty impressive. What I loved seeing was all these women, of all beautiful shapes and sizes, totally focussed, doing really physically challenging things. Not only were they pushed and shoved but they worked their arses off speeding around the track, keeping together with the pack or pushing themselves through and past the pack. I also loved seeing what an awesome time they were having, they love it, really, really love it.

One of the seven refs. Especially needed as this sport has more rules than any other sport, 47 pages worth, I think.

 

The sound of the skates going around the track was pretty compelling, you could hear the speed, the clutter and the clacketty clack of the skates as they build momentum, the screech, the scratch as they slow slightly around the corners.

the hugs, the love, after the game.

Steve filming a start.