2022 and start of 2023 Update

Hello! I know it's been a while, but don't worry, I never intended to abandon this blog. It's just that, well, life got in the way for a while. So if you'll indulge me, I'll do a little update on the arts, crafts, garden, hobbies, and all the other random stuff that this blog covers. Then hopefully I'll do some expanded posts on a few different topics soon.

2022 was a bit of a topsy-turvy year for me. "Strange" is the word I've heard most when people were describing their year, and I'd have to agree.

Me

I was diagnosed with several 'new' chronic illnesses. I was already pretty sure I had most of them for a while, so there weren't any big surprises, but it was nice to have the diagnosis confirmed. I was then able to start sorting out the best treatments, etc. This kept me busy with appointments, new doctors, new medications, etc. 

 

Videos

My style and sewing Youtube channel has been continuing. In the beginning I was hoping to make a video once a fortnight, but in 2022 it ended up being once a month, on average. I'm still very happy with that, because along the way I've learned many new video-making skills, and it's been a lot of fun. My channel is here if you haven't heard about it yet and you're interested. 

 

Arts

2022 was a topsy-turvy year with art, too. In the first half of the year, my Collective and I staged 3 exhibitions. (That's a lot!) Then we took a long break. I didn't do any art for a long time -- I guess I was burnt out. Around July I slowly started doing some art journalling and started a junk journal. I wanted to ease back into things by doing something very low-key and low-energy friendly. In December and early January we had 2 exhibitions scheduled, so towards the end of the year I started to ramp things up a bit and make sure I did everything I wanted to for those. Plus, I made a real-proper website for my real-proper artist stuff. It lists all my past/current/upcoming exhibitions, projects I'm working on, etc. It's not quite finished yet, but if you'd like to see it, here it is.

Crafts

Arguably, a lot of my real-proper art has some definite crafty elements to it, as you can see above. Unfortunately though, I didn't do much crafting just for myself in 2022. I did start a new tablet weaving, but the tension was wonky and it was a bit of a mess. Husband promised that he would make some improvements to the weaving loom he made last year. After some delays, that was done last week and I started a new weaving. (Yay!) It's going to be a bracelet, but I'll probably end up with 2 or 3 as the base threads have to be at least as long as the loom, so I may as well make as many bracelets as will fit on.

Garden

The Spring/Summer of 2022 here in Australia has been such a strange one. It rained a looooot more than normal in Spring, and some days were cold enough to still be Winter! Many of my plants were confused and didn't know whether to grow or not, so things got off to a slow start. I did buy quite a lot of new plants, but I'll introduce them in a separate post.

Note: this isn't at my house but a spot nearby.

 

Home

I did a huge project in June to tidy up my Hobby Room / Studio. It was for a studio tidying challenge online ... and I won the challenge! I put it mainly down to stubborn persistence, and remembering to take 'before' and 'after' photos. Perhaps the 'after' photos don't look that much different, but to me it's a huge change. I was never a minimalist ... I think I'm firmly in the pro-Cluttercore camp. :)

  Thanks for reading, happy 2023, and look forward to more posts soon! (Soon-ish?) :)

Hello Winter! (My Garden)

Winter is definitely here in Australia. Admittedly, it's not as severe as in many parts of the world, but we do get frosts in the southern part of the country that can damage or even kill plants, and it snows in the mountains.

Here's the first good fog of the year:

I thought I may as well continue with the garden theme, as a surprising amount happens in the garden in Winter. The grass grows (and weeds, too!). Some plants, like succulents, still grow, just more slowly. The winter oranges are nearly ready to pick.

One day this area will be a rockery:

I hope everyone is staying safe, and staying warm or cool, depending on where you are.

Hello Autumn!

Autumn must be my favourite season, because I haven't skipped a single year since starting these Hello seasonal blog posts, and I think I've forgotten about at least one of all the other seasons! I love the cooler, rainy weather that the season heralds, the hazy sunlight and occasional thunderstorm. So many of my favourite activities are best done in cooler weather, so I'm going to take a look at some of them today.

craft
In the middle of Summer it's too hot to do most kinds of craft -- holding wool and having it on your lap isn't the most pleasant experience, and trying on self-sewn clothes can be a sticky experience. Right now though, my urge to do craft has returned in the biggest way. I've started several new projects, and even taught myself the new-to-me craft of tablet weaving, which I wrote about in my last post. Here's a sneak peek of another project I started recently:

snuggly things
Speaking of scarves, getting to wear them is heavenly, too. One of the best things about cooler weather is that I get to wear layers -- cardigans, scarves and closed shoes with socks. Maybe even legwarmers if it's cold enough! I have a large collection of all of these things and am always working on making more, so it's nice to get to wear them. I really like the way a scarf looks and feels in particular. P.S. I've been practicing my photography and modelling lately.

baking
As soon as it's cool enough to put the oven on, I feel like baking, whether it's biscuits, cakes, fruit or vegetables loaves or buns. Husband can whip up a cake without following a recipe (a gluten-free one, too!) which is an enviable skill to have, in my book. We stopped eating bread late last year, so baked products are a bit more special than they used to be. I had a craving for vegemite scrolls, so I baked these last week:

tea
Nothing goes better with the baked goodies I mentioned above than a nice cup of tea. I'll drink any kind of tea, but my favourites lately are a fruity flavoured black tea, and herbals like peppermint. I like to re-organise my tea cupboard and refresh my inventory this time of year, so I'm looking forward to doing that soon.

Samhain
I'm not a big one for following the Sabbats, but this time of year my mind always turns to the more esoteric and spiritual matters. As the days grow shorter and the light dimmer, now feels the time to turn inwards. I feel like building altars and lighting candles. Plus, I want to finally experience the other joys of the season as everyone in the Northern Hemisphere got to do six months ago.

My January

January has been a typical one, weather-wise -- days of searing heat mixed with stormy downpours and sticky humidity. I was still recovering from my surgery, but got the go-ahead to resume normal activities in the third week of the month. I still find myself very tired though, and I find I need to either have a nap mid-afternoon, or go to bed very early. In some ways it's like being a two-year-old!


What I've been harvesting ...
The plums were ready to harvest this month. The harvest was about half what it was last year -- but I wasn't complaining. There were just too many for us to handle. This year, there was enough to fill about 4-5 plastic takeaway boxes once stewed. I just didn't have the energy to go to the bother of making jam (sterilising jars, etc) so I stewed them, packed them into boxes and stored them in the freezer.

Aside from that, most of my time in the garden has been employed in watering the plants, trying to keep them alive in the heat.

What I've been painting ...
I painted a landscape for a bushfire fundraiser exhibition/auction. This photo shows it still in progress. It's a bit different to my normal style: I was trying to be more realistic and make something that someone might want to buy.

What I've been journalling ...
I decided to do Rainbowholic's New Year 2020 Kawaii Journalling challenge. I've done 3 so far, not including the intro/title page. Here is my first page:

What I've been doing ...
I went for a walk in the park.

What I've been eating ...
After a trip to the dentist I went to a place I remembered from where I used to work over 10 years ago, which sold delicious French baguettes. It was still there! Emmenthal cheese, salami, whole gherkins and mustard -- just how I like it!

What I've been playing ...
Husband and I played Tsuro: Phoenix Rising, a variation on the popular Tsuro game. I think I enjoyed it even more than the original. I won't write any more now; I'm planning a full post in the near future.

What I've been reading ...
I've joined two readathons this year already! The first was Bout of Books, which went for a week. I managed to finish 4 books, one of which I'd had on my Currently Reading list for a year. That felt good. Currently I'm doing Pondathon, which is a story-based, co-operative reading challenge organised by CW from The Quiet Pond blog. Readers earn points for every page they read, and they affect the outcome of the story as its revealed over the 6 weeks of the challenge. There are cute characters, stamps to collect and, of course, books to read! Here's my character card with my first stamp:

My November

November seemed to go by very slowly for me. It was a typical late Spring / early Summer month, perhaps a little more rainy than usual. There were a couple of really cool thunderstorms, and only one very hot day. I was feeling better health-wise than I have been, and I managed to get out to see a couple of exhibitions and do some shopping for some things I needed (art supplies) and things I already have a lot of (books!).

I tried to do NaNoWriMo, vowing to write a short story every day, but I didn't get very far unfortunately. I think I wrote 6 before I ran out of steam. I think I will have to actually crack on and write a novel one day though, just to prove to myself that I can do it.

What I've been growing ...
Here is our cherry harvest for 2019! It doesn't seem like much, but it's more than last year. The tree itself has grown quite a bit too -- not taller but wider. We decided to try picking the cherries while they were still unripe, to prevent them being ravaged by birds. It worked very well. They ripened up in about 3 days sitting on the kitchen bench, and we ate them for dessert last night.

The larger fruits are coming along nicely too. They take a bit longer to ripen up -- the apricots here should be ready at the end of December. I really want to be ready to harvest them and process them properly this year.

The roses are blooming strongly this year, too. They seem to be in larger clumps (as opposed to single flowers). Perhaps it's because we've had slightly more rain? They smell divine, too, and when I leave the side door open, the smell wafts into the house.

What I've been planting ...
The garden bed I showed in last month's update post is coming along nicely. It's taken a long time because it kept raining, and we needed a few sunny days near the weekend so Husband and I could lay the concrete base, let it dry, and then later lay the bricks and let them dry. After that was achieved, things went much faster. We bought some bags of garden soil and filled up the bed with them, then put in the lemon tree. The final steps to go are adding a layer of pebbles over the soil, and planting some smaller decorative plants around it. I already have some chosen out. Stay tuned for the final result!

What I've been painting ...
I've been having fun with watercolour painting lately, and also drawing human people, which is different for me. I had a dream that I painted this, and then I turned it into reality. There are a few more too, and I'll show them in a separate post soon. P.S. the painting is still attached to the stretcher board in this photo.

Where I've been shopping ...
I finally visited a Melbourne institution -- City Basement Books. It was pretty overwhelming at first, but after browsing the whole shop I felt settled in, and I think it's become my happy place! I only bought 8 books on my first visit, and I'm resisting going back again too soon. It's one of the few bookshops I've been too (new or secondhand) where you can go in with a shopping list of books by certain authors or on certain topics and have a reasonable chance of finding most of them.

What I've been designing ...
I created a meme, and yes, this is really happening to me tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Bonus pic ...
I dressed up for a fancy birthday brunch for a friend earlier in the month, in my fancy dress in a fancy pose, against a fancy background. Excuse the fancy look on my face! I've let my fringe grow out in the last few months, which you can see quite well in this photo. I like how it looks.

My September

For a short month, it seemed like so much was packed into this September. And yet, it seemed like nothing much happened at all. I was still very sick for most of the month, due to a sort-of-new, sort-of-ongoing health issue (yeah, my health is complicated lately!), and wasn't able to leave the house. Finally in the last week, I was given some medication which has let me live a bit more normally again. However, I'll need to have an operation to fix it permanently, hopefully in a couple of months. That's left me in a strange limbo where I'm well enough to work, but there's probably no point in getting a job until after I've recovered from the operation. Oh well, may as well take advantage of the situation.

Let the art and craft commence! (Or continue, really...)


What I've been reading ...
I completed my personal September reading challenge very successfully, in my opinion! I read several short books and stories, and discovered some new authors that I'd like to follow up on in future. I've decided that for the month of October, I'm not setting myself a formal reading challenge. I'm still planning on reading, but some other things have piqued my interest lately as well, and I want to make sure I have enough time for everything.

What I've been showing ...
I seem to have neglected to mention it here, but I had a piece in an exhibition called Fat Feminism at NOIR Darkroom (actually it's still on until 6th October 2019!). I'm too shy to show my piece, so here's a photo of some of the other amazing art from NOIR's website:

What I've been drawing ...
After procrastinating for months, I finally started to draw a little bit again. I created a Terrible Drawing Challenge, in the hope that it would be less pressure, and I think this reverse psychology worked ... some days, anyway.

Here I copied a picture from the Voynich Manuscript. This mysterious book in an undeciphered script has been endlessly fascinating to me lately. The original is on the left and my drawing is on the right.

A Terrible Drawing of Saiki from The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. I really should have started further down the page! I really enjoyed this anime and liked the bright colours so I wanted to give it a go. I coloured it in with pencils because I don't have any watercolours bright enough for his hair.

A baby monitor. Don't ask me why. I just love the combination of smooth curves, soothing colours, buttons and what's basically a spy camera.

What I've been eating ...
Husband and I went with a foodie friend to a Rotary Hotpot restaurant, a new thing for us. It can be described as a cross between hotpot soup (or shabu-shabu) and sushi train. The soup is cooked at the table on an induction cooker, while the ingredients pass by on a conveyor belt for the diners to choose and add. (For anyone worried about food safety, the meats are kept separately in a freezer. They are cut very thin so that when added to the soup, they cook almost immediately.) There were several different soup bases to choose from and, as you can see from the photo, there's an option to choose two bases with the divided bowl. With all the different ingredients to choose from, the potential for different soup flavour combinations is truly endless. It was a lot of fun as well as delicious, and I would definitely go back!

What I've been observing ...
Spring happened. It's getting quite warm.

What I've been knitting ...
Aaaaaand, right at the very end of the month, I became interested in craft again. I was all crafted out after finishing my blanket. I guess it took me a few months to recover. Plus the nerdy/obsessive part of my brain seems to be quite perverse, as it always seems to point me in the direction of crafts that are inappropriate for the season. After visiting my friend and her baby, I was inspired to finish this dinosaur plushie which was supposed to be a birth gift. I might be in time for her first birthday, though. I have just under 6 months, and it's already half done, so I'm quietly confident.

Early Spring Garden Update

Spring is definitely in the air here in Australia. I can feel it on the wind. It's still a cold wind, but there's a fresher quality to it somehow. So I went outside on the first sunny day that came along, to see what was happening.

The fruit trees are blossoming and looking very beautiful right now. The wind has blown some of the blossoms off, but I think we should get a medium-sized crop of both nectarines and apricots this year. The plum harvest should be smaller as I pruned it much more severely than the others last year. There was just too much to deal with and, I have to admit, a lot of fruit (of all kinds) went to waste. I want to do things better next time.

Some plants that I was fond of have died, but others (both old and newer) are growing better than I've ever seen them. Like this daisy I planted about 3 years ago. It's doubled in size in only a couple of months. Unfortunately its twin isn't doing so well due to an apparent whippersnipper incident (I guess the mowing man didn't see it as it was so small) but I didn't bother to take any photos of that.

The hardenbergias on either side are also growing better than I've ever seen them. They didn't even flower the first few years that we lived here. I'd like to make a trellis for them to grow on one day, seeing as they're actually vines.

The lavender I planted last year also suffered from a whippersnipping accident but it seems to be recovering. Also you can see here, the grass hasn't been mowed for months. I have to admit, I secretly like it this way. It's best this time of year: the clover and those plants with the yellow flowers create a beautiful soft green carpet, but the actual grass hasn't exploded yet.

The fernery is looking a bit scruffy. The second of the three large ferns has died now (the stump is visible in the right side of this photo). I waited a year to be sure, but I don't think it's coming back. I will need to decide whether to put in another fern, or do something different. The spider plants are growing well though, and the azaleas are looking beautiful right now, if a bit long in the stems.

Even the hanging plants are growing well. The first photo, of the Winter cactus, was taken a few weeks ago. They're a bit limper now. I haven't re-potted them for a couple of years, so I should probably think about doing that soon.

Husband and I want to plant a lemon tree in our front yard, in a nice retro-looking garden bed (the retro part was my idea, in case you weren't sure!). That will be a bit of work to set up though, we're busy/tired/sick, and the window of lemon-planting season is already here, so I'm not sure if we can get organised. I'll post any updates if and when they happen!

Meanwhile, happy Spring/Autumn!