Clove Oranges ... A Trip Down Memory Lane

When we were little we always had a clove studded orange in our kitchen that my younger sister Merryn had apparently made at kindergarten.

This week I went off to the local fruit shop to buy 5 oranges and then to the local Indian shop for a bag of whole cloves.

I figured my kids and their cousins could do an after school project and make a clove studded orange each as a present they could use for our homemade christmas.  I hadn't done much investigating but I figured you would just roll the oranges in the cloves and somehow they would stick in .... I was mistaken. 

You have to actually make a hole with a fork or toothpick for each clove before you poke it in.  Clearly in 4 year old kinder my sister had had a lot of 'help' making her orange.

So an after school project for the kids turned into a week long project for the older kids and adults (the younger kids gave up after about 2 minutes and headed out to jump on the trampoline!).

Anyway, we are nearly there ... and I now hope they actually preserve and don't go mouldy (imagine all those hours chucked in the bin).  Once we finished studding our oranges (well the 2 that we have completed - and I am optimistic about the remaining 3), we  rolled them in a mix of ground cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and clove.  The kitchen table with our half finished project on a tray is a bit messy, but it smells delicious! 

Knitted Stool

Knitted Stool for Art for All 2012

This year I also experimented with a knitted stool.  Sort of weird but fun. 

Art for All 2012 - My Chair

Given that I am at home looking after the kids, I figure it is a great time to be volunteering.  

This year I am helping organise our annual art show Art for All. 

I am really enjoying getting into organising something and making an event happen. It is just 3 weeks away, on the 8-9 September, and some fabulous artists are going to be part of it, and we have a great day of kids activities planning for the Sunday, so I am very excited about it all.

The chair as I found it on
the side of the road.

As I am trying to tick things off my list, I have actually made my chair for the annual Chair Auction on the Opening Night nice and early this year. 

I found this chair on the side of the road in Northcote, it was a little worse for wear!

Since then I have re-padded it, sanded it, put new shellac on, and recovered it with a lovely Australian themed table cloth. 

I hope someone bids on it!

Knitted Tea Cosy

As part of our second hand and home made christmas, my sister and I screenprinted t-shirts for the kids and I made skirts for the girls.  My aunty made necklaces for the kids out of fimo.  My brother-in-law made florentines. My dad made me some fly screens for my windows (very practical).

It was lovely to get stuff that either people knew you really needed and had searched for or something that they had made with love. We are planning to do it again this year.  My Nanna who is 90 is already on the job, and has knitted dishcloths for everyone (I also did these this year, but she is doing much bigger ones - she has more patience than me).  I am looking forward to a larger one, we all agreed that they are terrific - the ones I made are still going strong 8 months later and I use them every day.

I bought my sisters a second hand teapot each, and knitted them a tea cosy to go with it.  I used a number of different elements out of the books 'Tea Cozies 1' and 'Tea Cozies 2' and 'Really Wild Tea Cosies', which I borrowed from the library.  So, if anyone has a need for knitted roses and knitted leaves, I am the girl!

Screen Printed Tea Towels

Even though I haven't posted anything on this blog for a long time, I have still been creative, I just haven't taken the time to upload images.  So, this is a long overdue post, but my second attempt at screen printing assisted by my sister was a little more sophisticated.  We made some tea towels which ended up looking terrific (I think anyway). We ordered them in bulk from Linen Line and they cost about $2 each I think for great quality linen tea towels. 

We cut the screenprinting images out of thin acetate sheet (I bought it in a packet of 20 from Officeworks), which stuck pretty well to the screen (we didn't have any bleeding problems).  Using acetate rather than paper meant that we could keep our designs, and do them in different colours, without having to recut every time.  It was very successful.

 Our only drama was with setting the paint.  When we ironed it some got on the iron and with the red for example, the material became a little pinkish around the print.  I am not sure if we can set the paint in the oven or dryer, but next time if I iron, I will not iron direcly onto the paint.

A Second Hand and Handmade Christmas

This year our family is endevouring to have a second hand or homemade christmas.  It has been lots of fun so far, with many hours spent scouring op shops for unique christmas presents and pursuing creative ideas. 

My most exciting items this year in terms of the homemade element are 1. a quilt for my nephew Hugh, and 2. dish scourers and cotton dishwashing cloths. 

Hughie's quilt is coming along nicely, however I horrified the lady at GJs fabrics (the specialised quilting shop in Brunswick) when I explained that I just measured my fabric into 11cm pieces and then snipped the edge and ripped along the grain.  This approach is quick and easy to create my 11cm by 11cm squares, but not really true to the meticulousness of the quilting tradition.  She also explained to me that I need to quilt in inches not centimetres.  Never mind.  I am happy with the result. 

My other exciting homemade christmas gifts which come as a set are scourers, knitted out of garden twine or jute from the $2 shop and knitted cotton dishcloths.  I bought the cotton at Spotlight.  I know they are a bit time consuming, but I remember when my Nanna bought me a metallic pot scourer (for some strange reason) and how I thought about her every day when I used it, and how I was sad when it finally fell apart and I had to chuck it out.  So hopefully, the people who receive these special (and very practical) gifts will think of me when they use them (and will dispose of them in their compost bin when they finally disintigrate). 

Chairs

Each year our school has an art show and family and friends are invited to decorate a chair and then donate it to be auctioned with proceeds going to the school.  Chairs make a couple of hundred dollars each. 

This year my idea was to screenprint our postcode onto fabric and then recover a chair. 

I found a great stool to cover at the Tip Shop at Reservoir.  I bought the fabric at Rathdowne Remnants (it is heavy duty synthetic stretchy stuff).  I was very happy with the results. 

And then someone donated a chair to the school that I couldn't resist recovering with hessian and tacks.  It is very 2011, but I am a little concerned as to how it will stand the test of time. Whilst all the rage in current home magazines, it seems to me that tacks and hessians aren't the most robust materials when combined as a chair covering material, and I had to glue and screw the chair in the first place.  Anyway, it looks good.  Just as I imagined.  Fingers crossed.