mellow autumn

 SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; 

A perfect autumn light filled the garden this morning. I love the crisp sunlight and moody glowing colours of this time of year.

I haven't been doing much gardening lately, I need to get out there and cut some things back and plant some winter vegetables, but time is flitting past and weekends have been busy with other things.

I do have a garden wander everyday though, it is my meditation. I love seeing what is happening out there, my garden and the creatures in it have a life of their own.

I love to see what's thriving, what's flowering, what's changing colour, see fruit ripening, flowers opening.

Yesterday I was delighted to see this white hydrangea tanned to a bright pink and green. I loved the fairy floss of the Euphorbia silver fog delicately hovering over the budding daphne. Such a great plant this one. My maple is slowly turning yellow via this great lime green and the feathery grass has suddenly died back to a rusty brown and collapsed over a bright purple salvia.

The salvias are in their prime, bursting with colour where there was none. The last of the roses are spot blooming and this little native has produced its tiny mini apple berries, which the birds haven't had a chance to steal yet!

All the seeds I put in have been eaten by slugs and snails, the peas, the beans, the spinach. But still the chinese greens are doing their thing and these little globe carrots with their lime feathery leaves.

My first ever mandarins are starting to colour on the little dwarf tree we put in a year ago. It can hardly hold them up. 

My favourite sight this week,  through the kitchen window the other day I saw and photographed this hawk, a brown goshawk or collared sparrowhawk I think. I wish I'd got another photo but I'm happy to have this one, amazing I had my dslr sitting close by with the long lens on. 

I just hope he was eating mice and not my little bird friends!

hawks nest

With so much happening last term and the year speeding up, we were keen desperate for a few days away these holidays. Time away is such a cure all for the stress and sameness of the everyday for me.

So last week we headed off to stay in Hawks Nest, a coastal town a few hours north of Sydney we've never visited. Its a beautiful part of the world, like so much of the Australian coast. We really loved it and will definitely go back some time.

My highlight was seeing whales up close for the first time! We saw humpback whales off the beach twice! I've only ever seen them before as puffs of mist on the horizon, so it was a rare treat. The first time we turned into a coastal lookout in the National Park and suddenly there they were, flashes of white and black a few hundred metres out to sea. As the afternoon sun got lower they came in close and breached a couple of times, just shot up head first with fins waving.

Just before this Mr Flowerpress had narrowly missed standing on a common death adder, that scary looking snake above, it even hissed at him! So our next encounter with nature was a great distraction!

We felt really spoilt then when we turned up for our morning swim the next day and one was swimming at our beach with us. This time I actually got a photo of the whale's back as he made his way across the bay.

Another beautiful spot was Dark Point with sand dunes which stretch for hundreds of metres. Here's a pic of me and my beautiful boys imagining we are stranded in the Sahara! We had fun running up and sliding down all this beautiful soft sand.

The next afternoon we got out of the rain at Bingo at the Golf Club. I had to talk the family into it at first but once we got our Bingo Dabbers and sheets, and J won the first round they were hooked! We'll definitely be going again some time.

Add to that some long walks, fish and chips, local Chinese, a couple of op shops and some board game action and it was the perfect break. We are feeling recharged and (almost) ready for the busy times ahead.

I hope you all got some relaxing times, or have some planned for this long weekend. Are you a road tripper? Do you know any great places we should try? Preferably with whales and bingo, and no snakes!

show & tell - megan kinninment

Megan Kinninment lives on the north coast of NSW, where my parents live. Its a place where I spent time growing up and where we spend Christmas holidays every year. So one of the first things that attracted me to Megan's blog were her beautiful photos of the landscapes around Byron and beyond.

This part of the world has a strong hold on my heart and her pictures immediately conjure for me all that is wonderful about it, the green, green hills and small village halls, the rattly wooden bridges and expansive views of ocean and coast. It speaks to the wonderful mix of farm and new age, tradition and innovation, the markets, the beaches... it's no coincidence that Megan also works as a  journalist and digital producer on the local paper. She manages to show the best and most inspiring parts of this beautiful area.

Like many of my other favourite blogs, Megan's also chronicles a creative and loving family life, lived simply and close to the earth. She shares her ideas and practice for natural and creative living, her successes and challenges alike. Megan is a gardener and a maker as well as a writer. A recent rainbow party was full of wonderful ideas for a colourful, handmade birthday.

There is much to love about The Byron Life and it has a permanent place on my reader, so if you haven't spent time there do go and visit, it's the next best thing to being there!

Thanks again Megan for being part of Show & Tell, especially this week when the local floods kept you so busy at work!

name
Megan Kinninment
location
Byron Bay
blog
The Byron Life
facebook
http://www.facebook.com/TheByronLife
twitter
theByronLife
instagram
@TheByronLife

1. Can you give us a short description of your blog/style/work
The Byron life is a personal blog about living life simply and creatively as a mum to three girls. It’s heavy on photography, a passion I rediscovered through blogging. I make stuff, grow stuff, photograph stuff then write about it. I’m a journalist who has had to unpick her training in objective reporting to writing as “me” on the blog. Liberating, if a bit scary sometimes.

2. Why blog? How did you start?
I started blogging when I was on maternity leave from my job as a regional news reporter. There was never anything strategic about the blogging, I just started for the love of writing and photographing and the ease of being able to publish my own work and connect with other creative women and mothers. Interestingly though, everything I’ve learned through blogging I now apply to my work as journalist/digital producer, so maybe it was a strategic and clever move after all!

What has been amazing about blogging for me is the way it has connected me into a community of creative people and motivated me to do something creative in my life every single week.

3. Family taught/Self-taught/Trained?
Journalism: Uni, then did a traditional newspaper cadetship; Photography: self taught; Craft: mostly self taught, but I also studied fine arts/ceramics at East Sydney Tech (as it used to be known); Gardening: my mum.

4. Workspace - studio or kitchen table?
I have a “special” writing desk that is never used for writing. Instead I write from the living room, with my kids playing and yahooing around me and I sew/craft on the kitchen table because the “studio” aka garage is currently a shambles. Like many mums, I’ve learned to create from the centre of the action while still cooking, talking, rousing on yahooing children etc.

My kids will automatically start making stuff next to me, or else hassle me to get off my own computer so they can watch Peppa Pig and totally not get that I have a deadline… and yet somehow it all comes together, despite the chaos. I also stay up late some nights, when the house is quiet, to get that “me” space for creating away from busy little hands and yahooing kiddos.

5. Blog/Shop name, where does it come from?
My blog is about my life in Byron Bay, so I wasn’t terribly imaginative there!

6. Favourite writing/ photography style? 
I love realism; non-fiction; reportage and photo-journalism.  Blogging was very hard to get my head around at first because I was trained to write in the objective third person. Now many of my paid published pieces are written in a similar style to blogging - first person accounts.

Photographically, again journalism informs my photos. My photos move between being published on my blog, to being published in the print or online edition of the paper. Sometimes I have a go at something more abstract and atmospheric, but I always come back to a photo-journalism style.

7. Ambitions/future directions/future projects you'd like to try?
I would love to have a book published (non-fiction) and I dream of having some photographs exhibited. I’m ever-so-slowly working towards those dreams.

8. Are you neat and organised or, ahem, creatively messy?
Ahem, creatively messy! (I like the way you phrase that, Susie. “Creatively messy”.  So guilt-free. Thank you.)

9. Favourite handmade, handcrafted item you own not made by you
My girls all have crocheted blankets made by my mum and given to each girl when they were babies. I treasure those blankets so much, knowing the hours and hours of work/love that went into each one.

10. Favourite food/recipe?
I love spicy, Asian food and I am trying my hand at growing as many of the ingredients for those recipes myself. I blogged this chilli and lemon grass salsa recipe a year ago and since that time I’ve got to the stage where I can nearly pick all of the fresh ingredients from my own garden: chillis, lemongrass, basil, coriander and ginger. I live in an environment where the Asian-style plants grow well, so I want to keep expanding this aspect of my garden.

11. Favourite colour?
Green

12. Star sign?
Leo

13. Favourite place, landscape (not necessarily Australian)?
I can’t go past my beautiful Byron Bay, but Kakadu also has a special place in my heart. I love the intensity of these places; the sometimes maddening heat and relentless rain of the tropics and the fact that everything grows like crazy in these environments.

14. Any tricks for juggling life/work/family with creative pursuits?
I don’t know the trick for how to juggle these things; I’m still tweaking it. My only advice is to keep on with your creative life, no matter what. Even if it is in small ways, five minutes here or there; an idea written down on a piece of scrap paper; a project that sits on the table waiting for you to come back to it over a period of weeks… it’s important to carve out that time for yourself. And, embrace the mess! Creative work wins over housework at my place.

15. Favourite designers/artists/crafters/writers etc?
Kim Wallace is a new discovery to me (I found her work through Instagram) and I really love what she is creating – very delicate,  subtle ceramics using lace textures. I love her IG feed too.
The other artists listed are all women whose work I have long-admired. They are all strong, passionate women; ahead of the game in their fields.

Favourite writer: Helen Garner; Favourite photographer: Gemma-Rose Turnbull; Favourite designer: Rachel Bending from Bird Textiles; Favourite crafter: ceramist Kim Wallace, from Udessi.

16. Your favourite thing you've made/written/done?
I was happy with this interview I did with Julian Assange’s mother, Christine and my favourite ‘thing’ would be a simple stoneware bowl I made 20 years ago on the wheel at college. I still use it every day in my kitchen for fruit.

17. Three words to describe yourself?
Creative, determined, sensitive.

18. What do you like to do besides creating?
Sleeping is fun and quite novel these days, so I do that whenever I get the chance! Gardening is also my thing. Spending time in my garden, just pottering around, is one of the ways I unwind.

2012

I can't quite believe we've left 2012 behind already, can you?!

It was a good year, a busy year with lots of happy times and not too many sad.

Looking back, it was a creative year too. I often feel like I don't get everything I want done, so I love these end of year roundups and photo mosaics, where I get to see what I've actually achieved - it gives me a great sense of accomplishment!

There's nothing like collecting all your work together to remember the times through the year, what you were doing, what was happening, what you made.

For example looking here I see that this was the year I finally learnt to crochet and embarked on a bullseye quilt, which is still 'in progress'.

I made a quilt for little Poppy, my second, but definitely not my last, in fact I've started another starry quilt which I need to get back to...

This was a year for sewing and one where I actually made some clothes for myself. I grew in confidence and started to learn more about how patterns come together, how sleeves fit armholes, how linings fit within skirts. I have many new patterns in the stash and one of my dreams is to design and print some material and then make some clothes with it for me!

At the end of the year I celebrated five years blogging and was included in Pip's Ace Bloggers list around the same time. It feels like a wonderful milestone to have blogged regularly for five years, it has given me so much. My little Flower Press business which has also enriched my life marked its fifth anniversary too and that felt good.

I created tutorials - for foam and perspex printing, for my small baby quilt and for stencil screenprinting. It felt good to share what I'd learnt. In return I followed many tutorials, pinned many projects and became an instagram addict!

I did my first collaboration and made a wonderful marble starter kit with dear Alisa, something we're both very proud of.

I made soap, I made bread, I made yoghurt, ricotta and jam. I planted more vegies and reorganised the garden to make it more a mix of ornamental and productive. 

Our family worked hard, we played hard, we did our best. We ate healthier, we lived simpler, we cared for others around us, we looked at art, we were creative, we exercised, we lived. My heart is full watching my beautiful children grow a little more into the wonderful people they are.

I'm excited about 2013. Some ideas are slowly percolating in my mind. I've learnt not to be too specific about goals, to let life steer me through my year. But I do know that there will be more of all of this, another big mosaic next year with lots of creative life. 

And I know that as always my lovely blogging community will inspire and encourage me and help show me the way.

While making this I couldn't resist looking back at the last four years of mosaics, I think this one's the biggest! Here's the list of links for 2011, 2010, 2009 and 2008 if you're interested. And for individual photo links for those images above, click the mosaic picture to be taken to flickr.

five

Today marks the fifth anniversary of the flowerpress blog!

Thank you to everyone who has visited, blogged, pinned, inspired or been inspired by this space. Thanks too to everyone who entered my giveaways, followed my tutorials or visited the flower press shop.

And a big thank you to all the Show & Tellers who have shared their interviews here.

I'll be back next week to celebrate with some more posts, a sale in the shop, two giveaway winners (still time to enter!) and some new sewing, but I just wanted to mark and share this milestone here :-)

dog shame

I laughed till I cried reading through the http://dog-shaming.com/ tumblr. Here are a few of the sweet puppies being publicly shamed by their owners, though actually some of the worst offenders don't look even slightly abashed.

Thanks to everyone who left comments on my last birdie post. The last few days we've had more than fifty birds congregate at a time in our garden, hanging out socialising around the bird bath and in the trees chattering to each other. Its another thing putting a smile on my face this week. Welcome spring.

moments

The other day I came across a big Giveaway on Cloud9 Fabrics giving ten winners their choice of 2 yards of fabric, cut from past and present collections. I'm a big fan of this little company which produces organic quilting fabrics, often commissioning artists and independent designers to produce guest collections. Some of the artists I admire who have designed ranges include owner Michelle Engel Blenckso, Heather Moore from Skinny Laminx, Julia Rothman, Gennine Zlatkis and Kayanna Nelson from JuneCraft.

So despite the fact I never win anything I joined in. Imagine my surprise when I was away recently to get an email saying I was one of the chosen winners! I've been wanting these Julia Rothman prints (floral and fish) for a while, a couple of the others are from Heather's collection and two others mini florals by Michelle. I really like the unusual and slightly more grown up colourways of these ranges. Sometimes quilting fabrics can be a bit pastel, pink or bright for my taste so its a nice change to see some mustard and blacks, turquoise and deep reds. Anyway, not sure what I will sew with them but don't they look sweet all together. Thanks Cloud9!

Matching perfectly are the new growth on our baby photinia hedge and this new spotty graphic visitor to our garden (making a little nest) a pardalote. I managed to get my new 'bird' lens hooked on before he came back to get this action shot!

If you follow me on instagram, forgive the repeat of this little orange candle project, seen on pinterest and tried out last night. I love it, its so clever! The orange pith forms the wick and the peel a cup to hold oil, in this case olive oil. It takes a while to light but then burns for hours giving off a slightly orangey smell. I was so tickled with this clever little experiment.

You can even make a little cover as we did but as we found later you need to cut a little chimney at the top or the flame burns it. Link to the tutorial on my pinterest making board.

the blues

Thanks for all the wonderful feedback on my foam printing tutorial, I've actually been showered with Pinterest love this week after the wonderful Rashida Coleman-Hale (of I heart linen fame) pinned it to her Fabulous Tutorials board. I love thinking that lots of crafty people will have a try at this simple printing style.

I've also been lucky enough this month to have my Filigree tea towel featured in a Moody Blues spread in this month's Homespun magazine. I'm in great company in this beautiful issue, with lots of great crafters, projects and tutorials this month.

Also in the blue spectrum, I joined in with Poppytalk's Summer Colours Flickr Group this past week.  I've played before a couple of times, in Jan's Collecting Nature and Spring Colours Weeks and I love the beautiful images that come out of these community projects, they're always stunning. I was really excited that Jan used my swimming pool image as the title image for the blue day, along with some others of mine (the waves on the left and the mountains on the right).

In the same spirit I'm also joining in with Ally from Everyday Miracles posting a monthly garden moodboard. This is my first, July.