Castle in the Mud

I have maintained my perfect record of No Spend Sundays for 2009. In fact neither G nor I went out today.

G spent the day in the yard - mowing and then planting lots of white agapanthus. We already had plenty of blue ones but no white ones. Our neighbour knew I was looking for white ones so when she divided hers she kindly brought a large clump of them down on Friday. Some are planted near an old tree stump and others between the chook house and the cedar tree along with the king orchids, heliconias and blue agapanthus that are already there. The area is starting to get quite established. The next step will be to put some mulch down. It will most probably be leaf litter which is easily raked up from other parts of the garden. G also concreted a new post in down near the bottom gate as there was a gap which a determined canine could use as an escape route. The next project we need to tackle in the yard is fencing the vegie garden/orchard area. There is considerable debate as to the location of the the fencing and whether or not we need to remove the NSW Christmas bush. It is a lovely shaped tree and the foliage and flowers are stunning. If we end up removing it we will definitely plant another one.

I have been working on my UFO's (unfinished objects) of which there are a few. I have darned the numerous holes (about 8) in G's woollen pullover (thanks moths!). My darning is effective but definitely not up to the standard of some of my ancestors. I did get better at it as I progressed and now am even thinking that a darning mushroom could be a useful addition to my sewing basket. Here is a video on 'How to Darn a Sock'.

The other project which I finished today was a doorstop. My mother made a Gumnut Babies design tapestry which is to cover a brick and to be used for a doorstop. She gave this to me about 12 years ago when we were living in a different state from her so naturally the tapestry and instructions were posted to me - but not the brick. At the time I found a brick, covered it with some newspaper then polyester wadding but never got around to lacing the edges of the tapestry fabic together on the underside of the brick. I have used the doorstop for all of that time in 3 different houses and most people were probably unaware that it was not complete but it irked me that I had not finished it. The other day when I was vacuuming the lounge I noticed how grubby the tapestry had got so I washed it and today I added fabric extensions to the tapestry fabric edges and have sewn it all together using heavy-duty thread. The doorstop now has pride of place in the front entry.

I also cleaned my sewing machine including dismantling the bobbin case. It is scary just how much fluff gets into everything.

In the study I did a bit more sorting out including re-arranging the filing system for the bank statemetnts and clearing out some of the many emails in our Inbox.

I also did all of the washing and ironing so am ready to start the week with a clean slate.