What a weekend!

Whoa I had a huge weekend! Well huge in the way that I learnt and did SOO much that's leading me down that 'path to living simply.'

Notice the word 'path' in my blog title? To me it is as much about the path as it is about the destination. The destination is fabulous to think about - perched in my rocking chair next to my hubby-to-be, looking out from out verandah-surrounded self-sufficient straw bale house out into a landscape where I can see the natural Aussie bush, a few chickens chasing each other around the yard, a high-yielding vegie patch and orchard that supply us with all of our fruit, vegies herbs and nuts (maybe), and the bellow of our dairy cow that brings us precious milk, oh with a cuppa in hand of course!

But back to the path. I am having so much fun learning all of these new skills that have been lost to our generation, especially when I have successes.

Let me tell you about my weekend.

On Thursday I received a shoe box FULL of yarn with a crochet needle from a lady on freecycle. Have you heard about freecycle? If not, you really need to! It's fabulous. It's really big in the States but there are local goups in my area, and I believe other cities in Aus. It's a bit like Ebay, except that everything has to be free. So you can post anything that you have that you want to give away rather than throwing it out and adding it to landfill, or you can post up items that you want and if anyone has them and wants to give them to you they will reply to you. So a while ago when I started making jam I posted that I wanted some jars. Well now I have a huge plastic box full of them! Then last week I posted that I'd like some yarn if anyone has any spare (don't worry I've given away a lot as well! It's been great for decluttering) and a very friendly lady sent me a box full of very soft and beautiful yarn. I have been using Pip's online crocheting tutorial to learn how to crochet. I am currently up to  lesson 7 (the lessons after lesson 1 are on the right hand side of Pip's blog about half way down the page.
Check it out so far:

It's actually starting to look like a granny square! I'm going to crochet a yellow and white blanket for my sister who has just found out she's expecting. I'm going to be an aunty!! Sooo excited!

So after my crocheting lessons on Friday night (picture this: sitting in bed with laptop, cup of tea, Lyndon's snoring next to me and the cat we were looking after keeps trying to eat my yarn!), we packed up my tiny Barina and headed out to my parent's property about an hour away. They have 40acres way out in the boonies so it was nice to escape the city for a few days. I will let you know what we packed the car with in a sec. First though, on the Saturday mum taught me how to sew. Another one of my homesteading skills I was keen to master. Ok so I am FAR from mastering sewing but it was good to get a hang of the basics. I used a pattern of a singlet that mum had already laying around (warning: it's a little naff and not high on the style side, but good to practise on). Check out my journey in pictures:

Mum getting the sewing machine ready for the novice and me unpinning the fabric from the pattern

Trying not to mess up the paper patterns or mix up the front and back fabric pieces for the singlet

Mum showing me the ropes

Trying to pin on the facing (is that what it was called, I've forgotten already!)

 Ok so this first singlet MAY be a little dodgy!

Gees I'm not paying any attention to where my fingers are in relation to that little stabbing needle!

Adding a little more naff-ness to the singlet and practising my zigzag

 Finished product! (Poser? Me? No not at all)

So that was my sewing lesson with my mum. It was great fun! We drank tea (I drink a lot of tea you may notice, nana-hood here I come!), chatted about my sister who just found out she was expecting a baby, and just fooled around! We had a few little snips at each but other than that we had a ball!

You would think that was enough for one weekend, but no we were up at 4am this morning to go to the local flea market out near my parents house. The temperature gauge on my car was saying 0.5 degrees celsius, that's damn cold! I remember it being that in PARIS in WINTER when we went last year. Anyway thermals and ugg boots on, thermos full of coffee and a car chock-a-block FULL of stuff that we had fished out of our garage and we had arrived and set up at the markets by 6am.

Check out our bargains!

Well I am happy to report that we sold most of it (after reducing everything to $1, then to 50c in the last half an hour) and made a tidy profit of $150 for our troubles. Yes it's not much and actually works out to be only $8.80/hour for each of us for all the time invested into it, BUT we did declutter our unit a lot! I can actually fit my car in the garage. It's such a great feeling knowing we aren't just throwing it all oout either. I've actually done that before, terrible I know!

Soo that was my weekend, and why I hadn't blogged earlier. Although I really need to consider blogging more often so that these posts aren't so long! Sorry if they are really tedious to read because they're so long.

Oh and something else that happened this weekend. My first seed sprouting! I only discovered it about an hour ago. We have avocado, passionfruit and cumquat seeds in pots on our kitchen windowsill and after a few weeks the cumquat seed has actually sprouted!! Woohoo! I did a little dance in the kitchen when I saw it. Sorry I don't have a picture of it my camera died this morning at the flea market (I don't think it likes to the cold either!)

You may remember me talking about Sam's New Financial Year pledge, and that I was going to join her in a pledge? Well my busy weekend has prevented me from sitting down and actually writing something down, so I am off to do that now and will post it tomorrow. Stay tuned and join us if you would like.

What did you get up to on the weekend? Hopefully a little more relaxing than mine!

xx Kim