In praise of baskets -and tips on how to buy them

I love to browse op shops for things that are both beautiful and practical, and none are more beautiful and practical than cane baskets. All of these have been found in op shops, and I have not spent more than about $10 on any one of them. I have quite a number now, and don't yet see the need to stop collecting them yet. Nothing screams "simple living" than a basket actually being used. If I were a social media influencer this post would contain a picture of me in a floppy hat and a frilly dress, with a basket hooked over my arm, in my garden whilst I harvest flowers or something.

Instead I use them in the following ways:

This is my library basket. It is strong and sturdy and feels great when carried. I can keep my library books near my chair and pick it up and carry it away if I want to go and get more books! 

This is the laundry recycling station. We have laundry baskets, flat baskets for drying seeds, baskets to take the recycling to the bin, and baskets to corral the scrap paper for the compost. 

There is nothing like a good sturdy basket to take to the garden to pick your own fruit. 

But if you have too much fruit, you need a basket to put some out on the verge to enable neighbours to help themselves. 

And if your seed is dry, you need a basket to hold the seed heads while you separate the seed from the husks. 

When not storing fruit,  baskets can hold dried flowers or your keys.

They hold toys for grandchildren. 

They keep spare parts for quilting.

They cover plastic plant pots. 

They fill the space at the top of bookcases in a decorative way, whilst waiting for another task. 

A few tips for buying baskets:

1. Set them on a level surface and see if they stand upright without wobbling or looking wonky. Wonky baskets are very hard to correct.

2. The handle needs to be securely attached if you might want to use it to hold heavy things. I have been able to reglue a few handles which were coming unstuck, but each basket seems to have its own way of attaching the handle to the base, and you need to look carefully to see if it is repairable. I have one basket which I repaired by wrapping with string, and it is still going strong. 

3. I can make do with a basket that has a tiny break in the cane weave, but not if it affects its ability to hold the contents securely

4. Fashion will tell you that you need your basket to have a washed out French grey look, and I have seen people spray painting them to get that look. Personally I think the golden brown shades of cane to be universally acceptable. 

5. If a basket has been damp and has a mouldy look or smell , you may be able to resurrect it (non-food storage only) by spraying it with a teaspoon of clove oil mixed with a litre of water, and sprayed on the can very thoroughly, then dried in the sun. I have one that I gave this treatment to, and it is still very useful to take Nanna's supplies of games and toys when I go babysitting. Note: our grandchildren are too old to put things in their mouths! 

6. Always buy them second hand or in charity shops! The price is very much discounted there. 

7. Consider picnic baskets - but take out the inner loops which were made to hold utensils- you will then have a very sturdy basket for other purposes.

8. Don't carry a basket close to your clothes if you are wearing a loose weave fabric which may snag on a bit of cane which is sticking out a tiny bit. 

Do you love baskets too? 

 

A couple of quilt finishes

I have completed a couple of scrappy baby quilts recently. They are both finished at 45 inches square and will be given to the guild's Community Quilt programme which gives quilts to hospitals, nursing homes, hostels and shelters. I hope that the babies who get to snuggle in these find them bright and happy.

Both of them were completed on my Singer 306 machine, a workhorse which is the same age as myself! The top quilt was started on my 401 but the bobbin winding mechanism stopped working after a while so I swapped it over to the older machine. I hope I can get the 401 to work again because it is a lovely machine too.

 Now that I am done with these, I am thinking of 'using the good fabric" for a sampler quilt which I will do as a 'quilt as you go" quilt. Right now I am falling down internet rabbit holes, finding inspiration and ideas about how to make a sampler quilt, which I have never actually done before. 

Is that rain? and other adventures

Apparently Western Australia was in a 'heat bubble" with unseasonably warm temperatures in late April and early May. We had had lovely warm days of about 25C with cooler nights, but worryingly, very little rain at all. Finally about a week ago, the rain started to fall!

I was harvesting limes, grapefruit, tangelos and limes, and still hand watering the snow peas and garlic I planted expecting winter rains. I still have so much citrus at this time of the year, and often I offer it to neighbours for their use. 

DH made a lime chutney but was disappointed in it -he thought the skins should have been softer after cooking. We left it in the jar for several months, and have discovered that now it is exceptionally yummy! 

Our 3 year old passionfruit vine has finally started fruiting. I grew it up over the dead lemon in the front garden, bordering our neighbours' driveway, so we are all getting excited to see the large round fruit appear. I check it every day to see the fruits change from green to yellow, when they will be ripe. It has been too many years since we had our own fresh passionfruit. 

This beautiful view of King George Sound's entrance is from nearly a week we had away in Kinjarling Albany -our favourite place for a holiday, 5 hours south of Perth. We had a really really good time. Due to the late winter, it was warm and sunny most days and while it is a worry for farmers, I have to admit it was a lovely time for us. 

I found this original watercolour of a beach shack on Wadjemup Rottnest island, in the op shop. I really love it!  We are gradually filling up the wall space over the sofa bed with a gallery of original paintings.

The autumn weather has brought seasonal flowers in our native vegetation: banksia and eucalypts in particular. 

I have been pleased with the roses in my garden which have enjoyed the autumn weather and put on a nice show of blooms, too. I am trying to put more perennials in my front garden so that there is a more full, abundant look out there. 

So glad to have a warm and comfortable home for the winter season, so grateful to have some rain at last! This is Dora who loves to sit on quilts, and will seek them out if they are available anywhere in the house. 

Thanks for visiting! 

One more turn of the summer merry-go-round

We are all done with summer, at least emotionally, but summer is keeping on keeping on. Just when I was all inspired to get into autumn planting, the hot weather came back for one more go. It was all I could do to keep up with the watering and keeping things alive! 

Mind you,there have been a few showers, and the temperatures have slowly started to go back into temperate temperatures. 

While I am waiting  I got this lovely book by Huw Richards called The Permaculture Garden, with lots of lovely ideas for me to be thinking through. 

He has a very clear and concise way of explaining things, and the diagrams are beautiful. His Welsh garden is so lush! I thought I might find it too Northern Hemisphere to be of much use, but really there is so much that is relevant here. 

The hoya was moved to a slightly sunnier spot and immediately celebrated with lots of buds. 

We took a little trip to Bunbury to see the wonderful Gregorian Brothers in concert, which was sooo, sooo beautiful.

On the way there and back we had a chance for a some sightseeing in Mandurah and Pinjarra. 

Having had a lovely lunch with a friend in Pinjarra, we visited a favourite op shop there and found a treasure: an original oil painting for $15. The frame was in need of some repairs, but DH was able to fix it in about 10 minutes or so. We really like it. 

Sometimes the weather turns into autumn properly in Perth at Easter, so I have my fingers crossed for next week. 

 

Gardening after a long dry summer -inspiration!

Well, the big news is that it RAINED! So yes, it is officially 'autumn" or actually it is bunuru, the Noongar name for the season where the storms begin and the weather gets a bit cooler - low 30C rather than high 30s-40C-  and the Marri trees are in bloom. We had a fabulous thunderstorm this week and it has made everything greener and more refreshed. 

I harvested the pomegranates, to save what I can of the crop because various birds or rats have been eating them. I took a few to a local food pantry, along with some fresh limes from our tree, and they were well received. Now I need to get the kernels out of these in the bowl, so we can freee them for salads later in the year.

A bit of rain makes Perth gardeners think of planting things! I went to a garden cntre and bought a new hibiscus, some herbs and a salvia for the front garden, which I have been renovating. I have scattered calendula and marigold seeds in there as well. Our rear garden is pretty much given over to the fruit trees and productive raised beds.  The front garden, however, whilst it is wonderful with both fruit and flowers for much of the year, looks pretty drab at the end of summer, as very few plants flower in the heat, and everything is a bit stressed. 

I want to plant things closer together and have more foliage, at the very least.

This is a rose called glamis castle, I think. It is never very abundant in summer, but the spring and autumn suit it better. 

The plants that can take the heat in this climate -frangipani and hibiscus - are going to be featured more. My two white roses are survivors, but they have shown that they just need more water than our drip irrigation, 2 mornings per week as allowed, can deliver if they are going to flower consistently. I have changed the watering delivery method to help support them, along with a bit of handwatering too. 

I have planted an apple blossom hibiscus and a purple one called Hawaiian Skies.

Everyone says that salvia are tough and long-flowering, but I have tried two before, which died. I have a new one, and will take special care of it and hope it becomes established. 

I have put another frangipani in the ground -it was a cutting which I grew on in a pot since last year- and also a lemon verbena which I also had in a pot. 

There will be some lower storey plants -yarrow, iris, pelargoniums, daisies, along with some herbs like thai basil and parsley. I have scattered marigold and calendula seeds.

 

Getting Inspired

There are a couple of places I have found real inspiration recently. One is the wonderful Regenerative Skills podcast, which connects me with a community of permaculturists around the world, who are working in hard conditions, and who often have very few resources.  It is a source of hope.  

Hugh Edward's You Tube channel is also a fantastic resource. I loved the 9 tips one which helped me get on to the job of processing my seed for storage. This picture below is fennel which I had been drying in the laundry. It smells amazing! I have come to really think that fennel is an under appreciated herb. It grows as a perennial, has tall ferny fronds and is so useful in salads and for creating a bed for your roast to sit on in the roasting pan. You can eat the seeds and they germinate well in the garden and will grow without much water. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIyoaLX5LQs&ab_channel=HuwRichards

I have been letting these self-sown pumpkins run under the citrus trees. There are about 5 which have survived and grown well, but they do try to take over!

The limes are gowing fresh and juicy at the moment. We have mandarins and lemons ripening up too. 

I have some elephant garlic to grow, when the temperatures drop a bit more, and I need to decide on other winter vegetables - we love snow peas so I want a lot of them!

It feels so good to be energised after the hot summer, and I am looking forward to seeing my garden green up soon. 

 

This was a struggle, but it is done

This was a struggle, but it is done

As a quilt, it is not complicated in its design.  It is built around a panel I had in my stash, and fabrics I already had and it is simple. I thought 'someone will be happy to have this to keep them warm and make their bed look nice, so I will give it to the Community Quilt group at my guild".

Why did it take ssooooooo long?

I got the top done quickly enough, and started to piece together a back from leftovers in my stash- panels and blocks made and rejected from other projects. This was harder, much harder.

But the real problem was that it needed to be precisely centred against the front, and my technology of registering the quilt and pinning it was just not precise enough. I pinned it together twice before I gave up, bought a large piece of neutral fabric and pinned it for the third time!

I quilted it on my vintage Singer 306 in straight-ish lines across the blocks and put the binding on by machine too, as my hands are not happy with hand sewing these days. 
 

Today I am going to tidy up the sewing room and process the leftovers of this quilt before moving on to a new project. The 306 needs a clean and some oil too. 

This will be delivered to the community quilt group this month. They give away over a thousand quilts per year to shelters, rehab centres and hospitals. 

It's a journey-; late summer

"it's a journey"

Thanks to Brenna Quinlan who drew this illustration for download from her webpage. I love the way it sees so many of the habits we build as contributing to our slow living, simple living one-planet way of life. 

We find we have our seasons of activity -right now it is a beginning of harvesting and preserving, as the weather gradually cools and the days get a bit shorter. 

I have been able to do some gardening this week. Most of everything is still alive! I am taking cuttings, planting some seeds, tidying up after the heat. 

School is back and that means our Wednedsay babysitting gig is back too. 

I have been trying to finish this quilt for weeks! I have pinned it to the back twice now, and today I will be unpinning it and putting a plain wide back on it. I am hoping for a smooth run from here on! Talk about SLOW! Well, it is right or it is not and I want it to be right.

We managed to get a few bunches of grapes from the grapevine before the birds got them all. Well, the grapevines out the front are for shade mostly. 

DH helped me to do a summer prune of the lime tree, to reduce its height. In the process we have harvested a basket of small tart limes. I have cut some into quarters and flash frozen some for cold drinks -lime 'ice cubes". DH tried a new recipe for lime pickle, but I don't think he is happy with it. The lime peel stayed quite hard, and he found it very salty. I haven't tried it yet -it does say that it should be allowed to stand for a month before we try to eat it. 

DH also got inspired to make mango chutney again. Hooray! 

And a delicious tomato chutney.

I borrowed this book from the library, and we all loved it so much we have bought a copy for our own. 

Marri blossoms in flower are quite spectacular. These ones are at the play centre, where I volunteer in the garden. I have been looking for the golden yellow flowers of the Illyarrie but so far the blooms have been too high in the canopy for me to get a good picture. There is one around the corner from here, and I am keeping my eye on it. 

Thanks for visiting my blog. Hopefully next time I will have a quilt to show you!

It is hot out here-January 2025. The tough get quilting and tidying

Hello again, from a hot Perth Western Australia in the first month of 2025. We are in full summer mode -but even the beach might be too hot for a walk in the morning these days. If it is too hot for the beach, it is probably too hot to work in the garden too. I keep up the watering, and wait for better days. 

We had a week of cyclone-induced humidity and low cloud last week which was weird. When you are used to very hot but very low humidity days with lots of sunshine, and a sea breeze every afternoon, a week without those things is a shock. 

This was my first attempt at foccacia, using the King Arthur Bread company recipe. It was yummy, and I now have a new cast iron pan to cook it in -thanks to Father Christmas, but the oven has been playing up and won't be fixed until later this week so I haven't tried to do it again. 

I heartily recommend this large book about Robodebt by Rick Morton, called Mean Streak. It goes into detail about who knew what and when about the government disaster which claimed debts based on faulty mathematics from unsuspecting welfare recipients. It is a sad story, but there are heroes who kept their moral compass pointed to courage and compassion and truth, no matter how powerful were the voices telling us that it was otherwise. 

I have spent most of January tidying up my sewing room, with the help of the wonderful Karen Brown of Just Get It Done Quilts and her yearly "Declutter Challenge". It is now clear that my bad habit of taking out fabric to test them in a new quilt scheme, then stuffing them back into a drawer, was a really, really bad idea. I couldn't tell what fabrics I had, and they were crumpled and a mess. Quilting is easier in a organised work place. I have promised myself that I won't do that again! 

Fabrics have been sorted -scraps even thrown out.

In the spirit of 'using it up' I finally unpacked a panel which had been in a bag for far too long, and determined that it was either going to be in a quilt soon, or I would throw it out. This is the result. Some scrappy 9 patches, squares of shell fabric and a top is made. I am now, in my now tidy sewing room, working on a pieced back. This thing needs to be a quilt, not just a top, and off to the WAQA Community Quilts group for donation. 

This is the pieced back of the quilt. More scraps in here, but it would have been a lot quicker to use a whole cloth back! 

Do you ever pick things up from the side of the road? I noticed this shelf one day, and immediately drove back home to get the DH. He also thought it was something with potential, so he cleaned it up and painted it and installed it in my sewing room. I love it! It has cleaned up a lot of equipment that I like to be handy but don't want cluttering up my workspaces. 

Tidying up also has arrived at my computer desk, where I have found that this desk tidy which I made out of a shoe box, has transformed the clutter and takes up very little space. The deep box of the shoe box was cut in half on an angle and a small triangle shape removed, then the two ends were inserted into the lid. I saw the idea on pinterest I think. 

I hope I will be back at my blog more often in 2025. It has been a way I document my life, and its simple joys. Wishing you the same joys for 2025.