How to have more space

This is our lounge room which will have a new heater soon - we think!

There are a number of TV programs which show us fabulous homes -either being built new or renovated. One theme in most of them is SPACE. I am amazed at how big they are! Some of them would take the small Not for Profit agency I work for several times over.

Space is buildings is very costly. Part of the reason so many young Australians are saddled with huge debts is that the houses we build and buy are so much bigger than the ones our parents grew up in. Yet even these big houses, with their games rooms and media rooms and alfresco eating areas are still not enough for some people, whose accumulation of STUFF has grown so big they rent storage containers and put their extra stuff in there!

There is a 15 page research paper on the Australia Institute Website which looks at clutter and why it worries us.

Here is the link:
www.tai.org.au/documents/downloads/WP112.pdf

"Four in ten Australians say they feel anxious, guilty or depressed about the clutter in
their homes. Women are much more concerned about clutter than men: almost half of
the women surveyed said they were anxious, depressed or worried about the clutter in
their home, while a third said they were embarrassed by it. Indeed, fully 59 per cent of
women said there was a room in the house that they don’t like visitors to see because
of the clutter."

Our research shows that many people – 84 per cent of survey respondents – are in the

strange situation of having bought things in order to deal with the excessive amount of

things they have bought. Around a quarter had even bought vacuum storage bags –

which suggests that the stored items will not be in use for some time. One in five

respondents had built a shed or garage to keep or store things, while one in eight had

even moved house to accommodate their superfluous ‘stuff".

Thanks to our Lenten habit of "Giving It Away for Lent" I am feeling a tremendous sense of space in my house at the moment.

The kitchen cupboard where I keep my pots and pans now has a space for everything I use, since I gave away the large slow cooker I never used. It is now blessing a young person who has been setting up home for the first time, and who wanted to make Rogan Josh like mum! I used freecycle to find it a new home. There will be one near you...search for the word in your search engine.

I have also given away some large platters from the cupboard where I store party crockery. I can make do with smaller ones. The big platters went to my local op shop which supports the Salvos.


My wardrobe is more roomy now I have taken a couple of large bags full of clothes I don't wear any more. The ones I have left are all in use, and are ones I like to wear. They hang better on the rack because I have the space. 

We are undertaking a renovation of our heater in the lounge room, which means that we won't be able to have all of the book cases we had on the same wall. This means giving away some books -which I admit is never an easy task. 

One of the "Simple Living" mantras is to 'Live within your means" -that is, do not spend more than you earn. This is so important for peace of mind! See this article for  more on this

The corollary of that is to "Live within the space you have" which means, with only as much stuff as you can reasonably use and reasonably store. The benefit of this approach is that you don't have clutter to worry you, and you don't need to spend money on a bigger house or storage facility! 

You can't organise clutter, you can only get rid of it!

So how to help manage and restrain stuff?

•  The flylady mantra is "you can't organise clutter, you can only get rid of it!" Beyond a sensible, normal point, there is no point spending good money on storage solutions for stuff which is in excess to your requirements!
• Don't go shopping without a list -shopping is not entertainment.
• Put a sign on your mailbox which says "addressed mail only". Advertising catalogues are designed to make you bring more stuff in your house..often stuff you didn't know you needed or wanted before you saw them in the catalogue. Since we stopped this junk mail, we have had so much more money! All the little bits of discretionary spending all add up.
• If you buy something -the bag you brought it home in has to be filled up with stuff you don't need any more and given away. The "one in, one out" rule means that you do not accumulate too much stuff. As flylady says "Clutter walked in your house one bag at a time, and that is the way it will leave!"
•  Establish a regular routine of decluttering so that you are always evaluating what you have. "Do I still love this? Do I still use this? Could it find a better home with someone else?"

I once visited a shanty town in Namibia, where I saw people living in one room. It is part of my mental geography, if you like! I am constantly asking myself about how my life would look to the people in that house...how much do I really need to live on and with? Could I live with less and also give more to aid and development programs which are supporting sustainable growth in other places?

How would the rest of the world see our junk?

The baby quilt flimsy

The granddaughter baby quilt is now a flimsy!

Here is the front.

And this above is the back.

Feeling very happy about how this is turning out. I plan to pin it all together tomorrow, whilst we have a power blackout so that the electricity company can fix something.

Baby things

You know you are serious about your quilting hobby, when you can't imagine taking your beloved Bernina to the repair shop so her fantabulous button holer can be recalibrated because ....it would mean that you had no sewing machine in the house!

So you talk to your DD who is a partner in crime in all things -thank you darling! She listens to you tell her about the second hand sewing machines in the repair shop, and how you have been wondering if you should get one....."Of course, and then I could use it!"

You check it out with your DH who of course, says yes without really knowing what is about to happen....thank you darling!

And you come home with this!

Here she is! Meet Bernette, sister to Bernina! She is a lovely machine, well behaved and easy to use with no confusing buttons like her big sister, just a couple of dials. Come on DD -there are no excuses now!



So I now have TWO sewing machines....oh dear! Three if you count my treadle... which I would love to get to work. I bought a belt for it whilst I was at the repair shop, so we must give it a go and see what happens... I am afraid a collection is coming on!

However I do love to sew, so here is a SNEAK PIC at the next project... for our first grand daughter due in May...


I was asked to incorporate purple, so I am making these sweet four patch blocks...


And I was asked for elephants...so here are a few of them....


More later!

Giving it away during Lent

This week marks the beginning of Lent, a time in the Church year in which Christians make extra efforts to examine their lives and meditate on the message of the Gospel, in order to prepare for Easter.

Many people will know the routine question "What are you giving up for Lent?" It harks back to an important spiritual discipline of fasting prior to a feast day. Many people give up wine, or chocolate or coffee and it certainly makes them think frequently of their discipline and their faith.

For a couple of years now my DH and I have made it our practice not to give things up, but give them away, during Lent. The idea is to develop our 'generosity muscles" and bless others with our surplus.

It starts with extra donations to our favourite charities : St Bartholemew's house, a local homeless persons shelter; UNICEF the United Nations charity supporting children of the world, and Caritas an overseas aid and development organisation.

Then we move on to our possessions - Lent is a great time for clearing things out, deciding what we don't need, and giving it to those who do.

We got an early start this week by giving away a set of outdoor tables and chairs to a local Youth Group project. We still have the lovely bench pictured above - and the new table and chairs in my last post, so we were happy to give the surplus to such a good cause.

I will be going through my clothes to donate to local op shops.

I am thinking of removing some of the many casserole dishes from my kitchen - I have favourite ones, and ones which rarely get used. The same with cake pans. Why not bless someone else with the surplus?

There is also the quilting projects I intend to give away...I think it is time I started finding out which charities locally would like a quilt... I am thinking maybe a local women's refuge. This Lent I intend to find out who might like something I had made, and what suggestions they have for sizes and fabrics etc.

DH and I really enjoy the opportunity to focus on living simply, giving more and expecting less. What are you doing for Lent?

Routines for life

I have been thinking about what I love about my home, and what that means for my weekly routines.

For example, I love this hall stand which now has an arrangement of silk flowers in a white cast iron urn on it, along with my 'French' market basket and my DH's straw hat. It gives me pleasure every time I go past it, so it is no problem at all for me to take a moment each Monday to give it a bit of a dusting as I go through my weekly 'house blessing".

Similarly, now we have renovated our bathroom, it is no problem to give it a good clean, too.I usually do that on Mondays too -my aim being to get a basic house clean done by lunchtime. In the afternoon I plan the week's menus and go shopping for any supplies we will need. I also pay any bills that are due.

I like having routines because they give me structure to my week, and mean that I can do some work on my days off, and also have some time to enjoy reading or sewing. When the routine tasks are done, I am free to play!

At this time of year our patio becomes an important place for entertaining friends. Recently we bought a new table and chair setting, and it has been great to have people over every Friday night in February for a meal and sharing our lives together.

This routine has been important to us over the years. We have several couples who come together to start the weekend this way. We take turns being the hosts. It helps us really STOP for a while on a Friday night and relax into the weekend. If we need to 'de-brief" from our working week, this is the place we can do it, so that we are freer to go into the weekend with a lighter heart.

Each Tuesday I give myself permission to sew all day. Today I progressed on my quilt -which I showed you all last week. I am really enjoying the Quilt as You Go method.

On Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays I am at work. I really love the three-day per week work schedule that I now have.

My routines are pretty simple, but they are grounded in making life easier and calmer. If you would like to find out some ideas for a pretty good routine for life, follow the link to the Flylady website.

Inspired to finish more!

I bought Margarita McManus's excellent book

Finish (almost) Any Quilt: A Simple Guide to Adapting Quilts to Finish As You Go (Volume 1).

I had done one quilt by this method just before Christmas, using Margarita's instructions on her blog. The technique was so easy and so helpful, that I wanted to get the whole picture from Margarita's book. I am very pleased that I did -lots of good helpful tips and tricks.I experimented with buying it on my Kindle. The pictures are only in black and white in the model I use, but the descriptions are clear. I had thought I could read a book I had purchased in this format on any other device, but this one is locked, so I can't read it on my computer to get the colour pictures.

Edited to add: I have found Margarita's videos on youtube which means that I can see the techniques she writes about in the book.

I have been making scrappy strippy blocks to use up some of the scraps in my scrap drawers, before getting down to making a couple of special quilts. I really like scrappy quilts. Quilting fabric is costly, and of course I want to get the maximum benefit from the fabric I have in my stash. I hate waste, and I like being able to use left overs from other quilts in a new quilt. Of course, quilting has a strong tradition of using scraps!

There are two other reasons I like making scrappy quilts. One is that I find them very relaxing -the business of making 'fabric' by sewing random pieces together is a great way for me to 'warm up' to more exact quilting projects. I like 'mile a minute' blocks which I use as 'leader/ender" pieces -also saving me all of that cotton thread which I used to waste.

The other is that the scrappy quilt has its own kind of charm- there is a serendipitous result from mixing fabric scraps in new ways.

The scrappy strippy blocks were just any length pieces of fabric measuring 2.5 inches which I sewed together, then cut on an angle to make the blocks.

I tried out an orange fabric for the block edges and I liked it.

Then I had an idea for making the little log cabin scrappy squares into bigger squares, for a sort of subtle 'panel' in the middle of the quilt..

This is as far as I have got today. Now the fun part starts. In this method, I make 'quilt sandwiches" of each little block, quilt them together and only THEN does the quilt get sewn together. It is much easier to manage the little squares on a domestic sewing machine, which is often the thing which puts quilters off finishing their quilts at home.

Once this quilt is finished, I have a cot quilt to make for my first granddaughter who is due in May, and I have had a great idea for a quilt with a lot of memories for someone special too. So I am hoping to keep working on this scrappy one and finish it in the next two weeks at the latest. Wish me luck!

Summer time -hot lazy days

It has been HOT HOT HOT -in Perth for a week or so. Several days over 40 degrees Celcius meant that we were struggling to keep our garden alive. Fortunately the new water tank has come into its own, because I can use the water every day on precious plants like this hydrangea and our asparagus crowns, to keep them alive.

We didn't plant a summer crop of veggies this year, because we were going to be away for ten days and knew that a hot spell like the one we just had, would wipe out anything we started. The beds have been fertilised and mulched and we have plans to plant-but only when things cool down enough to let seedlings get a couple of days of settling in before they have to face the heat.
Other plants enjoy the hot weather. These bougainvilleas next to our front fence are relishing the hot weather and are covered in flowers. I hope to encourage them to spread over the fence and soften it. We are happy to see the pomegranate has several nice big fruits just colouring up, and the new Eureka lemon has fruit too. The new olive is growing nicely and the quince has one -rather pretty -fruit too.

For the rest of us, it has been a matter of resting and enjoying the rhythms that summer in Perth imposes. We go for a walk nice and early when it is cool (or just cooler than it will be later) then we retreat inside. I have been making salads cooking as little as possible.

We are of course both back at work after our holidays, so we can at least pass the main part of the day in air conditioning. We don't have air conditioning at home, and that is our continuing choice at the moment. Our shade sails, our window blinds, our insulation, our ceiling fans fortunately make the house comfortable except for runs of extreme weather such as we have just encountered. The house inevitably heats up after a run of over 40 degree days as the overnight temperatures gradually rise too.

Then we get a respite -the sea breeze returns, the evenings become cooler -and so the season progresses.

I hope you are finding ways of enjoying your weather -and making whatever adaptations you need to it.