Time to make a knife.

Our Christmas present to Charlie and Jasper was a two-day knife-making workshop at Gardner Knives, based at beautiful Seppeltsfield in the Barossa Valley.

On our New Zealand holiday last year, Jasper had been entranced by the blacksmithing facilities at Weta, where swords were made for the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies. Then later in the year we happened across the artist-in-residence knife maker at Seppeltsfield. Sword... knife...more or less the same thing, only rather more useful in real life!

Andy was keen to make himself a chef's knife. And two January workshop days became available due to a cancellation. No time like the present! Even if the forecast was 38 degrees C both days (and rising).

Whilst the big chaps got to work, Clem and I popped in and out of the workshop to observe, and explored the area. The blacksmith's room is ridiculously picturesque, with rustic tools, stone walls, blasting furnace and light flooding through old windows, and I went a bit mad on taking photos.

Seppeltsfield is a very large, old winemaking property established by the Seppelt family. Whilst the Seppelts are no longer owners, it has recently returned to private ownership and management that is determined to preserve its heritage and restore its place in the Barossa community. Which is so nice to know in these times when so many grand old family businesses are bought by faceless corporations, properties are sold off and brands become meaningless logos slapped on whatever sells.

 This is the Seppelt family mausoleum, built around 90 years ago at the top of a hill that overlooks Seppeltsfield. Huge old date palms line the roads throughout and leading into the property. Clem didn't seem to be creeped out by the fact there are dead people inside this building, and we walked all around it and through a pine forest on the hill beside it.

 When we looked in on the boys, they were well underway.

 Charlie and Jasper made 'hidden tang' knives, starting with a rod of knife-making steel that had to be flattened and ground down.

 Andy's 'full tang' knife was crafted from an old car leaf-spring. Baz at Gardner Knives loves to recycle old metal tools and scrap, which was one of the things about his workshop that appealed so much to us.

 Even Clem was invited in on the act, to help sand a wooden knife handle with increasingly fine-grit sandpaper.

 Can I just get a 'phwoar' for my husband using an impressively large and dangerous power tool? (Pity he wasn't wearing the leather apron in this shot, too.)

 Here you can see Jasper's knife-in-progress. The part he's holding is the 'hidden tang' which is the metal extension of the blade that is then glued inside the knife handle.

 Andy's 'full tang' knife has the steel sandwiched in between two slices of wood, held by metal pins, and the steel is visible all the way along the handle.

 Jasper's knife handle is made from the base of a Fallow Deer antler (they shed their antlers). The rest of the antler isn't suitable for knife-making but is apparently very much suited to boy-souvenir-hunting so we now have four of these floating about the house. Lucky us.

The process of polishing an antler knife handle with a belt sander produces an odd, not entirely pleasant smell that Charlie likened to burnt cornchips and Andy to having your teeth drilled. Just in case you were wondering.

 The proud knife-makers at the end of two ridiculously hot but extremely exciting, instructive and rewarding days of hard work.

At the end of the second day, clouds were gathering and when we dropped into a winery on the way home, we were treated to spectacular lightning, thunder and downpour that we watched from the broad verandah overlooking paddocks and vines. (Photos taken out that way were a uselessly rainy blur.) It was a welcome relief after the heat and also much-needed to help contain a scary large bushfire that was out of control in the Mount Lofty Ranges.

And now, back to slothing about at home and the work/school holiday juggle, which doesn't make for nearly as exciting photos! But we have three fabulous new knives to remember our time by (I can vouch for the fact that they cut cake very, very well), and a few Barossa wines that seemed to sneak into the car during our trip, too.

- Jane xx

Pom tiddly om pom, pom pom

Ah, so much has gone unblogged or almost blogged. 

And in case that sounds dramatic, let me assure you, it's not at all. In fact it's been entirely humdrum, everyday unblogged. I have indeed been sewing, but I've shared things for me over at The Drapery blog so don't want to double up. Ah, might throw in a photo or two at the end here.

But down to business - oh and sorry, it's more dog business. Ew, not that kind.

I made a pompom for Skylar today. It was such a success I wanted to share, and it seemed like a quick and likely way to get back into the blogging habit.

Skylar loves fuzzy things, and had taken a particular liking to a woollen pompom that I made with the boys some years ago, that's been hanging about the house ever since. We throw it for her out the back, she races at it, snaps it up, flips it in the air and basically goes crazy for the thing. It's looking the worse for wear.

 

 I do rather like the traditional method of pompom making, with two cardboard rings, poking the wool through and around, through and around. However, it's time-consuming. And I came across an adapted method that doesn't really feel like cheating, but is a whole load quicker. Yep, found it on Pinterest.

 I think it made a very satisfactory pompom! I tied it as tightly as I could, knowing now the kind of treatment it was in for. (Those are shreds of the earlier pompom around on the lawn.)

 I didn't manage to capture Skylar doing her full flip-out, which she generally reserves for 7am or earlier. Later in the day she prefers a quick trot and lie down. It's easy to see why racing never suited her. Most of the races are at night. Silly races.

 Your move, pompom.

Below are the cardboard pieces I used for pompom construction, after removal. I think these may be bigger than the templates provided in the Pinterest link. When I printed out the largest one, it looked pretty small so I made up my own. I may have buggered up the printing, or I may just prefer a giant pompom.

And the pompom pieces are sitting on the laptop on which I type my blog posts - grubby old thing! Complete with 'bread tag elves' courtesy of Jasper.

Now, on with random recent photo grabs!

Here's a t-shirt I made for Clem with some awesome cotton/spandex knit with NINJAS!! from Crafty Mamas. I have come to the conclusion that as the sizes get bigger in this, my favourite Ottobre 'Best t-shirts' pattern, the neck bands get a bit tighter, especially if you use spandex knit, and I've ended up with a bit of scrunching up around the neckline. So I should make them a bit longer in future.

 

 

 I blogged about my Grainline Alder dress at The Drapery, but suffice to say I love, love love it and am wearing it again right now, which is at least the 3rd day in the last week (less than?) since I finished it. Yes, it has been washed :)

Lastly, lest this end up in unfinished-draft-land, here are some photos from a weekend that Andy and I had in Melbourne, without children. Yes. I tagged along on a work thing he was there for. We ate a lot, walked a lot, saw some children's theatre (work) and saw this utterly gorgeous 'Golden Mirror Carousel' at the National Gallery of Victoria. It turns super-slowly and silently and the seats gently sway and the whole thing was quite magical.

So there. That's a bit of stuff from lately! If you have read this far, may your week be filled with golden mirror-ness :)

- Jane x

Monday at The Block

It's raining, it's pouring
it's getting somewhat boring
we mustn't complain
about the rain
even in school holidays and hey at least we got out on Monday and anyway the kids have been taking it in turns to succumb to some fever sore throat thing and lie on the couch lah dee dah something ending with 'oring'.

Yes. At least we got out on Monday to my parents' block!

 My dad recently had this huge fire pit thing fashioned by an engineer.

 Fungi aplenty in various shapes and colours.

 My favourites, the sundews.

 Echidna diggings - there was a heap along one of the paths, perhaps they like the soft ground after lots of rain. Look, nose holes!

 Clem making a strange face (this hardly looks like him) but he thought these hakea nuts looked like ducks.

 'Bug words' inside bark. (Clem said they are writing 'yum'.)

 Can you spot the red, red robin below?

 Clem and Grandpa found this old jar.

 Cleaned up a bit, it had cup and pint measurements on the sides. (Can't be too old since I assume that is metric cups, but it felt like treasure.)

We had sausages and potatoes and damper for lunch and spent a lot of time wandering about picking up fallen branches and putting them on the fire to help reduce the summer bushfire risk. Honestly I can look at the world with a vastly improved attitude after a day like this. And I'm trying to hang onto that feeling this grey, grey week! Is it grey where you are?

- Jane x

New Zealand Holiday

Last Friday evening we landed home from the most wonderful three week family holiday in New Zealand. None of us had ever been there before and the trip had been in the planning for about a year. In fact, Andy did absolutely all the planning and booking, for which I am eternally grateful, because I have not had the brain space for it nor, really, the ability to imagine we could actually achieve such a thing, logistically or financially. But it happened, and it was brilliant!
New Zealand is a stunningly beautiful country. Geographically quite different to Australia, it is a dynamic landscape formed by, and still under the influence of, volcanoes and earthquakes, glaciers and massive rainfall. Yet there are many cultural similarities and we felt quite at home. What's not to love about a country that bakes a treat called Lolly Cake and has an icecream flavour called Goody Goody Gumdrops? Oh, and they also have really, really good beer.
To a large extent ours was the Lord of the Rings / Hobbit Movie Fan Tour of NZ. Starting with the set of Hobbiton. Just superb.
Click away now if you don't want to scroll through about fifty photos!
- Jane x

another movie location

at 'Rivendell'

hiding from Ringwraiths (another location)

best lemonade ever

temporary and beautiful 'cardboard cathedral' in Christchurch, which had terrible earthquakes a couple of years ago

still earthquake damage visible everywhere

Moeraki Boulders

we survived 12 days in a motorhome, yay us!

Autumn colour

oh yeah, another snowclad mountain backdrop to camp by

tiny man, big horse

teenager!

Piper Cherokee, for reals... it had ashtrays on the armrests!

so much beautiful lichen and moss everywhere

yikes, we went in a helicopter too!

the boys' first experience of snow!

band pose

so many rainbows

Ahhhh, New Zealand. We loved you. Well, most of us loved you, most of the time. And the six year old... well, he's six.

- Jane x