Take Action - Help Ban Live Export

Did you watch Four Corners tonight? What they showed was absolutely shocking

Dear friends, whether you are Australian or not, please sign the petition against the most horrible cruelty I have seen ever.

The following from the GetUp site:
Right now Australian cattle are being maimed and tortured before suffering the most painful deaths that the animal welfare movement has ever seen.

What's more, this callous slaughter is carried out in facilities that use equipment paid for by Australian taxpayers and inspected by Australian authorities.

Tomorrow we're presenting a petition at Parliament House in a press conference with the RSPCA, Animals Australia, and the Australasian Meat Industry Employers Union (AMIEU). The urgent petition calls on Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig to end the cruel practice of live cattle export.

Can you join the campaign and forward this to friends and family?

www.getup.org.au/campaigns/animals/live-export/ban-live-export

If you weren't convinced before, just watch this video footage from Animals Australia. Warning: the video is hard to watch, but it's worth the discomfort if we can help prevent this happening to other animals.

Let's call on the Government to immediately halt the live export of Australian animals to Indonesia and move towards an end to all live exports of Australian animals within 3 years. A huge public outcry right now, while the Government and the public are paying close attention, can ensure that not one more ship loaded with Australian cattle is allowed to leave an Australian port bound for Indonesia.

If you've seen the horrific footage of cattle being slaughtered in Indonesian abattoirs you'll know there is simply no room for more excuses from an industry that has had over a decade to fix this problem.

http://www.getup.org.au/campaigns/animals/live-export/ban-live-export

Our campaigners are in Canberra tonight with experts from the RSPCA and Animals Australia. The Agriculture Minister has already started to walk back from his previous support for live exports -- but another inquiry or investigation isn't enough. It's time to end live exports. Please join the campaign and forward this email to friends and family.

Thanks for taking a stand,
the GetUp Team

GetUp is an independent, not-for-profit community campaigning group. We use new technology to empower Australians to have their say on important national issues. We receive no political party or government funding, and every campaign we run is entirely supported by voluntary donations. If you'd like to contribute to help fund GetUp's work, please donate now! If you have trouble with any links in this email, please go directly to www.getup.org.au. To unsubscribe from GetUp, please click here. Authorised by Simon Sheikh, Level 5, 116 Kippax St, Surry Hills NSW 2010

Dolly Doctoring

I found this Pedigree doll at the local op shop for just $8.

I am ever on the lookout for things for the cubbyhouse.

I'm not sure which eye style or mechanism she may have had but I decided to fit some

for want of a better description,

always open eyes (static?)

After a bit of research on the net, I have found out that glue is a pretty big no-no.

The best advice I found was wrapping a sausage of Tac (eg: BluTac) around the edge of the eye and then going up the neck and fitting it into the eye socket. Once I had the eye in place I also packed more tac in behind the eye socket.

Here is the finished result. The tac will get quite firm but it will be easily removed if need be.

Certainly dolly would not stand up to vigorous toddler eye gouges but I think that is a lesson we teach them very early on.

No biting and no eye gouging

sounds a bit like World Federation Wrestling.

I have this pattern for the clothes now and my $1 bag of vintage scrap fabric

So that is one of my next projects.

Does craft or do children's toys for that matter get any cheaper?

Doll $8

Tac $1

Pattern $8

Fabric probably not even 50cents worth from the stash!

This doll I picked up the Evandale market for $3 just last weekend.

I had to fight my 80year old mother-in-law for it!

She has one lazy eye but I am happy to leave it as I am not a collector.

There is no branding on her and she has a simple eye mechanism that works on a weight system and is all one enclosed piece that fits inside a closed eye socket (ie: if you look up into the head via the neck, you only see two flesh coloured mounds where the eyes would be)

You can easily purchase the eye piece but it takes a bit of work. The method is to heat the head with a hairdryer or craft heat gun which allows the plastic to become more pliable. The eye is removed by prying it out through the eye opening while pushing from behind also.

Then the piece has to be pushed back in with the help of some reverse opening pliers (bridge pliers) and four hands are also a good idea!

A Plane Anniversary

Hmmm can you tell what it is?

Well how about this one?

(Please note wonderful garlic crop hanging in the upper right of photo)

Perhaps now you can see....

It's a plane!

You are looking from the rear. No wings yet.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY

Craig for reaching one year of building!

This is what Craig does with his spare time in the garage.

It is going to be a Sonerai.

Just like making a dress from a pattern really.....

Only one more year to go.

Every boy needs a hobby.

Knitted Hat - 20 Years In The Making

This is my current project at the moment. It is a pattern I have been mooning over for 20years now and I can prove it.....

It is from the Vogue Knitting magazine Autumn '91 issue.

I treasure my stack of Vogue Knitting mags and every year when the weather turns cool,

I get them out and pour over them.

Last week at our monthly Ravelry group (SnB) meet up, the others also poured over the magazine.

We oohed and aahed and got different viewpoints about the merit of dropped shoulders and what ply the dress would be made from....

One of the other girls also had the same issue at home too.

It was interesting to see the changes in the fashions from 20yrs ago and also how many were relevant still today and some even "retro" and cool.

We have wonderful discussions.

Naturally we are keen to discuss around the table everyone's current projects and feel everyone's yarns.

We talk about yarn a lot!

But we also talked about;

Vitamin D and the links with some diseases,

Stem cell research,

Growing up Catholic and being taught by nuns,

The future of books of paper pages/electronic books

Manners and hygiene

Travel plans

Children and Relationships

And we talk some more about knitting....

I love the diverse group of people who have come together in this group.

We are diverse in backgrounds and careers and even age group.

Knitting is the common thread that has woven our little group into a much looked forward to monthly session.

Thousands of people world wide are linked to Ravelry and there are many, many groups.

Don't be shy, link up with one of the groups and meet someone new, or even start a group yourself.

Knitting can be such a solitary activity and it is lovely to be in a like-minded group.

Everyone has different skill levels but it's not a competition, it's just a social.

So the basic gist of this "beenie" is that it is knit around the brim first and then joined and using circular needles to pick up stitches around the edge and knit to with ever decreasing circles to form the "cap" section.

The brim is fascinating as there is a knit together and an increase in rows 1 and 3 that create the diagonal slant of the brim.

The colours consist of a pattern over 6 rows and then on the 10th the trick is to reach in back and down 6 rows and pick up a stitch and knit it together with a coloured one thus making them into a kind of "bobble" section. It gives a wonderful and intriguing texture.

I can't reproduce the pattern here as I think it would be a copyright breach.

Olive Time

This is my island bench for the next 10 days or so.

Hope you weren't expecting romanticised photos of silky glossy olives in shades from woody magenta to midnight black.

I could have shown you two companions in ponchos, hair slightly lifted by a gentle autumn breeze, their arms lost in silvery foliage as they plucked handfuls of olives at a time and tossed them into little buckets on their wrists.

You would have seen a stunning view of the Tamar river stretched below the companions with bright yellows and autumnal umbers dotting the valley as the sun slanted low, setting northwest as it does this time of year.

Reality Check!

This many olives

(maybe about 10 kilos, not sure, should have weighed them)

will take you

4 hours of washing and slitting

1 paring knife of the finest quality moly/vanadium steel sharpened 4 times

6 pairs of disposable gloves

1 apron

3 glasses of red wine.

The method I use is soak in brine of half cup salt to every ten cups of water changing and replacing this solution every day for 10-12 days till the bitterness is almost gone and then it is ready for the final pack into sterilised jars.

Gavin at The Greening of Gavin has recently done olives too and his less histrionic version is here.

The buckets I use are recycled from a local restaurant and all plastic so there is no salt corrosion.

The plates on top are to keep the olives fully submersed in the brine so they don't go manky.

The final pack will be in recycled glass coffee jars with plastic lids but I notice Gavin uses the clip seal bottles.

Front Yard Food Forest

When I first moved here about 20yrs ago, this Mt Fuji ornamental cherry tree dominated a front yard of lawn.

It wasn't as big then but still substantial enough that the root system was starting to make lawn mowing more an exercise in obstacle course.

In order to appease the tree and go a little more low maintenance, I changed the front to a more "woodland" type of forest.

Over a course of years I put down mountains of newspaper and pea straw to kill the lawn and encouraged ground coverings and added shrubs.

This is strictly a "square lawn out the front" kind of neighbourhood so they didn't think my efforts sane at all and were positively aghast when I put a lemon tree in the front!

This plan has only been successful on one side of the front garden, the other side seeming to be a completely different micro-climate despite my best efforts.

In the last 20yrs my gardening ethos has shifted quite a bit. The front was planned as an area of flowering white shrubs with bluebells in the spring.

Now I'm looking for food production

I have decided to try for a food forest based on permaculture principles. I will not be able to reclaim the "woodlands" on the southern side of the front, and nor do I want to, this is a lovely outlook  from my bedroom window. It will become a fairy walk for the future grandchildren.

But this side.....

It doesn't look like much yet but I have planted blueberries, red and black currants and a pomegranate for the middle story and rhubarb and strawberries for the understory.

I will relocate the raspberry canes out here too.

Everything can be under-netted together when the time comes.

I am planning kiwi fruit vines and grapes on the other side of the driveway.

I am still deciding which tree for the footpath to replace the one that was broken several years ago. I would love a small hazelnut or an olive but I think they would present an OHS problem underfoot for pedestrians.

Any suggestions?

Knit In A Night - Corn on the Cob Toy

This knit for my nephew (nearly 2) and only took a night and a scrap of yellow and green wool

and a small amount of fibre fill and a cotton ball.

It is knit from Kimberly Chapman's free pattern here and she has loads more wonderful creations here

It is knit using four double ended needles so it is not a beginner project but if you have become proficient this is a good quick project with NO sewing except for weaving the ends in.