A pop up post from Serendipity Farm

Hi All

So what’s new? I have most probably missed the rise and fall of nations while I have been beavering away. I know that in the time since we last spoke, two of the most influential, larger than life people have passed away. I am talking about Mr Leonard Nimoy and Mr Terry Pratchett. They have both had a huge influence on our modern lives and culture and their passing is a big reminder to live each day as it comes and to make the most out of our lives. “DEATH COMES TO US ALL” but some of us aren’t quite ready yet…

And so onto the reason why narf has ducked in from her crazy world of attempting to meet all deadlines at once and ending up falling over her own feet most of the time. Well, I received the final parcel of bunting from a wonderful lady called Nanette who is a fellow Aussie and I just HAD to scrape the time up to thank her from the bottom of her heart for her most inspiring bunting/hanging that she sent to me. Stevie-boy has been bribed with an extra 30 minutes in bed if he will walk Earl today for me so that I can spend the hour tapping away here feverishly attempting to find the words to thank not only Nanette, but to every kind soul out there who has both sent bunting and remained a dear constant reader of mine for all of these years.

Nanette is a perfect example of “like minds finding each other”. That’s the best bit about social media. We can find each other. We might be slightly skewed. We might have some pretty crazy ideas. We might howl at the moon occasionally (or maybe that’s just me…) BUT we do have little moments of resonation with other souls out there in the blogosphere and the amazing friendships that can spring up are nothing short of incredible. (Narf pauses to multi-task the heck out of a bowl of hot porridge with brown sugar and coconut cream…Note to self…”you might want to wipe that off the keyboard, I don’t think that they are designed for deluges of sugary coconut cream…aHEM!)

I carefully unwrapped Nanettes bunting and was again reminded of just how talented people are. The attention to detail, the ric-rac, the beautiful bead strand, the fact that it wasn’t bunting and was a lovely wall hanging that I could easily relocate to my craft room and the fact that Nanette had found something that resonated with her, from my knock-about pages here were simultaneously humbling and uplifting. When someone that you don’t know gifts you something the modern approach is to look for the gimic. “What do they want?” We are conditioned to be suspicious but sometimes it is as simple as someone thanking you for your words and for taking part in something that stretches the world over, a little pop up gallery of sorts that we can all take part in.

I am SO behind in sending out reciprocal items. I have a wonderful square/squares planned for Ms Snail, and Stevie-boy has been AWOL from his shed for so long that the rats have moved in! Aside from a quick dose of something nefarious that rats adore but that will render it rat free, he has an order for Ms Marlene that absolutely positively MUST be achieved. I can only apologise for how slow my reciprocation is to those who are about to receive. Our lives are now manic. We spend a fair bit of time AWOL and the bits that we are here tend to be swallowed up trying to patch together Serendipity Farm and do homework. Don’t get me wrong, we LOVE it, but that most glorious and languid stretch of endless time that I seemed to have last year (and took most SHAMELESSLY for granted) has up and buggered off. I am left stretched thin in its wake, but only metaphorically. I have bulked out to attempt to turn myself into an anchor and alas, time is much like Maggie Thatcher and “shall not be stopped”. It does make it a bit harder for Earl to drag me but he is bulking up too so we are bound to meet in the middle of the equation at some point. A result of physics I am assured.

So I hate to love you and leave you so quickly but here are a few photos of Nanette’s gorgeous wall hanging. I adore it Nanette and thank you from the bottom of my heart for your wonderful kindness in sending it to me. That photo of them all fluttering in the sunshine is planned for this weekend if it doesn’t rain. I just checked the weather report and it said “sunny” so fingers crossed folks! Till then, here’s a BIG hug from all of us here at Serendipity Farm and catch you on the flip side 🙂

 

What have we here?

Isn’t this gorgeous? 🙂

I love everything about this lovely handmade bright hanging. You certainly got the brief Ms Nanette. There is nothing narf loves more than natural fibres, bright colours and hand made items. I get the feeling we are both hippies of sorts 🙂

Check out this lovely hand sewing and ric-rac.

And I got my very own strand of loveliness 🙂

And last, but by NO means least, look at this gorgeous fabric! You got me in a nutshell Nanette 🙂

One way to stop Earl from pinching your toys is to drop them into your water bowl as you take a drink. Works EVERY to a hydrophobic Mr E 😉

Some of a great BIG bag of gorgeous fresh hazelnuts gifted to me by Glad, our elderly next door neighbour’s daughter Wendy

The few moments that I have to myself (HA!) get used to feverishly crochet. I have been making “things” for a friends baby sister. Here are two pairs of Mary Janes. Aren’t they cute? Why did I make 2 pairs? Because I didn’t read the pattern properly and ended up making 2 left shoes that’s why 😉

And lastly, here’s Brittany. Brittany used to have lots of hair as you can see in this image. She now looks a whole lot like Sinnead Oconor thanks to taking part in the “World’s Greatest Shave” event to raise money for cancer research. She raised $1500 which is a fantastic effort. I decided to make this rather fetching dead fish hat that I adapted from a knitted pattern and customised the derriere out of for her soon to be bald and MOST cold head. She loved it so much she wore it into the city 🙂

I am currently working on a baby snuggle, which is the baby equivalent of a beer can holder as our 3 weeks of summer seems to have turned straight into winter STAT. I will share it when I finish it (soon) as I also adapted it to crochet from a knitted pattern. I am getting the hang of this cross culture thing and am enjoying plagiarising the heck out of knitting patterns ;). Please note, to all of the plagiarisee’s, narf is NOT selling them so good luck with the lawyers ;). Now, off to draw some sketches for a website our class is working on. We get to do actual “jobs” in this course and have an actual “client”…how exciting! Not sure that the “Tasmanian Aero Club” is going to be able to handle the “AMAZING” website that we are all going to cobble together, or if their server will be able to handle the plethora of whiz-bang components but heck, ya gotta try don’t you! ;). Back to the world of HTML5, CSS, Coding, Div’s and all things digital for moi. Have the best day folks and if you have leisure time, enjoy the HECK out of it because you just never know when it might evaporate!