Spinning, knitting.... winter has arrived.

Winter arrived very suddenly.

I missed late summer and the warm autumn days because of my cancer treatment in Christchurch and seven weeks away from the cottage and the garden is a long time.

Now winter is here and the first frosty nights were a bit of a shock, so cold outside, but amazing starry night skies.

Waking up in the morning to a white world,even the pond is frozen and my goldfish are swimming under the ice till the morning sun comes out and melts the ice away.

All the growth in the garden has slowed down and` the winter vegetables are not doing well in this sudden cold snap.

I have planted the last spring bulbs and Henk is pruning the fruit trees in the orchard.

When the afternoon sun is warm enough I sit outside on the deck with my spinning wheel and spin away for a hour or so.

Handspun wool

My wool is not finely spun, I spin a bit more chunky, but I like a textured look and feel in my knitting,also I spin different yarns together.
Black Alpaca wool with grey Romney wool and some dyed fleece to create a burst of colour.

The first frost of winter.

Different fleeces spun together.

I can't wait to start knitting my next slippers.

Creative again

After two weeks at home I start to feel well enough to be creative again.

Slowly my energy levels are returning and I feel I can do a little bit more each day.

Most afternoons I am very tired, so I do some spinning or painting.

My friend Ruth lend me her mothers spinning wheel and I bought some carded fleece at Eyebright near Richmond,also Ruth left me some carded wool to spin. 

The last spinning I did was nearly two years ago, so it took me an afternoon to get into the swing of spinning again.

I hope to spin every day and use the wool for my knitting.

Paul is the next person I am knitting winter slippers for and Jean my friend put an order in for a pair of slippers.

My paintings are simple, watercolour images of every day items, mostly from my garden.

I use recycled paper and small pieces of watercolour paper for the cards.

I found the birds nest without the egg.

Henk is going back to work this week after nearly three months looking after me and being with me during my cancer treatment.
I won't be able to work for a while, so we have to live of one income what will not be easy.
The only way I can earn some extra money is through my creativity and I hope to be able to sell my little painted cards and hand spun knitted slippers through my blog and face book.

Another birdsnest card

Pumpkin from the garden.

Another pumpkin card.

Olives from the olive tree in the garden.

The cards cost $ 5 not including postage.
The hand-spun knitted slippers cost $ 25 not including postage.
I am selling my cards on trade me under crafts: Greeting cards and envelopes  in "other" catagory.

I will post some more information about the slippers in my next blog post.

Email me: frowijnmarijke@yahoo.co.nz if you are interested in my cards.

Home again

This photograph of our view was taken when we just moved into our cottage at Upper Moutere and it was spring time, everything looked fresh and green.
Spring passed, summer went and now we are in the autumn season.
So much has happened in those months we have been living here.
We transformed a neglected cottage and garden into our own rustic, shabby chic looking home and the garden one day will be full of flowers and well pruned fruit trees, thanks to the hard work of my husband Henk.
We are bottling and eating the fruit of our trees and the crops were plentiful this year because of our hot,long summer.
While I am writing this blog post, Rachel my daughter is juicing our Granny Smith apples into the most amazing fresh apple juice, I had already a glass full.

Only a few days ago I came home from Christchurch were I had seven long weeks of cancer treatment. Radiation and chemo therapy and my body is trying hard to recover.
I still have times during the day I feel very tired and sometimes I am in pain.
I lost a lot of weight, because my appetite was gone during treatment.
But each day I will get better and will beat this disease.

In three months time I am going back to Christchurch for a check up and will have another scan done to see if the cancer is gone.
I won't know until then,but in the mean time I will focus on my recovery; meditate daily, have a positive mindset and eat healthy food.

I am staying in the now, not thinking about tomorrow much, enjoy the day given to me, today!