Sewing sisters!

Sewing with your sister is "sew" much fun!!

 Especially when you are still in your Pj's!

What have you been up to lately??
Smiles The Torrents'

Natural Dying for Kids

We have recently had the most amazing time learning all about Natural Dying! The lovey Anita took us through all the processes to make our own unique garments!

She showed us some of the wonderful things she had dyed and what type of fabric works best. Wool is the SUPREME for dying but silk works just as well and even cotton can take some colour depending on what you have used!

 

 

We all got to collect some of our own natural goodies and then went to work on placing them on pieces of cloth (mostly found at the Op Shop) ready to be wrapped and boiled!

 

 

 

We were all soooo keen to un-roll them but were advised by Anita to wait a week and see.....
Smiles The Torrents'

Nature Weaving Craft {Homeschool group in Poatina}

 

We recently did some Nature Weaving with the children in our Homeschooling group. It was a lovely, sunny day and the children LOVED their masterpieces! The little girls and I went collecting the "pieces" to weave, it all looked sooo wonderful!

 

  Amy taught us all how to do square lashing to hold our looms together!

 

 Now to the fun part!

 

 

  Hannah

 

  Esther

 Sophia's weaving complete with flower bunting!

 

 River

  Eva

 I really enjoyed seeing how each child made there art and what they liked best to weave with!

 

 

 

We happily displayed ours along the window, which we found out that Cobweb enjoyed as Nature was brought indoors!!
Smiles The Torrents'

Yarn Along - arm knitted scarf!

It's Yarn along time, this time I've been busy making warm, toasty scarves for the colder months and thanks to my dear friend in NSW she has been "advertising" hers proudly and other ladies have wanted one too!!

I've been having a wonderful time putting these together and of course reading to my treasures!This is a great rhyming book with an awesome reminder of not giving up and being true to yourself!
Smiles The Torrents'

Water study for Kids {part 3}

Our last week of the water study here in Poatina saw a field trip to our amazing Sewage Farm! We started at the top of the hill where Hannah told us about the different ways water is collected and natural paths it flows, one way or the other downhill which is called Watershed.

Hannah pointing out The tribes - above us on the mountains - Big River Tribe; below us on the plains - Midland Tribe; Across - Ben Lomand People.

Demonstrating the path the water would naturally run with people on either side of the hill.

We also ran as water drops down the gully, looked at the dam, talked about swales (ditches on contour that hold water and help it slowly soak down through the soil).

The Poatina dam, complete with wonderful wetlands plants!

Found some tracks in the wet clay on the way to the sewage farm! 

This is from a Wallaby (we think!?)

Steve giving us the low down on how the sewage farm works. It is German designed, gravity fed, passive flow system that uses beneficial bacteria and water flow to break down waste.  The Hydro put them in at different towns all across Tasmania. This one is capable for managing 3,000 people's "waste." We only have 100 people in the village at the moment!!

The vintage map of the set up!

So there ends our Water study! We all learnt HEAPS and might I say what a wonderful job Hannah did in informing us all about our water and the wonderful ways God has made things work!
Smiles The Torrents'

Yarn along - Colourful weaving

 

One our weekly trip to the library I found this brand new Eric Carl BOOK!!! Whoo Hoo!! He is a pretty awesome children's book author and I was keen to read this to the little girls.
It even comes with a read-a-long cd (which was still brand new!!) narrated by Stanley Tucci! So with a new book to read and a new weaving project it seemed perfect to join in with the Yarn Along. I'm not sure if the colours in my recent wall hanging are inspired by the book or the other way around but I do know I'm LOVING the brightness and the fun they both shine!

What have you been reading this week?
Smiles The Torrents'

Water Study for Kids {part 2}

Another fun week of looking how the wonder of Water brought us to observe flow and pressure!
Is there better pressure in different parts of the village?? The top of the village faster than the bottom??

 

 

We checked out the main Water valve for the village. Amy demonstrated how valves work with the children and got them to use their arms to show it being turned on and off!

It was all tested and found that it really didn't vary that much, but there was a certain lack of pressure the further you went down the village!

Billy had a great time in timing how quickly the bucket filled for the experiments and his Mum had a great time filling them!! Well it looks like she was, though it was a wet job!

Once the testing was done the older children filled out questions, while the younger ones did some drawings of water and enjoyed talking about all they had learned.
What a fun study this has been!
Smiles The Torrents'

Yarn Along - Weaving Wall hanging

One of the things I like best in our homeschooling day is our Read-a-loud time! It makes me soo happy to see all the children gathered around attentively listening and, when finishing a chapter, shouting "MORE, MORE!"This is one of Esther's favourite reads! Who doesn't love Noddy!! We found a few Noddy books at the Op-shop, Esther is ALWAYS on the look out for more!

I've also been working on some Wall hangings with my new fav craft WEAVING!! I received a mini loom for my birthday and I'm having the best time creating different ART with it!!
I'm pretty excited to share this with you and the other clever crafty people at the Yarn Along, which the lovely Ginny heads up (well at least that is the only place I've seen it!) Her knitting is totally amazing and her wonderful family make her blog a MUST to follow!! I wonder if weaving is ok to join in on??? Hmmmmm...
at least it works with yarn!! That after all is the name of the linking fun!
Hope you are having a great week, filled with reading and craft and laughter with your treasures!
Smiles The Torrents'

Water study for Kids - in Poatina

For the last few weeks we have had the opportunity to look closely at WATER and all the ways it comes and goes in our Village! The first week we looked at where our water comes from. We drove up the mountain a little and then gathered round to listen to the lovely Hannah.

 

 

 

We looked at maps learning all about markings of valleys and mountains and contour lines! Then the children demonstrated what that's like with wonderful exercises from Amy!!

 

It was raining the whole time we were out but it was really quite fun to be out and about in it, learning about water! We found the reservoir and the creek and the Weir that helps sift out all the yuckies from our Mountain water!

 

 

The children all had a great time and certainly know a lot more about our water system after our field trip!
Smiles The Torrents'