Where sewing meets gardening, and a new name

I haven't posted for ages (sorry Mum!).  Partly because I think my blog has been suffering from a bit of an identity crisis.  Over the years Funkbunny's kitchen garden has become about much more than just  our garden.  As my love of sewing has increased I've wanted to be able to share that with the blogging community, and we've been learning other skills too: preserving, cooking with solar, making bread.   For me, learning all these new skills is part of living a simpler, happier life.  Growing our own food, cutting down our energy use and re-purposing materials all mean that we are less tied to the consumer-driven treadmill.   I constantly find inspiration in the blogsphere and I hope that by sharing some of what we do here, in our small part of suburban Melbourne, I can make a contribution too.

So, instead of separate blogs, I've decided to rename this one, to simply 'Funkbunny' so that it can include all these things and hopefully still be of interest to those of you who read it, whether your interests lie in crafty things, gardening, sustainable living or maybe all of those.

For the first post of 2013,  here is an example of where all those things come together.  Yesterday MMSTL and I  spent a few hours making shade sails for the back garden.  Our poor veggie patch has really suffered with the heat and lack of rain this year in Melbourne and really needs shade on the hot days.    He measured out the required sizes and screwed in some hooks and I sewed some op-shopped sheets together. It was like making a giant patchwork quilt! We added ties, made from strips of sheets onto each corners and secured  these to the hooks.   The sheets seem to be holding up against the wind quite well and will provide some much needed shade on this 37C day.