Back on deck after a blogger hiatus

It has sure been a while and despite the quiet front on our blog page, the cogs are moving nicely in the background of our real world. Particularly the past few weeks have been extremely eventful for us at BUXTONbaby; with the launch of our new extremely functional webstore and the addition of a few new products. Most notably the addition of Klean Kanteen stocks, with our all-time favourite stainless steel sippy cup and of course the full range of their products for the whole family. Keep your eyes out for a blog post dedicated to Klean Kanteen in the near future.

We are also very excited to be adding a selection of certified organic beeswax candles to our range, made in Australia as a small scale production and available soon to our customers. We burn beeswax candles for their delightful and subtle natural scent and fantastic ability to absorb odours without releasing harmful chemicals or pesticides. Organic beeswax is a most pure option and we believe that the qualities of this clean type of candle make them an ideal choice for parents and family spaces. We are confident you will love them as much as we do.

The creative hub has been somewhat quiet as I have been hiding away growing our family. Things have finally settled to a point where creativity can be given due pride of place in our home again. I have enjoyed a relaxing and productive long weekend, visiting and staying with family, enjoying quality time with my darlings, and sewing some special custom garments for a winter take on a BUXTONbaby favourite garment! You can check for pics on our facebook page sometime soon. Can’t say how much I love being at the machine creating. In winter it feels particularly special, machine humming and toastie warm inside while looking out at a frosted paddock.

P.S. Are you a Geelong and region local who would like to share your high quality craft on a more broad scale? Please contact us as we are very interested in having more local product on offer.

Whats your beef?

Welcome to Saturday, we are finally enjoying a weekend without any plans - our first in so long - and have enjoyed a delightful morning together as a family visiting our local farmers market.

I thought I would pop back to post here on our return to blog about a new revelation; who knows why it is that this has taken us so long to discover. Readers might recall our mention of beef in one of our positive change at the checkout posts. We mentioned our efforts to find Australian hormone free beef and at the time we were, and have been since, enjoying King Island beef from our local butcher.

Today we are thrilled to share our finding Otway Prime beef; a more local and thus more sustainable source of beef for our Geelong family and yours. This beef is grown hormone free, GM free, free range and farmed with sustainable farming practices - and a reasonable pricing from ~$16.50/kg. Local area delivery is free and the meat is cryovac packed prior to reaching your doorstep. It turns out this meat has been available through Deans Marsh and Birregurra general stores, McGains Angelsea and Lorne Greens; and of course at our regional markets in Torquay, Aireys, Bannockburn and Newtown where we found them.

If you were one of the few hiding under a rock like our family, without knowing of Otway Prime, we hope you can now taste and enjoy this quality local beef.

Happy weekend days...

positive change at the checkout 2

the bottom end

Let’s talk toilet paper. Might seem an odd topic, but this is serious. With the average person using 20-40'000 sheets a year, there is a great potential to make a difference here. We have used recycled toilet paper for many years now. It seems like a simple way to make small difference. We didn’t understand why people we knew weren’t making this most basic change. Why? Our family or friends responded that the paper was scratchy or not thick like other less eco-friendly brands. Perhaps this was a concession we made without really noticing.

The penny dropped recently when I noticed this product: Envirosoft [Woollies/Safeway $5.99/8 Pack]. As well as the [obvious?] factors of no chlorine bleaching, no added inks or fragrances, 100% recycled content, it was marketed with 3-ply as a feature. Weren’t all toilet papers 3 ply, I asked myself? Sure enough when I compared it to the other recycled options they were 2-ply, and this was a more quilted paper that met its claim of a ‘luxury’ feel. Moreover this stuff is Aus owned and Aus made. We put it to the test and were impressed. All of this and the price is competitive. Even our sceptical family members are now making the switch to recycled loo paper and if you aren’t – it might be worth taking a look at this options and thinking twice.

envirosoft: more cush for your tush

postive change at the checkout (a series)

super | keen /kwɨˈnoʊ.ə/

As promised in my last post I wanted to start sharing with you some items that have hit our local supermarket shelves. Our family endeavours to support local and small business where possible, yet we are also happy to see organic and more environmentally friendly, natural, hormone or chemical free options being made available to the public broad-spectrum.

Macro Red/Royale/Black Quinoa

The quinoa (pronounced keen-wa) cooks like brown rice and can be cooked in a rice cooker. Simply add 1 cup of water for every cup of grain (1:1 ratio). It comes in 3 different colours (red, black, cream) and has a very neutral flavour and an interesting, lightly crunchy texture – definitely not sticky or heavy like rice. This is a superfood, it is a complete protein and is also low GI [~53) and double the protein of rice. It is being considered by NASA as a new crop for the Controlled Ecological Life Support System (CELSS).

royale quinoa: cooked sitting beside uncooked

royale quinoa: cooked close-up - the curly tails are a sign that they are ready

We are using it for soup, stew, stir-fry, cereal and salads. Link to a great Red Quinoa stirfry recipe here and a quick + easy Quinoa breakfast idea here. Please share your own inspirations for cooking and eating this awesome grain available now in your standard supermarket.

I’m trying to keep to topic but we’ll at least give a general shout-out to a few honourable mentions:

Woollies for stocking the Ecostore brand as well as its recent addition to the meat department of a free range roasted chook. Not organic but better than what was previously on offer as a pre-cooked chook!

Town & Quality Country Meats Waurn Ponds are stocking King Island Beef Roasts at around $13/kilo; they will also cube the meat and trim the fat for you, giving you both back afterward. Service is with a smile, and they also stock Otway Pork including Otway Pork bacon. With organic beef at the $36/kilo mark it is not accessible for some, the King Island beef is a most reasonably priced alternative that is free from the commonly used hormone growth promotants that are used in most other Australia beef; these are the hormones that are banned in Europe and prevent Australian beef from being exported there. King Island beef is also free from antibiotics and the cattle graze on natural pastures that are GM free.

Until next time..

where are we [going]

Ok. Here we are its 2010 and a long long time since my last post. Things at BUXTONbaby are taking off (hoot hoot) with a load of new products hitting the store, my own creations edging closer and closer to launch and my head is in a real spin. I have been thinking that perhaps getting back to this blog will be a welcome and calming outlet for my busy mind to unwind.

When I walked through the aisles of the supermarket on my own yesterday for the first time in recent memory since my precious son was born, it seemed like a very quiet place. It dawned on me that there were a load of new products on the shelves since the last time I could realllly wander around the aisles and take a good look. Maybe other people feel this way, I thought, unaware of something handy or yummy + natural and new. I know not everyone cares to walk around aisles looking for the latest thing on the shelf, and many don’t care for the supermarket at all.

Since I want my blog not only to be about my store but about useful things that might offer inspiration to others, I decided that this week I would be your personal field shopper ;) and share a few of the products that have hit the local supermarket shelves over the past year that we are loving: of course with a focus on organic, natural and/or sustainable produce. Stay tuned!

I also decided that every now and then I will choose a favourite shade of thread and share it with my sewist readers that might find it handy especially when ordering online. I don’t pick my thread shades by project as there is just too many on the cutting table to run back and forth to the store adding thread. Over time I have moved toward buying a selection of handy favourite threads that have seemed to match with a huge variety of projects. Of course we are making the change to organic thread now with a limited colour range, I will still use coloured thread for decorative and top stitching when required until a more sustainable coloured option is available.

Then from time to time I will share exciting snippets of up and coming creations from the cutting table, from special edition auctions for charity to new product and style launches. Our own organic fabric line, a new Australian made + owned organic bath and body range and the possibility of some in-real-life stockists of our creations are all possibilities to look forward to for us in 2010.

Welcome back to BUXTONbaby in 2010, thanks ever so much for following with us on our journey in business and in life.

Blessings to you and yours.

Pip B.

janome walking foot tutorial

A while back I started playing with my Janome Walking Foot (also known as an Even Feed Foot). I’m loving this foot and using it for a load of general sewing. It is more traditionally a quilting foot but awesome for denim, minkee and any multi-layer project.

The foot has feed dogs for the upper layer of your fabric that work in unison with the feed dogs of your machine on the lower layer. This pretty much guarantees that you won’t let you fabrics slip or shift or pucker your fabric and helps ensure straight sewing. Alright, not guaranteed when you look away at your 1 year old when he calls and you are sewing a curve... but almost ;)

One thing I do remember is that the week I got the foot, I was pretty nervous about attaching it to my new baby – the Janome DC4030 (or otherwise known as the less crazy looking, more pink version of the Threadbanger TB-30 in the U.S). One of the only places I could find info when I was stuck was at Liesl’s blog Hoppo Bumpo – thanks L. I could also find replacement Janome instructions [small poor quality sketches] here.

Here goes, I have a little tutorial to share that might help put 2 and 2 together and give some confidence for a properly installed well functioning Walking Foot.

Installing your Janome Walking Foot:

Step 1. Take your starting positions!

Step 2. Get set.... pause a moment to notice this big bolt, a key component in changing from regular presser feet to your Walking Foot. Press the red release button at rear of foot to release and then remove any presser feet currently fitted (this was my ¼” foot w/ flange guide [lovely!]).

Step 3. Go! Loosen off the big bolt with supplied flat head screwdriver. I then find it easier to do the last few turns by hand so that the bolt ends up in my hands rather than falling on the table with potential to roll away. You are going to need this in a second, so keep handy.

Step 4. This is the result you are after. Naked! Note the little hole as you will need to line this up with your walking foot parts.

Step 5. Slide the walking foot to be hugging the naked pole, you need to have nimble fingers and lift the white bar over your needle tightening screw. This is layperson terms to make things easier and very technical speak ;)

Step 6. Use the nimble fingers you found in the previous step to place the bolt back into the empty hole, lining up the metal bars either side of the hole/bolt. Then tighten up the last few turns with the screwdriver for a nice firm fit and you are finished. Go make happy stitches!