Progress

I thought I'd take the opportunity to write a blog post as it's quiet here at the moment-Ron and Caitlin are at Pedal Prix practice, Luke is in his room, and I have got a chance to sit down and have a coffee while I catch up on reading blogs.

I've made some progress on a few craft projects.  My Christmas stitchery  got some time.

I started my hexagon quilt-I'm still experimenting to find my preferred thread/needle combination, but I've got one 'flower' done.  I'm going to prepare more hexagons so I can pick up this project and stitch a little on it each week.  This will be a long-term project I think.

Finally, I started knitting on a scarf.  I picked up this yarn from my local yarn store.  They don't have a huge stock as it's more of a small town craft/haberdashery/school uniform shop but I try and meet up with a local knitting group there each week.  The yarn is Panda Sashay and you can see a picture of the pattern I'm knitting on this page-you just need to scroll down a little and look on the right hand side. 

I also added a couple of things to the stash.  I picked up a fat quarter from Spotlight, and also nabbed a ball of Patons Jet from an op shop.

I must apologise for the pictures-they're taken with my iPod Touch so they're not the best-I will get the camera out next time.

It's one week until the 1/2 marathon, and I only have a couple of smaller runs to do before then-here's hoping we get lovely weather like today-but maybe with just a little bit of cloud cover in the morning.

The Post Without The Mini-Series

A bit late with this post-I've just been watching "The 39 Steps" on ABC IView (I love IView-especially since we get it unmetered with our ISP). A most enjoyable adventure movie with nice sets and an even nicer leading man.

Since it's a bit late, I won't write a long post-nothing too eventful happened today, but then I was going to reminisce about Australian historical TV shows and mini-series but I'll leave that for another day. Bet you can't wait. So-today:

• Caitlin stayed home-now the virus has moved to her ears and she's developed a cough-I'm hoping for improvement after tonight's sleep.
• Ron had a rough day with a gastro attack, but now seems on the mend. He won't be home until Wednesday afternoon.
• It was sunny and warm.
• I had a phone call from a friend from Melbourne (we've been friends for....31 years) and we are hopefully catching up for coffee here in Adelaide in a couple of weeks time.

Tomorrow-depending on Caitlin, possibly grocery shopping and the library (newest Terry Pratchett book is on hold)-was going to pop into Spotlight for some knitting yarn (cotton) on sale but the sale doesn't start until Wednesday. Or, it could be a doctors visit, and a visit to the local IGA for emergency items. I'm hoping for the first list of options, for all our sakes. Speaking of our local IGA (it is fairly new-we had no supermarket), the picture above is a coffee in my new favourite mug, picked up there-for less than $3.

Day 4

So it's day 4 and I've run out of catchy post titles already. Luckily with Blogtoberfest I can use the day number when inspiration fails me.
Sunday summary:

• Daylight saving started-most clocks changed-still need to change mobile phone time
• washing done
• some weeding done
• grand prix watched
• craft photos taken

All in all, a quiet day, but that's how I like my Sundays. The photos are not great-it was either too dark inside, or too glarey outside. First is my progress on The Drawn Thread's "Sampler Gameboard"-stitched with DMC on some natural linen of some kind. This is a long time WIP so most details are sketchy in my mind........


I even took some photos of one of my knitting projects. The colours are not at all accurate-it's a much darker green/purple/blue combination (called Vineyard). It's the "Forest Canopy Shawl" in a hand dyed 8ply wool that I picked up at the local Spinners & Weavers Market Day earlier this year.




Tomorrow is a public holiday here, so Ron has a day off work, and we have nothing particular planned except collecting Luke from his camp.

Mystery Revealed

I have a feeling that I won't be suddenly posting on the blog everyday. The November experiment (posting everyday or nearly everyday) ended up with the grand tally of 6 posts. We live and learn.

Since my last post we've had several events, but the first of these was our trip to the South-East to Kingston SE for my mum's 60th birthday party. Luke had a sleepover for scouts on the Friday night so we left home early on Saturday morning, picking him up along the way. The weather was just lovely, which was a change from the weekend of my dad's 60th nearly 2 years ago when we had temps around 40C. I don't have a lot of photos as I have never been in the habit of snapping everything. Some people seems to view a lot of events through the lens of their camera or video camera. Some moments are ideal for photo taking, but a lot of the time I prefer to enjoy the moment or event without worrying if I got a good shot of it. I also spent a lot of the day organising food and chatting to people (some that I haven't seen for some time). The younger kids had a great time as Mum & Dad have a cubbyhouse in their new backyard, and we really didn't see too much of them. They played quite well together as young kids do, even when they don't know each other well. Luke helped out with setting up and serving-he's at the age when he doesn't want to play with the younger kids, and there were no other kids his age there. I am also able to reveal the mystery project that I have been working on-a knitted lace scarf for my mum. It got favourable comments from quite a few people, and I was happy with the way it turned out. The yarn was 2 ply 50% silk/50% wool from The Knittery in the Denim colourway. This yarn is just lovely-the loveliest yarn I've seen. The pattern was "Scarf with Clarence Border" from Victorian Lace Today, and I really had to stop myself from casting on something else from this book for myself. It was a fun knit, and it only took me about a week, I think. Yes, I do tend to leave things to the last minute, but I went for something simple because of that.

Now, some pictures.....

The birthday photo shows Ron and my mum trying to get the candle to stay alight in the breezy conditions (and the lovely cake that my SIL LeeAnne baked & decorated for the occasion). The various pictures of the yarn and scarf are not the best in terms of colour-some were taken in bright sunlight, and others with flash. I think the picture of the yarn is the closest to the true colour.

Last week, Caitlin and her Brownie Guide group participated in a local Christmas Pageant, with the theme being "Nursery Rhymes". She was dressed as a cat for their nursery rhyme-The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, and Ron drove his parents' vintage truck as their "float".

Only 1 week and 2 days before the end of school-we have 2 BBQs and one concert to go before then and then we have some quiet time before Christmas. This year we are having Christmas lunch at home by ourselves, with dinner at Ron's parents new home with his family.

Craft wise I've been busy finishing up the model I'm doing for Naomi from Stitches N' Spice, which should be done by the end of this week-I will take photos when it's finish. I've got a tea cosy to get finished for a knitting exchange, as well as some Christmas ornaments for the kids' teachers. I'm itching to get back to some WIPs-both knitting and stitching, so maybe there will be some more progress on some projects that haven't been seen lately-but not for a couple of weeks.

Please forgive the strange set out with the photos-I have great trouble with Blogger and the way it decides to display pictures-I don't seem to have much trouble uploading them-just getting them to line up in a halfway normal manner. I'm giving up today, and going to do something more productive.

Shopping!

I was going to take pictures of my purchases from our shopping trip today, but Ron had snagged the memory card from the camera, and now it is dark, so you will have to wait until tomorrow. Bobbie & I went to The Yarn Barn, which happened to have everything on sale, as they need to make room for new seasons stock. I picked up 8 balls of Jo Sharp DK Cotton in a nice blue, a skein of Filatura Di Crossa Centolavaggi (laceweight merino) in white, the Harmony Aran book, and a Fibretrends Mobius Scarf pattern. We next went to the Button Bar which stocks KnitPicks, and both stocked on up a few accessories we needed. Apparently the owner is also getting lots of Clover accessories-depending on the suppliers, maybe by the end of this month, or perhaps in January. We browsed Borders, Dymocks and Angus & Robertson, but didn't buy any books. It was good to see a lot of titles in print-some I thought I would like were not to my taste, and I did see one which I have ordered through Fishpond at a lot cheaper price. We also squeezed in a coffee and lunch break, before heading back to pick up kids, etc. All in all, a lovely day.


This afternoon has been busy with baking (supper for Luke to take on his camp) and packing, but tomorrow should be fairly quiet, so I should be able to catch up before a busy end to the week.













Here's a few more pictures from our holiday-kangaroos which would come and feed on the grass in the caravan park in Hall Gap (in the Grampians in Victoria), and various pictures around that area, including one which shows some burning off far in the distance.

Don't forget (especially those of you who don't read lots of blogs and may not know) that you can click on the photos to see a larger version.

Every Day?

Firstly, I want to thank those who read my blog, and those who leave comments. I am planning to write very regularly this month. In the US (and anywhere else that wants to join in, I guess) a thing called National Blog Posting Month, where participants post to their blog each day for the month of November. Being realistic, I don't plan to post every day, but would like to give it a go for most days. We'll see how it goes.

Ron is currently in PNG (Papua New Guinea), and has taken the camera with him, so I will have to use photos already downloaded, rather than taking anything new, for the moment.

Since I last posted we took part in the Long Walk. The weather was particularly nice-around 23C and sunny.

Here are a few photos I took during the day-vineyards, walkers, and a picture of the kids outside the Bridgewater Mill which was built by an ancestor, John Dunn.

The next day the weather was not so kind, with very nasty winds and rain which almost caused disaster at the wedding of Ron's workmate that we attended.

This tree top fell during the ceremony, but as it was on the other side of the winery, no-one knew about it until afterwards. Somehow it fell between all the cars, and hit nothing and nobody. We had a lovely time, and did much dancing, although many of our muscles protested with the aftereffects of the Long Walk.

I promised last post that I would have pictures of Caitlin's socks, and as it has been a while since I had a FO (finished object) to show-here they are.

They are knit using a basic sock pattern by Ann Budd from her book "Knitters Handy Book of Patterns" using Sullivans sock yarn. The yarn is quite thin, and as I have a fairly loose tension, I used 2mm needles. The first time Caitlin wore these, blue dye stained her feet, but after a wash (in the machine) the colour lightened and the yarn "bloomed" a little. The ball is a 120g ball, and even though these are a women's small size, I have quite a lot left. The main thing is that she likes and wears them, and they wash in the machine.

I think I will end off there-one of the advantages I can see about posting every day is that the posts won't be so long. All that "catching up" makes for big posts.

Where I go on and on....

I'm not going to do a holiday post at this time, since it's been about 2 weeks since we got back, and I have more recent events to chat about. I'm thinking I will find some photos each post and give a summary - but in snippets.

We did have a great time-were away for 10 nights and covered quite a few kms. I did get to Bendigo Woollen Mills, and Caitlin started knitting. She's not done so much since we've been home, what with school and other distractions. Here's a couple of shots along the way. We have Luke in front of several the the Twelve Apostles. You can probably see that the weather wasn't the best for coastal sight-seeing. Caitlin is posing on some beach area we found just out of Apollo Bay, just before we headed north towards Ballarat. The kids had a great time on the beach and rock pools, and found a friendly Border Collie to loved to play fetch. The final photo is in the Grampians. Caitlin is "posing" and Luke is looking his pre-pubescent self when asked to look at the camera.

Now, back to current events..... Since we arrived back: Ron has had his 20th school reunion, been up to the Cooper Basin for the week, kids have started back at school for the final term of the year, we had a school working bee on a day when it was 33C, followed a couple of days later with 15mm of rain and a max temp of 13C. Coming up we have a wedding this weekend (someone from Ron's work who's not been there all that long so I haven't met) with not many people I will really know-but at least Ron isn't in the wedding party this time. Oh, and before that we have the school's "Long Walk" which is held every 2 years and retraces in part the journey many pioneer women walked from up here in the Hills down to produce markets to sell and buy produce sometime several times a week. This year it is being held on a school day, so it's been structured so the younger children have easier and smaller sections to walk. Luke & Ron are doing the longest part, while Caitlin & I will be doing the intermediate section. The weather (considering what we've had lately) looks to be good. Later this term we have a camp for Luke, Ron going over to Papua New Guinea, Christmas Pageants, Christmas concerts, a 60th birthday party for my mum, and who knows what else.

Having got the other things out of the way, I will turn to craft (as I usually do). Most recently, we went to a garage sale that had advertised "knitting yarn" in the newspaper ad. Generally Ron pops into local garage sales looking for parts and tools for his car restoration project. He had standing orders to look out for ball winders, but had so far been unsuccessful. I didn't have my camera with me, but i saw what happens when stash goes bad. It was quite sad-most of the garage sale was in a garage (funnily enough) and the lady (who we found out later had been the knitter along with other arts and crafts) just kept dragging out boxes and garbage bags of wool and yarn. It hadn't been stored all that well so there was some dust and dead bugs to deal with (not that bad), but it was tragic-there was so much and it was such a mess. I wasn't the only person scrummaging through all this-there were quite a few. I ended up with 7 balls of older Patonyle (yellow, red, bright blue + one ball of navy), 27 balls of 25g Heirloom 4ply in teal, navy & red and a couple of balls of 10ply cotton. I also happened to ask her if she had a ball winder-and she did! I'm yet to test it out, but Ron has lubricated it with a silicone lubricant, and it seems to wind fine. Caitlin got a small bag of yarn odds and ends and we got this for $10. I was thrilled as I never seems to get any bargains from op shops or the like. I was fairly restrained and only got what I thought I would use for sure. I've finished Caitlin's socks (I'll post pictures next time with more details) and am currently working on a little cardigan for our latest family addition. Our nephew and his wife, Paul & Kristen, had a little baby girl, Holly, while we were away on holidays. I also have to stitch up a Christmas ornament for our annual Christmas exchange-I have found a kit that should be ideal-just need to go start it.

Talking of exchanges-I'm participating in a Tea Cosy Exchange-in which we knit a tea cosy for our secret partner, and maybe other kitchen accessories, and send it off with some related goodies for their enjoyment. To assist our partners, we are showing photos of our teapot, so they can knit something that will hopefully fit. Balls of Bendigo 8 ply, and Patons Patonyle added for scale ;)

And I've worked out one reason why people show close-up pics of flowers in their gardens (other than they look pretty)-it's so no-one can see the weeds.........