Easy as Falling off a Blog

You know it's been a while since you've blogged when you have to back and read what you last wrote about... The reason I have given up my procrastinating ways (for now) is that I am feeling poorly and don't much feel like doing anything else. I'm hoping I feel better tomorrow as we will be leaving on Sunday for a family trip (down to the south-east, along the Great Ocean Rd, up to Ballarat and Bendigo, and home via Halls Gap and the Grampians), and I have things to get organised as well as my Knitting group, a school meeting, and my Stitching group.

So, let's see. Since my last post we have : had the party (and sleepover), attended the 24hr International Pedal Prix, kept attending the Knitting group, had my stitching girls getaway weekend, and just general life.

Spring is here-and Summer is looking to be long and dry again. We didn't get much rain in August, so things will be drying out before long.

As far as crafting goes....I'm still stitching away on my model (on the home stretch now, but had hoped to be finished). Knitting-wise I have finished the beanie I had to reknit for Ron. I haven't knitted lately on the Mystery Shawl as it isn't a pick up and put down kind of project. Here's a bad photo of my progress. I am looking forward to getting back to this, but it has to wait, for now.

I've also started a little cropped short-sleeved cardi for Caitlin in a pink/orange variegated bamboo/cotton yarn from Lincraft. I haven't taken any pictures of that one though.

I have got a few pictures of the purchases I made at the Mt Pleasant Wool & Fibre Festival-better late than never, right?

I also got some more yarn (from the same seller as the pink) in a blue/green colourway, but my photography sucks, so you'll just have to use your imagination for now ;)

As you all know, I love to join in things. This summer I have joined Southern Summer of Socks which looks to be lots of fun and no pressure, except the pressure you put yourself under. Participants have been listing their own challenges, and I have decided to do the same.

1. Knit a pair of socks using the Magic Loop Method.

2. Knit a pair of toe-up socks.

3. Knit a pair of socks from each of Favorite Socks and Sensational Knitted Socks.

I think that will do for now. Both those methods will be new to me and I would like to try them as I currently am a top down, dpns gal. The reason for challenge no. 3 is that although I have these books and love them, I have not actually knitted anything from them-yet.

Oh, and I am on Ravelry as AussieLeo. I just checked and see that I've been on there since July 6-I still have to update lots of pictures on there, but it's lots of fun, and I love being able to see different people's projects.

Hopefully I will get to post before we leave-if only to let you know what projects I am taking with me! We plan to visit the Woollen Mills at Bendigo-and any other shops we see on our way.

Tag-You're It

I was tagged in Dishrag Tag-my team is "Downunder Dishies". Unfortunately the box didn't arrive on Wednesday as I could have knit my cloth on the bus trip down to Wakakirri rehearsals. The performance was on Wednesday night so we had 2 round trips to the city on Wednesday. The performance went really well with our school winning the "Best School in Public" award which is judged over the whole day including rehearsals and the night of the performance. Caitlin also got to be one of the school representatives who speak after the performance. She was the understudy for one of her friends who was fairly apprehensive about the whole public speaking thing, so Caitlin was prepared, and she did a great job. We don't find out for another week or two whether we make it into the finals.










Back to the Tag. The box was delivered (to my door by the postie) on Thursday around lunchtime. Here is what I got from Clare:


a huge ball of cream cotton, a ball of teal green Heirloom 8 ply cotton, 2 packets of yummy fudge, and of course, a "dishrag" knitted in cream cotton in moss stitch. It was all lovely, but I had to get cracking! I decided to use the green cotton for my knitted cloth, and chose a pattern from Dishcloth Boutique called Kitchen Cotton which was a pattern based on 1x1 rib.

Here is a picture of what I posted to Melanie on Friday: 2 balls of Sugar 'N Cream cotton, a couple of yummy treats, and my completed cloth. Whew!







I had the opportunity on Thursday to attend a knit-a-long in a nearby town (Stirling). There were only 3 of us, but I thoroughly enjoyed it (although I missed out on afternoon tea because I had to leave to pick up kids from school). I have instructions to bring WIPs, and my Knitpicks needles for some show & tell next week.

At the moment life seems all about "the party" which is in a week's time, but I am also working on the model, or knitting (beanie & socks) when that's not suitable. I went to the Mt Pleasant Wool & Fibre Fair today, but will save details for another post.

Must go watch Dr Who, do dishes, and stitch.

August already??

Apparently it's August........ And I'm not really ready yet. Ron's birthday is in 2 days (luckily he requires very little in the way of preplanning), but Caitlin's 9th birthday in in 2 weeks and 2 days and I have nothing planned as yet. We have the school's Wakakirri performance next week and I have been busy helping with costumes and attending rehearsals. Luke had his first Pedal Prix race on Sunday (it was a 6 hour race) and the 24 (yes, that's 24) hour race in September. We had 2 teams in the primary school category and came 2nd and 11th (we think-the results for anyone who finished after 3rd aren't up yet-160 teams were racing altogether). I have a stitching weekend planned for later in August which will be lovely-stitching, eating, talking, sleeping (and not necessarily in that order) will be a great break. I also have a model for Stitches and Spice to be finished-I posted about it here .

So-what have I been doing? I finished the model for The Gift of Stitching-I think it will be in the next issue. We had 2 weeks of school holidays-which included visits to the library, shopping centre, aquatic centre, Harry Potter movie, grandparents for the kids (and a weekend away for me and Ron), other grandparents staying with us, 5yo birthday party (costume of course). We've had one and a half weeks of school since then-feels like about 5 weeks.... We've bought and read the new Harry Potter book-no queueing for us though-just picking it up at the local Kmart on the Monday.

Knitting-wise has been quietish, although I did knit that tension square, and discovered that I have quite a loose tension. So much so that I had to use 4mm needles to get the correct gauge with the 12ply wool. I fixed up the weird pointyness of the beanie, and unravelled this beanie because it "relaxed"when I washed it to the point that it was unwearable. I skeined the yarn and washed it, reballed it, and have started to reknit it. Oh, and I joined Mystery Stole 3 because no-one can get sucked into the latest thing to join like me! I am still up to Clue 2 (I think Clue 4 has been released) but I am not in a rush to keep up. I'm knitting it in JaggerSpun Zephyr in Ebony (which is a 50%wool, 50% silk laceweight yarn) with some blackish beads (scavenged from my bead stash) and using a Knitpicks Classic Circular in a 3mm size. I told you I have a loose tension. I will take a picture-one day. I even knit the swatch.

Oh, and I knitted my portion of this and signed up for dishrag tag which is a knitting relay of sorts (competitive knitting-very Australian-we have 2 teams). I told you I was a joiner.

Here's a couple of pictures-since I took them back in late June I thought I had better put them up. It's the view from our backyard towards the "non-town" side of us-we live right on the edge of town-literally. I hope to have some more up-to-date pictures for the next blog entry, which hopefully won't be so slow in coming.

It's the weather for knitting

Well, getting knitting supplies anyhow. It's been very wintry here. The end of last week had some very cold nights. As in about -3C. That's cold for us, as we are in a temperate climate and it doesn't snow here. Then the nights heated up to around 3C or so, but the days started to get cold. Like a maximum of 11C and yesterday it was about 8C at 3pm. We've had some rain, but we are on water restrictions until the end of July at least. This means that we can't water our gardens except with buckets, and the same for car washing. There are other restrictions for businesses which will probably impact them more than the private restrictions will impact us. Not sure if anyone was likely to be watering their gardens at the moment, but it goes to show you we need a lot more rain to really break the drought. We would prefer normal rain-not like the shocking weather that NSW has been experiencing.

As promised, I have a picture of my ISE4 goodie haul. I've been wearing the scarf, but it has also kindled the desire to knit myself another scarf suitable for wearing outside in the weather we've been having. I've got that couple of balls of the loveliest 80% alpaca/20% wool that is so soft that I'm debating about stitch design. Just need to knit my 7cm on the rug first............ I did finish the beanie for KOGO-although I may have to reknit the last 2 rows as I didn't look at the pattern, and it's got a weird pointy thing happening.

Yesterday was a good day as far as knitting stash went. Interweave Knits Summer Issue finally made it to my local newsagent. Not a huge amount of designs I would want to knit, but it is an interesting read anyhow. I also got some plastic dpns from the local op shop, as well as some interesting buttons (I was also keeping biscornus in mind-I have yet to make one). I also got my Bendigo order which has my Rustic 12ply in Agate for the Central Park Hoodie, as well as a ball of the new Boutique yarn which is 65% wool, 25% Bluefaced Leicester, and 10% mohair in Ruby. Well, the Boutique was on special, and I already had free postage........ Here are some pics of the yarn.

The Ruby is a deeper red than that-around DMC 816 if you happen to think in DMC colours. The Agate reminds me of DMC 451-it has an almost tweedy appearance up close. I think the Ruby will become a scarf-it is only 200 grams, and it feels lovely and soft, but not too fuzzy. I really want to knit a tension square for the hoodie, but that will have to wait for a bit.

Stitching wise, I have been plugging away at my model-it's a very long design (about 560 stitches long) but very narrow-well the part I'm working on is, but using Q-snaps makes it manageable-even if I am having to move them regularly.

I'm off to throw more wood on the fire and get some stitching done. And try not to knit a tension square.............

Phew!

It's been a busy week or so. Actually it's been about 2 weeks since I last posted (that's sounds like I'm in confession lol). Caitlin went on her camp and had a good time-well except for the last couple of hours when she started to feel decidedly seedy. Since the campsite was only about 15 minutes away, the teachers rang me and I took her home. It was pretty good timing as she was able to get over the tummy bug in time for the movie night at the local cinema that we had organised as part of the school's social committee. We had around 140 people turn up (we saw Shrek 3) and supplied supper afterwards which was good but it was a lot of work to organise it and I'm glad it's over.

We also had some visitors from Friday night until Monday morning (we had a long weekend here) at fairly short notice, but luckily they aren't the sort to need a lot of special preparation-it was my Mum & Dad who live around 300km away. It was great to have them up here as we haven't got to catching up with them in the flesh since Christmas.

Luke was also on scout camp during the long weekend-he thoroughly enjoyed himself, and was glad that he didn't have to choose between Shrek and scouts.

Monday night Ron flew up to Brisbane for work and is due back tonight-his plane has been delayed by at least half an hour, but he gets tomorrow off as he had to do some extra night work while he was up there.


My ISE4 package was sent last week-I quickly took a picture before I got it posted off. It's knitted with 4ply Merino Cashmere in "Dark Reds" from The Knittery . It was lovely to knit with and felt so soft. It's just a simple Feather and Fan lace pattern with a garter stitch border as I didn't want anything too busy with the variegated yarn. I also added a pewter figurine (of a goanna), bookmark, and a cute little sheep made of roving. I didn't add any food as I wasn't sure what I could send to the US and I didn't have time to find out ;)



I received my ISE4 parcel-I haven't taken any pictures yet-perhaps tomorrow. You can read all about it here .


I've been stitching on my models. I've had to put the "Flowers"aside for the model I'm stitching for Kirsten from The Gift of Stitching as it is due sooner. Speaking of The Gift of Stitching, if you are a subscriber you will have seen my stitching in the latest issue-the pincushions. It gave me a fright at first because there are pictures of the back of my stitching as well as extreme closeups of the front of some of them. However all the pictures look lovely and Kirsten gave me a lovely mention at the end of the magazine. You can also see the pincushions at Stitches and Spice under the Gift of Stitching kits.


Knitting-wise I haven't done a lot. I'm knitting a beanie for Knit One Give One and have just received the rug from Rugz 4 Kidz which I will be knitting 7cm on before I send it on. These are ideal for picking up and knitting on when I don;t have the time to get my stitching out. I also want to knit up some tension squares for a couple of projects I have in mind for me. Not sure when they would get started though. I also rediscovered a couple of balls of a lovely soft 70% alpaca, 30% wool yarn that would make a lovely scarf for me........... There's also knitting I want to do for the Guardian Angel charity project, fingerless gloves for Luke, a cardigan for Caitlin, socks for me, etc, etc.


Other news-Dr Who is back in 2 weeks time! It will be on Thursday nights though at 8.30 so we will record it and watch it at a later time. I've also discovered some DVDs at my library that I've somehow been oblivious to"-the "Hornblower"series with Ioan Gruffudd. And there is 8 of them. Nothing like a historical swashbuckler with a nice leading man ;) Maybe I can fit in a trip to the library tomorrow?


A special hello to my family lurkers out there! And also thanks to people who stop by and comment.

Rain drops keep falling on my head

Well they would if I was silly enough to stand around in the rain. We've had a lot of rain in the last week or so-around 3 inches, so the ground is getting all nice and soggy. I'm hoping for a little fine weather early next week and the weekend following that, because Caitlin has a school camp, and then Luke has a Scout camp.




I've started a model for Naomi of Stitches and Spice . It's called "Flowers" - you can see it here if you scroll down a bit. I'm stitching it on 32ct Belfast linen in her colourway "Hannah's Rose"-it's under Spice Blend on her website with Gloriana silk in the colourway "Jacaranda"-which is a brown strangely enough. I've got a picture here-not a good one as it's still raining outside, but I wanted something here so I can see my progress. I will be rotating this for some model work I am doing for Kirsten of The Gift of Stitching. I won't be stitching on any of my things until both are done, but I will do some knitting as a break now and again.



Speaking of knitting, I have a couple of FOs to show you. Firstly a pair of socks that I finished early this year sometime-quite a while ago anyhow.



These are knitted with OnLine Supersocke that I got from last year's craft fair, using a pattern on the Patonyle pattern book which I then tinkered with a little. It has 2x2 ribbing at the top, 4x1 ribbing for the leg, calf shaping, and an Eye of Partridge heel. These were much easier to knit than my first socks as I didn't have to work at juggling the dpns. The yarn was nice to work with, and I had a small amount left from the 100g ball.

Next are a pair of bedsocks I knit for Caitlin. I used some Clinker yarn that I picked up at Kmart and dyed using food colouring. It's around a 10 ply I think-I used 5mm needles. Pattern was from Ann Budd's The Knitters Handy Book of Patterns . I did something strange with one of the heels-it was supposed to be a slip stitch heel, but when I was stitching the second heel-noticed the first one looked totally different. Never mind!! I also found that Caitlin has a big foot-I knit the womens small size and they have a bit of room for growth but not much. And she is not quite 9yo. The yarn is fluffing/pilling where she has worn them with slippers but I'm not too fussed-they were cheap to make-and fast!!! I love the knitting with the bulkier yarns.

I'm going to go and stitch for a while before lunchtime-also need to go and block my ISE4 scarf.

A little of this, a little of that....

Thought I'd do a quick post before it gets too long since I've posted. Of course I had to then go and take a quick photo or two of some WIPs, and then download them, and then realise that I haven't posted any photos for a while.





I've finished my ISE4 scarf (except for a light blocking and weaving in the ends). It's lovely and soft, and my photos really aren't that good. It is sunny here today (which it hasn't been for quite a few days here) but also windy which isn't conducive to photo taking outside.




I've started, and almost finished a pair of "Fetching" fingerless gloves/mittens from knitty but fell short-just. I either need to get another ball of the Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran (colour-Teal-luxury to knit with!) or rip 1 and 9/10 of the pair and redo with smaller needles.........


I've got some more model stitching coming up-another project for The Gift of Stitching - details to remain a secret until published, and also something for Stitches and Spice. This one will most likely be a sampler of some kind, and will be used as a model at various craft fairs around Australia.

I haven't done lots of my own stitching lately but did (are you sitting down??) work on my Chatelaine's Medieval Town Mandala. I've just cut some fabric for Long Dog's St Sylvestre which I have had in my stash for a long time. The fabric is "Dawn Light" in Belfast linen and the thread I am planning to use is DMC 4240 (a blue/purple variegated cotton). For the moment I have pulled out my L&L Celtic Autumn because I am in the mood for a bit of straight-forward stitching. Here is a picture I took today-not the best but it's windy outside!







Just a few more pictures. We made a special trip a week ago to the Kernewek Lowender or Cornish Festival which is held every 2 years and which we usually attend as Ron's ancestors are Cornish. This time we weren't planning to attend as it was no longer on a long weekend. The reason we made a special mid-week trip was that Ron's great-grandfather was being featured in the "Dressing of the Graves" and his parents wanted Luke (as the great-great-grandson) to lay the floral tribute. The picture on the left shows Ron & Luke with Ron's parents next to the grave. Below that is knitwear sighted in the wild. A lot of work went into that! And also a picture of school children waiting through the boring speech part before they get to sing. We made a day of it and pottered around a couple of the towns. One of the advantages of being there mid-week was that we avoided the crowds and traffic.

I am having a quiet afternoon as we hosted the "Biggest Morning Tea" at school this morning to raise money for the Cancer Council and I was the main organiser. We have a movie night (Shrek 3) coming up in a couple of weeks and I have to print up posters and tickets for that so I am having a quiet time before I move onto those tasks.

Think I will load some of the latest podcasts onto my MP3 player and stitch on Celtic Autumn.

Stand on your head and whistle "Dixie"

Sometimes I wonder about our family.........my daughter, Caitlin, asked my husband, Ron, if he could stand on his head and whistle "Dixie". Of course he can, and so he had to demonstrate. I did take a photo but it's still on the camera which isn't here right now.

I do have several photos from the school holidays which I haven't posted yet. We went into the city (Adelaide) to see this exhibition at the Art Gallery. It was highly enjoyable-I came away with an urge to learn to write hieroglyphics. We also had to visit the SA Museum which is next door. Caitlin also had a mission to see the pigs in Rundle Mall (life size bronze pig statues to clarify) so I had to take photos.

Another thing I haven't provided (but said I would) was some links to my model work for The Gift of Stitching editor Kirsten Edwards. If you are a subscriber to the magazine, you would have seen some of the models, but you can also see some pictures at Stitches and Spice - you need to click on the "Gift of Stitching Kits" link. The two that are my work are "Stitcher's Wallet"and "Quaker Mail Art". They are always fun to do and who wouldn't love to get paid stitching with hand dyed fabric and silks!


I've read quite a bit on various sites and blogs regarding the Knitpicks needles-both circulars and dpns, and happened across this Australian online shop that was new to me Knitting Inspirations which happened to have both and with the full set on sale. The Deluxe Set is available in quite a few Aussie online stores, but I've only seen the dpns here at Prestige Yarns which also stock the smaller circulars and all the bits separately. So I've ordered the Deluxe Kit and a set each of 2mm and 2.5mm of the dpns from Knitting Inspirations (my latest model work payment went towards this). Oh, and I also bought the Egyptian Garden when Martina released it as a downloadable chart last month. Not that I will be starting anytime soon as I have 3(!) Chatelaines as WIPs.

Currently I am trying to finish off The Drawn Thread's Random Thoughts which shouldn't take long as I have decided not to do the border and hemstitching. I found a note that I started this in July 2001 so it is past time to become a finished object. Here is an old scan I found-I am a bit further along than this now though. I'm also over halfway on my ISE4 scarf-see my sidebar for a link to the exchange-I'll post more details about the scarf I'm knitting another time.

Don't faint...........but I finished something!

Really!! I did-and what is more I am posting about it. It's "The Sampler Sampler"by Brightneedle-stitched over one on 32ct lugana (what was I thinking?). There are 28 different colours (mostly Anchor) and the stitch count is 105 square. There's a lot of work in that tiny piece (it's about 8 cm square) but it looks lovely and I'm happy with it. I started this mumble years ago-well before I contemplated stitching a HAED (which are usually stitched over one and are huge).

We all survived the holidays-more about them another post as I have to go to the post office and school shortly, but one of the major things that happened here was that it rained. And rained. For a few days even. We ended up with about 100mm or 4 inches in the old measurements. There are more showers forecast for later this week so it's looking good. I will have to look up what rain we've had in the last year, but it's not been good.

Bad, bad blogger!

So it's a few (5-that long??) months since I've posted............. I regularly read other blogs but just don't seem to get around to posting on my own. I thought I would just start from today, and update what has happened in the last few months as I go.

It is currently school holidays (1 week down, 1 to go) and it's been a busy term. Caitlin is over at a friend's house for a play (it's been nearly a week since they saw each other!), and Ron has had to go into to work for some kind of upgrade thingo, so Luke and I are having a quiet afternoon/evening. I've got a quiche in the oven for a "goodbye neighbour" lunch tomorrow, but then I am all set to stitch and watch football (AFL) .

As far as craft news-well it's been busy and somewhat varied. Our group at the Embroiderers' Guild is due to put up our display next month, and I really haven't had much in the way of finishes in the past year. After rummaging through my WIPs I came up with Brightneedle's The Sampler Sampler . This has been a WIP for a long time......it's over one on 32 count evenweave so it's not that big, but I'm hoping to finish it in time for next Thursday. We also display WIPs, and I'm going to take my Chatelaine "Convent's Herbal Garden Mandala". I'm hoping to get a little more done before I take it off the scroll rods. I've done some work on Celtic Autumn as well. Since the beginning of the year I've been doing some model work for Kirsten Edwards (the editor of The Gift Of Stitching-the online stitching magazine-see the link in the sidebar). It's been most enjoyable getting to use Stitches 'N Spice fabrics, Dinky Dyes silks, and flower threads. I'll link some pics another post. There has been some knitting-I have finished my original pair of socks (last year), knit another pair, started several things, joined the International Scarf Exchange, and so on. I need to take some WIP pictures and load some links, but will save that for another post. I do have a picture of my first pair of socks for your viewing pleasure. Nothing exciting, but I have the hang of double pointed needles, as well as the way socks are constructed, and as an added bonus the socks didn't fall apart when I wore them ;)

Only 5 Weeks To Go

Sorry-but I figure you all need to suffer with me. Although, since we aren't having either Christmas lunch or dinner at home this year, and at most 3 guests staying, I really don't have that much to worry about. That is, if you don't worry about the 10 nephews/nieces I still have to shop for, or my 2 kids presents, or Ron's parents, or..........(well you get the idea-we do have some shopping done, and I have plans to hit the city on Wednesday to get most of it done)

A couple of weeks ago we, along with 320,000 others journeyed to the city for the Pageant. It is the Big One (hence the capitals lol) . We did the parent sacrifice thing and got up early on the weekend to catch the bus into the city. Even though we caught the earliest bus there was it wasn't early enough to save Ron from this.

It wasn't ideal but it wasn't that bad-coffee makes up for a lot ;)
I also want to award the person who came up with the idea with free chalk with the Saturday paper a sainthood. Just think about it.........320,000 people-so by my reckoning at least 160,000 kids (hold on-I need to lie down after typing that) sitting around for hours (we got there 2 hours before it started and look where we were sitting-others get there much earlier) and hours and hours.........really frightening! But some chalk and free run of the city streets and you get this

We had lovely weather, caught a bus straight home afterwards, and I even had a little time to visit a couple of book shops-which I will revisit this week to do that Christmas shopping as well as some shopping for me :)
Now for some pictures of the floats



I'll catch up later this week with other things-maybe even take some pictures of some WIPs.........

My Pickings

......from the craft fair. It seems to me that every year the number of quilt stalls gets higher and the number of other stalls dimishes. Being a fair distance away, it isn't financially viable for a lot of the businesses from the eastern states to make the journey over here, so we have a lot less stalls than the fairs over there. That said, I did have a nice time, but bought little in the way of stitching supplies. Since Stitches and Spice wasn't in Adelaide this year there was just about no threads or fabric. I did find some yarn (sock yarn + some extremely soft baby alpaca) & Addi Turbo circular needles as well as some stitcheries, and other bits and bobs. Since I have also put in an order with Bendigo yarns, and am still looking for fabric & thread for Paradigm Lost, I am quite happy with my haul, but I did miss rummaging through Naomi's fabrics and threads.......

This weekend is loking fairly clear at the moment (other than the Adelaide Christmas Pageant tomorrow morning) but Christmas is getting nearer and that means bbqs, concerts, dinners, etc, etc and Ron is away for work for about 10 days in a couple of weeks so I guess we should enjoy the peace time at home while we can!

I am off to have a bite of lunch and settle down with "Bones" to stitch some Celtic Autumn.

Autumn in Spring-or is it Summer??

Celtic Autumn, that is. I started her about a year ago and she has been in hibernation for most of that time. I have worked on her a little bit lately here and there, and decided she was an ideal project to accompany me on my stitching weekend with 6 other girls. Here is the current picture-everything above the skirt is my weekend's progress . She's stitched on 28ct Jobelan (Tundra) from Stitches and Spice. We had a lovely weekend, with much talking, eating, drinking and stitching. It was a little sad though-my buddy Mel wasn't there since she had the weak excuse of being in Dubai............ I did some stitching, drinking and laughing for you Mel-maybe we can time the next one for your next visit here?

The holidays went quite fast, and the last term is well under way-we have already had a working bee, Wakakirri final, and school picnic. It is extremely dry here (we apparently had 1mm of rain for Oct) already-a lot of areas already look like it is the end of summer.

I am off to the Craft Fair on Thursday-I have the kids booked into after school care so that I can go to the fair, and then on to Guild afterwards. I'm not sure what I will end up with as there won't be huge amounts of stitching supplies, but I will see what I can find ;)

A Picture of a Nun.....So Far

I finally set my mind to finishing off part 2 of the nun (aka Convent's Herbal Garden by Chatelaine) and, of course, it really didn't take that long. Matters were helped by Caitlin going to a friend's house this afternoon. Here is a (not very good) picture of my progress so far........

I am taking a break from this now, and am working on setting up a rotation (again! lol). I also want to start a new HAED. Yes, I know, another one.........but this one is special. My good buddy Annette has recently started this one, and I want to do a SAL with her as she gets through her chemo, and other various treatments and struggles to beat her breast cancer. Besides, it will be relatively small, as I am not stitching the background, and only has 50 colours, and I am so looking forward to stitching something that looks like something and isn't just background.

School holidays have been pretty good so far this week-it was hot today (well 30C seems hot at the moment) and it is supposed to be hot again tomorrow. Bushfires are a big threat this summer year-restrictions will start early this year because of the bad conditions. With so little rain, things are already drying out, and today was the second total fire ban here. Apparently there was a fire not too far from here, and lots of others around the state. Well, have to go throw some food together, and gather up my supplies for my new project (Babysitting-HAED/Ravenscroft).

We are back, and some pics

We got back yesterday-had a good time despite some extremely windy weather for a day or so, and I am attempting to catch up. There has been much to catch up-and I don't mean all the holiday laundry, or the grocery shopping on a Saturday morning at the supermarket which is being remodeled in the school holidays (still better than doing it with the kids-marginally). There has been BB kerfuffles, and the Yarn Harlot got married.

Anyhow, I haven't got holiday pics yet, as the camera is where I am not, so I have some older pics for you instead. Two weeks ago, Ron & I participated in the Bay to Birdwood Run, which is a vintage & veteran car rally. Ron's dad owns a 1926 Chev truck, but we get to go in the rally. It has about 1500 vehicles and takes about 1/2 a day. It wasn't the best weather (especially as the truck doesn't actually have side windows as you will see in the picture. Coats & rugs were the order of the day, and we did have fun.

















I have updated some of my WIP pics in my Webshots so it does look like I do some stitching....
Here is my latest pic of Patchwork Sampler-it is my Thursday night piece at the moment, as I need something I can stitch on when I am talking.........






















Not sure what I will get done over the next week (being school holidays) but I'm hoping to come up with a plan. I would like to get the part of the nun that I am (still) working on finished, and perhaps pick up a HAED for a change. But that is open to change-as usual!!

Hello-Goodbye!!

Just a super quick note that we are going away for 5 days tomorrow............hopefully, I will be back with a blog entry quickly after we get home. Just going to the coast a couple of hours from here-fishing & rock pools for the kids & Ron, and peace & quiet for me........(sounds like a good plan you think?) Lots of other things to do, including a couple of craft shops to visit. I have stitching & knitting packed-I have found that I can knit when we are travelling. Catch you all soon!!

I took some pics......

........and am going to post them. Firstly a picture of "the nun". I know I said I would take a picture of it when I was done with part 2, but I figured I would do a picture now. I have had to put it onto scroll rods, so it's going a little slower as I have MTM on rods in the stand and I'm worried that if I take it off the frame it may not go on for a while!!

I also have a picture of a facecloth that I knitted-nothing complex but it's nice to finish something occasionally. Caitlin has already claimed it! I used an Anchor cotton yarn from Spotlight and this pattern

The colours are brighter in real life, and it feels quite soft.

And just to finish off, I found a photo of Caitlin on her first day at kindy so you can see how she has grown in 4 years.......yikes-that went fast!! lol

My, how she's grown......

Of course, the title would seem more appropriate if I had a picture of her as a young child or baby............

This is Caitlin, now 8 years old, on the day of her party, which was blessed by extremely unseasonally delightful weather. This, as you may imagine, made a party of 9 children much pleasanter for all concerned ;)

Ron has been to Moomba, and returned (in time for the school performance and Caitlin's birthday).

I have picked up a sleeping WIP - Chatelaine's Convent's Herbal Garden (aka the nun, because it's so much quicker to say lol), and enjoying it. You can see what it should look like when it is finished here Convent's Herbal Garden I'm thinking that I will finish part 2 (it was originally published as a monthly mystery of 12 parts) and then reconsider what I feel like working on.......... I will also take a picture then too so you can all see just how far I have to go!

I have Luke home with a yucky cold/virus (just picked him up from school) so I am going to look after him (whilst trying to not catch the thing myself!!)

Gasp

......yes, I am posting again already. It is day 3 of week 1 but for some reason I was thinking earlier today that it was week 2 (time flies!). I have already had one meeting and have been working on kid's costumes........I have a whole bunch of things to work on at home. And there is another meeting on Friday morning although that is only a welcome to new parents.

Now, for the promised pictures of the beanie....




























Shown here modelled (somewhat reluctantly) by the recipient Ron (DH). Knitted in Cleckheaton Country Silk (very nice to knit with) with a ridged rib brim and ss top.

I think I will stop now instead of rambling on aimlessly-a coffee and some stitching or knitting sounds just the thing though ;)