Thursday 31 March 2011

Day 4 Knitting & Crochet Blog Week

Day Four: 31st March. Where are they now?

Whatever happened to your __________?

Write about the fate of a past knitting project. Whether it be something that you crocheted or knitted for yourself or to give to another person. An item that lives with you or something which you sent off to charity.

DSC02482

I knitted this jumper for myself back in the 80’s. Little did I know I would add an “R” ot it & that my ds would be wearing it at our ‘Dinner at the Weasley’s Anniversary’ evening in 2009.

Wednesday 30 March 2011

Day 3 Knitting & Crochet Blog Week

Knitting and Crochet Blog Week Banner Pink

Day Three: 30th March. Tidy mind, tidy stitches.

How do you keep your yarn wrangling organised?

Tips: Many people use their blogs partly as an organisational tool – logging and cataloguing projects and newly attained skills, projects and modifications. Did you bare this in mind when you began blogging?containers1The top container is full of lovely 16 ply wool in luscious colours from Rowan’s days at the Steiner school.

The bottom one is full of lovely wool oddballs. I just can’t resist the basket of oddballs on sale. ;-)containers2More ‘on sale’ stuff. When I taught at Spotlight I had to walk past the sale tables as I arrived & left, & I could never resist the wool sales.containers3Odd balls of novelty yarns.needlesMy knitting needles & crochet hooks, I have quite a collection!!!

  zaphod2bamboo

Ooooh what are we looking at here mum???
My fave bamboo needles.
chestchest2 This lovely chest holds a cardi that only needs to be sewn together, mind you when I looked at it recently I don’t think it will fit.  Also my wip freeform knitting & crochet, plus all the yummy blue, green & purple yarns.harryAnother ufo, ‘Harry Potter,’ of course stored in a Harry Potter bag. :-) helen bag    Another ufo which i will get back to soon & stored in this fabulous bag my dear friend Helen brought back from Germany for me. My high school German tells me it’s saying what a dear friend I am, roflol!!!!

I started blogging to keep track of what I was doing, to motivate me to finish things & to have a record of what I’d done. I purposely keep my blog ‘positive.’ Not that I have a problem with people who don’t, I just sometimes use it to cheer myself up so if I added in the bad stuff it wouldn’t work. I hope that makes sense.

wool week

My little photographic assistant. As soon as the camera appears, so does he. :-)

A little blurry, well he was trying to smooge the camera, lol.

Tuesday 29 March 2011

Day 2 Knitting & Crochet Blog Week

Knitting and Crochet Blog Week Banner Blue

Day Two: 29th March. Skill + 1UP

Look back over your last year of projects and compare where you are in terms of skill and knowledge of your craft to this time last year. Have you learned any new skills or forms of knitting/crochet (can you crochet cable stitches now where you didn’t even know such things existed last year? Have you recently put a foot in the tiled world of entrelac? Had you even picked up a pair of needles or crochet hook this time last year?

Well I had knitted & crocheted before but I hadn’t done any for years. Thanks to blogging, & the discovery of some fabulous blogs, my love of knitting & especially crocheting have resurfaced.

These are some of the blogs that have inspired me:

http://attic24.typepad.com/weblog/

http://crochethealingandraymond.wordpress.com/

http://theflowerbed-shr.blogspot.com/

http://byelizabethcat.blogspot.com/

I’ve tried out a few crocheted hexagons & flowers & also made a ‘Lucy’ bag. It’s not great but I plan to make another & hopefully it will be more successful.

I didn’t know you could crochet cables & I’ve never heard of entrelac so no, no feet have been put into either area, lol.

I’m feeling a little out of my depth having joined in on this. I checked out other bloggers involved & they’ve done some incredible stuff, mine is ‘very’ basic. Oh well I’ll pull out some of the things I’ve made over the years & put up some pics during the week & maybe next year I’ll be able to look back & see that my knowledge & skills have grown. :-)))

Our new Veggie Patch

Take 1 underutilised deck that gets hopefully enough sun.

deckdeck 2bedbedspaulseedlings

Add some raised beds, 3 cubic metres of soil, some seeds & seedlings & hopefully we’ll end up with a veggie patch.

beds a beds b table  The seedlings in the pots are polyanthus. I’ve seen so many this year on people’s blogs, brightening up the winter months, I couldn’t wait to go out & get some.beds c lettuce

Less than a week after planting, the lettuce is up.

Monday 28 March 2011

Knitting & Crochet Blog Week

I only discovered this event last night but I’m going to jump in. :-)

Here is the link if you’d like to jump in too:

http://eskimimiknits.com/knitting-and-crochet-blog-week-2011/

Each day for a week the idea is to blog about an aspect of knitting/crochet as suggested by the organizers.

Here are today’s guidelines:

Day One: 28th March. A Tale of Two Yarns.
Part of any fibre enthusiast’s hobby is an appreciation of yarn. Choose two yarns that you have either used, are in your stash or which you yearn after and capture what it is you love or loathe about them.

A yarn I love, well that would have to be any good quality 100% wool yarn, 8 ply. Although I learnt to knit & crochet over 40 years ago my knitting & crocheting has always been basic so I haven’t tried out tons of yarns.

zaphod

Here is the stash I’ve built up for this Winter to make a granny rug. Of course Zaphod had to check it out.

everyday

Here are my everyday wools in the colours I love at the moment. I’ll be using these to make a tea cosy for my Mum for Mother’s Day.

A yarn that didn’t work for me would have to be Feathers, now I had no trouble knitting a scarf with it, but as soon as I tried to make a Christmas stocking & had to increase & decrease I totally lost the plot. It’s very hard to undo & once I’d gone wrong somewhere it all got too hard & got put aside.

Feathers Knitting Yarn - Click Image to Close

I had to grab a pic of a ball of Feathers off the internet as I gave my ufo away.

I’m also not fussed on acrylic yarns, my experience in the past when knitting jumpers is that they pill & stretch out of shape. I notice a lot of people are using them now so they may well have improved. I’d be keen to hear if that’s the case.

February Books

I thought I’d posted this already!! Oh well better late then never. :-)feb Not many read this month. I did ration myself a little with Harp in the South & Poor Man’s Orange, to make them last longer. I love these books. image I also watched the dvd’s for the books. The acting is brilliant & the storyline closely follows the books.                          

Sunday 27 March 2011

Yay, my March blocks are finished.

Whoa two posts today!!!

Well I
stopped blog surfing & shut myself in my sewing room with my music & here finally are blocks 1 & 2  finished.
 blocks 1 & 2 block 1 block 2

I’ve also posted my blogs on the Stitch-A-Long blog.

http://stitch-a-long.blogspot.com/

Procrastination

While checking out one my fave blogs this morning I saw the heading ‘Do You Procrastinate?’ Lol, procrastination is my middle name!!!!

This was the comment I posted on Carole’s blog:

‘Me too, hands waving in the air. I've lost track of the number of projects I have on the go. In fact I should be working on a particular project right now but it's so nice to sit with a cup of tea & browse my fave blogs. :-) I find my procrastination often stems from 'having to make a decision' on the project I'm working on. So rather than bite the bullet & make the decision I start tidying or vacuuming or blog surfing...... I made a gift for a friend's birthday last week & still just have to post it, but of course I'm waiting for a sunny day to photograph it first. & so it goes on. I'd love to change, I've tried to change, but I think I simply have the procrastination gene & I have to accept it.’

I will never stop procrastinating but I could really push myself harder because hand in hand with procrastination is guilt. A really crappy soul destroying emotion that I’m also gold medal standard at.

So as far as unfinished, unstarted projects go I need to write a list of the things that I really need, & want to work on.

Right now I need to post the pressie I made for my friend Lynne. I need to make & post a pressie for my friend Pinky, I need to make & post Mum’s Mother’s Day pressie so it’s there in time for Mother’s Day. I plan on making this for her.

http://crochethealingandraymond.wordpress.com/2010/11/16/fancy-a-cuppa-granny/

I just love it, Mum has been a tea addict for as long as I can remember & she still makes real tea in a teapot. I used to tease her about her love of tea but guess what, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree & I’m now a tea addict too. I’ve even bought a teapot at the op shop so I know what size to make it.

I’m currently working on the Tis the Season Stitch-a-long but rather than just do it in red & white I decided to throw in other colours.

fabrics & threads

Now of course I’m dithering around unable to decide on borders for the blocks. Luckily Emma was here yesterday so I asked her opinion. She came up with a whole new layout idea for the blocks so I will go with her design. Today I will be making decisions on borders & I will be sewing them onto the blocks!!!

Next I think I’ll take some pics of my ufo’s & put them down the side of my blog so I’m reminded & hopefully motivated to work on them. But of course I’ll have to wait for a sunny day to photograph them. :-)))

Saturday 26 March 2011

Red Hill Show 2011

We actually went out today & Paul actually remembered the camera. :-)

Dd Emma drove down & we all headed down to the Red Hill Show.

Don’t you just love alpacas???

alpaca 1 alpaca 2 alpaca 3 alpaca 4

There was a stall in the alpaca shed with a group of spinners. I learnt to spin way back in the 70’s & have been thinking I’d like to take it up again, I still have my spinning wheel. I got talking to a couple of the ladies, they were very friendly, & would you believe it, they have a spinning group that meets every Wednesday in the suburb I live in!!! I predict some spinning in my future. :-)

It’s been so long since I went to a show. We used to go to heaps when I was a kid. My sister bred & showed Irish Setters so there was a show most weekends. Goulburn, Gunning, Tarago, Canberra, Queanbeyan, anywhere within coo-ee of Goulburn. I loved looking at all the exhibits, especially the craft & the flowers. I’ve never put anything in a show but I would love to.

bear cupcakes

How cute are these bear cupcakes?

cupcakes

I loved these pretty flower cupcakes.  hydrangea blue hydrangea pinkhydrangea mauve

These hydrangeas were stunning!!! They were huge, easily as big as my head. The bottom one goes from pinky mauve on the left through to purpley mauve on the right. quiltHer badge says Super Quilter, I love the quilting hoop tucked under her arm.

Silly me I forgot to take a note of the maker of the craft things I’m showing. I haven’t shown other people’s work before & I hope the makers won’t mind me sharing their beautiful work.

tea cosy

penguin quilt

Note the cute little seal peaking round the corner. I saw his quilt & was immediately reminded of this pic Emma sent me of her partner.

james

Yes he’d just had an ice cream, lol.  zebra ponyLoved the pony in the zebra suit. :-)calf & pig This funny little pig was having a lovely time foraging all around the animal pen.