January 30th, 2011

A finished project- YAY

January 29th, 2011

Today Logan and I baked gingerbread men and teddies and then we decorated them, I love the way these pictures captured his intense concentration!  the mix was a part of my Christmas swap parcel from knittingrandma. Thank You so much Debby, we had a lot of fun :0)

January 28th, 2011

605 metres of happiness

January 27th, 2011

Today i plied my spinning from yesterday, I got a full jumbo cone of yarn and I think it is lovely :0) 

It was spun from this fibre I bought from EGMTK's which I dyed myself :0) and plied with some 2 ply BWM on a cone, there is 200 grams of fibre and less of the BWM, looking forward to skeining, washing and measuring length and WPI tomorrow.

January 26th, 2011

Today I spent mt day doing the 4 C's  Cleaning, crafting, cooking and chilling  Hubster took our 3,7, 9 and 15 year old to visit nana and I stayed home with our 12 and 17 year old.
!st we cleaned because we knew it would stay clean for the whole day with no small people making mess, then i got out the sewing machine and made 4 project bags and repaired 2 school dresses, then we baked fruit cake, pavlove and cookies and then i played with my spinning wheel for the rest of the afternoon/evening  whilst i watched grey's annatomy and spun up some fibre I bought from EGMTK's and dyed myself and I love how it has turned out :0)  I also started a new book "The cookie club"

An altogether wonderful day :0)

January 25th, 2011

Well my camera would not upload to my computer last night for some reason which seems to have resolved itself overnight!

Last night I was reunited with my knitting which i LEFT BEHIND!!! (how??, that's right it was the alpaca fumes from cute baby alpacas and their fibre) last Friday at a friends so I sat down and I knit for a while on this :0)

January 24h, 2011

My first attempt at embellishing knitting with duplicate stitch today produced this, it is one of the squares for the pink/green/cream blanket I showed earlier this month :0)  I really like it and can't believe I managed to do it!!  It is from a chart from Watermellish  who is running an embellish a long this month which was very motivating to make me actually try this :0)

                                                                        Here it is with just the duplicate stitch



 

and here with the chain stitch edging and  little seeds added :0)











January 23rd, 2011

I went to visit a new friend today and look at the lovely reading material sent home with me to peruse at my leisure (Thank You so much, I have enjoyed at least an hour looking already :0), I KNOW I will be making at least 3 tops from these plus a couple for Bella :0)

Those of you who know me, know how much I love Debbie bliss, Louisa Harding and Sirdar/Sublime patterns so this is like visiting a library that chose it's books just for me :0)

January 22nd 2011

All done :0)

250 metres/100 grams of merino/tussah silk plyed with silk thread :0)

Part 1 of my Let's start at the beginning swap knitting- An apple washcloth-pattern by Susan B Anderson :0)

January 21st, 2011

I've been a spinning :0)

Irubu merino/tussah silk top from EGMTK's

January 20th, 2011

Logan's bedtime story book bag and it's contents, we read at least 1 of these everynight and he loves them very much, I bought him a new book and it was gently rejected with we can read it tomorrow mummy, bedtime books must not be new books, only much loved books make it into the bedtime book bag and once in they never seem to leave again :0)

January 19th, 2011

Today I received these gorgeous squares from Barb 2 for Logans blanket and 2 for the pink/green/cream blanket, they were from a karma swap and Barb very generously sent me 4 instead of 3-Thank You so much Barb :0)

There is an elephant, a giraffe, a rose and a love heart :0)
I think they look gorgeous and will fit in with my blankets perfectly :0)

January 18th, 2011

Here is the 2nd of my blankets in progress, this one is my squared away 8 inch squares swap blanket which runs on the same principal as the square dance pink, green and white one I previously posted.

This blanket is for my son Logan and has an elephant and giraffe theme in aqua, lime and white.

I think it is starting to come together nicely :0)

January 17h, 2011

Today I started knitting this in some yarn I dyed myself :0) It is a kaia baby doll :0)

January 16th, 2011

Today I thought I would share how yarn is everywhere to tempt me, I can't even go to our local supermarket without having yarn there!
Normally my supermarket has these shelves filled with yarn and needles and pattern booklets and even some sample knits on the wire gridding at the top which you can just make out behind the plastic tubs






But because it is summer and has just been Christmas it has been moved to another aisle and cleeared out and a little packed away as well and now it only fills this small shelf which is much less tempting as they packed away all the nice stuff and left out mainly acrylics!  They even managed to pack away the new summer yarns!

And have any of you ever played yardage chicken where you go one more round and hope you will make it?

Well I lost tonight-look how close I got to finished, just a few stitches...

January 15th, 2011

I thought I would share my square dance blanket WIP :0)
This blanket is being collected up with monthly swap partners knitting 2 squares for my blanket and of course me knitting 2 for their blanket, I have also knit up a significant amount of extra squares and this blanket is really taking place now :0)  The swap runs for the duration of the financial year so I have thus far received 12 squares and knit the rest myself :0)

January 14th, 2011

 A thing of beauty in the form of a new hot water service and the knowledge I can be assured of a lovely hot shower when I wake in the morning instead of the very cold water of late.

p.s I also managed to finish off some of those wips and ufo's the 2 pairs of little red mary janes both now have buttons, the dolly soaker has elastic and is seamed shut and I even found a skirt needing elastic sewing and closing of weaistband and a dress needing buttons so all in all some good finishing time as well as finishing that square in the picture :0)  and today I finished this little vest i started last night, the colours remind me of Australian native wattle flowers :0)

January 13th, 2011

         Logan busy stomping in the puddle near the tap whilst washing his diggers after some gardening this afternoon :0)

He was attempting to dig a tunnel through to his friends house across the road

And my mission for the day to pull out and acknowledge my WIP's and UFO's

Above shows all I could find excluding blankets, I will get to them soon

These ones in the picture above are all baby/toddler projects that lost their ability to convince me to finish them

My sweaters for me WIPS, there is "whisper" in pink, "hey teach" in red at the back, "basik black" in black and "parcel" in red in the front, these ALL want to be finished yesterday

and down here is Bella's sorello, dolly undies that need elastic and a blanket square I am knitting.

Really these are all very finishable, there is nothing I really don't like much here except 1 baby item which I think needs frogging, the rest just need some attention paid to them, there are 16 items here and I think I will get to work on them again soon, perhaps pick one a month for the big ones to work on and well the elastic needed, buttons needed items are just sad so best get to them this month :0)

So how many UFO's or WIP's do you have if you go hunting through the house?  I got the idea to do this from The Yarn Harlot's secrect life of a knitter book (which I love)  Stephanie Pearl McPhee  has a knack of knowing exactly what I have lurking in my home!

January 12th, 2011

                                A few random bits from today :0)

Logan checking under the hood of his bed (pretending it's a car!  Hubster actually snapped this one :0)

Some squares I have knit with yarn I dyed using an interesting technique I love how it graduates from very dark at one end of the ball to a softer lighter colour at the other end :0)

and Logan's favourite game on ipad  tiny xmas chef

January 11th, 2011

              My completed personal sock yarn club socks for January, I think ripping back to remove the ugly brown that was eating the entire foot of sock 2 was definitely a good idea as these now look like a matching pair :0)

January 10th 2011

Today we went to the zoo and saw many beautiful things, far too many to post just 1 picture today :0)

The gorgeous seals underwater, our first stop at Logan's request :0)

Watching the seals from above water level

Mum, i need to see the boat, lets run ahead and get there first

such beauty HAD to be photographed, taken at the zoo outside the frog house

Orangatang playing peek a boo under his blanket

and last but not least we actually managed to be at the penguins at the right time to see them out of their burrows :0)

It was very wet, but warm today and totally uncrowded for school holiday time :0)