I forgot...

...to show you the scarf I made for Little Miss R's teacher.

Here it is in all it's blueness.  I quite like the boxy pattern of this one, especially when it's draped around the neck.

Now all I have to do is wrap it up and put it some place I can remember when it's time to give it to her.  That may be a problem with my memory though!

Just to be on the safe side...it's on the bookshelf in the spare room.   Now it's up to you to remind me!!!!!

xx Susan

Knit and natter

On a Wednesday morning I usually head over to my sister's house for a knit and natter morning.  Our Mum comes too and we're all loving the fact that were finally having some regular time together.

There's always a cup of tea to be enjoyed.

And you couldn't have a knit and natter without doing some sort of crafty stuff.  In my case it's some more crochet.  I've started on a cushion cover in brightly coloured stripes from some acrylic yarn I found in my stash.

I was making it in treble crochet (UK/Aus) but it just seemed to me to be too holey.  I wanted a tighter stitch with the 5.5mm hook I was using so I've changed it to double crochet and think it's looking so much better.

I seemed to be the only one doing crafty stuff today.  There's ALWAYS plenty of nattering going on because we're a group of women who like to have a chat. Maybe we should call it Craft and Chatter or Crafty Chatter instead!

My sister and mother are working on some family tree stuff so instead of doing their crafty stuff, it was reading over a lot of the info that they've found this week.  It was all pretty fascinating to listen to and that's something I love about crochet, you can still do it while chatting to people or just watching tv. 

My favourite time and place to crochet is when the kidlettes are playing in the backyard and I sit on my lounge and watch them.  They seem to stay outside for longer if I'm there so I'm happy to indulge them and continue to crochet.  It beats housework!

The above photo is how much I got done on our knit and natter morning this week.  I was firing on all cylinders I think to get that much done!

Hope your all having a fantastic week.

xx Susan

Having a cleanout

My spare room has been driving me NUTS lately.  It's so messy and cluttered and basically a dumping ground for everything.  Not exactly a healthy environment especially when we've put a desk in there for Little Miss R to do her schoolwork.

The below photo was taken when  I was about halfway through cleaning so it was a lot worse before this.

I cleared out the wardrobe and rearranged things.  I even went around the house to find all my stashes of crafty stuff which included material, yarn, habberdashery stuff and lots of things I didn't even know I had!

Having it all in one place made me realise just how many goodies I do have and now my mind is full of a thousand things I can make.

Now the easiest place to put things when I want to sort through them is my bed.  I can spread everything out on it and there's less chance little fingers will find their way into it to make a mess.  I do say LESS chance rather than NO chance as I do have a curious couple of kidlettes.

The other reason I like to sort things from my bed is because I know I'll finish the job as I need to sleep somewhere at night!

Since I decided I was going to be in my room awhile, I thought it best to listen to some tunes.  My bedroom stereo is pretty old so I can't use my ipod with it so I resorted to the good old cd.  I have eclectic taste and chose from the 3 cd's that were in my room at the time.

Evanescence, Adele and Mumford and Sons.  (Waaaay different from each other I know).

Mumford and Sons won out as I was in a bluegrass mood.

The spare room is now much cleaner and tidier.  Unfortunately some of the larger items do need to stay in the room because we really have no where else to put them in the house.

Little Miss R's desk is there to the right where the red chair is.

You can see one cupboard door only but there are 3 doors altogether and inside them is now relatively clean and tidy.  Maybe I should really say that it's slighty more organised.

There's also a bookshelf on the wall to the left which is now much tidier and full of books as well as crafty stuff.

During my tidy up I found heaps of safety pins.  I used an empty powdered stock container to hold them in and it's worked out perfectly.

 

I also sorted through my sewing basket.  I've got fishing tackle boxes and tupperware holding plenty of sewing things in but I always use this basket because it was my Grandma's.  When she passed away I was given her sewing machine, sewing table and of course her sewing basket.  Even though it's now 20 years since she passed away which I can't quite believe, I always think of her when I see this basket or use my sewing machine.

Inside the basket were these interesting tidbits too.  I'm not sure exactly what they are but I have a vague recollection that my Mum once told me that one of them is a lace maker.  If anyone out there knows what they are then please let me know.  Thanks!

Once I'd finished tidying everything, resorting and putting it all back in happier places, I ended up with a bag full of fabric and yarn to send to school with Little Miss R for their craft.  I've just got to remember to take it with me!

So everything's much tidier, neater and I'm much happier for now. 

xxx Susan

Yarn on the menu

It seems an AGE since I've blogged about any crochet or crochet projects.  To some of my friends and blog readers that's not a problem at all... others they may miss it (I can live in hope!)

I've decided that I'm a person that needs TWO major crochet projects on the go to be happy.  As long as they're both a little different in style and stitches then it helps if I get bored with one and can easily switch to the other for a day or two.

Lately I've been doing just one project and that's the old fashioned cotton bedspread for my bed.  It's the biggest project I've attempted and I am loving it but I do get bored doing the same stitch pattern over and over again.

So over the weekend I decided to do something a little different just to switch things up a bit.

I went through my stash, found a ball of yarn I wanted to work with then  decided to make a scarf for Little Miss R's current teacher.

This may be a little ahead of myself because I made scarves for her Prep teacher and teachers' aide for Christmas last year.

Stay with me though people because our house is on the market!

Yes finally.  After a year of talking about moving, we've finally decided on an area where we may be going to and have actually contacted the real estate and started the process.   Finger's crossed about selling because the housing market's pretty slow right now.

So how does putting our house on the market and a crochet scarf go together?

Well I thought that if we do sell the house then it will be pretty full on packing, looking for a new place to live, moving, finding a new school for Little Miss R, changing all the necessary over to a new address, all the other stress added because I know hubby won't be here for most of it.....then me having a bit of a mental breakdown before we get back on track again.

Once we got to our new place I would then realise that I wish I had made something for Little Miss R's current teacher as a Thank you for the work she has done so far this year.  That's why I've started on this particular project now so even if I finish it before the house is even sold, I can put it away and bring it out at the last minute for Little Miss R to give to her teacher.

So for a couple of days I crocheted away when time allowed using a great pattern called 'snapdragon shells'.  With the multicoloured yarn it was really turning out quite well.

Then I got to the end of the ball of yarn and realised I made the scarf a little bit too wide and a little bit too short!  It still wraps around but it's not a nice comfortable scarf the way it is now.

Do I undo the whole thing?  Probably as I would like to fix it up but just not at the moment.  So what to do?

I ended up tidying up some of the spare room and in the cupboard I found another box of yarn!  I was sooooo excited, like Christmas morning excited!

I found some nice purple (which is her teachers favourite colour) and decided to try a different pattern again.  This time the boringly titled 'side bars'.  I'm liking the square, mesh effect this has though but we'll see when it gets a bit longer.

I only started this one after the kidlettes were in bed last night while I was watching the cricket.  The above is how much I got done BEFORE the power went out.  Yes the power went out when there was only 2 overs left to go!!!  I couldn't believe it and had to bump, thump and crash my way through the house to find a torch and my radio to find out who won.
(Australia beat Sri Lanka in the last over by the way...)

So today it's absolutely pouring rain again and in between doing some more crochet, house tidying, crochet, washing, crochet etc, I'll be checking the internet for flooding around the Gympie area as hubby's on his way home again.  Last stint it was flooded in Gympie (one hour's drive away) and he had to back track another 4 hours to get home.  Instead of a 9 hour drive it took him 13 so we really don't want that again!

Hope you all have a fantastic week.

xxx Susan 

In need of colour

I've found many of my pictures in my recent posts to be a little dull.  That's dull in colour although you may decide that they're a little dull in content too but that's my life...

As the weather has been rainy and stormy, I decided to go through my photos and find some with a bit more colour.

The ones below weren't necessarily the brightest, but they were colourful in their own way and had some special memories attached to them.

Enjoy!

I hope this has brightened things up a bit.

xx Susan

Welcome bunting ta-dah moment

A few posts ago I mentioned that I was working on a little something and to wait and see what it is.

As you can see below there were lots of little pieces to it in lots of lovely bright colours.

If you want to see the original inspiration for it then zip on over to here to have a look.

Well here's my finished project.

A lovely little WELCOME bunting.

It hangs in the front door area of our house and I made a couple of flowers to put on each end. 

It looked great with just the letters on it too but when I tried out the strawberries and little flowers I had, it just looked so much better.

So while watching my sport I got my needle and thread out and sewed the sparkly, pretty flowers on and then I realised it was finished.

What an exciting moment that was and now I have some pretty bunting hanging up to welcome people into my home.

I really do think I'll make a Christmas one that I can hang up every year as well as one for birthdays.  I've got awhile before the next birthday in our house (May for me, October for Miss R, December for hubby and next January for Master M), so both of them are not urgent projects. 

They were such fun though so maybe I'll just do a few stitches to make a start......

xx Susan

A little hooky

It's been awhile since I've devoted a post just to crochet but I thought it was about time again.

So what have I been up to in 2012 so far?

Not a lot at first as I didn't get any crochet done for AGES but this last week has been quite productive.

Firstly there's the cotton blanket that I'm making for my bed.  This is going to be the first BIG project for me this year and I'm happy taking my time with it, doing little bits when I can.

I'm doing a flower hexagon design for the blanket in mainly white with pink centres.  Every so often there will be a green/teal sort of hexagon to break up the whiteness of the blanket.  We'll see how it turns out.

I've also been doing a couple of smaller things with flowers.

First I made some small flowers and blocked them so they didn't curl.  Then I made some larger flowers and strung them all together on a chain to make a bit of floral bunting.

It's now hanging in our house and I quite like it's cheerful colour but I'm not entirely sure what hubby thinks of it.

I'm also in the middle of another project which you can see the inspiration for here.  I'm really looking forward to finishing this one which will hopefully be done and dusted sometime in the next week.

That's it so far but I've decided that after my blanket making projects of last year it's time to try my hand at some different things.

That's why I'm doing these smaller projects as well as the main project of my bed blanket.  I like having one major project on the go with something else to help break things up a bit. 

Watch this space (over the next year that is..) to see what other little projects I decide to do.

xx Susan

The holidays

I started the school holidays way back in early December with the intention of blogging regularly.

I now know why women with young school children DON'T blog in the holidays. 

It's utter chaos around here most days and some things just have to slide.

Christmas has been and gone.

Master M's 4th Birthday has been and gone too but we can continue to enjoy the pressies.

A first fish has been caught with the birthday fishing rod.

We have managed to spend some time out and about as a family.

On extremely rare occasions I've been able to sneak in a bit of hooky time.

One week left of the holidays then we'll see what changes happen around the house. 

 At least it will be slightly less chaotic.

Seven down, Zero to go!!

Yippee!!!!!!

I've finished all 7 blankets and it's only taken me 10 full months.

Back in January I decided to make a throw rug for each of my nieces and nephews for Christmas this year.  I gave myself the year to do it and after many ta-dah moments throughout the year, I give you the final blanket.

This one is for older Master J and this one suits him a lot more than one of the previous blankets I made that I thought of giving to him.  It's a bit of a retro ripple blanket with a picot edge.

The edge gave me a bit of grief actually because I was running out of the green yarn. In fact I got nearly three quarters of the way through twice when I realised I didn't have enough so it all had to come undone and I had to think of some other finishing edge.

I'm not as happy with this little picot edge as some of the others but it does look good and most importantly, I just had enough yarn to finish it.  Yay!

I just love all the ripples.  In fact, I really love making ripple blankets so I know this won't be the last one I make.

Would you like to see all 7 blankets piled up?  Of course you would.  Here they are.....

Lots of work and sometimes frustration but also a hell of a lot of fun to make.

What to do now?

Well I really do have to admit that I'm re-doing one of the blankets.  It was the first one I made and is the black, white and red speckled blanket. 

The original is quite small and I really stuffed the border up.  When I say really stuffed it up, I mean REALLY stuffed it up and it can't be fixed.  The easiest thing to do is remake the blanket and I can pull the other one apart when I have some more time.

So even though I'm re-doing one of them, I really have finished all 7 so I'm very proud of myself.

Then I'll be trying a pretty huge project.  I want to make a blanket for my bed and I want to try some hexagons.  I already know exactly what I'll be doing and what colours to use but I just need to get them first.  I'll definately keep you posted on that one.

Hope you all have a great week.

xxx Susan

Scarves

For a change of pace, I'll stop writing about birthday's etc for this post and go back to crochet.  Not very original I know but there you go.

If you've been reading over the last couple of months you would know that I'm making scarves for Little Miss R's teachers.  The first one I made was the higgledy-piggeldy one which you can see in this post.

Then I decided that it might not be quite right so I found a ball of wool, alpaca and silk mix in my stash in a gorgeous burgandy colour and made an open weave scarf.  I do so love this one.

Then because I liked that one so much I ferretted through my stash again and found a beautiful soft wool/cashmere blend and did another similar scarf but not quite so open this time.

I'm so glad I decided to make these two as I believe they are perfect for her teachers.  Little Miss R thinks so too and in her forthright manner has told me which of the teachers must get which scarf.  Luckily we are on the same wave length and I agree with her choices.

We went to the Prep to year 2 concert last night which was a bit of a classic.  I'll let you know more in a future post. 

Until then, have a fantastic week.

xx Susan

Moving through the fog

It's been a bit of a busy week around here and I keep forgetting to take photos so I can show you what's going on. 

We're planning for Little Miss R's 6th birthday here on Thursday and her first birthday party with her school friends on Saturday.  Lets hope the rain stays away.

My mind is also pretty full about our move and finances.  Things like, can we move BEFORE we sell the house or do we have to sell the house first.  It's taking up a fair bit of time I can tell you.

 I also have a bit of brain fog resulting from a cold that developed the other day.  Not happy about it especially as it was a pupil free day at school on Monday and it was one of those days when my cherubs decided they didn't want to get along.

I've got a place to hold all my crochet hooks now too.  Do you like it?

It's one of my pre-children evening bags that I will probably never use again.  I don't even fit into the dress it used to match so I decided to put it to a better use.  Now I get to use it all the time.  Yay!!!

I'm also trying to get as much crochet done as I can in my limited spare time.  I decided that if we move soon then I want all the presents finished and wrapped so I don't have to take them with me.

The retro ripple is for Nephew J for Christmas which I think I mentioned in a past post and the blue piece is a scarf I'm making for one of Little Miss R's teachers at school.  Nearly all done.

I've got finished items piles up and am running out of boxes to put them in so it's about time I stared wrapping some of the Christmas presents I think.

On a different note, we headed up to Landsborough the other day to order Little Miss R's birthday cake and ended up getting some yummy's for morning tea.  Then it was off to the playground for awhile to run off some of the sugar!

Today I'm making heaps of cupcakes so Little Miss R can take to school tomorrow for her birthday.  I doubt I'll be doing much else until I've got them all made and decorated so lets hope Master M is easy to look after today.  Wish me luck!

xx Susan

 

A blanket for Little Master J

What a week!!  It's been so hectic around here with lots of kids parties and catching up with friends who I haven't seen in ages (hello Jodi, had a great morning!). 

The kidlettes have also been having some restless nights so I've been pretty exhausted but hubby's home for his few days off now so I'm catching up on sleep and recharging the batteries for the next round.

Enough of that though, I've got another blanket to show you.

How good does it feel to have yet ANOTHER blanket finished!

I really, really love this blanket as I used a completely different stitch to all the other's I've done so far and the result is pretty fantastic.

Would you like to see?

Of course you would, so here it is.....

I used a basic shell pattern in just four colours for the whole blanket and it's given me a couple of different effects.  I used maize, nectarine, a light blue and a darker blue which has created a slightly different colour depending which side of the blanket you're looking at.

The photo below shows the brighter yellow and nectarine colours are dominant.

The next photo shows the more dominant blue side.

The effect is only subtle but you can see it more in this next picture.

I kept the edging very basic, just two rounds of the shell pattern in the darker blue to finish it off and it looks really good.  I'm so happy with it.

I'm currently doing a ripple for my other nephew J and it's coming together really well.  I've been looking at my work over the last year and a half since I started learning to crochet and the quality has improved out of sight.

Some of the earlier blankets I tried different techniques and now I'm getting to find my style and what I like doing.  I'd love to pull some of the earlier work apart but I'll leave that for another time.

The funny news is that I may even have a commission to make a blanket for one of the Mum's in Little Miss R's class at school.  We were chatting about different things at one of the birthday parties when I mentioned that I crochet.  She instantly got excited and said that she wants a particular blanket in certain colours but doesn't know anyone who crochets and that she'd pay me for it!

I was in a bit of shock at first but I'm now warming up to the idea.

Hope you are all having a great week.

xx Susan