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

A fluffy penguin

Little Miss R received a penguin present for her birthday and I told her we had to wait for the weekend to do it.

First of all you have to get all the flat cardboard pieces out of the box and build the penguin.

Then you have to pour the special solution that comes with the penguin into the plastic bowl at the base.

After a couple of hours, the penguins body starts to sprout funny fluffy white crystal stuff.

After another hour or so, the white fluffy stuff has really grown.

Then after most of the day you have a really fluffy baby penguin.

It was pretty cool the way it worked and the kids loved watching it grow.

The only problem is that I now have powdery, white crystals all over my table.  At least it wipes off easily.

xx Susan

Doing my head in

I am trying to remain calm........I'm not succeeding very well.

Since the moment the kidlettes got out of bed this morning it has been one drama after another.

Frankly, I'm getting a bit sick of the word 'mummy' today.  I really think I'm going to change it and just not respond...if only that would work.

My two cyclones have been at it all day.  Every time I turn around the house has virtually been destroyed.

There have been constant fights, niggling and just plain annoying each other.

Master M continually is leaving taps running because he can't turn them off properly.  Every time I walk into a room it seems that a tap I had turned off only 5 minutes before is running again.

He also found a stamp and proceeded to stamp nearly every wall in my house with red christmas writing.  Most of it is coming off.

This is only a small part of my day so far and I'm really not sure I want to know what else is in store.

Hubby is home tonight and I'm REALLY looking forward to that......and the bottle of wine I think I'll be opening a little later.

Until then I will try to continue to be an octopus with eyes in the back of my head. 

Wish me luck and thanks for listening to me whinge!

xx Susan

School concert

Monday night was the Prep to Year 2 concert at Little Miss R's school.  I had no idea what it was going to be all about because Little Miss R refused to tell me as it was going to be a big surprise.

Luckily for her, it was her father's last night at home before going back to work so he got to come along too which was so exciting for her.

It started off with a small group made up of all the classes singing a song and setting the tone for the rest of the night.

The parents waited with anticipation to see their children dressed up and singing on stage.

It was a colourful, musical night.

Then Little Miss R's class came out dressed as soldiers and did a fantastic job.  I'm sure they were the only class that you could hear as the other's were so quiet the taped singing sort of took over.

We did get a lot of amusement out of the fact that we could hear our girl clearly from halfway down the room.  That girl sang her heart out and was very LOUD!

My nephew's class came out as sheep and did their song with some very cute little actions.

Then it was all over after the big finale and encore and it was time to go find my girl. 

She was beaming as she ran up to me saying "I was soooo good!"

It was very cute and cracked me up as only my girl can.

xx Susan

Ouch!

12.00pm  I hear a bang & crying. 

Master M walks to the top of the stairs holding his head.

 I'm about to scold him for slamming the back door again when I realise blood is pouring down the side of his head.

12.02pm  We're in the car, reversing out the drive on our way to the doctors

12.16pm  We're on our way home from the doctors.

No stitches although he really could use them.  The doctor said that the cut will scar but the tape sticking the cut together is less traumatic for a 3 year old than stitches.

The afternoon has been filled with lots of cuddles, bugs bunny movies and freddo frogs.

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

An unexpected day

We honestly hadn't planned to do much on Sunday.  We'd had a big enough day with the party on Saturday and decided that a quick visit to see hubby's mum was on the cards and that's about it.

Hubby really needed a new pair of shoes so instead of coming home from Caloundra, we headed to Maroochydore where the particular shoe shop we wanted was.

It was such a beautiful day that we decided to enjoy the beach for a bit and headed to Mooloolaba for some fresh prawns and fish and chips for lunch.

Yum!

After that it was a walk down the beach to enjoy this gorgeous day.

We studied shells on rocks.

We studied jellyfish.

We also studied the waves.  The kidlettes didn't have their togs on because we weren't expecting to go near the beach but that didn't stop them getting soaked.  They had an absolute ball in the water and luckily I'm organised and had a change of clothes in the car.

On the way home we called into Skippy park (the venue for the birthday party).  We didn't have our bikes with us either but went out the the oval in the middle and threw frisbees for awhile.

It was such a lovely family day and a great time was had by all.

xx Susan

The party

I was very worried Saturday morning.  I had checked out the forecast all week and it was supposed to be sunny.

It wasn't.

We had rain and around the time we headed up to Skippy park to set up, the drizzle and showers started.

I was getting quite a bit upset because I felt for my little girl so much.  She so desperately wanted a party.

The food was laid out, people turned up, and the rain started to ease.  The kids were able to leave the shelter and play which was a huge relief.

We even had 3 visitors come and see what all the fuss was about.

 

The kangaroos were pretty exciting for the kids as some of them lined up at the fence and watched them bound off.  It is called Skippy Park for a reason.

 

Little Miss R was able to hop on her new bike and do some laps of the bike track.

Then of course it was cake time.  An absolutely delicious vanilla sponge with real cream.  Delicious!

I think I'll have to do a few laps around the track on my bike now just to feel better about eating a nice huge chunk of cake!

Enjoy your weekend.

xx Susan

Six

The presents are wrapped and waiting on the coffee table in the lounge room.

Well before 6am my little girl is up with much excitement to open her presents.

There are pancakes for breakfast of course.

There's also time to play with some of our new toys before school.  The hot wheels track is an absolute HIT!

More excitement abounds when we go outside and there's a nice, new, shiny bike just waiting to be ridden.

The requested banana cake is waiting for afternoon tea once she's home from school with candles to be blown out and cream cheese icing to be devoured.

Happy 6th Birthday my little treasure.

xx Mummy

Baking cakes

After breakfast and before we head off to school I get a little help.

I'm making cup cakes for Little Miss R to take to school for her birthday as well as a few extras for treats for us.  The kids were kept busy putting the cases into the pans.

Once home from the school run and buying a few more groceries, it was time for a coffee while working out exactly what it was I needed to do.

I like to be organised.

The first double batter batch of vanilla cupcakes is all mixed and ready for the pans.

A taste test is a must.  It passed.

Three and a half hours later, one slightly burned batch because of my tempermental oven, one chocolate batch and another double batch to make up for the first and we finally have cupcakes.

There was of course the obligatory taste test and they are almost perfection.  Melt in your mouth, light as air, dreamy, yummy cupcakes.

About 30 are heading off to school which leaves me with about 60 or so left in my freezer now.  Yes that's right, with the few that were tested after school, I made about 100 cupcakes.  It would have been less if my oven worked like an oven is supposed to!!

For family that are reading, you will be receiving the ones with slightly burned bottoms whenever you visit.  Even so, they're still delicious!

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