Tuesday 25 December 2012

Merry Christmas!

Christmas is coming to a close here in Australia and what a day it's been! We have had a great time celebrating with our family. Feasting, playing board games and enjoying each others company.
This afternoon we got a lovely big thunderstorm. Always a lovely change from sweltering heat. We shepherded all the children inside to watch 'Kangaroo Jack' while my two brothers hijacked my nephews nerf guns and ambushed us while we were playing Rummy King in the pergola. Fun times!! I don't think men ever really grow up. Simple pleasures make great memories.

Don't forget to hug your children a little tighter and spare a thought to all those parents who won't get to hear their little ones laughter.

I hope your Christmas is as special as ours.

Friday 21 December 2012

The Countdown is On.

We have three sleeps until Santa comes and I still have stockings to complete!
Thankfully the pattern I had picked out is easy and fast to do. I could comfortably finish one stocking a day if my day was not taken up by demanding children and animals.
On that front, I have set them up with various crafts but they are sick of them already and we are only three days into their six weeks of school holidays. I finally gave in to my kids plea's to let them open their Wii last night as an early present. It wasn't a very hard decision though. Last week my youngest son and my nephews were sure they saw a snake in the old outside dunny which my landlord has filled with planks of wood and other building supplies. Of course it could have been a lizard, but the snakes are out in force this year. A lady in my street came home from work last week to find a brown snake in her house.With their cross breeding they are more dangerous than ever. So until the vines and shrubs are cut back my kids are housebound. Happily their favourite Wii game is Just Dance.

 I have completed one stocking and have three more to finish. I love the finished project! This is Miss 9's purple stocking.


As my other three are all worried I won't finish Their stocking, I thought I would make them all together. I have completed the leg section on Miss 11's Harry Potter Griffindor stocking, Master 7's bright orange and blue stocking and am now working on Mister 12's black and maroon stocking. An hour of working in all black and I should hopefully be on to the heels.



Better get on with it. I hope every one is enjoying the lead up to Christmas!

Monday 10 December 2012

Parcels and Presents!!

I don't know what is more exciting, receiving parcels or presents. So luckily for me I have received both! The parcel came all the way from Michigan from my excellent scarf/cowl swap partner and she spoiled me rotten! THREE cowls! THREE! Can you believe it? I love each one of them. The rest of the huge box they came in was filled to the brim with goodies! Owls, candy, owls, yarn, owls, notions, owls. Get the picture :-) The owls was on almost every item in the box. Needless to say, I was in owl heaven!

Here are the cowls. The last one is long but I folded it up for the photo.




Here are the owls...

and yarn.

Thanks for being a great swap partner Tonya!
 I love swaps. But my budget needs tightening, as in corset tight, with the ridiculous hike in electricity prices. So next year I will have to limit myself to the KISS swaps.
 Lucky for me my mum has a neighbour who loves me and is always passing things over the fence for me. She has recently held a craft stall in her back yard and handed over the few things she had not sold to me. Look at these Cute cushions!

She also made a posy of large paper flowers. These are the leftover ones.


I had been looking for something to fill in my unusable fireplace in the lounge room. My mum gave me the large vase for the paper flowers to go in. I love the way it looks.
 I also got a huge box of Christmas decorations, but I have not yet finished decorating.

In the box were these. I have no idea what they are supposed to be.

Any ideas?

A CAL of Our Own

One of my swap partners from the 'Ville and I got to talking on Facebook one day about bags/totes and showed off our 'Must Make' bag patterns that we had been admiring. After oohing and ahhing for a while over each others choices we decided it would make a great two person Crochet ALong. So dates were set for the future and excitement was high.

Yarn was purchased and the day before the CAL was to start we set some basic perimeters. We were to work on our bag for one day a week only. Being an international CAL, Maria would work on her bag on a Saturday which would be my Sunday and we were to post photo's of our progress at the end of the night.

I figured this would be a fast and easy project. My bag 'The tartan fat bottom bag', tutorial by BobWilson123, is worked in mesh then has chains threaded through. Well I was right with the easy, but fast it is not. With the demands of my kids it has been very slow progress! But I am happy with the results so far. We are four weeks in and if I pick up the pace I am hoping to have my bag completed for Christmas.

Here is the progress so far:

WEEK ONE -


The light was not the best so it does not show the colours to the best advantage.

WEEK TWO -


As you can see not much progress happened that day. I'm not sure what kept me away from crochet, but with our hot summer days we were probably at the pool.

WEEK THREE -

                                               

I just love the colours I chose for this bag. The week two photo is an accurate representation of the colour I had chosen.

WEEK FOUR -


The mesh section is now complete. The next part is making all those dreaded chains to weave through. This coming Sunday is going to be FUN FUN FUN!

Monday 3 December 2012

MIA

It was quite a surprise to visit my blog and realise my last post was way back in October! My how things get away from you when you are having fun! I am hoping that I don't go so far between blog posts in future.

Things have been very busy and full on here in the cottage. As some of you would know, back in October I started an intensive five week introductory course in Aged Care. It consisted of three days in the class room and one day on the floor every week. I am happy to report that my five weeks was up last week. I passed all my book work with flying colours and just handed in my paperwork yesterday to go on a three week probationary traineeship with our local nursing home. If all goes well, after these next three weeks I will be officially offered a traineeship for the next two years, ending in being a fully qualified Assistant in Nursing. Exciting stuff!!

I have one months break from school work so I am spending my time catching up on all my crochet projects that have practically been abandoned during the past weeks. I have sent out puffies with squares that were pledged ages ago and sat around in their incomplete state for far too long. Photo's to come when they have reached their new owners.
I have a poor snowman who still only has a section of his head completed.


Stockings for my four children to make...


My kids don't do normal Christmas colours.

                                             
...and a Merry Christmas sign that will probably be abandoned until next year



Why can't the month of December have eight weeks?