Baby crochet

There is a new baby in the family, a great nephew on hubby's side.  This is my opportunity to try crocheting some baby things and I've started on this little cardigan.

This free pattern comes from debscrafts55.blogspot.com and can be found here.  I'm using a 5mm hook and Moda Vera Yarn, Marvel Soft 8ply in a gorgeous blue.  I'm so excited to be crocheting something for a baby and to learn new crochet skills. 

 

 Also in the pipeline is a striped blanket/throw, some little socks and a hat.  The new baby is petite so the little cardigan can be something he can grow into.

 

Anne  xx

:: 52 weeks of happy, 12/52 ::

Here are four of many happy moments this week.

1.  Creating a little terraced rock garden on a sloping site in the garden, hopefully to improve water run off.

2.  Receiving notification from the library that the next two books in this series were ready for me to pick up.

 3.  Op shopping for scarves for my next controversial sewing project.  :)

4.  Grateful for lamps and candles when the power goes off for over 12 hours.  Happy that for one evening there was no computer of t.v. on.  It was so beautifully quiet and peaceful.

The little lamp on the far left with the red glass chimney I've had since I was a young teen.  So glad I kept it.

Wishing you all many happy moments this week.

Anne  xx

:: 52 weeks of happy, 10/52 ::

Here are four of my happy moments this week.

1.  Going op shopping on a stinking hot afternoon for fabrics for a special project.  A combination of off-cuts, garments and doilies were found.  The next day they were cut to size and washed, all ready to start sewing.  Project underway.

2.  Admiring the gorgeous colour of the last of these summer Petunias.

3.  Happy that this Fuchsia which has been transplanted five times over the years is still surviving and going to flower.  The most recent transplant was last week. 

4.  No photo for this one.  Full of admiration and respect for daughter No. 2 who has/had the maturity and wisdom to handle a potentially difficult situation with dignity and grace. 

Wishing you many happy moments this week.

Anne  xx

Crafting while travelling

Hello, I have a question for you.  If you were going on an overseas holiday for two months and had limited room for craft projects such as crochet (all that yarn), what would you do instead?

We will be very busy taking in the sights and generally having a great time, but there will be moments when I'll need to occupy the creative part of my being otherwise I will go nuts.  I plan on taking a sketchbook and watercolour pencils.  Any other ideas for something small and portable would be very much appreciated.

Thanks,

Anne  xx

Little crochet hanging hearts

Hello.  Last night I showed you some little crochet hearts I've been working on and now I can show you their new home.  Ta dah!!

This is a corner of my bedroom and you might be able to see the bunting I made here
in the top left hand corner of the photo.

For the hearts I crocheted a long chain and as I went along I slip stitched into the back of the heart to attach it to the chain.  There were about eight chain between each heart and I left a tail of chain either side of the hearts.  To the tail of yarn I attached a bead to finish off.

This little project has added some cheer to my bedroom and I'm thinking something similar to this would look nice on a door handle.  It would probably drive hubby nuts having something flapping against the door and the cats would think it was a new toy to play with, but what the heck, it's FUN!!

Now I just have to go and work out why the blocking of my bunting has not worked.  I've used acrylic yarn, whatever I had to hand.  Oh well, perhaps I'll just have curly bunting and have to live with it.

Enjoy your day,

Anne  xx

Little crochet hearts

Hi everyone.  I thought I should mention the little crochet hearts in my last post were from a free pattern I found on the internet.  For the life of me cannot find the original site, so I can't credit the person who designed the pattern.  The bunting I'm working on mentioned in the same post came from a tutorial from Heather at Pink Milk

Here is a sneak peak at what I've been working on tonight.

If you are interested, here is the pattern for the crocheted hearts.  It was the simplest and easiest pattern I could find and perfect for a beginner like me.  I made one very small alteration to the pattern to make my hearts look a bit more symetric.  That's my wonky crochet for you.  :) 

Little Crocheted Heart Pattern

Ch 4. Work 3 tr (triple crochet) into first ch, 3 dc, ch 1, 1 tr, ch 1, 3 dc, 3 tr. *Ch 3, sl st into center and fasten off.  

*My alteration was to Ch 2 rather than 3.


Bye for now,

Anne

Flaked out

What would you expect a cat to do in hot weather, find the coolest spot in the house?!   If I were a cat I would probably choose to sit on a window sill or in a doorway where the breeze is likely to come in.  Perhaps lie down on a tiled or wooden floor, surfaces that are cooler than a chair, mat or bed.  Well this is how Stripey chose to cool off last night. 

On the ironing board!  Absolutely no breeze was happening in the laundry so I have no idea why he thought it was such a great place to flake out in the heat.  And no, the iron wasn't on.

In other news, I've been fiddling around with bits and pieces of crochet.

Things are being blocked and ends woven in.  Claire from Sweet Birdy Love
can probably guess what I'm up to as she pointed me in the direction of the lovely blog Pink Milk and am I having fun!

I hope you are all having a lovely weekend,

Anne  xx

Giant Granny square throw TA DAH and new oil painting portrait update

It's finished.  I finally finished making my giant Granny square throw and I am SO very happy with it.  I thought I'd finished it in the last couple of rows but it just wasn't quite right so I fiddled with it some more and now I'm satisfied.

The fabric of the cushion cover is what I based my colour scheme on.

That white paw belongs to Stripey.

My new oil painting portrait is coming along well and I'm pleased with the progress so far.

Original photo

I've had the last painting class for the year as we head into the summer holiday break although it is my intention to have a couple of painting sessions at home.

On Saturday Charlotte and I are off two the Gold Coast for a weeks break.  I'm looking forward to sand beneath my feet, sea air to breathe in and perhaps a paddle in the sea.  We will fit in some rather fun things while we are there and hopefully I will be able to post to the blog while away.  Charlotte has a sore throat at the moment, so fingers crossed she recovers soon.

Have a lovely day everyone,

Anne xx

Hanging stars

Sometimes I do really silly things like entering discount stores and buying what looks like delightful white fabric serviettes with embossed poinsiettas, perfect for the Christmas lunch table.  I knew the fabric was synthetic but when I opened the package at home, I realised I had purchased something that would never go near anyone's mouth without leaving the equivilent of gravel rash behind.

Feeling rather annoyed with myself for thinking I had saved money for something beautiful to find out I had purchased something hideous, I put on my thinking cap to see if I could make something nice from something truly horrible.  This is what I came up with.

I down loaded a star template from the internet and cut out ten stars.  The fabric frayed terribly when I cut it.  Grrrr.  I pinned two stars together and attached the silver rickrack.  I sewed the rickrack at the front of the stars as the stitching from the sewing machine left big holes in the fabric.  Grrrr.  I attached some beads at the bottom and left some rickrack trailing.  I finished the stars off with some glitter glue on the edges to detract from the fraying.  I had the rickrack, beads and glitter glue tucked away in my craft supplies, so no extra money was spent.

Can you see those frayed edges?  I did my best to disguise them.

I have more serviettes to turn into something nice and was thinking of hanging fabric flower pom poms.  Do you think it would work?

I hope you are having a lovely weekend,

Anne xx

Making bags and interesting animal companions

Hello.  The weather is rather warm today, assisted admirably by my internal furnace.  Does anyone else have an furnace working overtime?    I'll move on to other more pleasant things like making bags to organise my suitcase for next years holiday. I started my bag making frenzy in this post

where I made a bag with a zipper to put my smalls in.  Since then I made a laundry bag, some shoe bags, a bag for delicate clothing, (i.e. where the fabric pulls on anything) and a bag for my socks. 

Laundry bag

It's a simple drawstring bag and I applied HeatnBond iron-on vinyl to waterproof the fabric.  Letty  suggested I use oilcloth but I couldn't find any in a fabric I liked.  The fabric was easy to sew with the vinyl ironed on.

This shoebag was also made with HeatnBond applied to the fabric. 

There's enough room in this shoe bag for my thongs (flip flops) and jiffy slippers.

Bag for delicates.

 I had intended using studs for the closure on this bag but when I tried to punch them with the special tool they didn't turn out.  Grrrr.  I've used velcro instead.

The blue and mauve bag on top is for my socks.

I've yet to make some more bags.  One for scarves and belts and one for my hairdryer, brush, comb and hair clips.  I just don't want to have all these things rolling around in my suitcase.

While I was out having acupuncture yesterday, Genevieve took these photos of Sophie our labrador and the chooks sunning themselves together.

Interesting animal companions!

Well I'm off to do some housework type things like cleaning windows and folding up clothes.  Have a great weekend.  We are off to help celebrate my brother-in-law's 60th birthday tomorrow.

Anne  xx

Endings and beginnings

This week marks the end of an era.  An era of the primary and high school education of our girls.  This Friday, Miss G. has her last school assembly which is a bit of an event to say the least.  I know there will be tears of sadness and of happiness.  Sadness because one phase of her life has finished and happiness because there are new things to look forward too, new challenges to face.  There will be changes for me too with no more school drop offs and pick ups.  When I first started taking the girls to kinder, I thought of all those years ahead of me and now I'm at the end of them.   It's truly amazing to think and wonder where the time went

 

It's been a bit of a contemplative time for me these past few weeks so I've been keeping myself occupied in my spare moments with making stars for Christmas bunting.

Working on my giant granny square throw.

I've been enjoying the flowers in the garden.

Bungee snuck into the photo.

The first rose of spring.

Trying to take photos of the elusive and shy Wattle birds feeding from the Chinese Lantern.  This photo is taken through the window and not clear because of the fly screen behind the glass.

Can you see him on the left of the photo with his head upside down.

I've been tidying up the pantry and getting rid of some of the plastic storage containers.  I found these wonderful glass containers at a discount shop for $1.00 and just the perfect size for herbs and spices.  Here they are draining and air drying after a good hot soapy scrub.

This is a very satisfying sight.

I've been making wholemeal Melt and Mix Shortbread to keep the biscuit tin full.

And I've been working on my portrait painting.  I must say I now have mixed feelings about the painting as it has been worked on quite extensively by my teacher.  My teacher is very good but unfortunately gets carried away when showing you how to do a technique which results in important aspects of the face such as the eyes being her work and not mine.  I suppose this sound quite silly, but I really want a painting to be my work with it's imperfections and not my teachers work.  I must sound ungrateful, I really need her to teach me how, just not do it all.  The hair has been worked on extensively by my  teacher too (not yet finished), once again I needed to learn the technique, but not have it all done by her.  Grumble, grumble.  Anyway, here's the painting.

I must admit I fiddled with the eyes just a little when I came home from class.  I softened the lines that make up her eyelid and eyes and darkened the colour of her eyes to a darker brown.  I can see all the imperfections I made to her eyes but I feel better about it having some of my touch.  I will say happily that the nose and mouth are all my work.  I sound very picky, but I am quite passionate and pocessive about my paintings and want them to be my work.  O.k., I think I've said enough on the subject for the moment.

In other news, I can report that Miss C. is going for her drivers test this afternoon.  For all the Australian readers out there, I would have to say that sitting the computerised hazard perception test first is ridiculous.  The computer imagery for the driving conditions and situations is not clear, dodgy at best.  After her 4th attempt, Charlotte finally passed this morning and her Dad is going with her for the test this afternoon.  Fingers crossed for a successful outcome.

I'm off out to get my hair attended too and perhaps check out the delights of Spotlight.

Take care everyone,

Anne  xx

Travel sewing kit

Hello there, how are you?  I've been beavering away on my trusty Bernina and made myself a little travel sewing kit based on a tutorial found here.
The tutorial is quite long and involved steps I didn't want to take, so I looked at the photos and figured it out and did it my way.



 On the far left and right sides, I have made divided pockets with Velcro fastening to store thread and buttons.  The little felt square book (don't know what else to call it), holds pins, needles and safety pins.  I just couldn't resist using one of those little framed key pictures for decoration.  It's all thready around the edge too, just how I wanted it.  Can you see the nifty little felt triangle to hold the scissors?  I made a little tab fastened with a press stud to keep them safely tucked inside.


  I made my own thread holders using offcuts of cardboard, cutting little triangles into the side to wind the thread around.  The buttons are in a plastic bag, otherwise you know what would happen don't you?  Buttons everywhere in my suitcase.

I see more threads that need snipping.  :)

 The kit consists of three layers of fabric with one piece of fabric having iron-on interfacing adhered to it to provide some padding.   Wadding perhaps would have been better but I didn't have any so I had to improvise.

 So there you have it, a travel sewing kit just ready to pop in my suitcase for when I go travelling.  I've got a few more suitcase storage ideas to make yet.  Watch this space.

Anne  xx