Birthday Photos

Here are some pictures from Janelles party on Friday, the girls had fun cooking with the gourmet sets, as you can see from the pictures you cook the meats and egg in your own individual pans and grill underneath. We toasted cheese, bacon, capsicum and spring onions on sliced french bread and cooked meatballs, chicken, bacon and egg in the pans. The sets I had are a bit different to the link that was on Fridays post but the same idea and they are now available in Australia, the ones I borrowed from MIL and her friend were bought in Holland years ago.




Here is the birthday girl with her cake, I ordered it from Wendys and I couldn't get a plain birthday one so I settled for this one, hoping it wasn't too young. She loved it and the icecream cake was delicious.

Happy Birthday Janelle XXX

Janelle turns 13 today, a teenager, where did that time go? The kids have a student free day today so she is inviting her friends around for lunch. She is having a gourmet which is very similar to a fondue only the food is grilled in its own little pans there is one here I have borrowed the gourmets, thanks to my MIL and her friend, as they are a tad expensive for the amount of times you would use them, but they are a lot of fun. Must go now to get ready for the lunch, if she lets me I will post some pics tomorrow, she is at that age where some things are cool and some are just not, photos of her on mums knitting blog mmmmmm not real cool!!! but then again you never know at this age they are all grown up one minute and then they are a little girl again the next.

Cup Cake Hat

After seeing this delightful little hat over at Emmas Blog I just had to make my own Cup Cake Hat for my new little niece, Haley. I embroidered some sprinkles on but it didn't seem to have the same effect as Emmas so I unpicked the embroidery and left it plain. The pattern also called for worsted weight (10ply) and as I didn't have any on hand I used 8ply and as it is for a 1 month old baby it didn't matter that it was slightly smaller. It is being modelled by my much loved teddy bear. My mum won him in a raffle a few years before I was born and as I am turning 39 next month that makes him pretty old in teddy bear years and if you look closely he is showing his age.

I'm A Proud Mum

Today was the last day of soccer for my boys and although neither of their teams made the finals they both gave their all for their respective teams. Hayden received an extra bonus for the day in winning the best player award and the highest goal kicker in the under 10 age division.

Idiosyncrasy Tag

I have been tagged by Katt so here are my answers:

id•i•o•syn•cra•sy - a structural or behavioral characteristic peculiar to an individual or group. Write down 5 of your own idiosyncrasies, then if you wish, tag 5 people.

1. As this is a knitting blog my first one will be exactly about that, I must finish a row when knitting, ask my family they will tell you, even when knitting in the round I must get to the stitch marker. Sad aren't I.

2. My clothes have to be meticulously hung on the washing line, all singlets together, shirts etc. and all socks matching and so on.

3. I will never under any circumstance wear odd socks, NEVER.

4. I cannot leave the house unless all the beds are made and dishes done no matter how early in the morning. (I sound such a neat freak but believe me I am so far from being one this doesn't make sense at all)

5. I have spent ages trying to come up with #5 and I am afraid to say #4 is it, I am a very casual person and I think that is evident in my answers, no strange idiosyncrasies here. I am supposed to tag 5 more people, but hey if you want to run with this that is fine go for it but I am not going to tag anyone individually.

No More Anonymous (sorry)

Due to the amount of spammers I am getting I have changed my comments so that only registered users can comment, as most of the culprits sign anonymously hopefully this will put a stop to it. Sorry to genuine anonymous commenters (especially my SP) but I have had enough and I figure if you genuinely want to leave a comment you can say who you are.

Aran Tweed Wrap is Finished

Our weather is pretty ordinary at the moment but that doesn't worry me at all, at least I can stay indoors and knit which is exactly what I did on Sunday and finished the wrap. I have it draped over my shoulders as I am writing this, it is so warm and snuggly. A big thanks to my SP for the wool and if anyone is interested I have written out the pattern and you can find it here. It is my own pattern so feel free to use it, if anyone makes their own version I would love to see a photo of it.

So now it is back to the squirrel jacket, oh and another pair of opal socks (can't help myself). I have the workings on paper for the Janis Joplin bag so when I find the right yarn I will be starting that. I was going to do my own pattern for that but then I found this thanks to Suzi so now I am going to use that idea which is the Poster Boy bag out of the Stitch 'n' Bitch Nation. I have also copied the Marilyn Monroe version as my sister adores anything Marilyn so that will be her birthday present this year, plus she is a very hard person to buy for so I figure that is something very different. That is about all for now I am off to do bookwork, (boring), I would much rather be knitting.
This is how much wool was left over

Ta Da

Well Done Patons

I have been very critical in the past about Australian patterns being so far behind the current fashion trends but today I have to take my hat off to
Patons for coming out with Zhivago Summer Knits. The pictures are a sample of what is on offer and yes I come home from LYS with it in my hot little hand, dreaming of future projects.






On the knitting front I will finish the tweed wrap over the weekend, all going well that is, weekend plans can sometimes change at the drop of a hat but my plan is to finish the wrap and then work some more on the squirrel jacket. I did buy more yarn from LYS, bad girl I am, but I am not starting anything new until I finish the jacket for Ashley otherwise winter will be over. It has been snowing in Hobart and some of the schools were closed, it is very cold here at the moment, our woodheater (yes I am one of those terrible people adding to Launcestons smoke problem) usually heats up our whole house but this morning I had to put the column heater in the hallway to heat up the bedrooms. The spammers have left me alone, I ended up with five in one day and the last one was crude, makes you wonder if it is the same person, whoever they are they definately need to get a life.

I Am Not Happy

Okay this is a BIG RANT from me today, I have deleted three comments from my blog today. No they weren't rude or anything but I am not going to advertise your #*&^%^! car insurance, loans and other bullshit and don't patronise me by adding in the last sentence "nice blog." At least two of you had the decency to sign your name, I suppose that is one thing. So anyone else who is thinking of doing the same, don't bother because I will delete it as soon as I see it, SO DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME.

Man, that felt good, nothing like having a bitch and letting off a bit of steam. I will go now and do some knitting and hopefully my next post will be about exactly that, knitting.

It's Bouquet (The Bucket Woman)

This is the yummy wool my SP sent me in one of the parcels, it is Aran in the most gorgeous tweed colours, which I have been wanting to make into something, but was looking for inspiration. I started this yesterday and I am very pleased with how it is working out, I swatched and swatched till I came up with what I had in my head. I was thinking country tweed, Hyacinth Bucket (its Bouquet) cottage in the country "where's my tweeds Richard, I must wear my tweeds when we go to the country dear" and this is the result. It is going to be a wrap, one to wear draped over the shoulders with a pin. The wools label says Coldharbour Mill knitting yarn and that it is spun at Coldharbour Mill Uffculme, Devon, England it is the most beautiful wool to knit and I wish there was a web site, but then again maybe not, I don't think the credit card could stand that sort of punishment. So this is what I have been working on as well as the squirrel jacket.

I have started a couple of other things which is very unusual for me, I usually am quite strict with the amount of WIPs I have but hey I am in a UFO knitters anonymous so how can I hold my head up and blurt out I have 1 UFO, so I think it is time I had UFOs. I will ramble on about my other WIPs in my next post, must get off this computer before DD gets home from school and starts pulling faces because she wants to get on it, she is 13 in 3 weeks time, teenagers don't you just love them!!!!!!!!

I Now Have No Excuse

Look at what arrived in the mail this morning.

My secret pal you have learnt a lot about me, yes I do want to dye some wool. It is very high on my to do list but as yet haven't got around to getting suitable wool to dye or find anything to dye the wool with. You not only have seen to these details by sending some beautiful wool to use and some Kool-Aid, but also sent some instructions on using Kool-Aid to dye the wool. Kool-Aid is not available here in Australia so to us Aussies this is pretty amazing stuff. So once again SP you are a very kind and generous person and I thank you so much for all the lovely things you find to send me. Keep watching this space as I will be creating some lovely coloured wool soon, well hopefully anyway.