My entry for the 2013 Hottie Challenge

 

 

 

 

 

I posted my hottie off to Cam yesterday, just in time for the Thursday cut off date this week for the 2013 Hottie Challenge!  It was not an easy road!!!  I planned to whip up some wee granny squares, seamlessly join them into a hot water bottle cover and send it on it's way within days.  Except those little squares take longer than you think.  Sewing in those pesky ends was painful.  Seamlessly joining teeny squares is not straightforward and if I dared to show you the other side of my work you would die laughing at how messy it looked!

 

 

My first attempt at joining them made all the wee squares stick up like bubbles.  It was annoying and frustrating since they are so fidgety to put together!

 

 

So of course I pulled them all apart and let them sit on the desk in my craftroom for a month!

 

 

When I attempted it again it was with a calmer frame of mind and a looser hand and hook!  I may also have sat some heavy books on top of it all to flatten it down a wee bit (a very technical crochet process!!!).  I left the top and bottom open so it could potentially fit a real hot water bottle and be used for what it was intended for!

 

(still a bit to pouffy for my liking!)

 

On the back is a plain white granny stripe right up to the neck.  I slip stitched the front and back together inside out so all the messy bits are nicely hidden away before I turned it back out to the right side!

 

 

 

I'm happier with the finished product than I thought I would be.  I love the colours and I think it looks a wee bit like a granny square blanket that your nanna might have made you... soft, squishy, cosy and warm. Just what you need in a hot water bottle cover! 

To see some beautiful, super creative hot water bottle covers pop over to Curlypops blog or instagram feed and search under #hottiechallenge2013. 

All hot water bottle covers will be displayed at Opendrawer's Gallery from Friday July 5th to Sunday July 28th.  The address is 1158 Toorak Road, Camberwell in Victoria.  They are then sold to raise money for the Margaret Pratt Foundation Heart Lung Transplant Trust.

 

*giant doily cork board from Typo

 

 

 

 

My creative space...

I made a beanie.  With granny trebles.  And no pattern.  Why have I not done this before? 
So super easy.

 

Prompted by a chilly morning at under 9 football on Sunday where many a mum was adorned with some kind of furry, puffy, vesty/jackety number, scarf and woolly headpiece, I felt the need to join the group... (although I vow to never venture into a puffy anything!  So not flattering... on me anyway!)

 

I can't believe how easy this was and how quickly it comes together.  And although I made a few little errors which required some undoing and redoing, it used only a ball or so of wool. 

(Initially I tried to add ear flappy bits with plaited ties hanging off them but then it dawned on me that I am not a 17 year old babe waiting on the beach for my surfie boyfriend to return from the waves and join me!)

 

 

The Pattern.... (I'm assuming you have some crochet knowledge!)

 

Chain  5 or 6 and join with a slip stitch to the starting chain.

Double crochet 12 times into the ring and slip stitch to close.

Treble into each previous double crochet adding some space between these trebles by chaining two or three.  Join with a slip stitch.
 

In the next round, three chain and two trebles into the first space, and then three trebles into each space after that.  Join with a slip stitch into the third chain of your three chain starting point.

So your beanie doesn't start folding in too early, increase your rounds slowly and keep testing it out on your own head.  Initially I increased by adding a few chains between each set of three trebles.  Then increased some more by doing two lots of three trebles with a chain in between in each alternate space of the round.  I did an increase round, then a non increase round 2 or 3 times till I felt it was going to be wide enough to fit my moon head.
 

Eventually you will end up doing those three lots of trebles into each space with maybe a chain between each set 9-10 times till it comes far enough down your head.  To finish I used a different colour and did three rows of double crochet around the edge.  I may well add a pom pom!

 

Take it out onto your front porch and take 22 selfies before you find one that you are vaguely less critical of.  Muck around with it on instagram until you find the most flattering filter while your internal self continues to berate your moon head, the bags under your eyes,  pointy chin and puppet lined mouth.

 

Enjoy at a cold under 9's football match where you lose count of how many times your child pulls up their socks and repeatedly removes their mouthguard... while only touching the actual football twice. 

 

Instagram Addict

Blog.  What blog?  I had to look up my passwords to log back in, it's been that long.

 

 

 

Working too much means instagram has been my go-to app for quick, short, sharp catch ups and glimpses of that lovely bloggy life I used to know!  And I'm not sure whether I am completely behind the times or not but that video above.... Hilarious!!!

I'm over here if you want me.



The boy turned 9!

 

We went vintage Womens Weekly Birthday Cake this time round....

 

 

...The Football Cake!

 

Does everyone else do the present unwrapping on their parents bed?  We snuck the bike in behind him while he was unwrapping another exciting gift - socks and jocks!

The Dimples!

 

We went to Bounce in Glen Iris.   It's basically a massive warehouse full of trampolines! I quite possibly might have had a bounce or three myself.

We also dealt with a massive green eyed monster today.  Poor Isaac - every gift Oscar got was all of a sudden the only thing he ever wanted in his entire life!  It was all very melodramatic!

 

I learnt a big lesson myself today too.

Never kiss a 9 year old boy in front of his mates.  Not even if you are the closest girl when the knife hits the bottom of the cake!

 



 

Happy Birthday Oscar!  We love you very much!

The 2013 Hottie Challenge

I have just signed up with Cam at CurlyPops to participate in the 2013 Hottie Challenge.

You can find all the details about this on her lovely blog.  The money raised goes to the Margaret Pratt Foundation for research for Heart and Lung Transplants, something Cam is very familiar with!

 

At only $5 to enter, your finished piece is then auctioned off/sold to raise more lovely dollars. 
You can be sure that mine is going to be crocheted!
 



 

 

The one where I look like an orange blob, but an orange blob who can run 5.5km!

Yay!  I did it!  I loved it!  I found a great parking spot!  I did a poo before I left!  

So the sun wasn't out yet when we arrived!  I am notoriously early for EVERYTHING!  It keeps me calm.  And it meant that we got an easy peasy car park which was my biggest worry.

This is right before the run.  I am clearly the orange blob in the middle.  My personal trainer Leanne is the lady with the blue number and I credit her with the fact that I was able to run at all!  She runs Swift Fitness if you are interested.

My friend Vanessa and I with our nervous grins at the start line...

...and thumbs up at the finish line!

According to my Runkeeper I actually ran 5.77km in 30 minutes and 30 seconds.  We don't receive our official time till Tuesday in the paper but I think this is a personal best for me.  It was super crowded for most of the course so there was loads of ducking and weaving to get past people.

This is Miss Jane, my own personal papparazzi for the day! Janey and I lived together at Uni and just happened to be in town for the weekend so was able to come and cheer me along.

A quick post run breakfast in very busy Degraves Lane with my brother and his lovely wife where I completely grossed them out by discussing the whole issue of pooing in the morning.

And my charming son took this picture of me this afternoon, mid nanna nap.  An early morning, feelings of anxiousness about parking, then the actual running all resulted in me collapsing on the couch this afternoon. 

 

I must say I may be a little addicted to this whole fun run concept.  There was such a lovely 'vibe' around this morning and you simply can't beat running down the home stretch to the finish line with bunches of people cheering everyone on!  I'm thinking the Mother's Day Classic might be next!  Then maybe RunMelbourne!  Who's with me?!

The one about poos and parking...

 

So tomorrow I am doing the Run for the Kids.  The short family friendly version of 5.5km.  With about 35,000 other people apparantly.  I had every intention of catching a train in but since the first train into Flinders Street Station arrives at 7.47am and the race starts at 8.10, I now have to drive.  And find a parking spot.  With 35,000 other people.  Did I mention the ironman event also on tomorrow?  And the road closures?  And the fact that I never drive into the city so have no concept of parking?  As a consequence I plan on leaving super early to give myself plenty of time to find a spot and walk to where the race is on.  Which throws me into a bind.  What if my morning poo is not ready when I am ready?!  Throw in a nervous tummy (where will I park? how long will it take me to walk from my park? how much will that parking space cost? what if i can't find a park? what if I'm late and completely miss the race?) and an aversion to any kind of public toilet and we have a situation!

 

Eeek!  Tell me where to park?! 

Do you know any secret city spots that 35,000 other people wont know about?