My creative space...

I am aware that this has to be the ugliest material of all time but for $2 a metre I could not walk past it!  Especially since the almost 7 year old is planning a bowling party for his birthday next month.  It's been perfect for some handmade lolly bags!

More creative spaces with Kootoyoo.

Oh, and if anyone is interested I finally finished my boy's granny stripe rug from last week.

Wordless Wednesday

Yes, she is asleep at my feet whilst ironing.  

Join in with wordless wednesday.

My Ta-da Post - The Granny Stripe Rug

I finished this over the weekend and I love it and so does the boy!  I am pretty impressed with it if I do say so myself.  I'm loving the colours the most I think.  Nice and masculine and warm, perfect for an almost 7 year old to grow up with.  I ended up keeping the edge pretty simple with just three rounds of granny clusters in grey.

My next purchase needs to be serious camera so I can take decent photos!

One smiley boy all wrapped up and warm.

A close up of all those granny clusters and my very simple edge.



Too big?  Or just right!

Would you like to make a granny stripe?  Head on over to Lucy's for the lovely pattern.

Don't know how to crochet and want to learn?  I recommend starting with Pip!

This week I'm grateful for... winning.

I just won Morgan Will's 100th post competition!  Yay for me and this beautiful scarf that is heading my way.

Have you seen Morgan's beautiful work?  I first fell in love with her mumma and baby Bushkas she makes.  Matilda of course has one.  Pop on over to Morgan's gallery and take a look at these lovely ladies.

I do hope everyone has had a good week.  We have felt nice and normal around here this week - all routined and non-sick, no absent husbands and I went back to netball after my whole sprained ankle incident from a few weeks ago.

What are you feeling grateful for this week?



My Creative Space...

Still happily granny stripe-ing (is that even a word & if so, spelling please???) away around here.  I am on to my last set of the repeating pattern though and then we are on to the edge. Yay!  Hopefully I will be able to get it finished for the boy's 7th birthday at the end of April.

I wish I had a better camera, better lighting.  The colours are much nicer than this in real life.

More creative goodness is over this way.

Crochet pattern bargain.

(image)

Click on the image link and shop up a storm!  I did!

Wordless Wednesday

Join in with Wordless Wednesday

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Have you seen this lady?

This is Marilyn Reid, my friend's mother.  She has been missing since Wednesday 16th.

Please read this article and if you have seen her or her car contact the police.

A tale of four bedrooms.

(image from here)

7pm.  Boys go to bed in their seperate rooms.

8pm.  Boys actually go to sleep.

8pm. Sit with Matilda in her room while she falls asleep.

8.45pm.  Still sitting while she uses her cot as a trampoline.

9.15pm.  Give up and let her watch Packed to the Rafters.

10pm.  Darren goes to bed.

10.44pm.  Matilda falls asleep on the couch.

11pm.  Attempt to transfer her to bed.... success!

11.15pm.  Go to bed myself.

11.45pm. Isaac tiptoes into Oscar's bed.

12.15am.  Isaac tiptoes into our bed.

12.17am.  Isaac tells us he has a sore tummy.

12.18am.  Isaac throws up.

12.25am.  Vomit clean up. Isaac, Daddy and I got back to bed in our king size bed.

12.36am.  Apparently Daddy cant go to sleep in the middle of the bed.

12.40am.  I move into Isaac's bed.

2am.  Matilda wakes up and tiptoes into our bed.

2.01am.  Matilda cant find mummy in her usual spot and starts screaming.

2.02am.  Mummy leaves Isaac's bed, collects Matilda from Daddy and Isaac in the king size bed and goes back to Isaac's single bed.

2.30am Oscar gets in with Daddy and Isaac.

5am.  Daddy's alarm goes off.

5.15am.  I attempt to sneak from Isaac's bed (leaving Matilda in there) and go back to my own bed with Oscar and Isaac.

5.18am.  Matilda joins us.

6.30am  The re-set alarm goes off again. 

Another restful night complete.

Point and shoot: A sick weekend

I would date and time this shot, but really it would suit any one of the past 48 hours.  My littlest person has been throwing up since late Friday night, hence the consistent dozing on the couch surrounded by towels and a bowl.  It's not attractive to think about but I have cleaned up about 20 chucks and I am OVER it!  I dont know about anyone else but I'd take poo over vomit anyday.

To make matters worse, my husband is absent this weekend as well, so I have dealt with this all on my lonesome.  My poor big boys have been planted in front of the tv for two days (which I'm certain is there version of heaven anyway).

Feel free to leave sympathy in bucket loads.  Or run from here as fast as you can for fear of catching germs.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

This week I'm grateful for...

I normally link in with Maxabella loves... grateful posts on Saturdays.  But I am struggling to feel grateful this monring as I have been dealing with 12 hours straight of vomit from my small girl.  Awful to watch, worse to clean.

Animation Friday - It's Playschoooool!

Matilda and I got out to a Playschool Concert yesterday.  Seriously the cutest thing ever is watching a bunch of small people singing and dancing uninhibited!  This little lady took a while to warm up and in fact had a complete FREAK OUT when the Playschool song first started!  As you can see though she was certainly getting her groove on by the end. 

Sweet little fingers making 'diamonds' for twinkle twinkle star.

Our presenters, Abby and Teo. 

And yes, we did get sucked in by the merchandise table.  Could you have resisted a miniture Humpty and a miniture Jemima???

Cintia at My Poppet does Animation Fridays.

My creative space...

I had a hankering this week to make one of those lovely fabric rolls to store my crochet hooks, some little scissors and a nice big needle for stitching all those ends in.  Previously, I have kept them in a vertical tin with a lid but was finding I had to tip them all out to find what I was looking for.

A quick search on google for fabric roll tutorials bought some marvellous results with lots of different ideas.  I have used this one.  It was super easy to follow which was good because my sewing skills and understanding of terminology is limited at best. 

Two things I learnt:

• The tutorial uses two long thin strips to make the ties.  This is all well and good and looks quite nice and matchy match but I found them a real bugger - turning two long thin sewed bits inside out took me over an hour and lots of swearing!  Even following their advice of using a chopstick was not as simple as it sounds.  This part took me longer than making all of the rest.
• Reading through all of the instructions and making sure you understand them all is such a good idea.  Why did I not do this?  As a consequence you will notice that the nice black babushka fabric that I wanted on the outside has somehow ended up on the inside.  Whoops.

Sorry about the sideways pictures - I rely far too much on my iphone for picture taking and it really isn't marvellous.

Here tis laying on my granny stripe rug (Lucy's pattern from Attic 24) that I'm currently making.  See that cheery yellow - yes, that is supposed to be on the inside.

The inside pocket for storing all the crochet hooks is the blue fabric.  I have folded the top down so that when the fabric roll is rolled up all the hooks stay in their pockets.

You can see why I wanted that lovely babushka fabric on the outside and the boring yellow on the inside. 

You can visit some other creative spaces with Kirsty at Kootoyoo.

 

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday is this way!



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Darren's weekend...

Whilst I was having a nice girls weekend, this is what my husband was getting up to.

This would be his race boat... with flames coming out of the engine.

Oh, and here he is putting out said flames with his helmet!

What is it with men and speed?!  The only danger I come across in my life is stabbing myself in the eye with a crochet hook!  (Which I sometimes want to do on purpose!)

Kevin's Granny Rug

Did you catch Brothers and Sisters last night?  Poor Kevin was sleeping on the couch all snuggled under this beauty!

Unfortunately this is the best image I could get - an iphone picture taken whilst rewatching it on my computer!

Just look at that beautiful blanket filled with lovely blues and greens and that whole circle within the square pattern!  Loving it!  Desperate to make one!

If you want to see it properly go here to watch the episode - it's right at the very beginning. 

Point and Shoot: Easy Peasy Lemon Tarts

Saturday, March 5th... the leftovers.

10 Butternut Snap cookies
280g jar of lemon butter
250g Philly cream cheese

Line some muffin trays with patty pans.  Place a butternut snap biscuit in the base of each.  Combine your lemon butter and cream cheese, mixing until nice and smooth.  Dollop onto each biscuit, decorate with raspberries and pop into the freezer for a few hours to set.

Enjoy.  And try to stop at one!
Join in with other Point and Shoots with FatMumSlim.

This week I'm grateful for... girl's weekends.

(My babies on board the Spirit of Tasmania, Christmas 2009.  Clearly it was a bit windy!)

This weekend, Matilda and I are having a girly weekend.  My husband has taken the boys to Tassie for the weekend on the Spirit - a boys weekend for them of speedboat racing and playing with various grandparents.

Which leaves me and my girl with big plans.

• We are off to the Red Hill Market on Saturday morning.  Have you been to this glorious event?  I plan on eating my way around it and getting inspired by everyone's craftiness.
• We are having a Stitch and Bitch session at my place on Saturday night with some lovely ladies - I will be attempting to pass on some of my crochet s.kills (!!!)  The fridge is crammed with chocolate and champagne.  Do we need anything else???
• Sunday we have scheduled a trip to Ikea, shopping for a big girls bed.  And maybe anything else that falls into my trolley!

What are you grateful for this week?  You can join in with the lovely Maxabella over this way.



Chris is number 1 on my list.

You know the one - the list you have with your husband with famous people on it that you could potentially be naughty with and not get into trouble!  Chris has been number 1 on my list since my uni days when my girlfriend and I went to his concert AND GOT TO DANCE ON STAGE WITH HIM!!!!!!!!!!

SO, some Lust for your Friday....

He is actually coming to Melbourne soon so Darren better look out... that list might just get activated! 

Red and yellow and pink and blue...

Can I order this cake now... for August?



My creative space...

Am I ever to come up with my own individual post or am I destined to just hop onto everyone else's linking in like a big fat copycat?

I fear it may be the second option.  I have an excuse this week though - an icky headcold which I am self diagnosing as having today developed into tonsilitis.  Time for a doctor, no.  Time for craft, hell yeah!

My apologies in advance for the dreadful iphone photos.  I put the Hipstamatic app on there today and was playing around a bit.  Clearly I still haven't quite worked it out!  (I blame my head, my throat and those annoying small people who keep demanding my attention, love and food at various times throughout the day).

Creative Thing Number 1:

My second softie attempt using the pattern from The Red Thread.  Super easy to follow and I used one of their pretty faces rather than my own felt attempt.  Much better I think.  She just needs some closing at the bottom and then a wee scarf.

Creative Thing Number 2

I finally took the plunge and hacked into dead nanna's doilies... and they are gorgeous as bunting!  Do you likey?  I do!  And I got to make two because of the whole cutting them in half business.  Now I just need to have a tea party so I can use them as fancy decorations or something.

Creative Thing Number 3

I started a granny stripe rug for my big boy.  He turns 7 in April so I am aiming to finish by then to add to his birthday present.  He has always loved a good snuggle on the couch with a blanket so I think this will be perfect for that, and I am loving using some 'boy' colours.  (Just so you know I am using Lucy's pattern for granny striping and I am finding it quite straightforward).

Would you like to see some other creative spaces?  You should pop over here then. 

 

Snooping with Kootoyoo

 This is a not very good photo of my bookshelf in our family room.  Normally it's partially concealed by an armchair as my husband HATES it.  I was too frightened to give you a closer in detail look as really it is full of books and magazines and other things hidden in between and it needs a massive clean out.   Things you'd probably learn if I let you get closer:

• I love cookbooks and cooking magazines.  I tend to keep all the Donna Hay ones and tear things out of the rest for inspiration.  Problem is I am not the chef in this house and bake rarely for fear I wont stop eating whatever I may have baked.
• I read to much chick lit - Jodi Piccoult, Maeve Binchy, Paulina Simons, Joy Dettman, Anita Shreve etc are all there, along with the usual suspects (Stephen King, some Harry Potter and the Twilight Series (!!!)).
• I dont dust. 
• Random items I cant be bothered putting away end up in that white box at the bottom (nail polish, old birthday cards, bits of lego saved from the vacuum...).
• My library books are overdue.
• I spend toooo much money on magazines that I then cant throw away.

Would you like to snoop in some other people's shelves?