There is some sanity somewhere :)

In the middle of all the craziness that has been this week, I managed to get some yarn dyed.

I'm planning a Woodland Shawl with the 4 ply and a hat with the 8 ply, not sure what yet though


The 4 ply in this colourway I am planning on knitting up into some Celty Mitts and again the 8 ply into a hat, and again not sure which one yet


When am I going to get this done you may ask? Well I'm not sure but would like to get one lot knitted up before May :)

I think someone needs to clone me so that one of ME can just craft all day while the other gets on with daily life :)

xx

Pay it Forward

A few weeks ago I mentioned that I had won a wee pressie, here is the original post.

I got the most beautiful set of stitch markers. They are currently in use helping knit a singlet for madam.

Here they are:



Sorry my photo just does not do them much justice. They are so me and the colours are beautiful. I would take another photo but they are pretty much in use all the time at the moment LOL.

Thanks again Gabes for the beautiful gift. Now to get more traffic through my blog so I can Pay It Forward :)

TNN Yarn Swap V3

Last year it was decided that another yarn swap was in order. I did my first one a few weeks prior and was so excited to get started again.

There's something really special and exciting about making up a parcel for someone that you don't know and may never meet. I love every minute of it.

This is the package I made up for my swappee, the theme was Veneto which is known as the romance language and spoken in Venice and surrounding areas.



The yarn, hand dyed with cake gels


The Stitch Markers


This is what I received in return (and still don't know who sent to me)

The theme is 'Wouldn't it be Nice if the World was Cadbury'. Oh yeah it certainly would :)

There's 200gm of 8 ply wool hand dyed in purple and chocolate tones



The Full Package


The Gift
A really cute hand sculpted Cadbury-esque figurine and a box of chocolates. Yum yum


I can not wait to knit this yarn, the pattern I was sent was for some fingerless gloves. I will give them ago once I have finished a few things that are on my needles at the moment.

I wish I could knit and crochet all day, I have so many projects that I want to do, it's just finding the time to do them :) I am getting quicker so that's making things easier LOL

Christmas Presents

For Christmas 08 I decided to make all of my Christmas presents, well all three of them anyway. Thankfully our family decided to draw names this year, so we didn't need to buy for everyone.

I made my nieces Beach Bags. I adapted the Tiny Happy bag which I made previously, and made giant Beach Bags. I was pretty pleased with how they turned out and so were they.




I also made for Gwen and knitting needle roll. I love it, really wanted to keep it for myself, but couldn't be naffed making another one :)

TNN Yarn Swap

I recently participated in my first yarn swap on TNN, it was so much fun.

I received a fab parcel from one of the wonderful ladies themed Óver the Rainbow

Included in the package was 200gm of Patons Merino Totem. 150gm's of this was hand dyed in bright rainbow colours.

Also included was a recipe for Rainbow Cookies, a knitting pattern for Tikki's Rainbow Dress, some fantastic rainbow stitch markers and a really cool rainbow catcher which will hang in Cara's bedroom.

The beautiful box


All the goodies


Stitch markers


Yarn


Rainbow Sun Catcher


Thank you so much yarn fairy, will post a pic of the rainbow dress when it's finished :)

Slack Bum

Blimey I can't beleive that it has been two weeks since I posted anything. We have been really busy though. We spent all weekend in the garden, finishing off the vege garden. Then I spent all afternoon baking lunch stuff, making muesli, making food for Cara, then dinner. I feel shattered tonight and I still haven't finished.

I'm really excited about our vege garden. I brought a small greenhouse thing from Mitre 10 to start seeds in, so hopefully it will work (it better)

Here are some nappies that I have made.


Here is my first soaker. It's the first time I have used circulars and done ribbing so I am pretty pleased with it. I just hope it fits madams thighs :)


Now for some pics of Cara.

Here she is today after trying pumpkin for the first time. She loved it.


Now this is a bit mean, and I felt terrible when I uploaded this pic cause you can see a tear, but it was still funny at the same time. Cara had been in bed for awhile when she suddenly woke up screaming, we went to check on her to discover that her dummy was stuck to the side of her face.


Cara has discovered that she can pull her socks off to chew


Finally our new vege garden


Right now I'm off to make some newspaper seedling trays for tomorrow.

Well today I finally got the wool wound up that I dyed the other day. I was a bit afraid of doing it manually, but to be honest it was quite relaxing. I love the colours and will start by knitting some soakers for Cara. I dyed 200gms, so should be able to get a couple of things made out of it. I can't wait to get some cake dye's and dye some more wool. I knew that knitting would be a top passion of mine when I started a few weeks ago, but more so now that I know how to dye my own wool.



I also dyed some flannette yesterday to make some mama pads. Not sure if flannette will work, but it was fun dyeing it anyway.



Well we had a busy weekend here. The weather was pretty good, so both Aaron and I got stuck into the garden when Cara was in bed. She was out with us for a little while, but it was still a bit windy and I didn't want her out for too long. We dug up the garden on one side of the deck and Aaron built a 3m x 1.3m trough to make a vege garden. We are going to put trellis on the back to grow beans etc. I am totally new to growing my own veges so this will be a whole new experience for us. I placed an order with a friend in the weekend for 2m3 of bark as well to tidy up the rest of the garden. God it needs it. I didn't get much done last summer (being pregnant and all) and we concentrated on getting the house done, so this spring/summer the garden will be sorted and hopefully we will finally get the outside of the house painted. I am so sick of it being half done.

Cara slept through last night. Yippee. We will see what happens again tonight. She did wake up a few times, but settled again once she got the dummy. I have found that when her teeth are bad, she is pretty good as long as she has her dummy. If her teeth are playing up, she doesn't need it so much.

First Dyeing

Well I couldn't help myself after seeing some of the amazing wool that the ladies on TNN have done, so I brought some plain wool and some food colouring. It was a pain in the arse making a super skein, but was good exercise. I didn't like the colours when they were straight out of the bottle, so I played around and managed to get some pretty good colours. Not really bold, but I do like what I have come up with.



It's 200gm's worth so might have something to do with not getting strong colours. I also put too much water in the bowls so that might have something to do with it as well. I will have to get some cake dye's at some stage, but I have heaps of wool at the mo, so I had better use some of this up before I get more :)

We got heaps of giggles from Cara this afternoon, it was so funny, she went all fruity. What a character she is becoming. I took a really great photo of Aaron and Cara in the shower last night. Here it is:



I will have to get this pic printed and framed. I love it.

Finally photos

Well I thought I had better get my butt into gear and post some pictures of what I have been up too since I discovered TNN.

Here is a pic of my first knitting project for Cara. A Funky lollipop coloured hat. It's a free pattern and can be found here



I've also made another hat but I'm not sure where it is :)

Here is my 2nd knitting project, some sheepskin lined slippers for Cara



I have since made another pair for a friend's son




Here is my knitting needle roll, I didn't really follow a pattern, just took different ideas that I have seen, I'm pretty pleased with it.

Rolled Up


And opened up



Now here is a pic of my first nappy


Nappy looks a bit flat as the insert is not in it.

There is another nappy but it is in the wash at the mo so I don't think anyone would really like to see a pic of that :)

So that's it for now, I am going to try and make some more nappies tonight and tomorrow. I will really get stuck into it next week. I have had some for these past couple of weeks but I won't be doing it again. I am currently working on my own nappy pattern as I have had a number of opportunities come up for me to sell nappies and heaps of people I know are keen on them, so who knows what will happen over the next few months.

Oh and here is the cutest pic ever of Cara