Quiet Days

I'm really savouring my quiet days at the moment, knowing they are finally limited and quickly coming to an end.  

Every other Thursday I don't work so an hour of my morning is spent at pregnancy yoga which I find just leaves me feeling so calm and centred for the rest of the day.  So the TV is left off, the washing machine too if I can get away with it, and I spent the day in quiet pursuits.

 

There's usually a bit of knitting happening and the cooler weather means the meow might hang out on my lap for half an hour or so if I'm lucky.  Today I also made some soy candles for my yoga instructor.  I'm still the only one in town doing it, although apparently next week (on the week I can't make it of course) a few of the other pregnant ladies in town are planning on attending.  And because I'm the only one she hasn't accepted any money, saying I'm her guinea pig.  Lucky me! So I thought I'd make her some candles in thanks.

I don't have a book on the go at the moment which is sometimes a good thing because it means I get a lot more done.  If I have a good book it doesn't last very long but on the days I'm reading it a whole lot of not much else happens!

I spent a bit of time out in the veggie garden, giving it a good watering and enjoying the sunshine until the flies were beginning to ruin my calm and I headed back inside.  Hopefully I'll head out in half an hour or so once the flies have left for the evening and before the mozzies come out to spend a bit of time doing some light weeding.  It's a bit of a juggling act to do gardening in between bugs out here.  

Our mulberry tree is having a little spate of out of season mulberries as well.  We had a couple of weeks with a lot of glorious rain and now some lovely low to mid 20's sunny days means that I'm getting a small handful off the tree every few days.

I think knowing these sorts of days will be very much ended for a while in approximately 18 weeks is making them all the more sweet but I am really feeling so recharged after a day of quietness.

The Last Day of the School Holidays

The last official day of the school holidays and I had planned to go into school to continue on from all the work I left strewn out as I tidied and rearranged the furniture yesterday.  But instead I decided to spent it at home, just pottering about.

History says that the last day of school holidays is generally a good day for getting stuff done around the house because I am procrastinating from all the school work I should have done over the break.  Once again it proved true, which was handy because the poor house has been a bit neglected of late.  Yes, one of those items on the to do list is unpack more boxes, because I still haven't finished unpacking everything.  Feeling so sick with morning sickness as I moved out to the country and having problems with dizziness and low blood pressure meant not a lot got done.

Note the school work still isn't done...

I did manage to sneak in a short amount of time doing a bit more knitting though.  This is the beginnings of a baby beanie with ear flaps for my best friend who is due in June.  The pattern is from Patons booklet 8000 and looks very sweet in the picture but I have decided I'm never doing moss stitch in 4ply again, it seems to be taking forever and growing at a very slow rate.  Fingers crossed it actually fits! I'm making it in the 3 month old size so it should do.

I'll head into school tomorrow to finish getting ready for Monday while MR is at work.  It's seeding time out here which means everyone needs/wants tyres changed on their farm equipment and of course, his tyre fitter has just quit.  

No relaxing pottering weekend for him.

I made some things

I can't claim all the credit for this but I am very pleased to share that I'm making this little human inside me right now.  20 weeks on Monday! 

 

So of course, I have been getting knitting.  With stash yarn no less! 

And I've also made us a little veggie garden.  Peas, celery, capsicum, parsley and cherry tomatoes so far.  This is only taking up about a quarter of our veggie garden patch so there plenty of room for more veggies to go in.  Mum came up to help me get this put in, she has a bit of a magic touch with gardening so I'm hoping it will rub off onto my veggies.

In other news, I'm no longer living in Perth.  I moved back out to the wheatbelt town MR lives in at the beginning of the year and it is so good to be spending more time with him on a very regular basis.  It's going really well so far.  A lady in town is doing pregnancy yoga classes so I'm not missing out on keeping my strength up and while I've only done two classes so far (she just had a baby at the beginning of the year also so has only just started them up again) I'm feeling so good afterwards.  And, even better, there's a Monday night craft group too.  Every week! 

Hopefully I'll be back on a bit more of a regular basis from now on but for now, what news have I missed out on from you? I've been keeping up with my regular blogs sporadically but I'm sure I'm a bit behind on the news.

 

Learning new skills

Not happy enough with my current list of crafty creative skills I've signed up for both an Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop online course.  I did actually mean to just sign up for the Illustrator one but accidentally enrolled for the Photoshop one by not reading the title properly so then I had to sign up for the Illustrator one as well.  They are only 6 weeks each and I've set the Illustrator one for a start of about half way through the Photoshop one so I don't get too overwhelmed with lessons.

I'm enjoying it so far, I've learnt some basic skills and how to use the brushes on an image to make it look more like a painting.

And, not happy with those two things, I also asked my family for the gift of a painting workshop for my birthday back in August.  It was on last weekend, for six hours on Sunday.  The idea, and title, of the workshop was to paint a large scale painting in a day.  My canvas is a metre squared and whilst this was a bit daunting to begin with for someone with no formal knowledge of painting it was a lot of fun once I got started.

Unfortunately I didn't quite finish so hopefully I'll get it done soon and then perhaps it can make its way to my bedroom in the country house, providing MR approves and I still like it as much as I do now.

 I love learning new things but it really isn't very helpful for getting projects I've already started finished!  I'm also working on a Christmas present and a crochet cushion cover for myself, although with Christmas sneaking up so fast I might have to leave off on the cushion cover and focus on the present if I want to get it finished in time in between doing my photoshop course!

Here's one I prepared earlier. Much earlier.

When I was going through all my old posts looking for creative pictures to add to my tour through blogland post I realised there was a very cool project I made at the end of last year the year before (!!) as a Christmas present for my sister.  I think it was for Christmas.  Maybe it was her birthday.  It was that long ago I don't even remember.

 

I made this little button heart for myself at the beginning of 2012 and my sister commented on it and asked me to make her one in pink.  It was the height of ombre love so I thought, how cool would it be to make it in shades of pale pink through to a dark red.  So off I went.  As mentioned in my last post, on the floor.  I thought this one through a bit more because I wasn't 100% happy with how my version turned out, the buttons weren't quite close enough.  There was actually planning and testing in this version.

First on paper...

and then slowly and carefully transferring it to fabric. 
I moved to the table for this, no accidental bumping allowed!

And finished.

I was so pleased with how this turned out and being a bit of a puzzle lover, I really enjoyed moving the buttons around and getting them all into that just perfect place.  I really should remake mine with the buttons closer together.  And maybe a bit bigger, the pink one is more than twice as large as mine.

 

Tour Through Blogland

I've been invited on a Tour through Blogland by Michelle from Jarrah Jungle.

I have been following Michelle's blog right back from the beginning, she was one of the first Western Australian bloggers I found and I have been enjoying reading about her home renovations ever since.  Her posts have lots of details and tips about renovating so if you are thinking of doing anything to your house I'd definitely recommend checking it out, as her and her partner have almost finished renovating their entire house and the improvements are amazing!

There are some questions I need to answer for my stop in the tour...

What am I working on?

Currently I am focusing on developing my knitting skills.  My mum tells a story of when I was about three and a half I asked her if I could learn to knit (Mum did a lot of knitting and spinning her own wool when I was young).  Mum told me I could learn when I was four, more as a putting me off tactic I think.  So on my fourth birthday apparently one of the first things I asked was if I could now learn to knit.  I believe I was successful in learning to knit a square.  I probably knitted scarves for my barbie dolls.  But then I forgot.  So I relearned to knit about ten years ago.  And then forgot again.  And then I got into crochet and picked that up so easily.  Knitting is so much trickier for me.  I'm finally on track with it, I have learnt to use circular needles and now I'm learning about using double point needles (dpns).  It's all a bit exciting, I really enjoy learning new things.

At the moment, I'm sticking with beanies.  Yes, it is the beginning of Spring.  A terrible time for beanie knitting.  But it's two weeks until we fly out to Europe so these beanies are going to come in handy for the predicted 15-20 degree maximum forecast weather we'll be experiencing.  

The one above is for me.  My first attempt at dpns and at moss stitch as well.  The one below is for MR, knit up with the possum/merino blend I bought on our holiday to New Zealand last year.

And after finishing the above one last night, I've already cast on the next. A slouchy one this time.  And I'm having a go at casting on with dpns, another new thing for me.

How does my work differ from others?

To be honest, I don't think my work differs greatly from others.  I'm not cutting edge, I'm only trying things that are new to me, not new to anyone else.  

Sashiko on the left, embroidered fabric print on the right which I later turned into a clock

I'll try anything once.  As I mentioned, I love learning new things.  There's been candle making and mosaics, clock creating, drawing with pastels, painting, embroidery, sashiko, amigurumi crochet, occasional sewing, crochet blankets, button creations.  Seriously, the list goes on.  If I'm creating, I'm happy.

Mosaic trivet

My blog is a bit of a mish mash of everything.  The only thing different on my blog to most crafty/lifestyle blogs you'll find out there is that I've had a liver transplant and occasionally you'll come across posts about that and gory scar photos!  Something different but I'm trying to move away from my health ruling my life and my health has been pretty good of late.

Koala amigurumi

How does my writing/creating process work?

I'm a couch creator.  I blog on the couch, I knit on the couch, I embroider and crochet on the couch.  I love my couch.  It is such a comfortable space.  I find typing at a desk leaves me hunched up and slouched and lop-shouldered.  If I'm doing something that I can't do on the couch, like painting, I'll often do it on the floor rather than at the table.  My day job is an early childhood teacher so I'm often on the floor and I'm naturally most comfortable sitting with my legs crossed.

The Pink Blanket

Apart from where you can find me, everything else is up in the air.  I'm a huge fly by the seat of your pants / wing it sort of girl.  Whether it is creating or writing this comes into play.  There are a lot of last minute decisions, spontaneous crafting with not quite the right tools or materials, late night posting or two posts in a day and then none for two weeks.  That's me in a nutshell.  I'd love to say I was organised and had plans and those sorts of things but I've never managed that in my life so far and I think I'm still a while away from getting there!  One day.  We always need goals right?

So I'm a bit different from most of the other high organised bloggers out there on this blog tour.  Not to worry!  Thanks so much for inviting me on the tour Michelle, I've had fun looking back through my creative photos to decide which photos to post.

My two nominees are....

Sally from Virtù

Sally and I met online, soon after we both started blogging.  We learnt to crochet together, by which I mean we emailed back and forth about all the difficulties we were having and we both attempted the same pattern so that we could help each other through reading the confusing terminology!  Nowadays, Sally and I usually see each other once a month at our Brown Owls craft meetup.  She's a pretty awesome lady and my mama inspiration (when I eventually become a mum).

Hiya! I'm Sally from virtù. I began my blog on a whim one night  back when I first started to learn about sewing. It was a way of recording my achievements and a means of connecting with other people. I still remember the absolute elation I experienced when someone commented on my blog for the very first time.  At the time I had two small children and was still getting the hang of being "isolated" at home. 

and

Nicole from dabbling all day 

I initially got to know Nicole through instagram after following her because she was a friend of someone else I followed.  Eventually, I stopped being lazy and clicked on the link to her blog in her instagram profile and low and behold, here was someone a bit like me.  A one fur baby family, a crafter, a much more successful gardener and someone who loves spending time in the kitchen just as much as I do.  She's much more productive and organised than I am though!

I'm Nicole and I blog at dabbling all day. I'm from Melbourne, Australia and live with my partner, BB, and our kitty, Sampson.   I write about all the things I'm dabbling in at any one time, whether it be gardening, crafting, photography, cooking or baking! I'm always up to something.

 

 I look forward to reading your posts next Monday ladies.  

Thank you everyone for coming to visit my little corner of blogland, I hope you come back soon. x

 

 

Weekend reflection

I had the weekend just past to myself as MR decided not to come to Perth.  My usual emotion on hearing this is one of neglectedness.  I want to see my boy and I don't get my way so I drift off into a funk of woe.  I'm such a child sometimes. 

Now don't get me wrong, I love alone time.  There is nothing better that a few hours of perfect peace and quiet to curl up and read a book.  I look forward to days where I don't have to leave the house or see anyone, days in which the only sound I hear is my cat (and myself conversing with her).  But I don't love it when those days last the entire weekend.

This time I was determined to be more adult about it.  (And perhaps the fact that next week is school holidays and I'm going to go and spend lots of time with him helped.)  When MR cautiously mentioned on the phone that he might stay home and go out riding on his quad bike with his friends I didn't chuck a tantrum.  I said okay.  And then I made a list of stuff for me to do.

Things to be productive like making a new batch of chicken stock to put in the freezer seeing as I had run out.  And making some chicken and sweet corn soup with my stock.

Things to relax like sitting in my pyjamas in the sunshine and reading for a few hours (thank you weather gods for playing along)

Creative things like doing a bit more of my blanket which is now so so close to being finished that it just seems to be taking forever to get there.  I've got about 15 rows to go. Please excuse my empty pasta bowl photo bombing my rug.

And I've been having these crazy urges to do painting for a few weeks now.  So I added that to the list and got out my watercolours for a bit of playing and then to make a card for my friend.

A friend who I organised to catch up with on Monday for morning tea at my place.  Three days of solitude is Way Too Much. So I made some custard and berry danishes.  And even better, I walked to the shop to get the berries instead of driving. 

There was also general household jobs on the list, like washing and collecting all the frangipani leaves that have fallen in the front yard (both of which I've done) and a few twenty-minute-tidies on my list.  Six of them.  I've managed three so far... 

All in all though, I'm pretty pleased with my weekend efforts.  Nice even amounts of productivity, fun and slackness.  And the house and garden looks much tidier for it as well.


Although the ironing is still sitting in its pile.

  

Lovely days

The end of Summer and beginning of Autumn are some of my favourite days. I get so excited by the brisk mornings and the need to put on a cardigan. Today was the first cardigan morning for me and I decided soon after it wasn't actually necessary. 

Autumn starts late here in WA. It really is still the more the tail end of Summer than the luxuriousness  of long pants, cardigans, couch blankets and Winter pyjamas. Soon, but not quite yet. What it is though is the onset of cool evenings. Perfect for crochet on the couch. My Bertie blanket is getting longer. 

Today was Brown Owls and I got another two stripes done. It's 33 stripes long now, so very close to half way. 

While it's hard to drag myself out of bed on the third Sunday morning of each month for Brown Owls (9am on Sunday is not a time I'm well acquainted with), once I get going on my craft and chatting away to friends I've made through the group, it really is a nice way to start the day. 

Today I followed craft with lunch out in the Swan Valley at a local brewery with MR, his cousin and her boyfriend. We sat outside and caught up and enjoyed yummy food and beautiful weather. And then on the way back home MR and I stopped off at Yahava Koffeeworks for a coffee, a hot chocolate, a muffin and an escargot. 

MR is quickly mowing the back lawn because the bins are being emptied tomorrow and the we are couch and DVD bound. We're thinking Zoolander. We've got veal mignons and roast veggies planned for dinner which doesn't involve much prep so all in all, it's been one of those lovely slow, relaxing days in which you still manage to get a bit of stuff done. Just lovely. 

How's your weekend panned out?

  

Lately...

Crafting...
Sewing date and lunch with some lovely friends at my place.  I almost got this quilt that I started at the beginning of last year finished, only about 20 cms of stitching the binding on to go and I'm embarrassed to say, it is still not finished!  I put it down after the girls left because I had some school prep to do for the next day.  Must. Finish!

The Bertie Blankie is going well, I am getting a bit more done most nights of the week.  I'm getting close to being half way there and in even better news, I'm not yet bored of it! 

Watching...
The Block (the first reality TV show I've been sucked into, ever!)


The Riddick movies

Thor: The Dark World


Reading...
The Gentleman Bastard Series, Books 2 and 3.  If you like a bit of a fantasy/intrigue/con artist sort of thing this series by Scott Lynch is pretty great!!  I found out about it via a review by one of my favourite authors, Patrick Rothfuss, on Goodreads.  How exciting is it to see what your favourite authors like to read?  He rated the first and second books with five stars so I thought I'd give it a go and I'm glad I did.

and now back on to the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan.  I got book 13 for Christmas and it's the final in the series but I'm determined to reread them all before reading the last one so I am all up to speed and know exactly where everything has been left off.  No missing important bits here just because I've forgotten them!  I just started book 5 last night.  Do you reread series when the next in the order comes out? 

Baking...
Banana and raspberry bread

My comfort food - sago  

Anzac biscuits for MR, and using my new biscuit barrel for the first time.

Pancakes, the last three weekends in a row!!

Growing...
My pumpkin is looking more pumpkinly every day.  Unfortunately only one flower was pollinated so there's only one pumpkin.  My dad told me (way too late to do anything about it) that I should have pollinated the female flowers with the male flowers by hand but unfortunately I really am a gardening novice and had no idea there were female and male flowers on the same plant and just thought all the flowers should turn into fruit through immaculate conception.  Clearly not.  I will know better for next time a pumpkin plant decides to grow in my garden.  Especially now that I have googled it and know how to do it and tell the two different flowers apart.

What exciting things have been happening in your world lately?

  

Mish Mash

School is back, two weeks down so far and I have to say I'm very much enjoying teacher Pre Primary two days a week this year.  I have taught Pre Primary before and I did love it then too so I shouldn't be surprised.  It is nice though, having my ex students from last year again as well as some others and what is even better is the lack of hard work that the Kindy students bring at the beginning of the year.  Pre Primary students already know how to sit down, listen, put up their hand, follow instructions, behave, cut, count, glue, tidy up and really, everything that you'd need for a smooth running classroom at the beginning of the year.  My one half a day with brand new Kindy kids is putting me in bed by 8pm due to the sheer amount of full-on-ness they bring to the room.  And then times that by 20 little bodies.  

There has been a plethora of school related photos of instagram lately because my life has been taken over by preparation of new resources, planning lessons and neverending checklists.

In other news, my mystery surprise veggie which everyone who commented thought was a pumpkin, seems to be said pumpkin of the butternut variety and has just begun to fruit.  I found this one this morning when I was heading out to the car.  I've been looking each day at the flowers and wondering when they are going to start vegetablising but this sneaky one obviously has been doing so for a while whilst hiding under a nice big shady leaf.  I'm a bit concerned it might bake sitting on the pathway like that but we'll just wait and see.  There are a few other flowers that are starting to look a bit vegetablish at one end too.  It's all a bit exciting.  Pumpkin bread, pumpkin scones and pumpkin and corn fritters might be featuring a bit in however long it takes for them to grow and ripen. 

Finally, in some craft news, there isn't realllly any news because of the complete take over of my life by school work but on the nights where I have been awake past 8pm and not dead on the couch or busy cutting for 3 hours (my Tuesday night this week) I have managed a little bit more of my Bertie Couch Blanket, only the last 2 rows of purple this week but it has still come a long way since you last saw it at just two rows long in total! It's getting to the stage where the weather really needs to cool down before I get much further on it.  Hot days and a lap length blanket draped on me are not necessarily too enjoyable.

 

Yarn along

Once upon a time, a long, long, long time ago I learnt how to crochet.  It was one of my New Year's resolution for 2010.  Probably the only one I kept.  My Mum taught me. 

My very first granny square, January 5 2010

I remember being so proud of my first granny square.  I was going to make a big blanket for my queen size bed.  Except I only got up to 27 squares.  Then I realised I had been making my squares in English double crochet which meant they were tiny and took forever and fell out of love with it.  They got packed away in a box and left until the first days of 2014.  Pretty much exactly four years after I first learnt to crochet. 

In between this time I have made various other crochet items, including a large granny rug for my sister to cover her queen size bed in big squares with only one colour per square.  This is called smart crocheting as it involves less stitching together and less sewing in of ends.

However, now I wanted to make a blanket for the couch at my house and these squares sitting in a box were bugging me in their unfinished-ness.  So I laid them out and got to work.  No starting the new blanket until I'd finished this one!

Snipping off the last stitched in end

No big reveal yet though.  It needs a good blocking and I have no foam things to block on, not having ever blocked anything before.  Once I've hunted down one of those foam alphabet puzzles and blocked it I'll be able to show you the results... but in the mean time, I can show you the start of my next blanket.  Crochet mojo is running high around these parts!

Joining in with Ginny's Yarn Along, for the very first time!