Not much, really.

Just a lazy week. I love this big tree that I can see through my kitchen window and thought you might too.

Nothing great has been happening in the way of craft lately. On the home front, though, things are sure looking up. Daughter No1, who lives in Melbourne, and I were able to pull of a surprise for daughter No2 - a surprise visit. Despite nearly giving our plans away a zillion times we managed to get her here without the youngest having a clue as to what was going on. Now school work has taken a back seat as far as formal work but it is amazing how much can be covered in general family life.

Monopoly teaching combined with accounting. Go to the head of the class covers all subjects. Discussions of a future trip leads to more geography research and writng up of information. Oldest daughter is teaching the youngest how to make a video clip story for youtube - media studies completed ! Preparation for Bible group study equals comprehension and a Fijian friend taught her the basics of Hula dancing. Everything except maths. And all while we are suffering from bad colds!! I hope next week is better.

I want to make a mosaic sign that shows our house number and have for a long time wanted to use all those broken plates from my set that I have been collecting for the last couple of years.

The trouble is I am not sure what sort of glue to use so I had the bright idea of make a much smaller sign telling people how to enter our house as this house is well camouflaged behind a long wall of lattice and a few people have commented that they don't know how to get in. Maybe by my next post things will be getting acclomplished and I will have more to show you.

Cheerio!

View from my bed

I was lying in my bed this afternoon, enjoying the lovely blue sky and the sun shining on the wind whipped leaves when I felt impelled to share this view with you.

I went into the lounge to retrieve the camera and noticed that rain was slanting against the front window. What? Rain! Well I had better close the craft room window. What a pretty corner. I'll just take a snap or two.

Here I am in bed again. Well, I guess it is raining.



The sky's not blue anymore but the room is still pretty.



Time to sleep now!

Cheerio!

Crochet ~ for Rhonda Jean

A couple of days ago Rhonda from Down to Earth asked for readers suggestions for shawls. ( If you haven't yet read Rhonda's blog you certainly should give it a go. She is full of practical advice that would normally be handed down through the generations but is sadly lacking in our highly mbile and materialistic times.) This reminded me of a blanket which I made a year ago for my oldest daughter. Most of it was done whilst holidaying with an older friend. She became so enamoured of the design that I was working on that she has made approximately a dozen such blankets and her daughter a similar number. Of course, that means spending as lot of time down at the wool shops but, fortunately for them, a local icon was closing down and selling out all their fabulous wool at dirt cheap prices. It was also the end of season sellout at Spotlight (Australia's premier cloth and craft shop) so they bought up big. That really helps with this type of design because the best results come from an array of textures and colours, although having a colour scheme is still desirable.





On the train trip home I began another blanket, this time based around a rather garrish (I thought) pink being thrown out by a friend, who had in turn received it from a worn out knitter. I am particularly slow at doing long term projects because of my sleep problem so I have not progressed very far with this particular one but here it is. I call it my pink vo-vo blanket after the biscuits of the same name. Whilst I was working on this a young lass asked me to make her a scarf. I finally got around to that a week ago. After that I made one for her sister and another for my youngest daughter. I'm not really keen on this scheme but it shows you the possibilities.

This daughter has also gotten the bug and learnt to crochet this week Here is her first ever attempt which she has kindly made for her favourite aunt. I really loved this scarf even though it is different from my work in that she has used a single crochet stitch where I generally use a treble.





I think this shows the endless possibilities with this style. You could work it either in knitting or crochet. Crochet, double crochet,treble or fanned treble are all perfectly acceptable. The only rule is that every row is done in a different wool texture. You can work in combinations of light or dark or stick to just one or two colourways. IT IS THE TEXTURE THAT IS IMPORTANT.





Novice crocheters should probably not use really long fluffy wools such as feathers as this makes the next row difficult to work on. A more skilled worker should be able to overcome this difficulty by feeling for the next space with their fingers. I find that it helps to put three trebles into one space then skip two before repeating. If you want any help with this style please leave a comment and I will answer it as soon as possible.



Cheerio!~