Back in the swing of things

Now I am back into updating my blog, I need to think about things to write about. It’s been three years since I updated so a lot has happened since then. Do people still keep blogs? Are Blog Circles still a thing? I need to do some reading and visiting the blogs I used to follow. I have a big project planned that I’m keeping hush hush about for now. More on that in about a weeks time (hint: it involves food). I’ve been out of practise on a few things, not only blogging. Knitting, spinning and crocheting have also taken a back seat and I intend to get back into those crafts as well as blogging.

We’ve been growing vegetables the last year and had some gorgeous tomatoes growing but we don’t know how they tasted thanks to the rats that got to them first! We did get some delicious eggplants and a few capsicums.

Chillies were the most succesful crop, I guess rat tastes don’t run to hot chillies! We grew habeneros and jalopenos. My love is now growing some ghost jolockia chillies which are supposed to be very very hot! I will report back on the heat level in the coming weeks. That’s if I dare to try one!

I’ve also been growing ornamental flowers including scabiosas, guaras and nasturtiums. My favourite flowers are roses and I have two beauties growing in pots as we don’t have a lot of room for garden beds. If I could I would have a beautiful rose garden with lots of different cultivars. For now, I have two unless I can sneak a couple more in the shopping trolley at Bunnings!

A pink rose with water droplets

It’s been a while!

I can’t believe it has been three years since I last updated this site! I seem to do a post about returning to blogging and then disappear again. Hopefully this time I will actually post more often.

So much has happened in the last few years. I have a plethora of things to write about!

Does anyone even visit anymore? Leave me a comment if you do? Pretty please with a strawberry on top!

Back to blogging?

I keep starting and restarting my blog but this time I’m more focused on getting it going again. They key thing is to decide on what I want to blog about. In the past this has been crafts like knitting and crochet, food and recipes and general posts about life. I think the basis will be the same with some photography added in and a lot more focus on regular updates.

I decided I would blog about this process of getting my blog up and running again; things I found useful along the way, tips and a log of my process. In starting to blog again, the design of it has been on my mind. I had a WordPress theme I loved but it’s no longer supported. I’ve been trying different themes but haven’t found one that grabs me yet. I used to design themes but WordPress has changed so much now I wouldn’t know where to get started.

So my tasks for the moment: find a theme I like and start blogging again!

Diamond Painting Addict

One of the crafts I have been enjoying is Diamond Painting. If you haven’t seen this before it is like a cross between paint by numbers and cross stitch, except with beads instead of paint or thread. I find it so relaxing, carefully placing each bead or drill.

The first diamond painting I did was a little black cat, after finishing that I was hooked! I bought my kits from HobbySew, KaiserCraft, Lincraft and Toymate. I will admit to having a stash of paintings to complete! You gotta do something in the great quarantine of 2020!

Cat Diamond Painting
flowers

Next I completed a painting of pink peonies.

Black Cat Painting

Being a cat lady and one who loves black cats, the black cat painting from Diamond Dotz had to be mine! I love it.

Next was a beautiful poppy, this is one of the kits from Toymate.

And then back to the cat lady theme with a gorgeous Leopard. The detail on this one is amazing. This was a Diamond Art Collection painting from Toymate.

The cottage was from Lincraft, I wasn’t as happy with this one as I was with the others, if it had been bigger the details would have been clearer.

I seemed to be on a cottage theme so next was this cottage from Toymate (Diamond Art Collection).

Of course I will go for any cat themed painting, especially if it has black cats, like this one!

The vase of flowers was awful, the colour shading was all wrong and the detail lacking. I’m not sure how I stuck it out and finished it! I bought this at Roni’s.

The painting of the two cats is by the same company as the vase of flowers, but seems to be better quality. I’m currently working on this one and loving the colours. I’m not sure what the company is called – no name on the packaging.

A Long Time Between Posts

It’s been over two years since I posted here. Wowza, that’s a long time between posts! So much has happened since then. The saddest time was early 2019 when my dear Dad passed away. He was an amazing Father and I miss him more than words can say.

The loss of Dad hit me very hard and it has taken many therapy visits and a lot of time to get me in a better place. The support of family and friends helped a lot, not feeling alone was very important. There were a lot of tears, some anger at the unfairness, regret and feeling lost. It’s a long road back.

As mentioned, the support of family and friends has been a tremendous help, I also found some comfort in crafts, binge watching shows on Netflix and writing things down in a journal. Having the space to feel it all, every aspect of grief, and the time to deal with each aspect was very important.

Now is a time to reconnect and get back into things I enjoyed doing – this weblog being one of them.

Introducing Reyna

Well, I didn’t make much progress on Miss Winkle nor did I find the time to finish her before my birthday. I did, however, remember that while I had finished knitting Reyna, I had yet to block her! A-ha! A new knit shawl to wear on my birthday after all. Wheee!

Below is a photo essay of sorts of the process of blocking Reyna, from squishy off the needles to open lace and lovely blocked-ness. Well, she was fantastically blocked, but I wore her on my birthday and forgot to get a just blocked photo! I will ask my husbitect to help me take a better of Reyna over the weekend, perhaps after I block her again.

Just knitted shawl
Off the needles and all squishy

Shawl soaking
Bath time! I use Eucalan to gently soak my knits.

Pinned shawl, blocking
Blocking wires and many, many pins used. Tin for scale.

Close up of knitting
Close up of the gorgeous lacey texture!

Knitting project photo
Reyna after blocking and wearing on my birthday. Will need a better photo to show her off!

If you would like to knit your own Reyna shawl you can find the pattern on Ravelry it is by  the talented Noora Laivola.

I used one skein of Ella Rae lace merino (4ply/fingering).

Miss Winkle Update

Ta dah! Miss Winkle currently has a total of 25 loops and plenty more yarn to knit. I am loving these colours, so bright and happy. I would love to have this finished for my birthday this Saturday but I think that might be asking too much…unless I can find a TARDIS! I will give it ago, lets see how much more I can knit in two days!

Photo of knitting project

Speaking of the TARDIS, how fantastic is it that we have our first female Doctor! I cannot wait to see her episodes! Hmm, maybe I should name my Miss Winkle Project after the new Doctor, I shall think on some ideas. Any suggestions?

Plans for the rest of this week include some early spring cleaning and birthday shenanigans on Saturday!  Tonight the Husbitect and I are planning to curl up on our comfy lounge and do some colouring in to practice mindfulness and some relaxation. I’m trying to master Copics, so far I haven’t quite got the blending figured out but a little more practice should help.

Pattern: Miss Winkle by Martina Behm.

It’s time for knitting!

I have recently finished my Masters degree so I now have a lot more time for knitting! And when a lovely library hires me, I will have more money for yarn treats! hehe. I’m currently working on my second Miss Winkle, this time she is for me!

Miss Winkle (knitting project)

I’m using Araucania Ranco Sock which has some delicious shades of purple, green and a touch of pink. So good! I’m cheating and using an older photo here, the delightful Miss Winkle has more loops now. I shall be posting a knitting project update tomorrow, so check back for some updated photos.

Pattern: Miss Winkle by Martina Behm.

Picking Up My Needles

Hi, Hello! I haven’t updated my weblog for quite a while, but now that I am getting back into knitting, spinning and other creative pursuits, I will be back to regular updates. Other things I will be writing about are my two gorgeous kitties, lifestyle topics, geeky pursuits such as board games and other related topics.

Photo of my Great Divide shawl

Knitting wise I am working on my Great Divide shawl which I am knitting with  Heirloom white 4 ply yarn and for contrast, some Ella Rae lace merino 4 ply in a beautiful rainbow colourway. I’m looking forward to finishing this shawl and for winter to arrive so I can wear it…and so the temperature is pleasant and not insanely hot and humid as it is now in Sydney!

Knitterly News

After a wee little break over the Christmas and New Year period, I am back! I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and that 2015 is being very kind to you! Apart from being the day I start blogging again, today is also the start of Semester One at university. I have five units left in my Master of Information Management, which has a dual qualification in Records & Archives and Librarianship. This semester I am taking two units; Archives Concepts & Practice and Knowledge Management Principles.

I have been quite busy on the knitting front. Last week I finished my Skywalker shawl which I knit as part of one of Laura Nelkin’s craftsy classes. I have learnt so much and gained much more confidence in my knitting and that is only half of the class completed! The second part is knitting the Clarus shawl. I still need to take some pretty photos of Skywalker, but below you can how dramatically it changed with blocking.

skywalker blocking

I’m about to cast on some toe-up magic loop socks as part of the Sprint Into Socks KAL being run by The Bakery Bears and Knick’s Knits. I’m not using my ‘good’ yarn for these socks as I have only knit three pairs of socks and these were all cuff-down after-thought heel socks. So for my first toe-up socks, some plainer yarn will do just in case I need to tink a few times! The yarn I am using (photo below) is Patons Big Baby Fair Isle in the Bluey colourway. The pattern booklet you can see behind the yarn cake is Crafternoon by Panda. I came across it at Kmart recently and could not resist, so many cute things.

basic socks start

 

I will be back to regular updates from now on, and have some more finished objects to share!

Pink Christmas

Pink Christmas Patridge

I recently entered Brother Australia’s Pink Christmas competition. To enter, you were required to make one or more of the pink Christmas patterns created especially for Brother by some of Australia’s top craft bloggers. I made the bird decoration by Christine Mitchell. This was a huge learning curve for me as I had not sewn something so small and curvy on the sewing machine before. As part of your entry you needed to add your own touch with something pink. I added a pink-ribbon tail and pink sequin eyes as well as a little head feather to make the birds partridges. I made most of the birds with a pale pink fabric and one with hot pink – I guess he’s the male as he has the showy colours, as you can see below! I used some vintage buttons on the wings and the birds now decorate our Christmas tree!

Hot Pink Partridge

If you’d like to have a go at making the Christmas bird decorations or one of the other pink-themed projects, visit Brother’s project page to find lots of free patterns.

End of Semester; Start of Craftiness

Knitting Projects

Ah! It is that wonderful time of the year when I have finished all my assignments and study for the semester, and studying for the year is over! I have time for more craft projects and studying of the arty and crafty kind, the librarian learning now takes a back seat for a short while. Knitting has been my craft of choice the last few days, above you can see the projects that are active on my needles at the moment. There has been progress on Miss Winkle (four more loops) and the socks, just not a huge amount! Links to the patterns/designer:

The middle project, Levnadslust, which means ‘joy of living’ in Swedish is absolutely stunning! I admire Madeleine’s (the designer behind Yarn-Madness) eye for style and detail. If you haven’t seen her work, visit her Ravelry page or her own website to view her designs. I’ve added so many to my Ravelry favourites list! I’m knitting Levnadslust with Cleckheaton Bamboo, which is sadly discontinued. I wish I had bought more of it while it was still in production. Yes, this yarn comes from my deep stash. I’ve knitted the first of two shoulders for the pattern and have just started the second. This will be my first hand-knit garment (aside from socks, shawls and scarves) so I am quite excited! A picture of Levnadslust is below, used with permission from the designer.

Levnadslust

 

Other than busily knitting, I’ve been doing a bit of reading. Lately I have felt like I have been ignoring the spiritual side of myself so I set about looking for ways to fulfil that side of me. Browsing the local library’s ebooks, I came across some books by Deepak Chopra and remembered how much I had enjoyed his writing in the past. I’m currently listening to ‘What Are You Hungry For‘ which is about weight loss but also personal fulfilment. It has really resonated with me so far, especially the sections about how eating can sometimes be an attempt to fill the empty places inside. I definitely do that – I’m all about comfort eating! When I feel sad or lonely, I often reach for a peanut butter sandwich or some chocolate (or even peanut butter chocolate!) instead of acknowledging what I am feeling and doing something about it. Other than eating! I need to lose a bit of weight, so I’m hoping Deepak’s book will help me shift the pounds for good and fill those empty spaces with something other than food.

Earlier in the year I set myself a challenge to read 100 books this year. So far I have read 43, quite a bit shorter than the goal, mainly due to being busy with university work. Now that I have more free time, I’m going to try my best to reach my goal of 100 books! I have allowed myself to count fiction and non-fiction books plus audio-books, but would like to include more fiction. One of my most favourite authors is Connie Willis; I have devoured all of her books that I can find. I also enjoy ‘cozy-mysteries’ of the cat kind; mystery novels that have feline sleuths or some other kind of cat help! Favourite authors of that genre include Rita Mae Brown, Shirley Rousseau Murphy and Lilian Jackson Braun. I’m also a fan of the Agatha Raisin series by M.C. Beaton, who is also known for being the creator of the delightful Hamish Macbeth character.

I’m currently looking for a new fiction read and am open to recommendations!