A Trip To Town

 A trip into town today with my good friend Richmal saw us wandering the mall for quite some time. There is general kaos in the mall at the moment with renovations to the walkways and generally the enterance into to the mall is a disaster. Our original intention was to picnic in the Botanic Gardens but the prediction of inclement weather caused us to rethink our plans.So instead of seeing the lovely lily pads in the garden ponds I saw  a lovely mural of lilies and carp in the mall.

Instead of a picnic in the park we found  a laneway off the mall set up as a picnic market place complete with fake grass and three charming and enterprising young lads making the most fabulously delicious lentil and halloumi burgers. The picnic ground came complete with ginham covered stools with very comfy chair pads and a view created by artists on the walls of the gallery opposite. I should have photgraphed the pigeons and doves painted on the walls - but I was too busy enjoying my burer!

Yummy burger !

We then went to the art gallery and I visited my favourite room - textiles including those by William Morris- and lovely glassware. I also wandered around the gallery walls to see what's hanging and found that one of my all time favourite and hilarious paintings had been taken off the wall - shock ! horror!  This painting I don't know who painted it. It is a very large back surface with a bordered red edge of two inches and nothing more. The interesting thing about this painting is not the painting itself but the reaction it gets. You just have to hang back to see  peoples reactions - the number of people whom go up to it and look around its sides just to see if there is more! And that is where the beauty of the painting is to behold - in people's reactions. I have seen few other works get such attention and involvement from its audience and it just goes to show sometimes the simplest things are the most interesting.
After our art adventure we went to check out Urban Cow a hip art and craft store on Pultney Street and attached a coffee / wine bar called the Howling Owl.
Don't you love the servery area - the old fridge. I was impressed by the variety of gin and the lovely recycled crockery which made up the sailing ship - Her Ladyship -

Crochet on the go

With the colder weather I thought it would be nice to invest in a hot water bottle and make a cover for it. I saw a pattern for a cover in "The Art Of Crochet" publication. Its one of those series of projects that are released on a weekly basis and end up giving you a complete compendium of patterns and stitch directories. The  person whom collected all the articles would have paid a fortune for them, but I picked up the folder for a mere four dollars from the craft trading table last week.

Anyway when this hot water bottle cover is finished it will have a lovely snowflake on it for decoration.
I quite like the base stitch, it has a nice texture and is easy to do - alternating stitches of double crochet with treble and the next row alternating treble with double crochet to give a ribbed effect.

I am still using the reams of grey wool that I purchased, hence all the grey based projects. I thinks I've used about half of the wool

see what I mean about the textured effect.
And below is the finished poncho with neck trim and zipper in situ and scalloped border.  Just have to get to the post office sometime this week - sometimes I just let things lie around for a while before they get sent off to their recipient.

So Close...

Yesterday I went to Spotlight to obtain some more wool so that I could finish crocheting the poncho for my niece. Without the coloured border trim the poncho was very grey and rather dull. The trim makes it more cohesive and appealing to a 10 year old, lets face it girls generally want pretty. 

I purchased of 3 balls of wool which I thought would be enough for a round of each colour in blue and pink. (I still had two balls of green) I am utilizing double yarn when crocheting and expected to use a fair bit but thought I would make it.... The one ball of blue made the round of double crochet fine ( I used both ends of the wool to double the threads together) but alas the two balls of pink are not going to make the scalloped border the whole way round...  So close yet so far..That means I must make another 20 minute trip to Spotlight so  I can complete the final side. Then all I have to do is sew in all the ends - my favourite job. 

Mum suggested I sew in a zip to close the neckline - it would make the poncho warmer and hold together more securely and then I could trim the inner neck with pink. Anyway I'll keep plodding along and hopefully finish it this weekend. Stay warm!

M.I.A - Missing In Action

Sometimes it is easy to get lost and disappear  Sometimes I just don't have a lot to say and sometimes I just plod along with whatever craft activity takes me and do that rather than blog. Anyway I've been missing in action for a few weeks and just really couldn't be bothered.

Well here we are once again. I've almost finished the poncho for my niece. I'm not really sure I like it but I know it will be really warm to wear and heavy. Just got the scalloped border to complete and then sew in all the ends, and add on a tassel to tie at the neck - 3-4 hours work at least.

The last two weeks have involved a sleepover for Jordy where they constructed a tent in the lounge room to sleep in. 

 

Ski training for the girls on the weekend, just because they are keen. The season for surf lifesaving has finished but not for these die hards. They dont mind a bit of cold water... brrrr.

Surfing down the coast at Middleton, near Victor Harbour, SA

 Bird watching in the car park before getting a pedicure.

Eating really fattening food.; Jordy made a blueberry and pear pie with almond crust.. full of butter and sugar.

The local rag put the boys on the front page to congratulate them on their medal placing at the Aussie surf lifesaving titles. Its the first time SA has place in the water for their age group U17

Beautiful skies to watch when dropping Ben off down the beach to train...really getting cold in the water though.

Pear Shape And Fluttering

Another doodle play with the white ink pens that refuse to draw half the time.. I will have to invest in a different brand pen but for the moment they'll do. My daughter was drawing last night in one of my sketch books whilst lying around on my bed so I decided to join her. She really has some lovely ideas and has great patterning skills, hence the patterned pears, influenced by my lovely.
I completely forgot to photograph the table today at lunch, i really was to busy trying to get organized or eating and forgot I even owned a camera. it was a lovely afternoon, good food and fantastic lively company!
I hope you are enjpying your day too

April - the Month That Was

I am going to cheat and just put up pictures of the month of April. If you follow me you've seen them before. If its your first visit , welcome and  a quick troll through the previous month will explain whatever interests you.

I'm preparing to have some friends from craft for lunch tomorrow.. so must away and make yummy stuff to eat ! See ya!

Giant Motif Shawl

My last visit to Canberra to see my sister and her family lead me to do some crochet, mainly whilst travelling but also as a leisure activity. I made a huge dent in a chevron crochet blanket for my son. All the crocheting inspired the kids to make tomboys and huge strings of knitted ropes, which became mini rugs when sewn together. 

My niece inquired whether i could make a poncho for winter. (Of course I said yes but that was last year!) The colder months are now barrelling towards us with nothing on the hook until yesterday . I think that I spend such a huge amount of time actually looking for a pattern and then do nothing about it. Originally I was to make a poncho with owls in it, but the pattern I chose ended up not being suitable. Then she requested minty green colours but I can't find any in wool that is suitable (unless I go online and I tend to want to buy wool when I can see and feel it). 

So after all that I decided to take a completely different tack and utilize my abundant supply of grey wool with brights. An old Vogue Pattern had stuck in my mind and I  thought that this would make good use of multitude of colours.

It is a 1971 edition book printed in the USA. Vogue Guide To Crochet. Dig the hat

The shawl is made up of 5 blocks. Some of the instructions were a little hard to follow and the pictures are not particularly clear, so it was a little bit of trial and error. The white star was the first block I did and probably the hardest only because I was crocheting in English instead of American stitches. Silly me.
The five blocks below. I'm just sticking to a grey background with bursts of colour in the middle. I'm undecided if I will make this as the pattern states - as a shawl - or make it all in one, throw over the head style poncho and not bother with half triangles. Do I do tassels??  Plenty of time to think about that.

Homemade block stretcher.

I really do have to learn not to take my photographs at night! Crap photographer - but you get the idea!

Back to Hooky fun.