Report Time

Well, the end of the school year in Australia brings report time!
Both my boys have achieved some great results this year thanks to some hard work at home, some consistent effort on their part, and some bloody good teachers. There has been some significant achievement in areas where grades have gone from C or D to As, and we are SO proud of both our boys.

Wish the report card for my birthday was as good. Afraid it was one of the worst days of my life, filled with stress and tears brought about by people and factors outside our control. THANKS BE TO GOD, that influence is now behind us and we can move on, but seriously, as friends and family have already acknowledged,  we HAVE  already had more than our fair share of pain and stress in the past. BLAahh. Anyway, we look forward to a quiet Christmas with loved ones, friends AND family, who've yet again proven, that we are loved and valued by them all. So blessed we are to have such an awesome group of people around us. I've always borne witness to the phrase "It could be worse," but in the last week, each day seemed to have found a new low. Still, we have come out the other end of a difficult situation so we move on! AND, yes, there is always someone else out there who has it worse than us, this I know.

SO, we head into Xmas with very few gifts organised for our kids. What do they NEED? Little. What would they like...a few things, but what to choose for them? Ugh. Too hard a question lol. Might make myself a cuppa and go finish Bec's capecho. At least then one more garment can go on the 'Finished' section of the Craft Report Card for 2011 ahahhaa.
K

Remembering Pop Ben

Well, it may be Thanksgiving in America tomorrow, but it WOULD have been my grandfather's birthday. Benjamin Cecil Barbour Hodder was born Nov 25th 1905 in Perth, WA. He and his sister were the only two to survive of four, born to his parents. Alas, his father William, had previously lost his first wife and their son, and after moving state and re-marrying, he and his wife Zoe, lost their first two children at 7 weeks and 5months of age. Losing his parents early, Ben spent his formative years at an Anglican care facility. He never spoke of his childhood and it wasn't until YEARS after his death that my genealogy research revealed the sad truth of his life before we knew him as 'Pop'.

He's pictured above with my grandmother. Their life was full of turmoil. It wasn't until years after they both passed away that the truth of their relationship came to light. Victims of circumstance and an era in time, I don't ever remember them sharing a happy moment together. I do love this shot though....it's a real 'Bonnie and Clyde' style shot taken mid 1940s. Pop served in the Australian Army at home and nan worked in a munitions factory. Due to deafness in one ear, pop was turned down for active service.

And here's a photo of me as a child in the kitchen of my grandparent's home. Both sets of my grandparents were like surrogate parents to my sister, brother and I. We went to school up the road from dad's parents and would usually eat our meals with them, even coming 'home' for lunch from school. It was literally only 8 houses up the road. Both my parents worked full time, so much of my life was spent around my grandparents. I loved them to bits.

 When I think of Ben, I remember his room in the sleepout, the trips of Mundaring Weir he would take my sister and I on, the jelly tot lollies and his glorious gardens, front and back. With great gardeners in my gene pool on both sides of the family, I don't quite know how I missed the green thumb...guess you can't be good at everything though. He had more sheds out the back than we could poke a stick at lol, and we would always be plaing in one of them. Sadly, he left us aged 82 after suffering terribly with angina for many years, in 1986. Miss him terribly still. Love you always Poppy. mwa xxx

Diagonal Cables Cardigan

Well, here we go....another horrid pattern lol. Seems like everything I turn my hand to with needles lately ends up vexed. This is a Patons pattern and it's gorgeous, but SO verbose with the instructions.



The cabling section is listed in rows 1-26, then the stocking stitch instructions, then the beginning of the actual pattern to get it started. Unfortunately,  once the cabling pattern is started, the increasing instructions become confusing and you lose track of the increases through the cabling. Also doesn't help that the cabling and increase instructions are on different pages! Suffice to say I've unpicked it 9 times so far! GRRRRRRR. There has GOT to be a better way to write this pattern as it's so verbose. I ended up writing it up as a table for ease of use. I've yet to work out how to save it as a PDF so if you'd like a copy, email me and I can forward the text document to you.

So, this is a Xmas gift.....we'll see how we go as I now have the beige capecho to finish and the sleeves to re-stitch on Em's cream capecho...I know...why do I do it? It wasn't intentional, but with my back and shoulder giving me grief inconsistently for a month, it's been hard to sit and knit. The right front is done, so while the pattern's fresh in my mind, I'll get the left front done, then knock up the back. That'll be pretty easy as it's straight stocking stitch. I'm aiming to have these pieces done within the next week! The sleeves are HEAVY cabling, but I think I might shortcut these and just do the cable section up the middle front of the sleeve. It's a very dark purple so that will feature the pattern, which may get lost in the darker colour anyway...well, I've convinced myself that's for the best hahaha.


Here's the actual cabling section. The increases are made BETWEEN the stocking stitch and cabling sections. I've used Red Heart Super Saver Solids on this which cost me about $20 AUD. It was purchased about 6 months ago from supermart.com.
 Although the patter says to use 4.5mm and 4mm needles, I found the tension too taut so upped them to 5.5mm and 5mm. They're perfect. This is an XL which I'm making for a friend for Xmas. She is not a very large girl, but I've allowed for her 'ample bosom', wide shoulders and she likes to wear skivvies underneath her jackets. The large looked a little on the small side. Let you know how I go for sizing when she puts it on!

Here's the finished front. I have to say that I thought I'd done something wrong with the shoulder being so high as it doesn't look like that in the pattern picture, but I've looked at anothe of these jackets on ravelry.com and found Britt's looks the same SO.....mine is all good too!

May be my tension but I've also found the cabling a little tighter than the stocking stitch. When I wash and block it, I'll straighten it up.


Onward ho!

Remembrance Day

Today is Remembrance Day, when we commemorate the guns falling silent at 11am on the 11th day of the 11th month at the Western front, after four years of fighting. The two minutes silence, now one, was suggested by Australian journalist, Edward Honey, who was working in Fleet St at the time, and was supported in England and Africa as an appropriate and fitting tribute to the fallen soldiers. King George V asked everyone in the British Empire to observe a two minute silence in memory of those who served, in recognition of their fight for freedom and victory.

My beloved great grandmother, Alexandrina, lost her first husband at the Ypres in 1917, and like so many war wives, had to bring up her 8 children alone. She is pictured here 3rd from the left, with one of her daughters, first left.

Alexandrina, or Alice as she was called,  went on to marry a wonderful man, Alfred Ernest Cardinal, and together they had another 3 children, one of whom was my maternal grandmother. As a keen Genealogist, I am often reminded what a remarkable man Alfred must have been, not only to take on 8 children, but to be a father to them, and three more. My grandmother never wanted for food in the great depression as they lived on an orchard in Armadale...she was indeed, quite lucky. Any reserves of food such as fruit, vegetables and eggs they had were bartered for meat, such was the system of trade in those days!

Even in her dotage I remember visiting my great grandmother's home, where we would hunt for eggs in the garden and I once told my nan that Nanna Cardinal would be cross because someone had taken the eggs out of the carton and put them in the garden! lol. We would pick mini potatoes and she'd boil them up on her cast iron wood stove,  eating them with lashings of butter. She was such an extraordinary woman...even had to kill the chooks for one of her sons who just couldn't bring himself to do it lol!!! She also won the best garden in Gosnells 10yrs running. I remember her with great fondness.

So today, not only do I give thanks and prayers to Frederick Metcalf and all those he served with, but the women who kept the country running while the men went off to fight for King and country...the grand adventure, so they thought. May time never weary them and may they always find grace in the Lord's embrace. Karen Cosson  (C)

Sadly, the only picture I had of Frederick has been lost.  Lest we forget.

Adriana's Scarf

Not overly happy with the end product in cotton...note to self: use acrylic or wool next time. This is the 4th Irish Lace Scarf I've made and they're certainly getting quicker to whip up. This one is for Kyle's teacher, Adriana, for her end of year gift. A quick couple of days work and not even $10. Jolly good I say! OH, and by the way, remember the pattern is free at  ravelry.com

Minimum's Birthday

Well, it was Miriam's birthday, my husband's stepmother, on the 7th and after a stressful year, thought she deserved a special cake...I DO need to keep up my cake decorating skills after all! Anyway,  as my father in law, Bill, was getting her an IPad, I thought it would be appropriate to make an IPad cake, so I searched the internet for ideas. The icons took shape quite quickly and I chose some that were of 'sentimental value' lol. They're accountants, hence the +/-/= etc signs and she loves her cooking and music, hence the others. The uggboot.....lol, is DEFINITELY another story! hahaha. Well, after finishing up at Kyle's cricket, I trotted off to finish the cake. Crikey, it took me almost an hour JUST to dye the icing black and I used an almost full bottle of black dye ON IT! Apparently, there were dark green 'exhibits' for days afterwards! (sorry, but quite funny as I didn't eat the icing, though everyone else DID!)

Miriam was SO excited, apparently only the second cake EVER made for her in her life. Sad, I thought. She's a little estranged from her daughter who married into money and her son lives in another state so I think she was quite touched that I went to all that effort when her own kids hadn't. She carefully took the icons off for safekeeping before she cut it and we tucked in.

And 'Minimum' you ask??? lol. When Brayden was little, he just could NOT get his mouth around her name, so began calling her Minimum....it stuck ahhaha. So, happy birthday 2011 to Minimum! And her age????? late 60s, though a lady never tells!  Hope I look that good at her age. We didn't take any photos of us all though....had too good a time drinking and enjoying each other's company. I shall try to get an updated one soon.

Hannah's Quilt

Phew...better late than never! Finally finished Hannah's Alphabet Quilt last week. I'm quite happy with it except for one thing...and no, you don't need to start going through the alphabet lol. It's the colour of the blocks on the lower left...they're the same. Luckily, it works because the whale has water moving from one block into another and distracts the eye, and any 'religious' quilter, and I mean that literally and with no disrespect, will tell you that there must always be a mistake in any quilt so as to be less than perfect...only God is perfection! SO, there's my deference to the Lord above...my error lol.

I only used scraps, which are still overflowing from the container I might add. OH, and I snipped the binding AT THE FRONT....got that HOT flush of adrenalin when I did it! NOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooo! Well, being the Queen of lean and having learnt the 'waste not, want not' adage from my depression raised grandparents, I decided to put tabs on it to cover the snip and make it a wall hanging. Unfortunately, cot quilts have a limited life with children so this one will live longer as a wall hanging AND be a 'poorly rug' for her beautiful Hannah to cuddle . Her big brother Jude has one I made for him as a baby too.
 Hannah's Quilt :

 

Jude's Quilt

Both these beautiful patterns are from Hot Possum. You can buy the patterns from their online store.

Ladybird Totem

It never ceases to amaze me how much life can change in a short period of time. I was distraught, to say the least, about something over the weekend and sought solace through spiritual prayer and my cards. Nothing overt came to me and I have to admit, I rarely read for myself as I am not always objective, but then I headed off to visit a lady my daughter saw a few weeks ago. What she told me was truly amazing...about my past, verifying my future.

While I waited in the parking area of the building for her to come get me, a rather large ladybird flew to my left forearm and proceeded to have a wander. I was stunned by how long it stayed on my arm...a couple of minutes...unusual I thought, for a ladybird. Well, I made some wishes, including those for world peace and an end to poverty (and with no intention of flippancy I can assure you!) and when it appeared the old girl was still not going to head off on her own, I moved her onto my right arm and raising it, ousted her into the breeze. I watched her fly for a few seconds, then she seemed to just vanish. Thinking nothing of it, I then went upstairs with my new friend, Rohini, and to my astonishment, as I sat with her to begin the reading, the first thing I focused on in the room on her carpet was....YOU GUESSED IT! A ladybird! It was sitting there.

Well, I thought it odd at the time but said nothing and off we went into the depths of spiritualism, palmistry and the cards. Indeed, some enlightening and powerful things were imparted to me in the hour I was with my new friend. I came away feeling much happier about the horrible situation I felt we were facing. Day 2 however...and this is where things get creepy...NICE CREEPY...I'm talking with a friend on the phone....looking out my french doors, I'm telling her about the ladybirds when I notice, and remark with a laugh, that I'm now looking at a ladybird crawling across the top of my fence, ADDING, with complete irony, that it's now raining outside, and not lightly. We're both having a laugh when I notice ANOTHER ladybird, and another and another....until I realised they were literally bringing the leaf litter on the deck outside my bedroom doors, to life! I then imparted the tale of the little jumping spider, or money spider, which has been sitting next to my toilet roll holder in the bathroom in almost the same spot for 24hrs! Now, normally, these things are just an annoyance to me, and I would've flushed him lol, but in light of the ladybirds, I thought better of it today. Now I've google searched the signifcance of ladybirds, I am CERTAIN that this is the answer to my prayer. The message to me was clear, but let this be a message to you also, you who may come to read this passage, that miracles and the answers to our prayers are all around us......we just don't often recognise the small, DIMINUTIVE  nature of them sometimes. Look for the messages and miracles around you every day....!

 The Ladybird is now my personal totem.....what's yours?

Thankyou God and the lady divine!

Blogger Bogged

WHY do Blogger keep changing the goal posts??? I've been trying to get into my blog for almost a week now and ended up, in frustration, trying to set up a new one and import the old. It SAID the previous blog had been imported but there was certainly no evidence of it! The reason for the new blog??? I couldn't get the 'new post' button to come up where it used to be. I've just now signed in in the hope of them maybe having identified a problem and fixed it, but was basically going to delete them both!!! Instead, I find it's on the dashboard and no longer showing atop right on my page when I go to sign in. I DO NOT understand why it says 'create a blog' when I'VE ALREADY SIGNED IN TO MY OLD ONE! Maybe I'm missing something??? To my utter disbelief now, after spending hours searching the net for help and being refused entry to blogger and google help forums, I've just logged in again and BINGO! I'm in. Unbelievable. So incredibly frustrating, yet there was STILL no 'new post' icon on my main page or 'design' for that matter, until I previewed THIS POST, only 'create new blog' and sign in. The only way to make a new post is to go into my dashboard, which I've never had to do. The 'new post' button/icon has not shown up for a whole week even on the dashboard page!? Confusion, annoyance, aggravation....yet, within 1min....solved. Don't get it!!!?

Anyway, that problem sorted, here I am again talking to myself.....cathartic. Been an amazingly crappy and depressing few days. Just when you think things can't get any worse...they DO! lol, but what can you do? I saw a picture on Facebook of a man wearing flattened plastic bottles as shoes tied on to his feet with string. Well, life's not quite that bad but I fear it's not the best it's been either.

Knits: Purple Capecho

Well, mumsy's capecho is 95% done. Here it is in its almost finished glory lol. I had to wait for her to try it on as I've amended the sleeve...as you would already know!??? It's a bit firm around the lower part of the jacket SO I'm going to knit two corners for the lower front to square off the front of the jacket AND a triangle for   

the centre back to add width for her bust.

This is the centre back, where I'll put the extra panel to add width. I will try two pattern repeats to see how it sits....it may only need one triangle, not two.









 The pentagons across the bottom here are the from the left side of the jacket. The armhole has been formed by the second pentagon's top right hand side and the two shoulder pentagons.The two pointed peaks at the top of the armhole are the pentagons either side of the shoulder seam.

I've tried this on mum, so know it fits well. I deferred to my sewing expertise on this one, as it's been a bugger of a jacket. Gorgeous, but painful! The mistake I made, which I will remember for #3 (yes Virginia, there is a number 3! ...much to my horror) is to NOT stitch the lower panels together before doing the rib around the armhole. Mum didn't want a sleeve, preferring a ribbed band.....all very well and good EXCEPT knitting it on circulars IN a circle was nasty! I haven't got the nerve to unstitch the pentagons...cut patterns will not make me happy AT ALL!

The only other thing to do on this jacket then, will be to stitch a smaller version of the neckband to lengthen the jacket a little. We'll see how it goes!

Ex Student Catch Ups - Lauralee

I was lucky enough to have lunch with an ex student and her husband a couple of weeks ago. I taught her in my Yr 6 class 17years ago! She has been living overseas in France, England and now, Tortola. Her husband is a lawyer and the corporation he worked for, transferred him overseas. They are lucky indeed, to have been able to travel so extensively, and their tales are truly fascinating. I still see the little 11year old girl's eyes twinkling when I talk to her. Such a funny thing...she was one of three girls in that class who had a 'sleepover' for two nights at our home. It was Christmas Eve when the girls went home and I could hear two of them asking if they could stay another night. lol. We lost touch for a few years when a call came for me at the school I was working in. Lauralee had had a dream and remembered the name of the school I'd moved to! We met up again and have been in touch for years since. Thanks to fabulous Facebook, I get to keep in touch with 'Lolly' as I've always called her, and many other dear ex students. Here we are at lunch. LOVED that leather jacket she was wearing...France or Venice...can't remember which....witch! lol

Capecho

I bought  this pattern some time ago, and started making it for Bec's August 10th birthday in Bernat Big Ball Cream, but it was soon looking MASSIVE.


I was making the medium, but after completing 4 pentagons, realised it was way too big. A quick search on ravelry.com showed me I wasn't alone with size issues. Bec is a size 12 Australian and this fits a much larger 18-20. I have since decided to give this one to another girlfriend, Emma, and make another for Bec. Still having some issues with setting in the sleeves, unfortunately, but a message to 'foxtales' on ravelry.com...my lifeline, that site...has revealed that I am ALSO not the only one to have had issues with the SLEEVES! One lady, Inna, put it quite succinctly I think, that the designer must have been drunk when she wrote the pattern and that the picture taken by Vogue here is NOT quite accurate. I made the mistake of showing the cream jacket to my mum, who loved it so much, she decided to claim one for herself, for Xmas.....hence the purple capecho!

Emma's Capecho

I have finished the cream capecho of Emma's but not set in the sleeves yet. They've been pinned and unpinned a dozen times! Everything else on the jacket is done. Now that I'm 90% finished with mum's purple jacket, I'm having the same problem...thought maybe it was just me misunderstanding the pattern and that by starting afresh with the second, I could iron out the initial issues, but that's not happening. The panels are pentagons, made up of 5 triangles with a central cable, but the edges around the sleeve are FOUR sides, not 5, so they don't fit. I am going to try this:
cast on enough stitches for 4 triangles and set
THAT into the body of the jacket. Let you know how it goes!

Mum's Capecho

Scarves are YUMMO! What's next???

Well, it only took two weeks to whip these up. They're deceptively heavy but look gorgeous. The pattern is free as I said, and very open to creative license so get stitching! This one is for Bec, whose birthday is coming up in August. The red one below is for Emma, whose birthday is in November...did it early while the pattern was fresh in my head.

I used some scraps on this one, hence the multi-coloured rosettes. Didn't do the ball centres though as they obscured too much of the inside coloured yarn and I didn't have enough of that yarn to make the centres.

Pretty happy with it though. I sent Bec a picture of the scarf with a red and black leaf, and she chose black leaves, so I also opted for not doing the picot edging...was just too much for the scarf.

I have enough yarn to do a red one for myself too! Takes about 600yards of yarn. I've used Red Heart Classic, which is about a 10ply in Australia, or a Medium 4 in US. I bought it from supermart.com and each scarf has cost me approx $10. 




Needless to say that Emsky is not too happy having to wait until November 30th for her gift BUT, she'll have to. Judging by last year's weather then, she might still get some wear out of it in the evenings here.

Problem now is, what is next on the agenda? I'm thinking I should do the scarf for ME next, while the pattern is fresh in my head, but I have a few other projects 'hibernating' so could do one of those? Don't need any of them until Xmas though...

Knit One, Crochet ...none! lol

Wretched crochet patterns! They just don't seem to have the same written rules and 'conventions' as knitting. You do a double crochet and leave 3 stitches, do a treble and leave four...bla bla lol. I'm trying to read the pattern for the Irish Lace Scarf from Ravlery's free pattern base, to make it for a friend's birthday in August, but it doesn't look right. I've checked the pictures of garments already made by people on the Ravelry database and they do actually look like mine though the pattern picture itself looks more linear, while mine and others' seem more 'rounded'. Still, perhaps I just need to work a few more rows to see how it looks 'en masse' rather than just 5 or 6 rows.

I just adore the antique style of this garment. It's been on my favourites list for a while but I've only used one crochet pattern before and that took a little fiddling to get my head around. Although I can actually DO the crochet stitches, I am not so crash hot at interpreting the pattern write ups.

Have decided to use some stash wool and am going to make Rebecca's scarf in light blue Katia Baltika. Around the roses, I'll put some lace in a cream cotton, just to add to the antique look of the piece. Can't wait to see it finished but that means I'll have to get it started lol!!!

My girlfriend Emma has requested a cherry red one for Xmas so THAT will be a great look in this pattern too. If you love it as much as I do, check out ravelry.com for the FREE pattern!

Ball Dress and White Shirt

Well, I finished Christine's ball dress yesterday but I don't yet have a photo to add to show the finished product...working on it. Here's the bodice, and the lace was just to die for! 

 

I DID however, get my white shirt done this avo. Only took a couple of hours. It's a Butterick pattern, 3525, which I've used a few times before. It pulls a little across the top of the bust at the second button, but shoulder pads will alleviate that, some skinny ones (don't want to revisit the 80s!). Might just need to check button placements next time I make it so as to avoid the 'tug'. Also, as the fabric is quite sheer, I think I'll need to whip up a satin chemise to go under it. LOVE the fabric, but found the cuff 'clumsy' without buttons on the first shirt I made from this pattern, so on the second and this one, I didn't bother with it. I also squared off the bottom of the shirt and lengthened it by 6cm to tuck into pants or have it sit just over the waistband.

It doesn't look much in the picture, but it's lovely on. The buttons are flat and a Mother Of Pearl finish. Very cute. I've probably got enough fabric left from the 1.5m I bought, to make a short skirt or even another top. Don't know what I'll do with it yet...could end up being made into something for my nieces or stashed for use with a piece of crochet/knitting. Time will tell! 

Take 3!

Well, locked out of my old blog...despite changing my password more than 7 times! I have abandoned it in disgust. Google/Blogger seriously need to get their act together because there were literally hundreds of people who have the same problem listed in forums!  Anyway, let's hope this one gets up and going better than the last two!

I've just spent my weekend cataloguing and recording ALL of my sewing patterns. Wow, what an exercise, trying to numerically list them and find pics on the internet. It's done though and my drawer is better organised for it, the 'old style patterns' I'm not using and probably won't use any time soon are stashed at the back of the drawer and now I can make the shirt pattern I tried to cut out 3 days ago, but was missing two pieces. I've made this one before but it's a winner. I just need to add length as it was a bit short. I will also straighten it out at the bottom as I did find that it tended to pull up and show skin at the sides.

  This white striped fabric (right) is for the shirt. It's incredibly soft and cost $16.95 p/m so the shirt will end up being $27 BUT like a goose, I forgot to get buttons, so the final cost is yet to be calculated.








This GORGEOUS black velveteen fabric was obscenely priced at $76 p/m but I couldn't leave it in the store. I will make pants out of this, another pattern I've used multiple times. Because I have no butt, I'll add back pockets  with a flap...gives the impression of a butt lol.



I can whip these pants up usually in an hour, but add the pockets and flaps...should take me two at the most.  Can't wait to see how they look!