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