Little Piles Of Colour

Hello.

What have you been up to lately?

It's been a pretty busy time around here, once again the weeks are whizzing by very quickly, it is easy to miss a week blogging at the moment without even realising it's been that long!

The weather has been pretty dismal too, so not great for taking pictures of crafty stuff, I find myself being lazy and putting things off, waiting for a sunny break that hasn't come!

Today I have been moving furniture around, trying to create an illusion of space while squeezing more things into our house.  We have been cleaning out my father-in-laws house, and seem to have bought quite a bit home with us.  I am supposed to be decluttering, but you know how that goes, one thing out, two things in! Jesse has been upgraded to a double bed, much to his delight, so there has been a bed shuffle between the bedrooms, the result being I now have a 'day bed' in the family room.

Hmmm...I think it is in definite need of some grannifying, a couple of crochet blankets and some big cushions and it will be nice and cosy, and a bit more couch like and less bed like.

I have been doing bits and pieces of crochet, things I can do in the car.  Little piles of circles and diamonds are appearing all over the place.  Nice and colourful though.

.....and today I vacuumed the lounge room (exciting stuff, I know), these are the random baskets of yarn that were strewn around the room connected to various projects I am working on at the moment.  I think I need a better system!  Too much going on at the same time! No wonder my brain feels overloaded and bloated with things to do, I could do with an internal declutter as well!  

I am going to continue on this week with cleaning up around here and hopefully I will gain a bit more of a peaceful space to live in and think in!

One good thing, it's been nearly a week, and no diet coke, I think I might have finally kicked the habit, fingers crossed!

Do you feel calmer when your house is in order?

I hope you have a lovely week!

PS. Hello to new readers, thanks for stopping by!

Long Weekend Finishing Off......

Hello!  We have just had a lovely long weekend here, it was cold and crisp and clear, perfect Winter weather really.

Gary and I had a great night out with friends on Saturday, something we don't do enough of, (note to self, organise more adult get togethers!), it was really fun! 

Sunday was spent generally mooching about, recovering from a late night and many glasses of wine, so perfect for a spot of gentle crafty activity.

The fact that we also had Monday at home, meant I could really get stuck into finishing off these little decorations, the things I had made all the flowery shaped layers for.

You might recognise these Christmas tree decorations, (I made a couple last year here  and here if you want to see the originals),  and I have to say I am pretty happy how these two turned out, I still love how over the top all the layers look together, and the endless possibilities for colour play.

I think I have made these ones slightly even more over the top with more pompoms than the originals.

These were ordered way back in January, so it is about time they got finished!  (I have made a blanket as well for this order so that took up a fair bit of time too!)  Thanks for your patience Lori!

Sorry for all the pictures, but I want to try and remember how I did these, as I think I want to make a few more now these are actually complete!

The great think now that I have this order done is I can start on some new ideas without feeling guilty!

I know I have made other things on the side while I've been working on these,(some ideas just wouldn't wait!) but I did feel kind of bad that my lovely customer was waiting for her things, although she put no pressure on me at all, which was very nice of her!

I have started knitting a little stripey scarf as my next quick project, it is fun and I am looking forward to wearing something warm and handmade soon!

Hope you all had a great (long) weekend and got a bit of time for something fun!

Kitchenalia

Hello, how's your day going? It has been pretty ordinary here today, nothing too special, just normal household things.  I was able to dust off my kitchen dresser (it was in dire need of a dust)  and rearrange some of my collection of kitcheny things. I had fun and I am happy to look at all the 60's colour combos mixing in with my other bits and pieces.  I like surrounding myself with colourful, memory soaked things.

We went down to my father in laws place a couple of weeks ago to start clearing it out, it has been empty for 7 months and I think the family are now able to start thinking about selling it.  We went down to choose some mementos of Jack and try and decide what to do with all his other stuff.  There is a whole household of things that have to find new homes!

I bought home his 60's canisters and some old ramekins and mixing bowls and a lovely aqua Pyrex casserole dish with a lid.  They do remind me of him and all his cooking flair.

And if my sisters in law want them later on, I will have been giving them a good home!

 I love the retro strong pastels colour scheme, I think it crops up now and then in things I crochet!

I love these cute round bowls, very 60's don't you think? And there is the aqua snowflake Pyrex dish, in lovely condition, I am sure it will get a good work out in my kitchen if I can bring myself to use it!

Hmmmm.....I seem to accumulating a bit of a collection of kitchenalia, do any of you find old kitchen stuff fascinating like me?

Have a great day!

winter food gardening

Hello, it has been a wintery type of day here, cool and cloudy and damp feeling.  

Good gardening weather.   I took my camera with me to the community garden today 

(Crib Point Community Garden)  and did a bit of snapping, there is so much green in winter, and a surprising number of edibles available at the minute, a lot of brassicas and other wintery type things, parsnips, carrots, swedes etc.

Of course, I have to show you what I saw!

 Let's go for a bit of a wander.... (lot's of pictures to follow! sorry!)

 ....spring onions.....

......new carrot tops.....

 ......vivid lettuce....

.....sugar loaf cabbages.....

....garlic shoots......

.........delicate fennel fronds.......

 .......broadbeans just pushing through.....

.......gorgeous colour........

 .......baby fennels.....

 .......broccoli heads

 ....green and more green.....

 ......savoy cabbages....

 .....hot house experiments, spinach in boxes.....

 ....and out of season beans.....

 .....pumpkins of all types, stored away for winter eating........

.....butter swedes and carrots....

.......lovely lavender.....

.........a warm drink after a bit of work..........

......garlics from last year on our high tech drying wall.....

It was a very pleasant way to spend a few hours this morning, and I came home with a nice big bunch of carrots, beetroots and baby turnips.  I must make more effort to go more regularly, I really feel good about what's going on at the garden, it's a great connecting point for our community.

What have you been up to today? 

Yarn news......

Hello.  I don't know where that last week went, it kind of zipped by in a whirl and I didn't get a chance to stop and enjoy the ride, as a result not much blogging action!  I am thinking this week will be a bit more chilled and I will be able to get back on track and do my 'year of happy' posts and a few other things I want to share with you all.

First up though I received a new lot of wool for Little Woollie Makes Yarn Store the other day and  I wanted to show you some lovely new colours I have added to the Merino Magic collection in my shop. I thought we were lacking some warm shades, so I have some beautiful berry shades, a couple of warm orange/ terracotta-y shades that are just lovely and a nice chocolatey brown to  add to the mix.  I think this will create a lot of fun colour play possibilities, and a lot more colour schemes can result. 

I also added a lemon to the Baby Wool 8ply collection, so now there is a nice rainbow of colours available! 

I have some gorgeous new yarns (well, new to me anyway!) planned for my shop, so I hope you like the new additions.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the fantastic crafty ladies who have ordered yarn from my shop, I really appreciate your support and the fact that you chose to shop with me when there are so many ways to buy yarn out there.  Thank you so much!! 

And a big, friendly hello to all the new followers that are reading here, thanks for dropping by and I hope you find something to inspire a bit of crafty action!

I think a thank you giveaway might be in order soon, I can't believe there's nearly 2000 of you out there interested in this little blog!  Amazing, it does give me a little thrill though, so thanks a lot for your encouragement and generous comments and for keeping on coming back here.

Have a great day! 

xxxxx