It's a difficult time when your kid's start to leave home and K left home late last year. I suppose I am just coming to terms with it now. It's not like he just went and moved in with friends from school or even headed to the country or interstate. No he's gone away to work in Canada with some mates. He tells me he could be away for a couple of years, that's a very long time. I miss the little chats we would have.
I realise this will help him grow up but I still miss my little boy. We talk via Facebook but it's not the same as talking. We did manage to Skype over Christmas which was funny as we had to wait until after Christmas to Skype him for Christmas, us being in the southern hemisphere and him in the northern.
Of course the other thing is, I have to cook for less people now and that was a bit funny to start with. One good thing is our food bill is less and we get to see some great photo's of Canada. What a lovely place to visit, maybe one day:-)
Happy knitting
Sharyn
ps. K snowboarding in Lake Louise
Just wanted to share the year so far in photo's. This is a collection of photo's that we have all taken.
Part of the local fireworks for Australia Day Celebrations.
A native Hibiscus that is in our garden and is looking lovely this time of year.
Finally got a photo of Charlie on his Ripple Blanket but the effort it took to get him to look my way was time consuming.
Lovely day down at the Old Noarlunga Square for a picnic with family. Hope you enjoy the few random photo's of the year so far.
Happy knitting
Sharyn
Creating my new designs is always a work in progress and I sometimes involve the family, I like to get their options as to what they think of the design. How do you work your designs?
I sometimes start with a pattern stitch in mind and then work through the process putting the design together. Other times I will have an idea of what I want the sock to look like and then I will go and find the stitches to create this design. I also like to use a multitude of stitch patterns to create my designs.
This photo above actually has three pattern stitches, I started out with the original idea and then took it further until I got something I liked. The other thing to consider when designing is your yarn. With this multi coloured yarn I didn't want to lose the colours in the stitch pattern so I created something simple to accommodate the yarn. This is something I believe you need to consider when using multi coloured yarns.
I am not in any way experienced in this but this is just the process I use to create my sock designs. Who knows down the track it might change.
Happy knitting
Sharyn
Well I have finally completed Charlie's Ripple Blanket, it's all washed and ready for him. Now if only he would use it so I can get that photo but of course he will not play ball.
The making of this blanket was a real family affair, all of us (except K whose in Canada at the moment) had a turn at picking the colours. I did all the crocheting and I picked the boarder colours. I didn't do the boarder like Lucy, I did my own thing. I did 1 row of trebles, with 2 trebles in the corners and then I did 6 rows of dc, with 2 dc, 2 chain, 2 dc, in the corners. My crochet terms are all English as that is how I learned to do crochet.
I am just waiting for my Stylecraft yarn to come and then I get to start another Ripple Blanket as hubs wants one as well. He gets to choose the colour sequence and this time around I think I will do Lucy's boarder. I want to give it a go as I like the 2 colour look with the last row.
I have finished the Granny Stripe cushion but am waiting as the cover has been washed and needs to dry, also I need to get an insert for it. Once that's done I will get a photo up of that as well. Hope your having a great day.
Happy knitting
Sharyn
Well I know it's awhile yet but I thought I would get in some practice and make some Hot Cross bus this weekend. The are in the shops now so I thought this year I might have a go myself and make some. They are yummy but I need to improve to make them even better.
You can find the recipe here. G doesn't like Hot Cross buns with fruit so I am going to make some with choc chips in them and I know she loves these. We also like mocha Hot Cross buns, so I will be giving those a good as well. Who else likes different Hot Cross buns? What are your favourite flavours?
I even managed to get the crosses on but it was a bit tricky, I found the paste a bit too wet so next time I will go for a thicker paste. Also I think next time I will hand knead even though they say they are sticky as they where not as fluffy as I would like. Hence the experimenting to get things right before Easter. Do you like to experiment with recipes you find?
Happy knitting
Sharyn
So I am back from holiday's refreshed and ready to start working again. I spent my holiday's catching up on my crocheting. I am almost finished my hot water bottle cover, I am at present crocheting around the neck. I am finding this part a bit difficult to do, hence the slow process.
I am fairly pleased with how it turned out but I do see a need to make some improvement. My granny squares are not all the same size so I see a need to practice to get my tension right.
So because I needed to practice I went onto another project which I enjoyed immensely. Of course it was something totally different but I needed to practice to learn about getting the right tension. I chose a pattern from Lucy's Blog, Attic24 which I just love and was inspired to take up crochet once again because of this wonderful blog. The pattern I chose was the Neat Ripple Pattern and this is a lovely pattern if you are new to crochet. I did have to start over again several times as I was not getting the pattern right the first couple of times. To overcome this problem I actually wrote it out so that I could follow the written instructions. Once you actually have the foundation row done and get into the pattern it's quite easy to follow as you can see the pattern happening. The only down side is all the ends you need to weave in but if I was thinking I should have sewn them as I went along.
I have learnt my lesson:-) The only other down side was the yarn I used, it's acrylic, which I am happy to use for a project like this but it's not nice yarn. To hard, not something you want to wrap around yourself, unless it gets better with washing. The suggestion was made was to make it for Charlie as a blanket for his bed. Now all I have to do is, sew in the ends and do the edging. Guess who will be happy then???
My next crocheting project was a cushion this time as I wanted to use up the rest of the yarn and I have started Lucy's Granny Stripe Pattern and this time around I am sewing in the ends as I go.
I have also finished Lucy's Target Square Cushion which I loved doing and I can't wait to do more.
As you can see I am a big fan of Lucy's, sorry about that but I do plan on looking into other crocheting adventures. I have ordered some Stylecraft yarn from the UK as this seems to be the most popular yarn and it seems to be a good price, can't wait for it to arrive. I have promised myself that I am going to finish ALL current crocheting projects before I start something new. Hubs picked the colours so it will be interesting to see how they look when they get here.
Happy knitting
Sharyn
So here I am sitting at the computer and I hear a tap, tap, tap at the window. When that happens it's usually Charlie our cat wanting in. His habit is to tap on the window. So of course when I heard a noise at the window I thought it was him.
I pulled the curtain back to see if it was him, nothing there. Tap, tap, tap again, so I looked again, nothing. I was getting annoyed with him.
It happened again but this time I went to the door to see what was going on. It was a Blue Tongue Lizard at the window not poor old Charlie.
