The Australian Sheep and Wool Show 2014

 Hello crafty peeps! How was your weekend?  Mine was great!  

Yesterday my man and I went on a drive to Bendigo so I could visit the Wool Show (officially The Australian Sheep and Wool Show I think), I hadn't been there before, and I wanted to check to out this year.

It was a great day, filled with colour, yarny goodness and people who were so enthusiastic about all the stuff I love!  I was pretty much in my element!

I had my first ever try at spinning yarn, something I think could become another addictive hobby. The lady at the stall convinced me that yet another crafty hobby was perfectly alright, so I bought a drop spindle to practice with at home.  A friend of mine has a big bag of fleece shorn from his sheep and has said I can spin that if I'd like, so I had better get practising.  I also got a rundown on how to clean and card the fleece, although I fear it went in one ear and out the other, so that will require more investigation.

And as you might imagine, there was a lot of gorgeous wool! Beautiful, colourful squishy balls of yarny pleasure!  

It was a little overwhelming, and there was almost too many choices, so I actually was quite restrained with my shopping, I did buy some lovely 10ply hand dyed in natural dyes, like brown onion, walnut, red cabbage and madder ( great names I thought!).  I hope I bought enough to make a blanket or at least a pillow case.  I also saw some scrummy alpaca that was in beautiful strong colours, but my budget had been blown by this stage, so I just had to admire it.

There were lots of things for the spinners, huge piles of colourful rovings just waiting patiently to be spun into lovely yarn, lots of spinning wheels and people sitting contentedly spinning amidst the crowds.  I looks very relaxing actually.

Weaving also got plenty of attention and I saw lots of cool looms for sale.  I just wanted one because they are such interesting looking piece of equipment!  Weaving is also on my list of things to try this year.  I had a chat with an artist who made these amazing woven artworks, they were tiny and intricate, and beautiful.  I am going to attend a workshop in August and learn how to weave in miniature with embroidery thread. It looks amazing, very contempory!

There was also plenty of crafty talent on display, most stalls had lovely examples of knitting and crochet and plenty of patterns and kits to get you started.  And a hall of competition knits, crocheted things and spun yarn, it was interesting to see which pieces had won prizes, it was hard to tell which items were the best to be honest, I think the judges would have had a difficult time deciding.

 I had a nice chat with the ladies on the Machine knitting display and have rekindled my interest in having a go at this.  I am not having my luck finding a machine, I keep getting out bid on Ebay, and it doesn't help that I am not really sure what I am looking for!  Apparently there is a machine knitting group in Koo Wee Rup that I should get in touch with, that's reasonably close by, so must put that on my to do list too!

  

It was quite an inspiring day, my brain was buzzing with all the things I want to do!  My patient husband got quite the crafty ear bashing on the way home but managed to seem reasonably interested in my chatter!  (he didn't actually come to the show with me, happy to drive me there and preferring to explore Bendigo for a few hours by himself , he's a good guy!).

I stopped by the Knitting Mills before we left Bendigo and stocked up on a few bargains from the back room, and somehow quite a bit of colourful 4ply found it's way into my basket, I have a few crafty plans for that stuff! 

We also visited Maldon on the way back for a late lunch, oh I love that town so much!  One of my favourite spots to visit when up Bendigo way.  They have great pies too! :)

So all in all a lovely day out. 

I hope you had a good weekend, did you have a fun one too? 

Talk soon!

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

lovely days....

 

Hello.

I have to say, I'm loving Winter so far, the days this week have been pretty much perfect winter days, we have had some gorgeous foggy starts that turn into brilliant sunshine and it is so still!  Yes, it has been very chilly, but that's what all the jumpers we have are for, and I am all for getting cosy and warm in front of a fire too.

I have been trying to make the most of the good weather, I'm sure it won't last long, and have been going down to the beach in the mornings after the boys have left for school and having a longish walk, just soaking up the sun and enjoying a quiet start to the day. ( I am also trying to get a bit more exercise into my day!) It is so peaceful and a good way to declutter the head.  This is the Balnarring beach the other morning, as you can see it's a good place for a bit of solitude, I think I saw two other people on the beach that day!  (I did see three lovely dolphins swimming across the bay, leisurely diving in and out of the water not far from the shore, a real treat ).  Think I will do the same thing tomorrow morning too.  It is also a good reminder of how lucky we are to live in such a beautiful environment, something that is easy to take for granted.

Yesterday Gary had the day off work, so we went for a drive up to Bendigo and I bought some wool from the Knitting Mills, I'm still in a bit of a pastel phase at the moment, but I did also get a nice blue/grey for my new 'wheels in wheels' blanket.  I am going to have a go at turning the circles into squares soon.

Just on another note, I am seeing that Google Reader is shutting up shop in a couple of days, so if you use that reader to check in here, you might have to follow me with Bloglovin' or another blog reader instead to keep getting my posts. I think it will be interesting to see how my visitors here change, I wonder if there will be a big drop off?

Anyway, I will have a nice colourful post for you next, I have been cracking on with my new blanket and am going to show you my progress tomorrow!  (It is too late to take photos here today, but the days will slowly start to get longer from now, we have just passed the winter solstice!)

Have a lovely day, I hope you are enjoying some time outside in beautiful weather too!

Talk soon!

xxxx

Summer Crochet....Name Bunting

Hello there!

It has been a very hot day here, so the boys and I went to visit some family on Phillip Island, about an hour away from here.  We spent a very pleasant morning on the beach, the water was really nice and refreshing and we had fun catching waves and generally frolicking around.  Then we had a sun bake, some lazy reading and chatting on the beach, catching up with my cousins who I don't see very often, a lovely day indeed.  I was going to take some photos of our day, but when I went to use my camera I found the card thingy was missing. Doh!

So instead I am showing you pictures of some name bunting that I made for my nieces, supposedly for Christmas, but actually  finished a few days late.

The pattern was based loosely on the one in Granny Chic by dottie angel, although I had to make it a fair bit bigger and I added the scalloped edging for a bit more colour. 

(You can never have too much colour!)  :)

The colours look quite different inside.

I am pretty pleased with these little banners, I think they will look really cute and vintagey on the girls' doors.  

 I am also doing quite well with my big blanket progress, so hope to have an update for you later in the week.  I am very sorry for the slow progress of updates for my CAL, hopefully you ladies who have stuck it out are not too upset with me and have other projects to go to in the mean time, or better still are making it up as you go along, kind of like what I do!  Anyway, I am trying to get a fair bit done over the next few nights, we are in for a couple of scorcher days and nights, so I think I will try and get some crochet done when it's too hot to sleep.

Till next time, 

Bye Bye!

Polkadot Square Pattern ( at last)

Hello!

How are you going today?  It's the last day of school holidays here and I am putting off ironing the school shirts that have sat in the ironing basket since before Christmas.  I'll probably end up ironing them while the boys have their showers in the morning.  Nothing like the last minute to get things done in my house!

So I am writing this instead.  Much more important.

You might remember these polkadot squares that I crocheted a while ago?  Or you may not.

Anyway, I have finally finished writing the pattern down and doing  a little photo tutorial on how I made them.  It is very simple, and you probably don't need a tutorial, but I thought it might help if you are just starting out in crochet.

I will put the pattern at the bottom of this post if you just want to skip straight to the concise version.

Ok here we go,  happy hooking and good luck!

POLKADOT SQUARES

This is for a circle in a square type granny, using single crochet sts to create a nice solid piece.  I didn't want it to be 'gappy'.  It is easy too play around with colour combos and different stripey effects too.

I used a 3.5 mm hook and 8 ply Bendigo Knitting Mills Cotton in a variety of colours, but you could try this in any yarn I think.

This pattern is in US. stitches, sorry UK ladies, for you, sc =dc, hdc =htr, dc =tr 

round 1

First, Chain 4 and slip stitch to 1ch to make a ring/circle.

Rd 1 : Ch1 (counts as first st) then do 5 sc into ring.Sl st to first ch to close round.  (6st in total)

Rd 2 : Ch1 (counts as first st) then 1 sc in same stitch, then 2 sc in each st to end. Sl st to first ch to close round. (12 st in total)

round 3

Rd 3 : Ch 1,* 2sc in next st, then 1sc in next, * , continue pattern around. Sl st in first ch to close round.  (18 st in total)

round 4

 Rd 4 : Ch 1,  sc in next st, then *  2sc next st  then sc in next 2st * continue pattern around. Sl st  in first ch to close ring. (24 st in total)

round 5

 Rd 5 : Ch 1, sc in next 2st, then *2sc in next st, then sc in next 3st * continue pattern around, sl st in first ch to close  (30 st in total)

round 6, and changing colour step 1

 Rd 6 : Ch 1, sc in next 3st, then *2sc in next st, then sc in next 4st * continue pattern around, sl st to close.  (36 st in total)

 I changed colour  at the end of this round to add a stripe of dark blue for rd 7.

This is how I change colours so it is a subtle, smoothish join.

In the last sc of Rd 6, before you do the yarn over and pull through, change to the new colour....

changing colours step 2

 ...and pull it through the old colour loops.  Pull the old colour yarn gently to tighten the stitch, and slip stitch in the first ch with the new colour to close the round. Continue with next round as normal.

changing colours step3

 I leave the old colour still connected and just change back when I want a different stripe.

(does that make sense??)

round 7

  Rd 7 : Ch 1, sc in next 4 st, then* 2sc in next st, then sc in next 5 st * continue pattern around, sl st to close, changing colour back to light blue at end of round. (42 st in total)

round 8

 Rd 8 : Ch 1, sc in next 5 st, then *2sc in next st, then sc in next 6 st* continue pattern around, sl st to close round . (48 st in total)  Bind off.   ( inner circle completed)

round 9 pattern repeat x4

  ( Squaring up) Rd 9 :  Join 3rd colour (green) in any stitch, to create the 4 corners of the square, repeat the following pattern 4 times - 3sc, then 3hdc, then 3dc in next st, then 3hdc, then 2sc.

Sl st to first ch that counted as first sc, to close round.

round 9 complete

This is how it is looking at this point. ^

round 10

Rd 10 :*2 sl st, then 4 sc, then 1hdc, then 4dc in next st, then 1 hdc, then 4sc, then 1 sl st,* do this 4 times , Sl st to first st to close.

round11 finished!!

Rd 11:  ch 1, then sc around in all sts, except in each corner st where you do 2hdc,ch1,2hdc.

Bind off.  And I think that is it!

Abbreviated pattern:

Ch4, join to 1st ch to make ring.

rd1: sc6 into ring

rd2: 2sc in each st all around (12 st)

rd3: 2 sc in next st, then 1sc in between, all around (18 st)

rd4: 2sc in next st, then 2sc in between, all around (24 st)

rd5: 2sc in next st, then 3sc in between, all around (30 st)

rd6: 2sc in next st, then 4sc in between, all around (36 st)

rd7: 2sc in next st, then 5sc in between, all around (42 st)

rd8: 2sc in next st, then 6sc in between, all around (48 st)

rd 9: (3sc, 3hdc, 3dc in next st, 3hdc, 2sc) x4

rd10: (2slst, 4sc,1hdc, 4dcin next st, 1hdc, 4sc, 1slst) x4

rd11: sc around ,with 2hdc,1ch,2hdc in each corner st. bind off.

--------------------------------------------

I hope you understand what I mean, I found it hard trying to write instructions, so it might be hard to follow. I hope not. Another thing, I also varied where I put the increases in my circles when I found it was getting too hexie shaped, as long as you keep the right number of sc in between increase stitches, you can put them anywhere.

To make a cushion cover, I made 16 of these and single crocheted them together, like patchwork.

Haven't finished the back yet, but will show you it when I'm done.

Please, if you find any mistakes in this, forgive me! And let me know and I will try and fix it up.

Have a great day!

day tripping haul.....

Hello!!

The other day Gary had a day off work so we decided to do a day trip to the country. We headed towards Bendigo so I could visit the woollen mills and replenish my stash......

I found lots of lovely wool that I couldn't resist!

I picked up a bargain with the mint green balls in the plastic bags at the front, it is the exact same wool I use heaps of, just without the labels, and it is a discontinued colour and one of my favourites, so I have been trying to stock up when I see it in wool shops before I can't get it any more. Anyhoo, there it was sitting on a shelf in the infamous bargain back room, bags and bags of my favourite wool! Usually around $5.80 a ball, here $2.50 a ball. Yay! I've stocked up!!

Also picked up quite a few other bits and pieces that should keep me busy for a while. We stopped in at Kyneton on the way back, and the wool shop there 'Pick up Stitches' was having a sale, so I found a few more balls to take home with me!

Stay tuned for lots of new stuff from this haul!