An antidote to busy.......

Well, it's that crazy busy time of year again, and we have lots to do in this house. 

We were away for a few days last weekend, and had a nice family break, swimming and lounging around reading a great book  (Book 2 of'A song of Ice and Fire' series, I love a good sci fi/ fantasy tale)

It was great, because this week is pretty hectic!.... 

All the usual end of year things and lots of Christmas catch ups and get togethers...... I think more socialising is crammed into these few weeks than six weeks in Winter......  all lots of fun and very enjoyable!

.......having said that, I am freaking out a little bit how I am going to fit in everything I need to do, I haven't bought any presents yet, but there is still a week or so to get that done.......

  

Today - Garden job in the morning (paid work, so very welcome), Catch up in afternoon with friends for a chat and drink, make meringues for school break up party for andre, 

Friday-out all day on bike riding trip with Max's class, basketball Christmas party in evening,

Saturday - SummerHarvest lunch at Community garden (I am catering the lunch, luckily a small group only), Tennis Christmas BBQ in the evening (bringing some sort of salad)

Sunday- big extended family christmas party at my olds place (70 people, and I told mum I'd bring potstickers, fairy bread and cupcakes, and a salad if I had time),

....as well as these organised events, I have a lot of little admin type things that have to get done like booklists and biscuits for teachers, and running Jesse to his job and his friends places and having enough food in the house for extra kids........I am sure I am going to forget things,  I do that even when we don't have this much on!!!

.......deep breath.....

I hope this doesn't sound whingy, I am happy we have lots on and am looking forward to see everyone,

I do like to enjoy the festive season, so I am trying to not get overwhelmed, but there is a lot of cooking coming up in the next few days!! haha...

I thought this is the perfect time to start a new bit of crochet, just the thing to unwind my frazzled brain.

So this is the start of my polka dot squares, I am going to make a cushion cover, it is hard to tell the size from these photos, but they are not that big, so I think 16 will make a good size cushion.

wouldn't mind a big blanket made of these either.......

I have seen some lovely circle in squares crochet blankets recently in blogland, there must be something in the air! ( Sorry, it's after midnight and I can't be bothered finding links to show you what I mean, I am a slack unit!)

I made this pattern up,  as the ones I saw in other blogs used dcs (tr), and I wanted a nice dense weave using scs (dc), I am pretty happy with how it has turned out. I am sure I am not the only one who has made a pattern like this, but I didn't find one in my short little hunt on the internet, and it wasn't hard to figure out for myself.

Thinking of writing a little pattern and tutorial post if anyone would like to have a go themselves.

Probably after Christmas though!!

What have you got on at this time of year, are you busy, busy, busy or are things more cruisey at your place ?(lucky you!! haha..)

See you soon!

Swapping fun and thankyous.....

 My creative space today has not been provided by me, rather it is in the form of this gorgeous shopping bag that Tanya my Kris Kringler made and sent me as my present in the Haby Goddesses Kris Kringle swap.  Aren't I lucky!! The fabric is gorgeous and I love it, thank you, thank you Tanya!!

Speaking of swaps, look at all the goodies I have opened in the Advent swap I am taking part in!!

Vickie, I am having a lot of fun with this and all the presents have been fab, thank you so much!!  This photo is just some of the festive cheeriness I have opened so far.  Good fun all round!

I am off to do some end of year cooking with Max's class this morning, then I want to get stuck into the garden this afternoon, it is a beautiful day here, and I have lots of seeds to plant.  I feel a garden post coming up soon!

see you soon

Christmas (twig) tree..........

Our Christmas twigs looking a bit forlorn and presentless.

 It has been a full on week here, blogging got put on the back burner, but I am back into it now!

I am joining in with My Place and Yours over at the lovely Punky and Me for the first time today, I saw the theme was Christmas and thought I might as well jump on the band wagon!

We did the tree yesterday, I use the term 'tree' loosely, as it is kind of a sticky, leafless version of a tree.   We are going for an airy, eclectic, whimsical Dr Seuss-y feel at our place this year, and this is how it turned out. You may laugh.

It is surprisingly tricky to find suitable twiggy branches that have enough little stubby bits to hang our assortment of children-made, me-made and trashy decorations.  Very tricky indeed.  I thought it would be easy as we live in a kind of bushy place, but gum trees don't make very good stubby branches, too smooth and not branchy enough, and the scrubby undergrowth doesn't yield much in the way of sticks at all.

So our stick collecting was a bit of a fail, I had to resort to the pruned bits of our flowering cherry tree and cut off all the dead leafy bits. But they do work well I think.

We were going to spray paint the sticks, but my son's spray paint stash was down to gold only and it wasn't a very nice shade (looks more like vomit green to me), so we have gone with the naturale colour scheme.

Had to wedge the star off to the side rather than the top, as this was the only bit of suitable Stick Intersection.

Looks good at night though.

Definitely lots of airy bits!......

.....and I think once I do some Christmas shopping and get a few pressies under it, it will look like the super freak tree that it is!!  It will...I just know it.... I promise.....yes it will....I'm sure....

Oh well, the boys think it looks pretty interesting (it got the high praise of 'cool'), so that is the whole point of decorating the Christmas tree anyway, isn't it?

Hope your festive preparations are going well too!

Christmas star crafting.....

 Hello everyone!

I thought I'd show you what I have been making this week, something a bit Christmassy, as December is nearly here!  It is a cute little knitted star, I am loving making these, the little diamonds are quite addictive and I love all the colour combo possibilities!

I was taking a bit of a look around blogland and came across the pattern for these stars 

here at the lovely blog  Dutch Blue,  (now called The Dutch Sisters) of course I had to give it a try!  I have kind of given it a Little Woollie touch, but it is pretty much the same pattern.

And then I noticed that Vanessa at Do You Mind If I Knit  was making the same little diamonds, I'll be interested to see what she does with them, her work is always gorgeous!

I've really enjoyed dusting off the knitting needles for this one, so I thought I'd share my little side track into knitting.......

........so here are some of the little diamonds straight of the needles, lots of lovely colours!  I am using 8ply pure wool for these in a variety of brands, it is a great pattern for using up little straggly bits of wool left over from other things.

.....I like the striped effect, so have made many stripey combinations.

........after a bit of blocking they hold their shape better.......

.......here are some of the colour combos I had fun playing around with (and have yet to finish)....

 .....a Christmassy colourway..........

.......and here is the one I have sewn up so far, I didn't do matching colours for back and front, I like the mix of colours and stripes, I think they all go together .......

.............I decided to crochet my star together instead of sewing right around it, here it is all pinned up ready to be crocheted.......

............and here is the finished star! I am really pleased with how this worked out, and have lots more planned, they are fun, fun, fun!!

I popped 2 nice vintage buttons in the middle, one on each side, so I can hang these babies and let them twirl a bit, this way there is not really a back and a front.

 Haven't got around to hanging it yet, but might do a bit of a bigger ta dah when I have finished a few more and can get a bit more of a massed effect, I envision a lovely dangley display of colourful stars, maybe in a window..........I have a heap of lovely 4ply wool that might be just the thing for some smaller ones too.....hmmmmm.

I have a few other Christmas decoration ideas to try out, so will show you how they turn out when I get around to them!

Back to the clickety clack of my needles, I think my crochet hook is getting jealous..haha

Have  a great day!

Advent Swap......

hello!

So, it's nearly December and look what  arrived here the other day!

My advent swap parcel full of lovely packages, looking very festive and cheery, and with a whole heap of candy canes too!!  The lovely Vickie from Vickies Crafting was my partner for this swap, and I think she has sent a gorgeous parcel of Christmassy happiness!  Thank you so much!  

I have to say the bloggy community is a pretty great one. When I started blogging, I never dreamed it would be such an inspiring, generous, sharing, and rewarding community of people with similar interests, experiences etc, spread all around the world but joined by the blogging experience. Just amazing!

Thank you once again Vickie!  I will do a few showings through December of things as they get revealed I think!

Christmas crafting post coming soon! (just got to finish it first!)

Raspberry jam = yum!

Hello! 

How was your weekend?

From now till Christmas our weekends are looking pretty full, lots of catch ups and parties to attend, and all the end of year school things too, plus a birthday, so we will be busy, busy, busy!!

Saturday it just poured with rain, so I tried to do some housework and tidy the place up as we were having my in laws over for dinner.  Nice pleasant evening, I cooked calamari again, and it was yum!

 Yesterday the rain stopped, so I could pick the raspberries that were ready, I picked 1.7 kg! 

Max was impressed!  It has been a great crop so far this season, all up I have picked 3.9 kg, and there are plenty more to come. 

I decided to make some jam from 1kg of these ones and max and Andre ate the rest, they are loving being able to gorge on raspberries.

 .........very simple recipe, equal sugar to fruit and 2 tbsp lemon juice............

.....low heat till sugar dissolves, then bring to a boil for 15 - 20 minutes,.........

.....pour into sterilised jars while hot and seal!

 ........this is what I ended up with, 5 jars of homemade raspberry jam, 

and I have to say it is pretty damn delicious!!

So I'm feeling quite the little home maker at the moment, loving my little self sufficient morning!

hope you had some fun on your weekend!

PS. Also did quite a bit of crafting, looking forward to showing you what's going on on this front very soon!

Bye.

My Creative Space....red and white......

My creative space today is all about sewing in the loose ends on my red and white bunting and blocking the pieces and crocheting them all together.

This is my contribution to a Kris Kringle swap organised by The Haby Goddess, and it really needs to be finished today for the deadline!  It is a mystery type swap, so I don't know yet who I have to send it to, it is fun making things for strangers, I just hope they like it!

I have also been making a bit of progress on my random stripey Christmas stocking, and with my swap things out of the way I should be able to get this finished this week.  I'm thinking I will put a plain back on it maybe felt or some type of blanket material, I think one side of ultra busyness will be enough.

So, I am starting to make head way on my Christmas crafting,  I just had a call from Gary at work, he has just checked our household budget for the next month and it is not looking great, so I am hoping handmade presents are going to be all the rage this year!!  I am sure Max will love a crocheted Nintendo DS, haha....

If you have some time, have a look over here at the far more creative spaces of lots of others.

Have a great day!