Hi everyone
I will not be able to post for a week or two while dealing with a mountain :-), but I will be back asap.

Now what else do you do with a beautiful sunny morning at 7.30 am in our "supposed winter" (the temperature was about 23 degree Celcius ........

when you have a bag of goodies like this .......

which are building up into these ....... I really should work out how many I need to make, but at the moment I just want to methodically work them up, join them up and then see how it turns out - no planning :-)

Bye for now

Simple Things

Just a quick thought for today ...... I was thinking its the simple things in life that we enjoy.

For me one of these is having freshly air & sun laundered sheets to sleep on - so good.

Anyone else having these sorts of ideas?

Bye

Hex part 3

Hi everyone or anyone :-)
Below is some colour inspiration I had when I decided to make a crocheted blanket. My D2 bought this back from Mexico as a gift for me about 6 years ago. I may have even bought the lounge to go with this blanket!!! While I can't match the colours in this blanket and still stick with my affordable Aussie yarn, I am happy with what I came up with.


Here is my third and last lot of colour choices for the blanket. From BWM Luxury 8 ply - Baby Blossom, Purple Storm and Leaf

And here are the colours in the initial work up.

Now the weird thing for me is that I love the above colour combination!!! Ok you say why not - well..... purple and pink are not colours I particularly like. But I do love how this combination work.

The other weird thing is Hex Part 2 colours. While red is one of my favourite colours, blue & lavender is not (except for the lovely flower and the scent mmmmm). But in this colour combination I loved the blue and the lavender and the red did not sit right with me.

But as I work more of the combinations it is all coming right and I now still love my red's.

Will give you glimpses along the way of the colour combinations.

I also started this blanket with an idea for a rainbow coloured, crocheted, not square blanket. Now I can't wait to see how it come together.

And, yes, the ripple blanket is still waiting for some attention. Not like me to start more than one project and not finish it before the next. But I have an URGENT!!!! need for colour in my life.

See you soon

Wool

This is a tea-towel I recently bought. I so loved the colours and so wish I could get them in wool. And I love our green tree frogs. Did I mention that we had one living in our outdoor bathroom when we visited Broome. So very cute

This is my second order of yarn from Bendigo Woollen Mills for the Hex Granny

And this is what they are becoming .....

Now I should mention why I am using Bendigo Woollen Mills. I am very proud Aussie and I know we grow some of the best wool in the world. So when I finally got back into knitting and crochet I went looking for some of our own wool. The world is becoming very small and most of the yarn available was imported from overseas, at the time I also did not have a LYS anywhere near me. So internet was the next option, not quite as good for the feely, touchy part but at least it was an option. I noticed in a few Australian blogs that BWM was being mentioned, so I had a look and after a year placed an initial order. The delivery was quick and the Luxury yarn is so soft and yummy. The yarn is from Australian Merino sheep and BWM is an Australian company. That way I can keep my spending in my own country - Yippee. Did I also mention that the yarn is also a great price!!!! Depending on which yarn it works out about $3 per 50g balls (their balls are 200g so about $11.50). Absolutely great value!!!! Double Yippee

I should warn anyone else interested in using BWM - please ask for a shade card first (they send it out free). The colours on their online store are not close matches to the actual colour you received.

So my Hex Granny has become the colours available in their Luxury range, not quite matches to my inspiration. But BWM inspiration!!!!

My blogging may become erratic over the next month as a mole-hill became a mountain, but I will try to come back often. Maybe I will have some followers by then :-)

Bye for now

Colour Inspiration

Good morning

Well this weekend we went to The Stitches & Craft Fair. Not enough yarn, but so many other temptations, ideas, colours. I did fairly well as I only came away with 3 Xmas decorations and a burner for Scent Logs (wax with fagrance) to make home smell beautiful. The burner was something I wanted but just never seemed to remember to buy.

We then went to see my poor Rabbitohs get slaughtered by the Panthers with DH, D2 & her partner, who is a BIG Panther supporter. It was a long trip home with him gloating.

Sunday was a very quick trip up the coast so DH could have a chat with his sons and then home.

There was also more back-burning before the start of the fire season to watch.

I have this ...

Clockwise from top - Bendigo Woollen Mills Classic 5 ply Celery, Luxury in 8 ply Orange, Citrus & Forest.

Which I worked into these ....My version of the Hex Granny Blanket

Bye for now

Hi everyone - just a quick post
I looked up from the computer, out past the balcony - to see all this smoke haze. Not good - fire somewhere. And we are nowhere near the danger season. A little rain please. Bye

Hi everyone - well no-one so far but me :-). Anyway, if you have not noticed yet you will find that I tend to write in point form - brief and succinct (well I hope it is succinct), so I will tend to use photos for more explanation.

My weekend involved a lot of water. The photos are in the wrong order, but here is what I did.



On Sunday, me, DH, D2 travelled to Caves Beach to see D1 for her birthday. D1 & D2 share the same birthday and year. So we had a lovely lunch at D1's house. Caves Beach is about 110km from where we live in Sydney (which is the north side of Sydney). The trip took us about 75 minutes each way. Below is the view from D1's house (the coal loader at Newcastle seems to be still backed up).

On Saturday, me, DH & his parents met in Sydney and went to King St Wharf. We had lunch at James Squire Brewhouse and chatted and watched the world and boats go by. Wonderful way to spend a sunny day. James Squire, a convict, was our nations first brewer of beer!! First lots were illegal and he was punished. Then the heirarchy decided to make it official as they enjoyed it!!!

Bye for now

Inspiration

Hi everyone

While browsing for a pattern to make a granny blanket that was not continually going around or small squares I came across this site Attic24: Hexagon How-to: http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00e551101c548834010535d3f1c8970b. Lucy is amazing for with her abilities and her colour schemes. I was inspired to make my own using my version of Aussie Merino Luxury from Bendigo Woollen Mills.

More to come.

I am trying to make a link like everyone else does with out knowing how :-)

Bye for now

Well that did not work out how I hoped - onto another method

Worked it out - amazing what you learn when you read the help files :-)

Hi everyone
At the moment I am not in employment and no little children under foot - Yippee I hear a lot of you say and I totally agree. But I needed to find something to do with myself, so after years of not crafting I decided to get back into it. I also had a very deep urge to help those who are not as lucky as I am at the moment. So it seemed like karma was in the air when I found the Knit 4 Charities website http://www.freewebs.com/knit4charities/

It seemed exactly what I was after - it is mainly for Australian charites, they make sure that the items are given to those who really need them and I am crafting. My MIL gave me 2 very large bags of yarn and I have been creating !!!

Below is a crocheted scarf and a knitted beanie both done in 2 x 8ply acrylic. A charity lap/baby blanket done in 8ply acrylic

After living in a very large house which could cope with 2 adults and 5+ children (their partners and friends) and living very, very close to the beach - only a very large sand dune in between on the Central Coast of NSW to now living in an apartment on the top floor (10th) in an area much closer to DH's work in Sydney suburbs and only 1 daughter & fiance (temporarily living with us).

This is the view from our balcony early in the morning. The mist is the valley at the southern part of the Central Coast. It is the end of winter here, but as we face east the balcony is lovely and warm from about 9-11 am.

And back to travel - below is a Quokka. They are only found on Rottnest Island which is just off Perth. About a 1/2 hour trip from Perth by cat. As this is the only place they are found they have free range of the entire island (only 24 km total round trip by road). Visitors are asked not to feed or pet them. They are comfortable with visitors as you can see - lucky we had no food in our bag.

This is the view from where the ferry docks at the wharf at Rottnest Island. You can see Perth in the background. And all the yellow blobs are buoys. It will be chocka's in summer with boats tied up to every buoy.

Rottnest is a beautiful place. Sailors would love it with all the beautiful bays and I only saw half the island!!!! One of the activities here is the ability to cycle around the island. They have bike hire here. I could only make it half way around.

I will not show the photo of me pushing the bike up a very small hill - not good. I was told the island was flat, but there are small hills. Well they were hills to me, may be bumps to others!!!! To a 19 year old (last time my DH visited the island) the island was flat. To a 48 year old, way overweight, unfit lady it was mountainous!!!!!!!

This was my very first trip to the western part of Australia and I loved it.

Bye for now

Hi everyone

About 2 years ago I decided to stash-bust (not that I have a lot, but I hate to leave it lying around) and keep myself busy.

Red and green are my favourite colours. It signifies Xmas and my favourite NRL team - the South Sydney Rabbitohs. Not that I follow the NRL much now as there are way, way too many money-hungry people fouling up a great game. No loyalty to clubs by players!! Enough said.

Originally I used up what I had which made it into a lapghan size of about 30 inches. My daughter also barracks for them and her partner for Penrith Panthers. He decided the colours were for his team!

But they obviously want it much, much larger. It will be interesting to see how the colours come up with the new yarn I ordered from Bendigo Woollen Mills - its Aussie yarn).

Have a great day

Hi everyone - this will be my first real post (intro just does not count) and I seem to be having trouble sorting out my photos, so I will just talk about them as they have loaded.

But firstly - Yahoo - Go Aussie Go - Good on the Australian Cricket Team for the win at Headingly (I think that is spelt right) bring the Ashes home!!!!!!

My baby ripple blanket - stash busting and trying out a pattern. It is made from cotton, the green is 4ply doubled, cream is 4ply mixed with the green and the white is 8ply. Did I mention it was crocheted - oops










After wanting to get to Western Australia and especially Broome for a very, very, very, long time I finally got there - Yipppeee!!!!

This is the Kimberley Cup at Broome Turf Club - not much in the way of grass, but plenty of red dirt.
Wonderful day and the people were so very friendly.










A panoramic shot of Cable Beach - the sand is very white compared to the red dust everywhere else.

And just one of the beautiful sunsets that the west has to offer sailing just off Cable Beach, Broome.

What a fantastic day we had!!! Everybody on board was out to celebrate the day!

I finally got to visit the birthplace of my grandfather - Raymond COHEN and the final resting place of my great-great-grandfather - Benjamin COHEN - Perth!!!!

It is a very long trip from where I live on the east side of Australia. A flight of about 5 hours. Driving time would be 3 solid days of driving for at least 12 hours per day.

We then had another flight of 2 hours 15 minutes to get to Broome!!! Tiring but well worth it.

Definitely a place I would love to explore more of. It was very easy to get around Perth and Broome. Public transport was fairly well defined and help was usually at hand. More photos to come

And I have to say although the trip to Perth was planned, my DH surprised me with the trip to Broome for our anniversary!!!

This enables me to now cross of two items on my Bucket List - visiting Perth & Broome!!! What a start

Bye for now

Introduction

This is the start of something entirely new for me - blogging!!!

I have been reading so many other bloggers and enjoyed them so much I thought I would give it a go.

I will talk from time to time about a few of my current hobbies and pastimes, maybe some family thrown in for variety.

My hobbies include genealogy, knitting, crocheting, reading and especially travel.