It's Finished!

YAY!  I finished the knitted blanket.  The last buttons went on this morning.

What do you think?  You can't actually see all the little details.  The dark red around the edge is a red flannel with a black swirl pattern.  That fabric covers the whole back.  Where each of the squares meet in the corners is a tiny button.  There are cats, butterflies, stars and hearts.

Ross loves it and has been snuggled under it on the couch already today.  :o)  I am so glad to finally finish it.  Now on to other projects. 

Today my Mum and I went to see the Bangarra Dance Theatre perform "Of Earth And Sky".  My favourite piece was a duet between these two guys.  It was amazing.

It was a birthday pressie for Mum (although her birthday was in April I bought the tickets ages ago).  It was a really interesting mix of contemporary and traditional dance.  We had a great afternoon.

xox

After the Weekend

I had a good weekend.  I did not turn the computer on once.  It has been ages since I have done that and it was actually a really good feeling when I got to last night and realised that without even thinking about it, I had done it.

Friday night Ross & I were meant to go for a hike.  But the torrential rain we have been having, and were still having Friday night, put an end to those plans.  Instead we just spent a lovely evening in.  I was up until 2am reading.  I kept thinking - at the end of this chapter I'll turn out the light - but then I would get sucked in and before I knew it I was in the middle of the next chapter.  So I ended up finishing it. :o)

Saturday I spent at my Mum's.  I needed to use her big table to pin the knitted blanket to the backing fabric.  Since I was there I also ended up using her sewing machine to sew the binding.  Now all I need to do is tie the top to the bottom, which I am doing with cute little buttons.  I am about 1/5th of the way through that.  Hopefully I'll be finished the blanket within the next week or so.  Finally! LOL

Sunday started off beautifully.  Weather wise.  I went out to check on the veggie garden.  The snow peas and dwarf peas at about 2 inches high.  They look sensational.  The lettuces were coming up but one of the cats used it as a litter tray so they are pretty much gone.  I need to get a wire frame to put over to top of the pot before I put more in.  The rest are starting to sprout we think.  We have lost a lot of top soil due to the heavy rains we have had for the last couple of weeks, so I will probably have to put the rest in again.

Around 11.30 the rain kicked in and was settled for the whole day.  We went to the Nursing Home to visit Grandad.  It was hard.  He had no idea we were there.  He has shrunk and has aged about 20 years.  I don't think he has much time left.

Yesterday was especially hard for Ross.  It was his first Fathers Day without his Dad.  And then seeing his Grandad getting so frail before our eyes made it even harder.  But he tried to keep his spirits up.

This morning the last book I ordered from the Book Depository arrived.

Fast Food Nation.  It was one of the one recommended from Food Inc.  I am looking forward to reading it and will let you know what I think when I'm done.

xox

Busy Weekend

I had a great and busy weekend.  It started Friday night with dinner at Mum's.  Well, the real reason I went was to raid her fabric stash, but dinner was an added bonus!  :o)  I grabbed a whole heap of fabric ready to start my hexagon quilt.  I have been planning this quilt for a couple of years, so it is going to be great to actually get started.  We had a great night catching up.

Saturday morning I got stuck into finishing the last knitted square for the the blanket.  I knitted while watching Season 1 of Charmed on DVD.  A great morning.

Around lunch time Ross & I headed out for our hike.  It was a stunning day.  No rain for the first time in a week, and we even saw the sun!  My foot hurt a little going up the hill, although I found going backward helped with that.  Besides, going backwards I got to watch this amazing view unfold before my eyes.

The stitching together of the panorama isn't great (it gets bigger if you click on it), but you can get an idea of how high we climbed and what we could see.

This is Ross right at the top.  Those teeny tiny building in the background sticking up is the city of Adelaide.

There were birds galore out in force and it was just stunning.

Going back down made my foot hurt a tiny bit, but it wasn't too bad.  We got to the point where Ross likes to turn off, however we couldn't get across.

At least, I wasn't prepared to since I don't have waterproof army boots!  (For some reason Blogger won't let me put that photo in the right way up, sorry about the side view...)

We made it round in a couple of hours and had a great time.  I was thinking of going again, but my ankle was a bit twinge-y so I decided to stop there.  I got home and put my foot on an ice pack for a couple of hours while I finished knitting.  The ice pack seemed to really help, and it is feeling good now.

I got the last square done and laid out the blanket how I am going to put it together.  I meant to take a pic of it all laid out, but I forgot.  Sorry about that.

Sunday morning I went to the local quilt shop with Di to get the backing for the blanket.  I got a nice deep red with a black curly line pattern on it.  It will look sensational.  I spent the rest of the day alternating between sewing the blanket together and baking cookies.  I really enjoyed the whole day.

Tonight Ross & I are heading back up to Shep to do another walk.  We leave in 7 weeks, so I need to walk as much as possible in that time.  Either hiking or just walking in general.

xox

Feeling Crafty

I haven't worked on any of my craft projects for ages, and I am currently feeling the crafty bug.  First things first, I need to finish the knitted blankets.  I laid them out and realised the size I was going for is just going to be too small.  So I have a couple of choices here.  I can knit for another year to get enough squares to make them big enough, or I can combine what I have and make one good sized blanket.

One blanket won.  That was the original plan but Ross wanted his own.  I have now convinced him that we can share one good sized blanket and snuggle under it together.  So I counted up my squares and I am 2 squares short.  Well, I was.  I finished another one last night.  So now I only need to do one more square and I can put it together.  YAY!

The other reason I want to finish it (other than I am sick of knitting squares) is that I have not done any quilting for ages.  I have been planning my first hand quilt for a few years (I usually work by machine) and have decided it it time to start.  All my fabric is at Mums so I am heading over there tonight to start picking colours.  I am doing a hexagon quilt and I want it to look like a field of flowers.  This project will probably take me a couple of years (especially the speed I work and how often I get distracted) but I don't mind.  I am looking forward to getting started on it.

I walked again this morning.  And I am feeling better for it.  Tomorrow Ross & I are going hiking.  Just to Shepherds Hill, but it will be good.  The plan is to do 2 loops which should take us a few hours.  It's hard to judge distance, but at a guess I would say 6-7 kms.  I am looking forward to it, and the hills will be a real test for my foot.

I hope everyone has a magnificent weekend.

xox

Knitting, Beading, Cooking

Sorry I have been absent for several days.  I will try and catch up on blogs shortly.

Friday I spent yet another day sick in bed.  I am certain it is related to lack of sleep.  However we now have a baby monitor and take turns having it in our rooms so we can all hear Grandad and we can all get some nights of good sleep.

Yesterday I was feeling a lot better and went to a WEA class to learn to make a scarfe/shawl.  It was called a rainbow scarfe, but that related to the texture of the yarn rather than the colours.  However I decided to relate it to my colours as well.  It was knitted "in the long" which means rather that doing 20 stitches and 200 rows, you do 150 stitches and only 25 rows.

As well as the scarfe/shawl we learnt some beading to go on one end.  I hadn't done beading before so I found it a bit challenging.  I ended up putting it down and concentrating on the knitting.  Mind you, I didn't finish in class. But when I got home last night I finished the scarfe, and I finished the tassels which I was super proud of.  This afternoon I sat down and all of a sudden the beading clicked and I ended up finishing it.  I am really proud of the result and it is a very unique scarfe I now own.

This morning I decided it was cookie baking time.  Mum was coming over for a couple of hours and since we have to sit in the kitchen (Grandad sleeps in the lounge) I thought baking cookies while we visited would be lovely. 

I made Chocolate Sugar Cookies.  The recipe said it made 7 dozen.  It made 10 dozen!  Luckily Ross loves cookies.  They are really yummy, but I am going to experiment with the recipe before I put it up as I think it could be better.

Mum brought over a bag of green veg from her garden.  I opened the bag and stuck my nose in and the first thing I thought was  - SOUP!  So I put the leeks, silver beets and spring onions in some veggie stock with a couple of potatoes and some fresh parsley and fresh spearmint from our herb garden.  I also did up some soup grains (spit peas, barley, lentils etc).  I blended the veg mix and added some cream then put back on the stove with the grains.  The result was fantastic!  I forgot to take a pic, but I will definitely make it again so will snap a pic then.

In all I have had a good weekend.  Thankfully the anxiety from the caffeine withdrawal is pretty much over with.  That was a truly horrible feeling to have all the time.  And hopefully the tummy pains are over with as well.  Am looking forward to getting back on the bike this week and also going for a couple of runs.

xox