Sunday 9 November 2008

oh yeah....


I went on a bit of a yarn bender on Saturday too....well Tapestry Craft had 30% off all their yarn....so, yum....I've got another 9 knitting projects to whip up in the next few months.


Great expectations

I was speaking to my gorgeous niece 3 on Friday and told her I'd made her a dress….there was quite on the phone and then "mummy, mummy rissa's made me a new dress"….followed by much dropping of the phone, squeeee'ing and dancing around.

Well, since Friday's conversation, Miss Nearly 4 has it in her sweet pea head that the dress is for her party which is in early December, not Christmas like I explained….so now I have been charged with a most important responsibility….creating a party frock fit for a girl's first ever friends from school birthday party!!

Here's the fabric that I've picked out….so I'm thinking it's going to be a bit cute!

Sunday 2 November 2008

A Boy causes a rethink.

We found out last week that we're having a little boy, which hasn't made any of this being pregnant business feel any more real, well apart from still feeling nauseous and my stomach muscles being stretched and distended in ways that I'm not entirely happy about.

It didn't matter to us either way, boy or girl in fact I had no prior inkling to what das blob might have been. So many people are surprised because they were convinced it was a girl though! Thing is it's thrown me into a bit of a "hmm, what do I knit/sew/make now" tizz, with 4 nieces I'm so used to looking at all things girly and I've never really made things for my nephew who is now 2.


So many patterns I look at are just that lil bit too feminine, especially everything in my pattern collection anyway! I did happen upon a good Patons baby book, with lots of "boy" patterns, so there's a very sweet blue jumper on the needles at the moment.



Christmas is fast approaching, much to my horror and this weekend I've made a HUGE effort to get the sewing for mini-nieces projects happening, and one dress is done except for the hem!
Yep, the new sewing machine that's been in my possession for over a year now has finally been switched on and is now sewing happily away and it's a dream to use, I'm so disappointed with myself for not using it sooner. I enjoy the sewing part, it's just the laying and cutting out and pinning and presing that slows down the process.


My nephew’s Pirate jumper has had the back finished, which seems to have taken forever. The constant "morning sickness", even at week 19, has truly sapped any interest for doing anything right out of me, but as it slowly subsides I can summon the will to do a bit more every day.

This jumper has been a bit love/hate for me as well, I'm not enjoying knitting with the yarn, Bendigo Classic, it's soooooo spiltty that I'm having to use bamboos for a start, not my beloved knitpicks, and the yarn has left dye all over the needles, which has been freaking me out seeing as it's a black jumper with a big white skull and cross bones on the front. But I was a good girl last night and knit up a striped swatch of the black, white and red and gave it a damn good soaking and mess about today AND the results have been pleasing, no bleeding, no extra dye in the water, so it's full steam ahead with this Christmas project, seeing as we're having the family get together early this year and everything has to be finished before the 13th December!!


Ok, so this gives me about 5 and a bit weeks to sew 5 niece number 4 dresses and 5 niece number 5 tops, as well as smash a pirate jumper and knit a pirate panda. Thank god nieces 1 and 2 are too big for naff auntie rissa-made pressies and I can buy them things!!

Monday 9 June 2008

Eliza is toasty

Someone finally got her blanky today....


Found the mouse....


And the snakes in the fridge....

Wednesday 4 June 2008

Broken Toes say Hello Eliza

Two things happened last night!

First and the best, I have a new niece, Miss Eliza Joan made her big debut finally after many months of ups and down.

AND after 35 years walking this earth....i officially have my first ever broken bone! Running for the phone for the latest Eliza news the little toe on my left foot kind of connected with a door frame, causing much swearing and frowny faces! Then much swelling and brusing....and x-raying to reveal a fabulous fracture! Doctor says it'll take about 3 weeks to heal and I have to keep off it for a few days, minimum....PAH....not when I'm cooking a Mexican Feast for 12 on Saturday night....hmm, might have to do a quick menu review.

Anyway....time to sit on my butt in front of foxtel and do some knitting!!!!!

Monday 5 May 2008

And again

Thought I'd give you all a break from tales of knitting....


Sunday 4 May 2008

Sunday 27 April 2008

We have a new neighbour....

Meet Tallula, she thinks our yard is also hers.






Special Socks

WOOOO!!!....I’ve done it….a SOCK KNITTING CLASS….and no surprises, but I’m in love with the idea of knitting a million, billion socks. Mel taught me the magic loop method of knitting in the round….which is awesome….just one 80cm circ required, none of these clumsy, fumbly dpns!!!....couldn’t be easier!

Below is the mini sock that we knitted in class, it’s teeny, tiny and ok, it’s a lil misshapen, so if you know any teeny, tiny people that only have one club foot, man do I have the sock for them!!



And another scary photo, my first attempt at Kitchener Stitch (type of grafting for you knitting noobs)….hmm, not so good, so I think I’ll be sticking to a 3 needle bind off.



So with all these new found heel turning skills, it’s only right that I should start stock piling some divine sock yarns….the colours in the new Noro Kureyon Sock Yarn are just TO DIE FOR….it feels complete rubbish to knit with because of the coating that’s on the yarn….it’s soooooo grippy it tangles all over the place….but I’ve been assured it washes out!!....and besides the colours are just TO DIE FOR.



Before I cast on 10 million pairs of socks that will only ever get half knit, there’s still a lil Eliza baby blanket that needs finishing….almost half way there. Just finish the ball I’m working with now and it’s all decreasing from there!....and seeing as Eliza could make her appearance anywhere between now and 6 weeks time, I need to get onto that down hill run pretty damn soon. (Been saying that for a while now….ACK!!!) ....DAMN YOU SOCKS!


mmm toasty....

Monday 10 March 2008

There’s a Munchedroom in my garden


I’m guessing this is another side effect of all the rain we’ve been having? A munched on mushroom, the cross sections very cool though, like the fairies needed more light from in the middle of the lemon thyme jungle, so they smashed a hole through a wall of their house!



Spotted bulbs at K-Fart over the week, so I bought a few packs to fill the garden full of spring colour….just have to plant the suckers before we leave for NZ….otherwise I’ll just keep putting it off.

Nothing mush else is happening around here, except for too many hours on WoW and knitting (of course). Got stuck back into my lil soon to be niece’s blanky on Saturday night, the increasing width is starting to hit the mindless knitting zone though, so I usually need a wine or two to keep me motivated.

The noro stripes are striping away. I know many months ago I was banging on about how icky Noro was to knit with, well I've changed my mind and I'm currently on a Noro of all types bender....it really is the colours that do it to you.


and the knitting ADHD has reared it’s head again :


I tried not to, but I’ve started on the new Zephyr pattern 2830, using the yarn that I bought for my Lady Eleanor, but it’s so perfect for this cardi, I’m not that fussed….I’ll be making a few modifications to the pattern though, like another good 10cms in length! I’m too scared to add it to Ravelry though, I hate seeing all my languishing WIPS (well, there is only 2-3 at the moment that have really been neglected, the other’s are all fairly fresh)

And hey it’s a good excuse to go and purchase some more Silk Garden for the entrelac, when I finally get some other things finished!

Monday 3 March 2008

Washed Away

Below is a pic we took of the water rushing through our backyard , during the spot of hail/ torrential downpour we had last Tuesday night….just insane!


Apart from that, I've been busy learning how to crochet, did a class with mum on Saturday at Tapestry Craft. My first out of class attempt wasn't too bad, if you don't look at the weird bulging edge. The pointy sticks have nothing to fear, there's no way the ol' crochet hook will every become competition. The whole craft still feels a bit awkward, but I’m getting the hang of it.


There might be a scarf or two produced but that might be the extent of it. Guess I really wanted to learn how to do it for knitting, where they use some crocheting tricks to finish things off. I did manage half a granny square and I think I’m ok with them too….just going to have to practice a bit more. After the class I’ve even developed an appreciation of acrylic yarn….only for practice crocheting purposes though!


I finally made something out of the Cute Book. Truth be known, Bunny is a couple of weeks old, I just haven’t got around to posting anything about her yet. I had grand plans of making heaps of these lil critters for people, was even toying with the notion of making a wall hanging from them, but man are they fiddly and time consuming to make. Still, very very CUTE!....however I'll be sticking to knitting for now.

Monday 25 February 2008

I know I've been quiet

I’ve been a bit remiss lately with my lack of all things bloggy. There’s been no particular reason, except for laziness and knitting.

Caught up with some friends Friday night and one of them mentioned that they’d found my blog and was now cyber stalking me….well more like asking how the garden was going and I felt that I’d better post something!

So what’s been happening?

The garden’s a bit of a mess after all the rain we’ve been having, the cucumber and bean seedlings all rotted off and all my tomatoes have split on the vines because of all the extra water. It’s herb madness though and I’ve had to chop back the basil and mint. And the weeds have been loving it too.



You can see a couple of sad bird pecked tomatoes hanging on the vine in the pic....so my dreams of living on nothing but salad fresh from garden of the McLaughlin household have been dashed for this season….I’ll just have to start again next spring.

I did add a blood orange tree to my citrus collection so now the lemon has a friend.

Knitting has been going well, in the last couple of weeks I’ve gotten back into wielding the pointy sticks with gay abandon. The Clapotis is finally done, just the ends to weave in. I’ve managed to knock off the balls of Noro Aurora I had laying about, only thing is I really need another ball, so I’ll grab another one at Tapestry Craft when I do the beginners crochet class next weekend. I’ve started 2 other scarves as well, one with some sock yarn and the other is the Noro Stripe Scarf, that I’ve been obsessing about for a couple of weeks now. Also a baby blanket has been started for Eliza, my new bubby niece who will be making her way into the world sometime in June.




There are few other unfinished objects in the knitting basket that have been languishiung for a while, so once I finish off these couple of projects I’ll sort them out too, so there are few less WIPs on my Ravelry page!

I photographed the last of the undocumented stash the other week, bringing the total to about 63, which is slightly scary. I know I did make a pledge that I’d only knit from my stash a while back, but let’s face it as every knitter knows, that ain’t going to happen anytime soon. And besides, I need to buy more pink baby yarn to little pink things.

Tuesday 8 January 2008

It's all over!

The Festive Season has just whirled by in a blink and miss it kind of way. I didn’t take any time off work, so this just added to the speed at which it all happened.

Christmas time with my nieces and nephew is always lovely, they have such a great time playing together and they love getting presents, so it’s all very exciting. I love getting together with mum, dad and my sisters and brother-in-laws too, seeing as everyone’s left me in Sydney and lives on the Central Coast now, I don’t see them as much as I’d like.

Working and having days off mid-week completely throws me, I kept thinking it’s Monday or Friday, even though I’ve only been at work 2 days, or had one day off. Hubby asked me when we’d done something….and it felt like I had no concept of time.

There was a first this Christmas too....I decided to try my hand at making truffles and I’m pretty chuffed with the way they turned out, seeing as I didn’t have a lot of time in the lead up to the festivities to dedicate to making them!!....I made pistachio and orange in white chocolate, violet in milk chocolate and raspberry in dark chocolate (even found some freeze dried powdered raspberries to dust them in, very decadent.)



At least the days off have given me a chance to get in and work in the garden a bit. The weeds pop up so quickly and everything becomes a carpet of green, just not all of it a good green. Although, the herbs are going mad and we’ve had a few handfuls baby tomatoes off the vine, wrapped in fresh basil and tied with garlic chives….YUM!!!

The babies above are going to be tossed through some pasta with fresh basil, garlic and pine nuts for dinner tonight.

Planted some bean and cucumber seeds a couple of weeks ago and they’re big enough to be planted on for hardening before hitting the garden. And the repeat harvest lettuce kind of look more like leaves than just sprouts. I’m hoping for a late summer, seeing as it’s been pretty non-existent so far, because I’ve taken a punt and have sewn some more tomato seeds as well, very late in the season!

As for New Years Resolutions, well….pfft, I’ve never really made them before and if I have I’ve never come close to keeping them. You don’t know how many times I’ve vowed to clean out my wardrobe, or knit more or bead more or even go for regular pedicures. So sod it, the only thing I’ve decided I’m going to do this year is learn how to knit socks (oh and get back to pilates/yoga) :p