House shots

So we bought an older house when we got to NZ. Its in fairly good nick considering its nearly 40 years old, but there is a huge section of land (1012m2) and next to nothing on it.

So we have kicked in and starting doing a few things!


Here is my herb garden - I bought the old laundry tub of trade me for $25, not sure if that was expensive or not, but until we get a vege garden up and running, seemed like a good option. I like it - and the kids are having fun pulling the stone wall apart.

Here is the shade sail. We bought it pretty much unused from the girl guides back home, and then bought the 4 poles for about $30 each, and I dug the holes and we concreted them in about 1m each. Its great - and once we get the gardens all put in around the area and the yucky trees ripped out, it will be even nicer. I'm hoping to mainly have natives in the garden, unfortunately at the moment everything we have in the garden is native to other countries!! Not sure I want the lillypillies..... They have awful roots and their flowers attract lots of bees, which sucks next to kids play areas!


Here is the back yard. As you can see - completely blank canvas!!! We need to put an orchard in the back somewhere and resow the grass after levelling the ground. In 5 years it will be totally cool!!!



This is the deck that Shane has started putting on. Day 4-5 of The Great Deck Build..... fun fun fun!!! It will be wonderful once its done, but unfrotunately the nail gun has died, and he is having to nail by hand - not happy jan!!



And here are the kids shots. Hamish being just like Dad. First the screwdriver, then the beer can. Kids!!!




So no socks finished yet - but I have been busy!! I also made some curtains for our room, and a blind is nearly finished. I have got about 10% through my sock that has to be finished in 4 days. But its really hard when Shane is busy working and the kids want in then out then in then out.... Enough excuses - I have dinner to make!

I finished a sock!!

Finally one of my Hedera socks is done. I am in a sock a month KAL, and I dont think I am going to get another sock done in the next 6 days, but who knows - stranger things have happened!!!

It fits perfectly, and its my first lace project, so there are a couple of mistakes, but nothign too major. Probably the one I am going to regret te most is that the heel isn't *that* tightl knit, so it wont wear as well as it could have if I had knitted to gauge like the rest of the sock.




Oh well - 6 days.... I'd better get the otehr one cast on!!

Jenna and the new puss!

This is Dermot. Named for Dermot Brereton - the Hawthorn AFL player.



He is really pretty darned cute - a silver tabby burmese, he's about 16w old now - and got fixed earlier this week, and has started to go outside. He's a lovely boy, but he is still pretty scratchy to me and the kids. Funnily enough he adores Shane, and sits on his lap when the kids go to bed of a night.

While Noni was nice (and still is) Dermot is a little legend, and its nice to have a burmese back in the family again. Jenna is enjoying him too.

More dyeing

This is my second batch of dyed wool. I'm happy with most of it. Its hard when some is great, and some is poxy, and then a couple of them are somewhere in the middle.



I just hope it sells!!!

No photos, just some blurb

No photos... Not that I haven't been doing anything - just my batteries are flat and I can't be f**d

So some musing instead.

Went to the super market today and saw 2 women (ex mums staff) that I haven't seen in years!!! It was lovely - hugs all round, which was really nice, and some lovely things were said. Gave me fuzzies inside. It was nice to feel at peace with people from my ;lr'ijgeoaqio

Bought the timber for the new deck and the shade sail over the kids play area. While I want to make everything I do perfect for this house, I think at some point I have to just let go and accept that its not going to be perfect and thats still OK!!
It will be great to have a deck that Hamish wont fall off, and a shade sail over the kids play area.

Joined the gym!! This is a big one, I haven't been a member of a gym for several years, and I have joined the new gym in town. I need to lose 10% doyfat - thats my primary goal, so if I can do it, I'm stoked.

Kids are good. trouble in so many ways, but good. Jenna was sleeping on me on the couch tonight - finally, she fell asleep after 2 hours of battling!!!
But then as I went to take a sip of wine, I spilt the whole glass over her and she woke up!!! It was actually hilarious! just not so much when she still was awake at 10pm... Grrrrr

Thats about it. I have recently dyed up some lovely wool, and I have bought some lovely wool too. I'm plugging ahead with my knitting - not doing any sewing, it feels wrong when I havent got my sewing room set up, but soon I will have things more organised, and thats a GOOD THING!!

Rambling over. :)

Ahh - thats better!

Dont they look nicer rewound?

Still a couple on the line, but at lease these look better than they did all hangy and stringy and messy.

Dyeing Day

I finally found all my dyeing things from the move, and I've committed to selling wool and maybe (hopefully) cushions at a market at the end of Jan.
So these are my efforts for today.







Seems like such a lot of hard work, for not that much in the form of results!

But at least its about 1kg of wool dyed. I'm happy with some of it - but not so happy with the large skein of 8ply. Its felted a bit which is disappointing. I have another 2x 200g hanks, and I will have to break them up into 100g lots. 200g is too much to dye on my pot.

But a couple of them are awesome!!! Love about 4 of them. I'm having trouble getting a limey yellow, and pinks. So a couple of them have been dyed over.

In amongst this is some Treliske that I received in a swap. It was dyed bright red and blue, and was just never really my thing, so I over dyed it, and while I'm still not all that happy with it, I wil at least use it in its current form.

I have about another 1.5kg of wool left to dye, so I will probably try and do that next week sometime, and definitly aim for some subtle colours. These are very colourful!!!!!

Hamish's first birthday

Twas a bit remiss of me - My little man had his pretend first birthday before we left Oz - here are the photos.






He had a lovely time. Stuffed that cake in his mouth like I have never seen a kid stuff! His grumps (Shane's Dad) thought it was wonderful so that was nice.





Pressie wise he got some cool toys, his first Tonka truck(s) and trailers, and some neat clothes.
We didn't have a party on his actual birthday a month later, but thats OK. We sang Happy Birthday to him lots of times....

Clapotis almost halfway

I'm getting there....






I'm using Noro Silk Garden Lite 2028 (I think.... it might be 2030) and I'm probably 40% of the way there. I think I've done 6 repeats of the straight knitting section, and used about 3 balls of Noro so far.








I'm not actually all that happy with the colours, which is a shame. The wool is a bit inconsistent too, which sucks. I have a few ends tat will need to be weaved in at the end, cause I haven't bothered to learn how to do nice ends within the knitting. Oh well.
Lots of thick bits, thankfully no thin bits, lots of vege matter and only 1 knot in the middle of a ball. I am a bit funny about my colours, so I am actually working pretty hard at keeping my repeats the same.

Hopefulyl it will be finished in a month or so.

Pawprint Cloth

I'm going through a dishcloth phase. I made this the other after visiting Spotlight and buying up on some of the Yarn Bee products that were there for about $1.50.

Its mercerised cotton and I used 2 strands.



Bit of fun :)