Walk against warming, upper florentine

 

We had a really great day today going to the upper florentine for the walk against warming rally. The bush is being protected by some great caretakers. Some of them were found on the platform many meters up in the trees. Others were camping in the forest to do their best to save one of Tasmania's wild places.

 

As you can see from these photos the forest is just a spectacular place and well worth saving. I spent much of my childhood exploring the forests in a small town near the florentine. It holds so many great memories for me. Walking through such magnificant areas filled with moss covered trees, ferns and fungi of all colours is like food for the soul. It is impossible to be unmoved by such pure beauty.

 

 

mitered mozart

 

 

Well here it is.
I have finally finished my cardi. The pattern was from the knitter's magazine, spring 2000. The mitered mozart by Candace Eisner Strick. This is just a big mitered square with a picot edge.
I am really happy with the way it looks and with the way the colours work together.
Now I can start something new.

what warm weather holds.

 

I have just read this book. It was the title that grabbed my attention first, as anything to do with purple usually does. It is a fasinating read, all about the man that discovered the artificial colour dye mauve. I found it interesting as it covers the artificial dye history of England and I learnt lots about the world of dyes. Made me stop and think about all those great colours we use and take for granted.

 

I spent the other day at the southern schools triathlon with #2 child. What a great day, and as you can tell from all these bikes there were 2000 children taking part. It was just so great to see so many children having a great time.

 

And of course now that there are some hot days around it has been time to do a bit of swimming. This is my favourite local beach. How luck are we to live so close to such a wonderful beach. Safe for families and with such a great view, and there are often dolphins swimming past. I always complain about how cold the water is when I first get in, You would think that after a life time of swimming in these waters I would just get over it and realise that once your body goes numb the water is really very nice. It definently cools the body temperature. While I was standing in the water waiting for the water to warm up a bit before swimming a had time to admire the many tiny fish that swim around your legs if you keep still enough. Then there was a huge starfish, doing not alot.
I really am a fish at heart, there is always something so calming and peaceful about swimming. I cant wait for the weather to be even warmer so I can take on the waves at the surf beach too.

 

country shows are soooo coool

Today we headed off to the local country show. And it was such a great day. The weather was awful at our place but by the time we headed over the hill the sun was shinning ang made for a brilliant day.
We watched the dog jumping trials, with the winner jumping 2 meters with lots of excitement and joy. Nothing gets a crowd going like the cheer of encouragement for a dog trying to scale a wall 2m high.
Then there was the heavy horses, draught horses to us old folk.
And the great display by the australian light horsemen. What a show, what horses and such a captivating show of skill with horse, knife, sword and lance.
There was also all the dog showing. Ohh I just love the dogs.
And then of course there is the alpacas, sheep, cattle along with all the fantastic spinning and knitting exhibits.
You cant go past a country show, even with all the side show fun and excitement.

 

 

 

 

A happy Pepper

 

 

This is the face of a happy Pepper. These are photos taken by #1 child playing with him. Pepper just adores #1 and thinks the world revolves around her. Needless to say if she leaves him, he feels his world has ended. It is just typical poodle behaviour, but we love him anyway.

halloween fun

 

 

 

As you can see we have been celebrating halloween in our house.
I had a week of fun getting the house ready to look all spooky, and it was so much fun. Then on all hallows eve the children dressed as, well lots of spooky black things. I was a white ghost. We also had a witch and a ghost knight and a grimm reaper in the family.
I had read a great blogpost by Amongst The Oaks about labels for halloween potion bottles and had fun putting some together.
We all had a great night with wonderful food, conversation and energetic kids. Even if I dont really know what we were celebrating. I will have to go out and research the meaning behind this great night for dressing up and having fun.

Party time again

 

 

 

 

It has been party time here again. I have been busy making a bugs bunny cake. Do you think that I could find grey food colouring, no, so I used a very light blue colour.
Then I made two pinjatas. I had lots of fun making these and could have paper mached everything in sight but thought better of it.
We had a family fondue dinner at #3 childs request. We had both a cheese and yes the favourite chocolate fondue. YUM.

midsomer murders theme on a theremin

This is so cool.

Muir shawl

Well I am really happy to say I have finished my first shawl. Yaaaaaaah. I am really liking how it looks. It could have been a touch longer but I ran out of silk. Yes it is knitted from silk. The blue has more variation in it than the photo shows, between a light blue and a deep blue with a few bubbly bits( Dont know how else to describe then).

Now what will I start next. Hmmmmmm.

Under the Greenwood Tree

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72Uqzg4kg00


I found this movie at the end of a tape where I had been watching another program. What a little gem to find. I was so happy to have found this movie, and am really keen to read the book now.
I thought the story was ingaging and who can go past a good love story. Ahhhh aint love grand.

holiday projects

It is half way through school holidays and am I any more organized that at the start? No. but I have got some photos to share with you of my projects. Now that # 1 child has returned home with the camera(which is actually # 1's but I borrow).
OK so this first one is not my project at all but a fantastic hand knitted hat that my mum picked up at a second hand shop for $2. Can you believe it. I love this hat and have worn it lots already. I would like to thankyou to the person that knitted this gem. I know you did not make it with me in mind but I thankyou because I love it.
It reminds me of a movie I recently saw for the second time. "The Witches" by Roald Dahl. I had never realised the number of fantastic hand knitted jumpers, cardigans, mittens etc in this movie before. Last time I watched it I was more excited about the scandinavian theme, and of course the witches. I think I would like to have a go at knitting some of those fantastic norwegian designs, but I do have a few other things to finish first.

I have finally finished my second hedgerow sock. I really like these socks as they have a girlie feel to them. Easy to knit but such a great design. If you want more details you can check my ravelry projects page.

And while we are still talking about socks, I recieved this wonderful sock wool from Wales. Sally Pointer has hand dyed this from Woad ( I had to google it to find out what it was). It is called ice and fits with the swap theme of my favourite fairytale "snow queen". Then I found an ice themed sock pattern to go with it. So stay tuned and hopefully I will start it soonish.

And we cant forgett the spinning. Here it is. And what will it be?????? Who knows. I have just become one of those people that spin for spinning sake.

colour and dogs

I have been spinning again. This time I had a rainbow mix that I spun into singles and then.... well what will I ply it with. Since I could not decide what colour to do I thought I would just try a few different ones. I tried mint, royal blue, purple, lilac and then I plyed some with itself( my favourite). It was a really interesting exercise in colour- which I am not so good at yet. It is always surprising to see how various colours react with others.
I have also decided to start the modular cardi "dream coat". This will use up lots of my handspun. And stop spinning and do some knitting.

And of course I Had to add some photos of the dogs that # 1 child took. Hope you enjoy them.

spinning and rain

With so much rain there does not seem to be much else to do than spin, spin, spin. I have just finished these two. I decided to branch out into greens and this is what I came up with. I really like the colour combination and how it turned out.

Then on the weekend I went to a spinning workshop and ended up with this purple and tencle. I really like the tencle but it was not so soft on the hands to spin. This is a lot more purple, the photo does not seem to show that up.

Atleast with all this rain there are some blooms of colour out in the garden to cheer us all up. The rain does not seem to have upset these lovelies. And I even have a red rhododendron out at the moment. I think this is totally the wrong time for this one but who cares, it makes me happy evcery time I see it. I hope everyone else has equally as nice things in their gardens to make them happy as it still continues to rain.

a little trip

I have just had a litlle trip away. And I do mean a "little" trip. I went away up to the north of the state for a few days. Left the kids behind and had the tables turned as I was the child travelling with my parents. We headed off for the north to celebrate a relatives 100th birthday.
I could not think of a better reason to celebrate. This is the only person I know who has reached such a great age. I even got to see the letter from the Queen, the Govenor General and the prime minister.

During the trip I got to meet 2paw and had a great chat with her. She had so kindly copied a missed episode of grand designs for me. And I must say I did love the house design. She also was so kind as to have made me a fab bag, and inside Truffles. YUMMMMMM. I am so in admiration of people that can sew, and 2paws bag was so cool. Thankyou.
I had a really nice stay away and on the way home we stopped off for a relaxing walk in the Tamar Valley wetlands. It is all board walked and is edged by reeds.

This wetland has a huge array of bird life, not that I was quick enough to photo many of the birds but here I have taken a photo of their footprints in the mud flats. There were black swans, geese, red hooded plovers(tiny birds that race around), hawks etc. It was such a beautiful walk with so much to look at. There was also loud frog croaks and bird calls to accompany me on my walk.

This is the final destination, a little island in the middle of the river. I didn't have enough time to stop for a picnic on this trip, but have done so in the past. Ahhh a really relaxing way to finish off a good little trip.