holidays

if people have been wondering why i have been so quiet in the last few months i must admitt it is because i am on holiday. i am now half way through my holiday. we have travelled around europe visiting family and friends and are now in sicily enjoying the sun and the beach. there has been no knitting and no spinning at all while i have been away. i will have withdrawls soon. hope to upload heaps of photos when i arrive home. hope everyone is well.

mothers day

 

This mothers day I started my day with a visit to an open garden with my parents. The garden was mainly set on 1 acre of steep slope. There were mainly rhododendrons, azaleas and wonderful deciduous trees, including lots of magnolias. It was a a truelly inspiring garden, even more so as my little patch of garden is dominated by gum tree and no autumn colour to speak of. The sheer size of some of the leaves was great to see and walking on fallen crunching leaves is always envocative of childhood.
Then we all headed off to watch #1 child play soccer and then we all headed off to lunch at the nearby tavern for a really nice late lunch. All in All a fantastic day.

 

 

 

more knots

 

These are more Dorea knots that I have been practicing. These will become necklaces for the children.

 

Here we have a braclet and a dragonfly I made. Yes more knots for practice.

 

And for something a little different I thought I would try the sev[en]circle pattern. I really like this wool I have hand dyed myself and it looks good when knitted. The sev[en]circle looks good BUT I decided to frog this because I was not sure I would wear it much and the wool was too nice to use on something I would not wear lots. It is not quite a scarf as it does not sit close to the neck, so there I was frogging something I had knitted. Sad but the right choice.

korean knots

 

Recently I went to do a korean knot worshop. I had lots of fun as I really enjoy knotting and learning knew knots. We started with this cute dragonfly.

 

Then we moved on to the Dorae.

 

Which i have practiced and practiced over and over at home and am really impressed that I can still remember how to make the knot.
Now I am ready to move on to a new knot. I have tried to make the ring (which is like a small solid ball but had trouble getting it tight enough, Will need to practice more.

easter

I must admit I love easter time. I always decorate the table and kitchen windows. I have some wonderful paper clips my danish sister made for me. And now I have taken over from Mum in making the easter bunny marshmallows. But I was not so sure about the way my children decapitated them. hmmmmm I hope they have embraced my love for nature, but you cant help but wonder at such times.

 

 

I hope everyone had a good easter break.

when in doubt spin

 

What a busy few weeks I have had. Gerry had an accident and broke 12 bones. He had surgery to plate and pin some of these and he is now hame and on the mend but I have been busy doing mum and dad things. And of course when in doubt about what to do you spin. Well it works for me. So I decided to sort out my fleece stash and the excitement of that is you find things you have forgotten about.
I spun and plyed these two different brown alpaca fleeces I found. Cant remember where they have come from.

 

Then I found some hand dyed wool I did ages ago with food color and plyed that with alpaca.

 

Then came the silk I had bought at the bothwell spin-in. It is "spring" and of course I plyed it with alpaca.

 

Then lastly I found some left over green wool from a dying workshop I went to and , you guessed it, I plyed it with some more alpaca. Now with all this alpaca plyed you would think that would be the end of it but NO. I have found even more alpaca, so that is my next spinning adventure.

What have I been doing?

 

This is a beanie I had promised #2 child. The first one I made was a little tight so it went to #3 and I knitted a slightly larger one. It is a little hard a gauge the finished fitting size but it all worked out well.

 

This is a little baby cap I made a little while ago.

 

After loving the red baby cap I wanted to make one for my brothers baby ( yes I am going to be an aunt, woooowhooo) but wouldnt you know it I could not find the same wool again. I will post a photo later of the new blue one. So instead I have been making these baby socks. Now I know what to do with all those little bits of left over sock wool.