Rainbow Swap -- Green Goodies

By now all the visitors to this blog know I've joined a Rainbow Swap Group on Ravelry. We have just done our green swap, and here are the goodies I made for my partner.Firstly I found this wonderful button which looked like it had a pattern tattooed across it. It was perfect for my partner, Elki, so I made it into a ring. She has since told me that everyone who has seen it has commented on it. Yes!............I'm so pleased she likes it.

Elki loves koi fish so I searched the internet and found this fabric with koi fish, and enough green to be suitable. I had to wait for it to come from the US, and made her a Japanese Knot Bag for her knitting and crochet projects.

I was browsing some patterns and saw a headband like this and knew it would suit, so I found green wool at the Mill Shop when I just happened to visit there and I knitted a headband. I searched all over for buckles, including the internet and found zilch! So I decided to go with bling and bought a diamante buckle which did nothing for the headband. In desperation then with time to mail at hand I scrabbled through Mum's old button box and bingo, there was this wonderful old buckle that was perfect. The story continues, as several days later I was at my local yarn store poking through their vintage buttons and I came across the exact same buckle for $20!!! Our swaps have a monetary limit and that would have been 2/3 of mine! Elki has told me she just loves the headband.

I had some koi fabric left and didn't want it to go to waste, so I added some plain and made another little project bag to put something small likes crochet squares or socks or hat into. This was a test for my new sewing machine as I wanted to put buttonholes into the top band to allow for a pullup cord. They didn't come out quite where I wanted them as the machine was so fast and had 1 done before I realised I had pressed the button. Now I know how it works :)

Spinning Group Something Special Day for June 09

Monday 22nd was our Something Special Day, and as a treat we had a lesson from Pam to show us how to make these gorgeous little scissor 'identifiers'.

Here is the finished flower garden 'tag', on the scissors, and the very beginning of the creating.

And here is my project started, in pink, for a birthday gift.

A big thank you to Pam for getting all the kits organised and showing us the secrets! Somehow I don't think mine will ever be quite as nice as hers.

Rainbow Swap -- Green Goodies part 2

This was my parcel of green swap goodies to send out, except I didn't include the knitting needles, instead I had a little green felt bag to hold small things inside the project bag.

This was the yarn I spun, merino and flax, lovely sea green colour, in 8ply, 250 gms. I send my spun yarn in a shiroshimi bag to keep it clean, and this one for Elki had Japanese dragons on khaki.

Then, very excitingly, I got my green swap parcel from Cleverchook.

Chartreuse fibre and lime yarn which she dyed herself--my very favourite greens! And the second in my collection of orifice hooks made by Cleverchook, and a very soft knitted face washer with a little lacey pattern, plus other goodies and all lovely green!

Travelling crochet hook squares by Maree

I thought I should also include the squares which Maree made for the travelling crochet hook, as she doesn't have a blog for them to be seen on. And I also have to dob her in and say she didn't feel comfortable reading the patterns so she made up her own, and they came out really well.

Travelling crochet hook

I have been meaning to put these photos here and tell you about Jimbo's Travelling Hook.
I'm in the Melbourne Crochet Lovers' Group on the ever famous Ravelry.com. The one gentleman in our group, Jimbo, is from the US and he is a crochet hook maker of quite some repute. He recently sent us a hook of his making which appeared in a photo about our Tunisian crochet day, but I think I forgot to put up the end result of the hook's visit. Jimbo sent the hook with the idea of it travelling around Vic and making squares to be donated to charity causes. The purple is to be put in a rug for supporting cancer research, the red is for including in a rug to raise funds for the CFA, and the blue is for a rug to raise funds for Friedrich's Ataxia which is a cause that Jimbo supports in the US.

The squares are all taken from Chris Simon's patterns, the purple is Supernova, a design I liked and I will never make it again, it involved too much alteration to sit flat, and not just the one I made, but by another group member as well. Chris tells you it will need smoothing, but I found I had to alter the number of stitches in the last few rows to have anything remembling a flat square.

The red and blue squares are Butterfly Garden and I would love a throw myself in this pattern, it is now an all-time favourite.

Super Socks

At Spinning Group on Monday 22nd June.
Fran showed her super socks, beautifully done. Now, as my friends know, I am not a sock knitter or knitted sock wearer, so I'm very suitably impressed.

And I'm looking forward to seeing what becomes of this delicious new yarn in Fran's bag.

I'm suspecting we might be seeing another pair of beautifully knitted socks!

I have been doing it for years but now we have a special day WWKIP

Saturday 13th June 2009 was the World Wide Knit in Public Day.
Our local North East Yarn Lovers (NEVYL) Group on Ravelry.com, the internet site for knitters and crocheters organised a meet up to knit in public at the Benalla Art Gallery cafe.

We had about 30 folk gather and whilst myself and my family have been knitting in public 'forever', some are not so brave, and some have only just discovered the craft.

So, long live knitting, crochet and craft! They are creative. How do many of us deal with the destructive nature of the world and it's events? We do the opposite, we become more creative!

And if you haven't tried it you should. There is nothing more uplifting than Gathering. To meet at a Gathering with other like minded creative crafters is inspiring, encouraging, uplifting, and last but not least jolly good fun!

Sad about a Car???

This has been my favourite car. I've loved it from the minute it came, it is comfortable, reliable, my favourite colour, and I can see perched up high. Georgie has always chosen to go in Granma's Big Blue Car. I think she also could see well perched up high. It has been my safe and trusty steed for 200,000 klms and many, many trips up and down the Hume. But it has been here for 6 years now and the decision was made that we should update to avoid the mechanical issues arising with older age! Is it strange to be sad about a car? This one is like an old friend and yes I'm really upset and sad to see it have to go. I hope it finds a good home.

Here is the new one. Not quite so tall, vision not quite so good, seat not quite so comfy, boot not quite so big. But I hope we will be good friends; I like the colour, it corners better than the old one, has a better turning circle, isn't quite as noisy, has slightly better fuel economy, fits more people in and has a camera to tell you what's behind you. The number plate came with my initials incorporated. I'm taking that as a message that it wants to be my new trusty steed for long trips up and down the Hume. So now you have to watch for a red car to wave to!

The reason it is Silver Creek

It is winter here, and I'm not sure whether I have mentioned before, but this is a reason that the area is called Silver Creek. Jack Frost spends quite a bit of the year living here.


Early on a winter's morning, as the sun starts to come over the hill, everything is silver!

Even the backyard barbie!

Vale Jess

It has taken me quite a while to be able to write this post. While I was in Sydney at Easter we lost our dear old Jess Dog. I knew when I left she mightn't make it till I returned as she wasn't doing well. There wasn't really any conversation when I received that phone call!

These are a couple of the photos I took of her not long before that. One keeping watch during our spinning group afternoon meeting, in her favourite spot near the back steps lying on the path. She has her eyes open watching me :)

And in almost the same spot, where she sat constantly. She could see anyone who came or went from any direction.

Jess lived with us for 16 happy years. Penny, Tim and I drove about half an hour east of Holbrook to get a puppy from the litter advertised in the local paper early in 1993. Penny was halfway through a uni degree in Canberra and Rick had just started at uni there also. The puppy was for Tim now that his siblings were living away from home. It had been sometime since our old bassett Cleo had gone and a little boy needs a dog! One of the pups jumped up and ripped Tim's shirt and he was quite put out, so we took the quiet one with the pretty face. Tim wanted to call her Cool Guy, but she was a girl so he thought Cool Girl would be ok. We talked him into Jess the same as the dog on Footrot Flats!

Jess was our 'meet and greet' staff for all the visitors who came to the Trout Farm back in those days. Even children who were terrified of dogs seemed to know she wouldn't hurt them and let her say hello to them. She didn't wander out the gate, or chase the birds or bark unnecessarily, she was an all-time excellent watchdog warning us of foxes or something where it shouldn't be. She used to keep us highly amused, chasing and barking at the thunder. Unfortunately as she grew older and became deaf, it frightened her and quite often we'd have to go looking for her as she would take off, we think to hide from it, so storms became a real issue. She became very deaf and couldn't hear us call, and then cataracts caused her vision to grow dim as well. But she enjoyed nothing more than an early morning walk with me, and friend Wendy, round the path at Lake Sambell.

Jess is now at rest in her favourite spot in the front yard, and it is with tears in my eyes and a sad heart that I write, "goodbye dear friend, Jess, you were a good dog!"

The Silver Creek wildlife

This is one of our resident maggies. I threw out some bread and this guy decided the big piece was his (or hers). I just call "maggie" and one or more come straight away.

And our resident wombat comes out lately in the early afternoon to have a feed. It is a very dull day and this is on zoom so as not to scare the big guy. We are so excited because for 25 years we have lived here and it is only now that the wombat is coming out to eat. We've seen the signs it has lived here for quite a while, but now it ventures right up to the house at night.

This photo is the actual distance to show how close it was to the shed and to the car, and how unperturbed it was that we were so close.

It was a very dark, clouded day, but Wombat continued to eat undisturbed. I hope we'll have the pleasure of it's company when Georgie and James visit..........stay tuned for next month.

Trooooooooooosers

Granma is the 'Chief Trouser Maker". It is a job I quite enjoy except for school trousers I have decided! The school trousers have not been coming out long enough. They start out fine by the measurements and seem to shrink during the sewing process, and then shrink several MORE inches on the first wash and dry. However, I think we might have succeeded with getting some long enough to get down to the ankles (with 10cm added to the original length). They were needed in a hurry so they went off in the mail without having their photo taken.

Then it was time to make some for the Thomas fanatic. First a pair of trousers so he could turn up at soccer wearing the right colour! I might add here that this piece of cord has been waiting to be little boy trousers since his uncle was 2 years old.

Then the top of the hits! A Thomas label, and Thomas knee patches so he can see them himself .

And on the back some Thomas pockets.

And then to blend into the bushes at the playground to hide from Mum at going home time, some ripstop froggy rainforest cammos!