Crochet, Baking and a Bicycle Ride

Busy days here this week, lots of running about to get things sorted out.  But it is all done for now and I have been able to sit and craft in between errands.  I had been meaning to make a liner for the bottom of my bicycle basket for weeks now…… and finally managed to find a sweet little pattern to adapt to suit my basket.   So I grabbed my crochet tub, sat out on the patio with the fresh sea breeze blowing gently and hooked up a little rectangle of pure crochet goodness……

I hooked up six circles, in colours to suit my bicycle, love the splashes of vibrant colour.  Then I added the border, I had never done this join as you go method before, once I got the hang of it, it was rather enjoyable.

It was really good once I got a couple circles joined together, and could see in my mind the finished product.  And with this, I decided to change a couple of the circles and make them all include pink…… such pretty pops of colour.

Tah-dah……………….. here it is all finished and ready to pop into my bicycle basket.  I am really happy with how it turned out and it suits my bicycle nicely.

Pattern can be found here if you are interested, it is called flowers in the snow…… perfect name.

There may have been an interval…… to bake some delicious fresh banana bread…… hmmm was rather yummy indeed…… more to be made this week I feel……

Here is my splash of colour basket liner, all in place, and ready to ride…….. makes me smile taking some hooky crochet goodness with me on my bicycle rides.

I was much later than usual last night, heading off for some exercise.  But now that I am in the habit, I refused to let my day pass without making the effort…… and for my effort I got to see the last nights beautiful sunset over the ocean…… bliss……

Take care xx

Handmade Gifts

Giving handmade gifts was on my list for this Christmas, and I managed to get all the items on my list completed, posted, and received, in the week before Christmas, and  I must say that I am rather happy with myself for sticking to it.

I did manage to post a few sneak peak photos on previous blogs, and on instagram, in the weeks leading up to Christmas, now I would like to share more details and the finished items.

I love casting on new projects, the anticipation and excitement.  Also I have not worked with pinks, purples, pretty girl colours for some time as I am the only female in my house, so colours tend to be mostly blues, and greens, browns, and the like, all extremely lovely, and I would never complain as I love it all, I truly do, and I especially love colours of the sea.  However I am slowly introducing pinks back into my creations, and gift making time was perfect timing for this!

I came across some great patterns on Ravelry, for pretty cloths with ‘pictures’ knitted into them….. perfect!

Love this teal colour, yes reminds me of the ocean…..

I had no idea, that you could create images within knitting, I am very much a novice indeed, and there may even be a name for this type of knitting but I have no idea, I just love it!  Would you like to see how they turned out…………

Tah-dah………

How sweet do these little images look, I gave these ones to my mum, and she loved them!   so happy with how they turned out.   A cute little gardening lad and lass……… and a crochet cloth to round it out.  I made one of the crochet cloths for myself and use it for washing the dishes, it does an amazing job and is wearing very well indeed, still like new.  Although I cannot bring myself to scrub anything grotty with it, I rinse those ones first 🙂

I do apologise, and regret not laying my cloths out better to photograph, the edges look a bit wonky in the pictures, but I promise they were nice and neat and straight, thats what I get for last minute rush to get them out the door and into the postal system 😦

Pattern for little garden girl dish cloth can be found here and little boy dish cloth here, both on Ravelry.

These ones I made for my mother in-law, who loves gardening and I thought would love some garden inspired/flowery cloths.  I must say I really enjoyed making all these cloths, but especially the lace work ones, they seem to be much faster to knit up, and I love seeing the pattern take shape.  A lot of time goes into those ones with the images on them, but very worth the effort.

All three patterns are again available on Ravelry.

I think I may have blogged about this one before, but I truly loved making this lace leaf cloth, might be one of my favourites.  My boys were happily playing with their cars and tractors whilst I knitted…… another one of my favourites…….. bliss

Pattern for this one can be found here.

And of course there was plenty of crochet happening as well.

This one is made from a wash cloth pattern, but as I was making it, I was thinking it would make a nice doily and my niece has told me she uses it for exactly that, which is lovely, and makes me smile.

If anyone is interested in making one, you can find the pattern here.  It is a really sweet pattern, and crochets up rather quickly.

Some of my little collection, prior to gifting.  I am thinking I might continue making handmade gifts during the year, and have a little basket for my makings, so that when the occasion arises,  I already have the perfect gift for that special someone.   Well that is the plan anyway…….

Thank you for stopping by, I hope you enjoy my handmade ramblings……….

Take care xx

My Handmade Santa

I gave a sneak peek earlier this week of my first attempt at crochet amigurumi, today I would like to share more details.

I was a little daunted at getting started, but once I picked up my crochet hook and yarn I got so caught up in the pattern that I forgot to stop and take more progress photos!  It was really enjoyable to make, and for my first attempt I think that it went quite smoothly.

This was the photo that I shared in a previous blog, as a sneak peek.  Having finished the main body, I then filled it will toy stuffing, however I saved the next stage until after everyone had settled for the night (hence the dark photo, sorry) then I could fully concentrate on the finer details.  The details that really make this jolly fellow come to life………………….

Ta-dah………….. a cute jolly Santa Claus to join my collection of Christmas handmade decorations.  I do like this Santa very much, and so do my boys, who often picked him up and admired him throughout Christmas.  He is now safely packed away, patiently waiting til next year when he can come back out and shine again.

The pattern is by Cara Medus and is featured in Simply Crochet Magazine the Christmas Edition.  I would love to make more, and wouldn’t hesitate, it is such a lovely pattern to crochet and works up nicely.

I am sitting here writing this whilst I have our banana bread baking in the oven, and it is making our home smell absolutely delicious.  Cannot wait to try a piece warm from the oven, and my two little ones will be lining up as soon as they hear the timer bell ring……. they love fresh baking.

My plan for today is to do some knitting, starting a new little project which I am hoping to share with you soon.

Enjoy the weekend xx

Making Christmas Decorations

For the last few years we have decorated our Christmas tree with decorations that we have made with our little ones, this always make me happy, and our children love to see their works of art hanging proudly on the branches.

These are our very first handmade decorations we made when our little ones were barely toddlers, they are doing a great job still perfectly intact.

This year we decided to make our own Christmas Baubles.  We stocked up on our supplies, plastic baubles, mini sparkly pom poms, colourful bells, and colourful stars and sequins.  Then we were ready to sit down and get creative.

I really do love the colour combinations my little ones went with.  They loved picking and choosing each and every item to be included.

Little hands were very busy creating.

Bells and pom poms scattered about, looking very festive indeed.  

When we were happy, we simply joined them together, popped some hanging string through the holes, and tah-dah gorgeous handmade Christmas baubles to hang proudly on our tree.

We also decorated our Christmas cards this year, my little ones happily done some paintings inside some of the cards, and we decorated all the envelopes with this gorgeous snowman stamp.  And we may have added a few stickers before we popped them in the post.

I also made some Christmas decorations myself this year, here is a little sneak peek at my first attempt at crochet amigurumi, and I am really pleased with how it turned out, and will blog in detail about this gorgeous little fellow very soon.

Enjoy xx

Busy Days

These past few weeks have been rather busy, lots of projects have been started, and need to be finished!!  I had a break in the middle as I was trying not to catch a Spring flu, all better now and enjoying this first day of Summer here in Australia.  We have put our Christmas tree up this morning, and I have been enjoying the trip down memory lane sorting through all our handmade decorations with my little ones…… bliss.

I will have to put up a blog about our handmade decorations, I have some new ones on the go at the moment, these ones involves knitting and crochet…. yay!

In fact lots of knitting and crochet has been happening lately, as I am hoping to make the majority of Christmas presents to give this year, and that has been keeping me occupied of an evening.

Once I had decided to go with handmade for presents, I ordered some cotton and was very happy when these gorgeous bundles arrived in the post.

I settled myself in that very evening to begin a lovely washcloth, and have got a nice little collection now for gifting.  I use Ravelry for patterns and there is a huge number of wonderful patterns to select from.

I am loving these washcloths and really think I need to make some for myself as well.  I have made several different patterns now, some for wash cloths and some for dish cloths.

Really love this teal colour cotton, and this dish cloth knitted up more rectangular than square, as it has a nice picture pattern – garden scene on it, I will have to blog this one later as I do not want to give away the surprise before it is unwrapped on Christmas day in case the recipient checks my blog.

This one is a gorgeous lace leaf pattern, another learning project for me and I must say it was beautiful to knit and turned out just as it should so I am thankful for that.  Can you see all the little cars, and the tractor, yes my boys were happily playing together whilst Mummy did some knitting, it was lovely, really enjoyable to sit and knit and watch them play.

Many cups of teas have been delightful whilst I sit and knit, and the occasional sweet treat has been enjoyed as well.

During the week I noticed these beautiful flowers coming up in my backyard and had to grab a picture, the colour is very refreshing amongst all the green.  I really am no green thumb and had to post a photo and ask the question as to what kind of flower it is and I have been informed that it is indeed an Hibiscus flower.  Very pretty and I must remember to pick one or two and pop in a vase, to bring the outside in.

This morning we have been decorating for Christmas, one lovely tinselled tree is now proudly standing tall in our living room and the little ones are most excited (and this mummy is rather excited herself).  Along with the tinsel it is covered in our handmade decorations from years past.  I have also been managing to sneak in some knitted and crocheted Christmas decorations, some finished, some nearly finished, and some not so much…… hoping tonight might be good to make some progress, and then I can share them here on my blog.  I have shared some pictures, and works in progress on my instagram account if anyone wishes to take a peek.

For now I am off to finish sewing a sweet little touch fairy pouch, as my eldest has lost his first tooth…… oh they grow too fast, I really wasn’t ready for this, neither was my little man, but we have had a long chat and we have processed and are now very excited about the tooth fairy coming to visit and hopefully leaving a nice little donation for the very first tooth.

Take care xx

Baking Day

This last week has seen us finally get a new oven installed, the old one gave out weeks ago and it was a bit of a process to get a new one.  But it is all sorted now and since I took time out to clean and tidy the pantry yesterday I decided to do some baking with my supplies today.

 

First up was this delicious ginger crunch slice, my boys both enjoyed some and happily informed me that it tastes really yummy just like gingerbread men.

 

There was a lot of crumbs left in the tray from cutting the ginger crunch, so I poured it all into a little jar and am thinking it might be nice sprinkled over vanilla ice-cream later in the week.

 

And next was my very first attempt at Chocolate Brownies, made with dark, milk and white chocolate.  It smelt divine whilst cooking and I must say has turned out fantastic.  Very yummy indeed.  I think next baking day I might need to add some savoury as well, although we don’t cook a lot of very sweet treats like these brownies so I think this is fine.

I have also been busy with my crochet hook, whipping up some wash cloths and have managed to make a small start on a dish cloth today.  I am hoping to be able to gift some for Christmas presents, and I am adding myself to the list as well, I mean I really should make some for myself to know that they are nice to receive as a gift…… right….. thats my idea anyway.   Now I might make a cup of tea, and settle down for a short time to do some more dishcloth making.

Take care xx

 

Celebrations

This past week has been a busy one, you see we had a wonderful cause for celebration.  Our youngest turned the big 3, I cannot believe how big my boys are growing.  Time seems to be going so very fast.  We had a lovely day, filled with lots of play time with some new toys, happy boys and happy Mum.

I have always tried to keep to my own tradition of making my boys birthday cakes, it makes it that little bit more special for them (and me).  In the weeks leading up to Birthdays we look through cake books with the boys choosing their favourites.  At the moment a favourite in our household is the Octonauts, there really was no other choice this year for the theme of our cake.  I set about trying to find a design that was within my capacity of cake making, which I admit I am not the greatest at but we don’t mind, just putting in the effort is appreciated and seeing their little faces light up when they see the finished product makes it so worth the effort.

Here is our little Octopus, was so much fun making this cake with my little ones checking in time and again to check my progress.  When I got to the cutting out of this little guy, my Four year old was observing and chatting into my ear telling me how good I was for using my patience and taking my time….. they really do make me laugh, and it is nice to know my words of encouragement are being absorbed and passed on.

Birthday boy loved his cake, truly he did.  And thought it would be nice to add some Octonaut characters, and I think they worked well.

A lovely fun Happy Birthday.  I wonder what cake design will be coming up in the next few months time when we celebrate another Birthday.

For now, my boys are having a wonderful time playing with these cute little characters, and I am off to do some more knitting.

Enjoy xx