New Arrival....

On Friday of last week one of DH's old uni mates welcomed a healthy baby girl into the world, Henrietta (Henry for short)... I have been saving a particular washcloth for an occasion such as this.....

It's called 'Baby Feet' and was such a sweet knit and I really love how the bobbles make the little tiny toes.... The pattern was a freebie from here and I used a gorgeous organic cotton from my stash in a crisp white...

I made one of these little hats for Henry too... After making one for Millie, not that long ago, and loving everything about it, I thought it would be the perfect gift to keep little baby Henry warm on this chilly weather....

The pattern was a freebie from here and the yarn I used was also another one from my stash, unlabeled but I do remember it being 100% cotton.

I've also been loving how fantastic these little bunnies are as gifts for babies.....

I made a heap of them up to gift at Easter time and after all of the great feed back on how super they were for little hands to hold on to I couldn't help but whip one up for Henry as well, not that she'll be doing much holding just yet....

Hers was in pink, of coarse, with a splash of polka dots thrown in for good measure.... *^_^*

So here's all of the Henry's treasures, ready to be wrapped and posted off tomorrow.....

Or should I say popped in my mail box for the mail man to collect some time tomorrow...

Here's hoping you had a great weekend... Take Care....

Winter Vegie's......

Before Xmas last year a new to me blogger generously gave me a little something for nothing... So as a way to say thank-you I finally got around to knitting her these 2 washcloths....

The first one is a 'baby star', pattern available from here.....

And the second one (my favourite out of all the washcloths I've made so far) is 'The Meadow', pattern available here....

Both these cloths used under 1x50g ball of cotton each and were just beautiful to knit....


In my garden seed progress is coming along well with onions and beetroot now up...
The snow peas are looking wonderful too and next week will be ready for planting in the ground...

These little jiffy pots are great!!! When it's time to plant you just put the plant, pot and all, in the ground and your done, no disturbing of the root system needed what so ever. The pot breaks down into the soil over time...

Have you planted any Winter vegie's this year???? What grows best where you are???

Take Care :)

Seed Saving...

The frosts have set in for the Season here which means my Basil plants are well and truly finished... When my plants shot to flower back in May I cut off these flowers, the seed heads, and hung them in my shed.... So now a month down the track these seed heads are dried and ready to be put to good use....

For those first time seed savers (like I was last year before this lovely lady taught me a thing or two...) lets start at the beginning..... First remove all of the dried seed pods from the dried stalk and put them in the palm of your hand....

Now rub both hands together, this will loosen the seeds from their pods and you'll end up with something like this.....

Now pick all of those delicate little seeds up , each pod contains about 4, and put them in some envelopes (these ones are great, I like to print 4 of them to a page)...
Seal your envelope and you're done, how easy was that???? Make sure you keep your seeds in a cool dry place ready to be sown in the Spring.

I have an old kerosene fridge next to my garden shed that I like to store all of my seeds in, perfect as it keeps them out of the elements... Do you like to save seeds??? I'd love to hear about it if you do.... Sometimes for a little treat I'll also pop a small branch of the seed pods in the envelope too. I'll then put the instructions as to how to harvest the seeds from the pod on the back of the envelope along with growing instructions. This then makes a great gift idea teamed up with a little terracotta pot....

Take Care :)

That Extra Mile....

There are so many very special people out there in blog-land and this week has seen me busily knitting away for one in particular....

She's been a regular visitor to my blog since I started way back in May 2007 and over the past couple of years has offered great support through her comments as well as numerous emails along the way....

Without giving out too many clues she's a huge chook fan and loves the colour blue. She has an amazing blog of her own that's a constant source of inspiration to myself and many other bloggers. So if you've been reading this blog for a while and think this may be you, a little parcel like this one,should be in your mail box very soon... :)

I have a huge list of goodies I'm planning on making up over the next couple of months to thank those extra special bloggers out there who go that little extra mile to make other people like me feel special....

(Washcloth patterns are both freebies from here... rooster, diagonal.)

To answer Michelle's question from this post... I like to use cotton for all of my washcloths. Bamboo is also lovely and I have found myself using an acrylic blend at times especially if the cloth is destined for the kitchen sink as it's better on the dishes than straight cotton... I use 8ply cotton from Bendigo Woollen Mills for a lot of my washcloths but I also like to use 10 and 12 ply cottons and I just find them at Spotlight, not in the yarn isle though it's usually in the isle where all the needles and hooks are... Hope this helps... :)

Weekends....

With the last of the wheat loaded in the sowing rig, ready to be planted this morning....
The girls and I decided to go mushroom picking in the paddock that backs onto the homestead....

Loads and loads of beautiful, big edible delights awaited us...But with all of this excitement there was bound to be an accident or 2 sooner or later....So a lot of our mushies ended up stump-less, but who cares right?? I'm sure they'll still taste just as good..... *^_^*

I also managed to squeeze in a bit of knitting this weekend with the completion of another feather and fan project inspired by this pattern (again)....

My modifications are as follows..... do 11 repeats of the 4 row feather and fan pattern then bind off knit-wise leaving a 20’ tail…. using a 4mm crochet hook ch10 then slip back into first ch to create a loop for hanging… weave in ends and you’re done…

How'd you spend your weekend????