Scrapy Granny's.....

This past couple of days has seen me raiding my overflowing stash bag for those little tiny balls of leftovers, desperate to find the perfect home/project for them - I nearly forgot just how many I have... With the majority of them being a DK cotton I set to work hooking them up into little 'Scrappy Granny's'.... 

So far my stack is at 30 Granny's and I'm only half way through my DK scraps!!!! 

Now, what to make with them all? I'm thinking maybe a doll's blanket, or a pillow cover, maybe a table runner, or even some pot holders???? What do you think???

Valentine's Day....

I love having a computer at my finger tips... Even though at times there's NO Internet connection (and there's too many of them these days to start whinging about now) I'm still able to edit and print out cute and funky things for my girls when the need arises...

So this Valentine's day we found some super cute kidd-y craft ideas via Pinterest (don't you just love that site??!!!), downloaded some printables to our computer and set to crafting....

First we grabbed a few scraps of felt, variegated thread, and some cute paper clips and with 1hr of crafting time my 6 yr old had whipped up some 'heart' themed book marks for those special friends in her life (check out my Valentine's Day board on Pinterest for the tutorial)...

And just because we had a few glow stick bracelets floating around in our craft cupboard we made half a dozen of these up too (idea also found on Pinterest)...

Happy (belated) Valentine's Day Everyone!!!

Here's hoping your day was filled to the brim with LOVE!!!!!!

 

Cats and Knitting...

During the last few weeks on my pregnancy with Tobie I was a bit of a knitting machine - most of it I'm yet to photograph but this week as the mornings became cool again, even if only for a moment, I found myself bringing the hand knitted goodies out, the ones that I created during that beautiful nesting time - the final trimester of my pregnancy....

 

This is the Puerperium. I knit it using 80g of Malabrigo Rios - a DK, almost worsted weight yarn, in the sweetest shade of blue.... I followed the newborn pattern exactly and it fits my 10 week old baby boy just perfectly!!!!! I love this little top so much that I've cast on for one in the Ravelry Red shade as well...

Although it's still quite hot here I just can't seem to get past my knitting obsession!!! Everywhere I sit there's a little basket beside my chair filled to the brim with yet another project that I'm itching to finish in time for the cooler months - a new cardigan in Noro for me, a school jumper for my big Connie girl in Malabrigo Rios, a squishy cowl in Malabrigo Worsted for Millie, cotton ripple blankets for 2 of the 6 beds in our home, gloves for a special friend, a 2013 Winter beanie for the man of our house and the softest lace scarf for a very special lady in the new Malabrigo Silkpaca pictured below.... For the lace scarf I'm using the Paris Night shade on the bottom row in the picture below - simply divine!!!!

So, of a late afternoon while I sit in the garden, knitting, my girls aren't too far away..... On one side of the yard Connie colours in, as you often see her doing, with her biggest boy not too far from her side...

And on the other side of the yard Millie sits, waiting ever so patiently for her tea party guest to arrive....

This cat lady sure has left an imprint on her little girls - they simply love their cats too..... xxx

(for details on the Silkpaca be sure to check out my Facebook page)

pick-your-own

Over Xmas we headed down into Victoria to visit some good friends for a couple of days. While down South we popped into a gorgeous 'pick-your-own' strawberry farm and came home with a bounty of the freshest, plumpest, sweetest strawberries I have ever tasted in my entire life!!!

 

After eating our way through at least 10 kg I decided to try my hand at some strawberry jam with the remaining 5 kg.... It was a huge success and I made 16 jars!!!! Many of the visitors to our farm over the past month left with a jar of jam under their arm after falling in love with its taste on scones for arvo tea... :) 

 

Now, a month later, I'm down to my very last jar...

This is the most amazing strawberry jam I've ever tasted!!! I'll definitely credit its awesome flavour to the fabulous fruit that we picked. You see I have made strawberry jam before but instead of freshly picked fruit I used several punnets from the supermarket and must say the end result was good but nothing to write home about...

 

Every morning for the past 5 weeks my whole family has been enjoying jam. Be it on toast, pancakes, crumpets or muffins - you name it we're eating it, with jam - yummo!!!

So, here's my recipe....

 

Strawberry Jam

This recipe is for 5kg of fruit because that's what I had. Divide the recipe according to what quantity of fruit you have.

juice of 4 lemons (helps to set the jam)

 1/2 cup of water

5kg strawberries (green bit removed)

4kg white sugar

 

Place water, lemon juice and strawberries in a large pot. Bring to the boil, cook for 15mins. Add sugar, bring to boil stirring constantly until sugar is dissolved. Cook at a rolling boil until setting point is reached. Pour into sterilised jars and seal. Eat straight away or keep in the pantry for up to 12months (if you can)...

 

Do you have a favourite 'pick-your-own' place???

 

Crazy Weather....

Wow - hasn't the weather been all over the place this past week???!!!??

The start of the week was terrible here with a mega dust storm that blew in through every little crack of my 100 year old homestead - I still haven't cleaned all of the red dirt up yet and its been a week!!!... Then Friday was ridiculously hot with temps up in the high 40's and now Saturday it's overcast and a pleasant 25'C with a few drizzles of rain here and there...

Crazy - right????!!!??? What's it like at your place???

(view out my front gate on Sunday arvo)

 

So, with all of this 'crazy' weather about I packed my girls up and we headed into town for an afternoon at our amazing local library....

 

The Cobar Library really 'rocks'!!!

 

The quality of their books is amazing and I love the fact that they are always ready to lend a hand whenever need be - like on this particular day when my little Millie wanted a book about Autumn,

 

and my Connie-girl was in desperate need of several 'horse-y' books....

The gorgeous librarian simply smiled and helped away, for a good hour too mind you, a real sweet-heart... :)

We're so lucky to have such an awesome place to hang out, don't you think???

Facebook....

I finally did it!!!!

 

I've started up a Facebook page for my Jellywares Shop....

 

Pop on over and let me know what you think....

 

There's even a Sale listed on there, 50% off Malabrigo Finito!!

HOT!!!!!!!!

I've seen the Milo pattern around blog-land for quite some time now and have been meaning to give it a try. So, during the last few months of my recent pregnancy I got the chance to whip a couple up...

 

The green one below is made using Debbie Bliss EcoBaby Cotton (less then 1x50g ball) and I made the Newborn size. It's such a bonus that this little vest/singlet pattern comes in such a large range of sizes - by purchasing just 1 pattern I can now make Milo's for all of my kids (sizes nb, 4 and 6), AWESOME!!!

 

The only negative I found with the Milo was that because you get so many sizes on the 1 pattern it tends to make it a little 'busy'. I felt a little lost at times while knitting - but then again that just might have been my 'baby brain'... :) 

 

All in all the Milo is a super quick and easy knit that I look forward to making again!!!! 

I fell in love with the nappy cover tutorial by Dana Made when Millie was only a baby and knew that a couple of these would definitely be on the cards for Bub #3. Thanks to a recent trip to Spotlight and some seriously cute boys prints making their way home with me Tobie now has a couple of his own...

 

Can you believe how hot it is at the moment????

As I sit at my computer, tying up this post, the temperature here on our farm is well and truly over 45'C - HOT!!!

 

We were lucky enough to have a cool change here on Tuesday with it only reaching just over 30'C for the day - cool enough to venture out in the paddock, in the middle of the day, to check on some cows...

It is so dry out here!!! We've had hardly any rain for the past 6 months and could really do with some good storms... 1200+ hectares went up in flames on a property down the road last week - thank goodness no one was hurt and the fire is all out now...

 

How are things where you are??? I hope that everybody is keeping safe and out of the heat...

Happy B'Day Millie!!!!

There's this super special little girl who has an incredible way of lighting this Mumma's heart up and guess what - today she turned 4!!!!!

For the past 2 weeks, with my 2 youngest babies by my side, I've been 'hooking' away at a special blanket just for my Millie... I've been keeping it a surprise, telling her that "it's for another special little girl that I know" and yes, fancy that, "she likes EXACTLY the same colours as you do"... ***wink*** And yes, "maybe oneday I can make you a blanket just like this too"...

So, when she opened her present today she was over the moon that this special blanket made by her Mumma was actually JUST FOR HER.... (pictures of the finished blanket to come soon)

 

Millie, you are a little ray of Sunshine that grows brighter with each and every day... Happy Birthday Sweet-y!!!! 

Also, a big thank you to all of the gorgeous comments on my previous post regarding the birth of Tobie... I have been reading and enjoying each and every one of them and slowly making my way through replying to you all...

our little TOBIE.....

It feels like an eternity since I Blogged and by the date on my last post I guess you could say it kinda has been... :)
 

The ol' Blog mojo seemed to fly out the window come mid November as the weeks past my due date kept ticking by and still there seemed to be no baby in sight...

 

After many long days sitting around doing a lot of this... nothing but knitting....

My third bundle of joy finally decided to make its way into the world nearly 3 weeks late...

So on the 25th of November in the wee hours of the morning I delivered a healthy baby boy with DH by my side and my girls sleeping peacefully in the room next to my labour-sweet... 

'Tobie' weighed in at 8 pounds 11 ounces and is my longest baby by far, measuring a good 8cm longer than both my girls...

At a week old he began his trips to town with me and the girls on a Friday to help out in my Shop and proves to be the perfect side-kick, wooing in all of the customers... LOL!!!

Now at 5 weeks old I can safely say that life feels pretty amazing at the moment... Tobie is an awesome baby and I find myself falling in love with him over and over again each and every day...

And you know what??? I'm not the only one - the whole house is pretty smitten with our newest addition....

Which has made his long awaited arrival oh so much sweeter...

So, here's hoping you had a gorgeous Xmas surrounded by family and friends and that you bought in 2013 just how you'd hoped to...

 

One of my New Years Resolutions is to try a little harder to make time for the things that make me super happy and guess what - blogging is one of those things so look out 2013....

What are your New Years Resolutions???

 

 

Jelly Xmas Star Tutorial - revisited....

With Xmas only just over a month away I've been getting quite a few emails from people about the Crochet Xmas Star Tutorial I did back here. For some reason Google swallowed up all the pictures from that post back at the start of this year and with the help of a tech-y friend I have finally been able to recover them again....

So, here's the post again - same photos, same instructions, just in a 'newer' post.

If you'd like to make some Xmas-y Stars this year then grab yourself some 8ply yarn (1 used 100% merino in the pictures below but cotton would be equally as good) and a 4mm hook.

(note - american crochet terms are used for this pattern)

To start, make a foundation chain of 5, join with a slip stitch to the first chain to form a ring.

Round 1 - (you will be working this round into the ring formed with the foundation chain) ch3, 2dc, ch3, *3dc, ch3. Repeat from the * 3 more times (5 dc clusters and 5 ch3's total). Join with a slip stitch to the 3rd ch of the starting ch3.

 

Round 2 - slip stitch into the next 2 dc and into the first ch3 space. ch3, (2dc, ch3, 3dc) all in the same (1st) ch3 space. 1hdc in 2nd dc of next dc cluster (a cluster is a group of 3dc's worked in the previous round). *3dc, ch3, 3dc in next ch3 space, 1hdc in 2nd dc of next dc cluster. Repeat from * 3 more times.

 

Join with a slip stitch in 3rd chain of starting ch3.

 

Round 3 - Slip stitch into next 2 dc and into first ch3 space. Ch3, (3dc, ch4, 4dc) all in the same (1st) ch3 space. 1sc on either side of hdc from previous round.

 

(4dc, ch4, 4dc) in next ch3 space, 1sc on either side of next hdc from previous round. Repeat from * 3 more times. Join with a slip stitch in 3rd chain from starting ch3. Fasten off and weave in ends...

These stars are great sewn into a garland or hung by themselves on your tree. Why not make them in a thick cotton for a Xmas-y themed washer...

Garden Update....

The past 2 days has seen a much needed 32mm of rain fall over our farm so it was nice to step outside this afternoon to snap a few shots of a freshly showered garden - clean of all the red dust which is usually present....

I'm excited to have apple trees blossoming,

hundreds (and I'm not exaggerating!!!) of passion fruit ready-ing themselves for harvest in the coming month,

many a tomato starting to swell (mmmmm tomato relish),

pomegranates setting fruit,

'mini muncher' cucumbers just starting to appear,

heirloom zucchini's growing by the minute,

sweet radishes plump for the picking,

and rows of french corn finally starting to fill in (even if it is only just a little)....

What's happening in your garden at the moment???