Where Did That 3 Weeks Go?

Wow! Its been 3 weeks since my last crafty update.  Whoops! My bad.

Its been a little hectic here, but then when isn’t it.  All we seem to do is dash about getting older, and boy do I feel old lately.  My legs been taped up for the past 5 weeks.  I’m still not allowed to run and I have now been banned from climbing that big hill in my back yard.  There has been minimal improvement lately so if none has occurred over the next week my physio is bringing out the big guns and getting his boss to have a look.  He’s getting concerned that there might be something major going on that he’s missed seeing acupuncture, massage and rest have had no effect.  Here’s the thing, I’m not a sook and I push through pain so we really are starting to wonder what the heck I’ve done to myself.  Oh well.  At least its winter so I’m not missing out on the fun summer stuff 😀 Always a bright side right 😀

Crafty wise I have been right into my knitting.  Last night was the first night in a week that I haven’t knitted.  I’ve managed a few squared for the Patchwork blanket 🙂

Garter Stitch Square

Moss Zigzag Square

That one has a minor hiccup where I apparently zagged when I should have zigged but I didn’t notice till I had cast off.  On to the ‘re-do’ pile it will go 🙂

Moss Stitch Square

I then put the needles down for a few days and did a little cross stitching on Warm My Heart.

Only 1,500 stitches achieved over the past 3 weeks thanks to knitting bug.

So then I went back to knitting and made myself a wee hat 🙂 Now, bear in mind that I have only achieved one completed knitting project so far which is my bunny from a few weeks ago.  I am super chuffed with this even though it’s probably more kid sized and I don’t suit hats.  Going to have another go in a few weeks and make one a smidge bigger so I can get my ponytail in it 😀

Then this past weekend I suddenly realised that I had yet to complete this months craft for next Saturday.  As it was too late to start something new I dug out an old mosaic kit that I started around 4 years ago and had a play with it.  Wouldn’t you know it, kit didn’t come with enough bits! So I go creative and stole some from Natalies that I bought at the same time.  As that was 4 years ago I doubt she will miss them 😀

I kinda like this and now have a wee idea that I might like to make hearts for above all the doorways in the house as I have a wooden one that is already insitue that my cousin made 🙂 Might just add a little quirk to my world 😉

Then I went back to knitting and started on my first ever jersey. After a week I have nearly finished the back and I am rather proud of myself 🙂 I had to un-stitch a couple of times because of errors but it has been rather easy.  Mind your it’s just a stocking stitch so not super complicated but I am about halfway up the Raglan sleeve hole bits which has been a bit of a learn.

Its a yoga jersey and will have a hood for which the instructions kind of scare me but I am determined lol 🙂

The wool is a joy to work with.  A Cashmere and Marino blend and the colour is a sort of dusty sea-foam.  I can’t wait to wear this but I am picking it will not be finished till next winter.  I am going to finish the back this week and them go on to my stripey blanket which is yodeling from the basket at me and has been neglected for too long.  I also need to get my second bunny both started and finished.  Anyone know where I could find an extra 4 – 5 hours each day hahaha 😉

Ka Kete Ano xx

 

Love A Good Craft Store Sale

This week went a little better than the past couple regarding pretty much everything.  Last Monday was a bank holiday here in little ole NZ and it was miserable as far as the weather was concerned.  My darling husband ended up downstairs for the afternoon with our neighbour playing pool and calling each other rude names.  This left me unchaperoned upstairs with the movie channel, fire, furry fat friends and my cross stitch.  That combined with yesterdays effort has resulted in some good progress on Warm My Heart and a page finish 🙂

Wednesday night saw me wander downstairs with my knitting while my husband was watching the Lions test.  I was hoping to knit up a bobble square for the patchwork blanket but I didn’t get that far along before I needed to find my bed.  The next night saw 2 more rows before unravelling the whole thing and starting again.  2 rows of bobbles done and I spot a mistake further back that means another total unravel so I threw it in the corner for the night.  Friday night saw 2 rows of bobbles and I ran out of puff so it was bedtime. Saturday I spotted a mistake 2 rows back that meant a minor unravel.  Sunday saw to more minor unravels and FINALLY a completed square.  I now officially hate bobble squares!

There are still way to many mistakes in that square but I just needed to accept this and walk away.

Friday I checked our bank account and got a lovely surprise of an unexpected dividend payout.  Rather than be completely practical and pay bills then put the rest in savings I took myself off to the craft store to kit up an idea that I have had scratching at my brain for the past few weeks.

I have a Storykeep Selina Fenech cross stitch chart that I think might make a pretty cool floor rug.

I must have looked a little mad running around the knitting section at Spotlight.  I got the skeins of DMC that the chart called for and ran around colour matching with balls of wool.  This lead to loads of talking to myself and running around in circles pushing my basket with my toes as my hands were full of chart, skeins and wooly balls.  It took forever but I think I am happy with the choices.

I have no idea how many ‘stitches’ I am going to get per ball of wool so went with 1000 per ball and am hoping for the best.

I love that the rug canvas comes in 10 x 10 squares.  This is going to make life so much easier with the ‘stitch’ counting.

Of course I then couldn’t wait and just had to have a go 😀

Its going to be interesting as the balls are all different textures.  I have either made a huge error in judgement or something that is going to be texturely sumptuous 😀 Only time will tell.

Its going to end up 0.5 x 2 metres in size so it may take me a week or 2 😉

Ka Kete Ano xx

 

Where Does The Time Go

We are flat-out at work, right smack bang in the middle of one of the busiest seasons I have seen. That’s great for business but not so great for crafty achievements.  There has been some progress but not nearly as much as I would have liked to get done.

I finished my mat 😀 This was a bit of a mad panic as it was my monthly crafting achievement and it nearly came down to the wire.  If I hadn’t gotten that tummy bug a couple of weeks ago I am pretty sure it would have been my first month without a craft finish.

As you can tell, I had a wee helper in my endeavours.  He accidentally got poked a couple of times with the hooky thing but it didn’t seem to phase him.

We call it the ugly rug.

It’s definitely not the prettiest thing that I have ever achieved but it has given me a fantastic idea for another one.  I just need to get a long bit of matting and some wool and I will be off 😀

After the tummy bug finished its 3 day vacation in my body and I could finally do something that required thinking again I managed to get a bit further along on my cross stitch, although this has not been of epic proportions.  Any progress is good progress right 🙂

And that’s about it really.  I did purchase a couple of new patterns as they had a 50% off flash sale over at Heaven & Earth Designs.

The first one, Frozen, will be for my daughter.  As I have already done one for her this is not going to be high on my priority list and I have told her she may get it by the time she is 50 if she’s lucky.

The second, Lest We Forget, I may do in diamond painting.  The long-term goal for this one is to get it framed up with my Grandfathers and Great Grandfathers war medals.

The third, Mint & Roses, I just thought was really cute 😀

So that’s pretty much me for this week.

Ka Kete Ano xxx

 

Crafty Bitches May 2017

Well April turned into a bit a fizzer.  Half the team was on vacation in Venice and the other half was off babysitting the first couples chickens and chihuahua’s.  That along with great flooding across the nation cause the Crafty Bitches to pretend we didn’t have an April.

The May one went much better

We have decided due to this ‘show and tell’ event turning into a drinking session every time that it would be better for all if we make it a pot luck dinner.  This was an excellent idea and nobody had to sneak through a drive through on the way home or try to not burn the house down making toasted sandwiches at 10.30 at night.

The crafts were an interesting variety once again. Ana repurposed some toilet rolls into something very un-toilet rolly and fabulous.

I don’t know about y’all but I’m impressed 🙂

Ana’s mother-in-law presented her knitted bed socks, a pair of slippers and a blanket.  Very busy with the needles she has been.  She tells us that the socks and slippers are all ‘one size fits all’ and she sells the blankets for $60 NZD if anyone is keen.

Mel revisited her childhood and make bookmark using lamination (They used to use clear plastics over greeting cards), hole punches and crochet.  Very cool way of repurposing stuff.

Our lovely Ricki finished her long term quilting and stitching project.  The stitching on this beautiful.  It had a minor wardrobe malfunction in that it had a pocket which is now on the inside against the padding.  If she hadn’t told us we would never have known.

Then there was me 🙂 I bought my bunny from last month because I was proud of him even if his arms are on upside down.  I also bought my finished ugly mat which was this months project 🙂

Amy and Other Mel both phoned in theirs this month.  Amy continued her cross stitch and Other Mel continued with her rotation.

Amy

Other Mel

Because the dinner idea was a success we are going to make it regular and are giving it a twist.  We are going to cook our way around the world and each meeting will have a different country for the dinner theme.  June will be Egypt 🙂  See you then xxx

All Rugged Up

Not a massive amount to share from last week. I came down with rather a nasty tummy bug so there wasn’t much stitching in my world .  I sat with my rug and between bathroom runs and bucket breaks I worked on it.  Got through 3 seasons of Game of Thrones though so yay 😀

My rug is awfully close to being finished now and I am hopeful that this week will see it out 🙂

Its kinda ugly but I have learnt a lot and am keen to try again 🙂 I even have a cunning plan that I am in the process of sorting out where I might have a go at rugging up one of the HAED storykeeps but I will have to wait a little for this 🙂  You know how it is, if it wasn’t for the moths then my wallet would be empty lol 😉

I did manage to get a little stitching done late Saturday and on Sunday 🙂

The weather was extremely chilly so this was happening, which is a good excuse for a ‘do nothing’ day 🙂

Ka kete ano xxx

 

Whoops I Missed A Week

The busy season is back again.  Jolly old winter rocked up last week and I am now running from one end of the country to the other quoting.  This has meant that not nearly as much ‘me’ time as usual as its mostly ‘clean up after dinner and blob out on the couch till someone wakes me up for bedtime’ moments.

Can’t complain though 🙂 It keeps me employed and that pays for the couch that I nap on 🙂

That’s not saying that I have done nothing of course.  Tash and kids has been framed and gifted.  So happy with the way that it came out.  Tash loved it 🙂

Because this is now completed I have managed to make good headway on Warm My Heart.  I really do love this one.  It’s such a dream to stitch 🙂

Not quite sure how that one photo ended upside down but oh well hahaha

Also, because I’m once again relaxed and not over focused on one project I have gotten the diamond painting out again and made some good progress.  Mind you, this is helped by it being winter and I tend to do it in the morning when darling husband is catching up on the previous nights rugby 🙂 Turns out the little diamond thingies reflect light really well so you can’t actually see what you are doing if you need to turn a light bulb on.  Better to do it in natural sunlight 🙂

Faster than cross stitch but still a slow process 🙂

Well that has been the grand total of all my endeavours in the past 2 weeks.

Ka Kete Ano

 

 

 

 

I Made A Bunny!!!!

Bunny number 1 is done!!!

Turns out it looks a lot better in pictures than it does in real life and I am not sure about my sewing skills putting it together but this is my first ever completed knitted project 😀 Oh and I put the arms on upside down (whoops) . . . and her head might fall off at some stage in the not too distant future . . . and I sewed up the wrong end of the torso hahaha All learning curves 😀

It was a huge amount of fun to knit 😀 Putting it together wasn’t quite so much fun and actually took me at least 6 hours, mostly because I had no idea what I was doing lol

Bunny number 2 will start next week 🙂

After completing the bunny on Saturday I didn’t really feel up to starting the next one right away so I picked up Warm My Heart.  Made some good progress on her with 800 stitches for the week and a hoop move 😀

I hate it when the photo flips sideways

I really do love stitching this one ❤

Further to last weeks completed stitch, Tash & Kids, it has been to the drycleaners and is currently at the framers.  I am very hopeful that it will be picked up over the next couple of days and be able to head off to its new home very soon 🙂

Ka Kete Ano xx

Easter Bought A Cyclone And An ‘F’ Word

Twas the night before Easter

And all through the bay

All the things were a stirring

As a cyclone hit our house

Yep that is correct.  Easter arrived along with Cyclone Cook. I have had my car for just a wee bit over a year and on Wednesday night I discovered that when you are aqua-planing down the road ALL the bells and whistles go off on your dash.  It was a minor over reaction by my car as I was on a straight road going in a straight line, but entertaining to say the least.

The rain was rather torrential and this was Cyclone Cook’s warm up.  There was already extensive flooding across the Waikato and I live in the bay and have to travel over the Kaimai Range twice everyday for work.  This can be a harrowing piece of road in a bit of rain let alone a cyclone.

So I took the following day off 🙂

Yes, I was a weather sook 🙂

It rained and rained and rained, so me and the kitties stayed inside and I stitched while they catted.

The following day was Good Friday so nothing was open and landslides had closed most of the roads so we stayed home.  I stitched, the kitties catted and my husband feffed about doing boy stuff.

Saturday dawned bright and sunny and the annual Rotary book fair was on so I was there when it opened.  I hate crowds and hoped to bet them.  I did not. What is it about secondhand books that brings out the asshole in some people?  I got stood on, pushed, elbowed and run over by old ladies on mobility scooters, and that’s not including the time that someone grabbed a book out of my hand or the number of times people reached across to grab something on the other side of me.

Manners people, manners!

But I did score more for my book collection 😀

9 books and a total of $33 spent 🙂 Yes books are very expensive here so this is quite the bargain 🙂

Then after a wee trip to Nosh for dinner noms it was back home and some more stitching.

Sunday arrived with a visit for a bunny.  I had a lovely surprise for my daughter . . .

She snapchatted it with a caption of ‘F%$k you mum, F#@k you’ with crying laughing emoji’s to which I pointed out that wasn’t very polite.  She came back with ‘you are a horrible human being’.

It would probably be important to point out that she is being the gym chick at the moment and only eating chicken and salad but she has a terrible sweet tooth so I was kind of mean haha 🙂

As, once again, nothing was open we just mucked about the house and in the afternoon I stitched.

I managed an epic 3,690 stitches in 4 days

AND FINALLY COMPLETTED TASH & KIDS!!!!!!!!

Yes that’s right, I have an F word!

Thank the lord I can finally move on to something with some actual colour that’s not brown!

The photo doesn’t really do it justice.  It has come out quite beautiful and I am hopeful that Tash will love it.

With the completion of the above fast approaching I got out the tray with Warm My Heart on it.  This confused Squeaky Cat no end as he likes to sit under the coffee table so I found this happening.

Easter Monday saw me pick up the knitting needles again and now bunny has 2 legs and is just awaiting 2 arms before completion.

The next couple of weeks is definitely going to be all about knitting I think.  I have about 20 knitted squares to catch up on for my patchwork blankie and they are really playing on my mind and, of course, I have a second bunny that needs a knitting.

I also have a stitching challenge of 1,500 stitches in the next 2 weeks so Warm My Heart will be coming out to play again as well.  And then there is also Bumblebee which will really need some love one day soon.

Good thing its winter because that’s the time to catch up on the WIP piles 🙂

Ka kete ano xxx