Red Dust Storm In New South Wales, Australia

I live in the state of Victoria just below the State of New South Wales, so we were lucky not to receive a hares breath of this. I've included some amazing pictures of it for you to see. Thanks to my readers who were concerned for me, knowing that I live in Australia!

Finally Something To Show You All!

Remember in a previous blog post I asked you to guess what I was making? Well here it is. It's a cappuccino hat with saucer and choc chip cookies on the side.

This is the first picture I revealed for you to have a guess at what I was making. I made a basic beanie in a dc and added white fluffly yarn around the edges for the milk froth.

I completed a saucer, by making 2 pieces the same and sewed them onto a round piece of cardboard I cut to shape, then I added the rim you find on the under neath of a saucer, by crocheting over the top of the sc's in the saucer.

I used some pipe cleaners, twisted them together and made a sc cover to sew around the pipe cleaners for the handle.

Another view of the components I used.

So here is the hat and saucer seperate.

This is about where it will be sewed together.

Now it is sewed together.

Now the handle is attached with some choc chip cookies to go with your cuppa. Hope you have enjoyed this original and unique hat. I have made it especially for my step daughter who works part time in a coffee shop, the one who loves and wears all of my crazy hats.

Please Forgive Me

Please forgive me for staying away, I'm not blogging or reading blogs, I'm just off it for a while, the crochet project I am working on is taking me for ever as I am barely crocheting. Out of sorts I am.

I thought I should let my blogger friends know and share this picture of little Rev, he has eaten the left over spaghetti bolognaise and it has stained his face, too cute not to share.

Hope-fully I'll get back into the swing of things soon and begin talking to you all.

Cheers Cat.

Bargain Found In Country Town

The closest place to me with a small supermarket is about 20km's away which is about a 10 min trip. It's an old out of the way little country town. I dare say their over heads would be minimal due to the age and distance of the shops. There are 2 second hand shops and a fantastic Antique and Craft shop that you would definately get lost in for a couple of hours!

It's a bit like a rabbit warren whilst you are navigating your your way around the delights the store has on offer, mmm.

Below are 3 items I picked up for a mere $1.00 at the second hand shop, the bag of 4 x 20gm cotton and the 2 very large heavy duty nylon that would be perfect for soles of the slippers I have been making, which are now worn down to a much thinner ply.

Oh and one more thing, here is a sneak look at the new project I am working on, you'll bever guess what it will be, but the components I need to complete the project are sitting right in the picture, LOL. Go on and have a guess.

I'm Hooked!

Ha,ha. Hooked up to the internet that is. I have not picked up a hook in over a month, but I have an idea roaming around inside of my head, due to a request that was made of me. I also feel a little out of sorts in my new craft room, I keep moving the furniture around to make it more comfy, but I'm still not pleased and there is so much still to do in other parts of the house. I caught that dam swine flu as I was moving, so it slowed things down for me so much. But hey, I'm good now so on with thing's. Hope you are all well and I'll be checking out your blogs and back onto the forums too. Take care the Cat, ha,ha.

My daughter snapped this of me whilst I was sleeping.

Hello to all my Crafty Crochet and knit Friends!

I've been off line, but I'm on my way back, so stay tuned for some more mischief from the Cat!

Felting My Crochet For The Very First Time

Well I found this free pattern on line, for a pair of hexagon boot slippers. Now knowing US foot sizing is different to AU sizing, I decided to make them im 100% wool that I could felt if they were too big for me. As you can see from the picture below, they were far too big. So now my very first felting project had to come to light.

Compare this picture to the picture underneath it for the felting success.
Small enough to fit me now. But I did have an adventure felting these.

I first tried felting by hand, but the slippers were too big to do it by hand, I even had them boiling in a pot for more shrinkage. Scrubbed lots and lots of a high quality dish washing liquid into them and even gave them the shock cold water process. I was not getting far at all by this stage.

The idea of machine felting was against me from the very beginning. I have a front loader. Once the cycle begins, you cannot open the door to check on the felting process, also my machine is not connected to hot water, so I had to fill up and boil the kettle several times to fill the lower part of the machine. I thought I would be fine to begin the cycle, front loaders use low suds powder or liquid and I neglected to rinse out all of that high quality dish washing liquid I had begun with! Eeek, my machine is not supposed to look like this!
Eeek! It is foaming from places it should not be!
It's foaming from more places!

I have a foaming mess!

It just gets worse!

After draining and cleaning up, I begin another cycle with hot water. This is what the machine should look like when it has a load in it. No foam! My slippers are actually in there at this point too.

Once the second cycle of the felting had finished I saw the results! Yes, thay have felted and shrunk! I stuff them with news paper to shape them and dry them off in front of my little fan heater.

Not all of my crocheting went to plan either, I ran out of the blue wool on the second sole and had to use another colour, oh well, I'll be walking on that part any how's.
I'm sure I could have felted these a little bit better and they do need a little more shrinkage. But wait for this, after this fiasco, a US crochet buddy said, I could have just washed the slippers first then put them into the dryer for felting! Why oh why did I have to find this out the hard way. I am going to wash then once more and put them into the dryer, I can also open the dryer door to check on their progress.

When they first dried I was so excited and put them on, then ran into the kitchen to make a cuppa', woops! I nearly went for a sixer, the soles are far too slippery! I know there are several ways to make a woolen sole non slip, I just have to plan that one out next.

I do hope you get some enjoyment out of reading this post!

By the way, I think felting is just a fancy word for shrinking wool, what do you think?

More Crocheted Slippers, Easy Design With Free Pattern

Why am I making so many slippers? Well it has to do with the cream coloured carpet that comes with my new house. Because of the cream carpet, there will be a, shoes off before entering rule created. So I am going to supply an assortment of slippers for those who stroll in and choose to keep their feet warm and cosey with the slippers.

The slippers I have made here are so easy, it is not my pattern, but you can find the free pattern here. It is a versatile pattern that you can easily make changes to, easy to follow pattern, quick to make up and you can make them quite quirky with lot's of colour changes too!

This is the first pair I made.

Now Nathan, my son-in-law to be, was promised a pair of slippers ages ago, so here are his, in the AFL Hawthorn football team colours.
I was trying to make these for hubby but they were too small.

So here we go with a bigger pair for hubby and by the way, it is the first thing I have ever crocheted for hubby! Am I bad? I did a long trc with sc around the tops too.

They look odd in the making up process.

But here they are finished. I did not crochet in the back loop of this pair, as the pattern states.

I hope you have enjoyed my slipper post once again. I have another slipper story to tell too, but that one is more interesting, just wait for it. LOL.

Update On A Couple Of Recent Post's

I finally took the Piano Wrap to my Mum's this week-end. I got her to close her eye's and stand in front of a mirror whilst I placed it over her shoulders. When she opened her eye's she started laughing with pleasure and humor and said "I can wear that to Church tomorrow". And she did. When she walked into the church every body commented on it, but when she finally played the piano, she forgot to put it on, LOL.

And for those slipper socks, I'm going to have to make plenty more, I've already been wearing both pair! They are so warm and comfy, I think they are great!

Kids, House and More

Lily is our second eldest grand child and our eldest grand daughter.

Today the 31st of May, is Lily's 9th birthday. Her Mother made a wonderful tea party setting for Lily and her birthday friends.

Just a small collection of Lily's presents so far. Lily is such a trendy kid, she just loves fashion!
Now here is Bella (4) being a mother to Bradyn (1).

Darcy who turns 7 next month was so grateful to have a boy to play with, Cooper (3). Darcy gets very sick and tired of his sisters and no boys to play with. Most of his cousins that live close by are girls too, so he just loved being with with Cooper today.

Onto more house talk.

My kitchen has gone from this, 8 seater table and 4 stools.

Make shift seating with the out door setting.

Now we have a sweet little setting ready for the new house that was bought at auction on ebay. I just hope all of the pieces of furniture I have chosen to use for my dining room will tie in nicely. The furniture pieces I already have, were all hand made by my brother.

After our visit to the birthday girl, we took the boys with us to view the progress of the new house. We now have the fencing up and the exterior house painting is completed.

This is down the very back of the block and the boys just loved the messy dirt mounds.

Now of course we had to go for a walk on the jetty once again. The tide was out when we were there, lucky for us as Braydn was rearing to go! Cooper and Bradyn are pictured here with Pa.

Grandchild Number 10!

How could I not make a post of our latest grandchild? Bad Nanny!

As you can see Ethan was born April the 19th, the day after his Pa's birthday too.
No 8 grandson for us and we have 2 grand daughters too.
I think these thank you cards are a delight and would bring a smile to any one's face.
Welcome to the world Ethan!

My Baby Daughters 21st Birthday

My daughter Danielle on the right with her all time best mate Alisha, sure went all out for the theme of the night which was the roaring 20's! Both girls are wearing wigs, many of the girls wore a wig including myself, but I think the men looked fantastic in their 20,s get up, so nice to see so many in lovely suits and a hat to match.

See the fella in the big white hat behind Danielle? Well that is her boyfriend Nathan of 6 years long. He turned 21 last November. They are in the midst of building their first home.

What a shocker! I'm in the centre surrounded by 4 of my 5 daughters.

A handsome shot of Alisha and her great boyfriend Brian.

Nathan with his big brother Aaron.

Oh this is my SIL and BIL, the best couple in the world! Robyn and Mal, I love them to bit's!

My daughter Terrie makes a great pose, in more ways than one, LOL.
This is my son in law Luke, father to 2 of my grandchildren, Cooper and Bradyn.

So the party went on and we were all having a great night, finally the cake came out and with it a very special request from Nathan to Danielle.

Nathan has finally asked Danielle to marry him by way of her birthday cake, the engagement ring sat in the centre of the flower.

Oh boy the excitement hit the room then. All I could say to Nathan was, thank you, thank you, thank you!

I'll figure out why I said that sooner or later.

And here is the ring being placed, they are such a cute couple.

It was a great night had by one and all and a lovely venue too, which Danielle and Nathan plan to hold their engagement there as well. Another party and more fun, goody.

Crochet Slipper Socks

The pattern for the slipper socks came from the 2009 Calendar, Crochet Pattern a Day. I am sure it is free on line some where, when I come across the link I will add it to this post. My Rav friend Shilo made a pair first and I liked them. In the new house the carpet is all cream, so my plan is to have people to take their shoes off at the front door and throw on a pair of my hand made slippers to wear inside. So I'll need a few more pairs I think.

I made the variegated green pair first. with this pair I made a mistake with the directions and continued with 2 strands of yarn in the upper ribbed sock part. But they will be nice and warm to wear.

I think I like the variegated purple/pink colour the best. The pattern calls for every second row to be done in the back loop of the st, but the effect did not stand out so well with the first variegated yarn, so I did not use the back loop method at all in this pair, oh I did do it at the section where the sole meets the sides.

They are quite easy to make up when you read the pattern correctly and use a stitch marker on the beginning of each row, I stuffed up 2 sole's by not using a stitch marker, but I did not frog them, I am going to add them onto my free form afghan.

This pattern is from the same author but a little different.

There is a free pattern on line that is similar to this pattern, but not the same.

Packing For The Move

Well it won't be long now before we actually move houses.

Packing can take up so much room, so this is how I have tackled it.

Guess what is under the tarp?

Yep boxes. I found a bed base that I could lay on the brick work out side under the pergola, this acted like a pallet for me, keeping the boxes off the ground. I only put boxed items out side that the dew would not affect. I need all the room I can get inside the house, we still need to live in a liveable environment and this helped save so much space.

Below are actual wardrobe boxes, they come with a steel bar that sits across the inside of the box and you just hang your clothes off the bar. I filled the bottom with shoes.
Now this is a light weight way of packing, believe it or not I have over a 100 of these bags, so why not use them. They are compact and easy to carry. They are great for DVD's and books too.

More carry bags and the filing boxes to the left in the picture, have all of my precious pattern books in them.

I sold my large 8 seater dining suite, with the 4 stools too. This was just planning ahead. As we are down sizing house sizes, I have to down size some of my furniture too. Oh by the way the tropical fish tank was sold too, one less hassle to move. So whilst I do not have a kitchen suite, I am using one of my out door settings in the kitchen. I do not really like the idea of having the out door setting inside, but I am currently shopping on ebay for a replacement kitchen suite.

This is the house we bought and what it first looked like, it's fine if you like the colour.

But that colour was not my cup of tea, so here is a progress shot of the new colour scheme. If you look closely wou will see my grandson Cooper near the step.

And we have a nice double carport.

But this was the sale clincher for us, the beach is just a stone's throw away and when I took Cooper there, he did not want to leave.

I am so hoping to make the most out of my surroundings, beach walks and bush walks too. A place for the family to come for holidays, a place for a good wholesome way of life for hubby and I. Pity I can't cook scones very well, LOL.

My big Boy Computer is Back!

Oh I can blog again, problem is I lost all of the memory I had on my computer. Lucky I save most of my crochet work in picture form when I blog about it here!

So what is next? Well that is another blog, stay tuned!