Blue mountains etc

Some gorgeous shots of the Blue Mountains, we were lucky enough to have a stunning, clear day when we visited on our wee holiday to Australia. We went to visit family and surprised my lovely SIL for her 30th birthday. She just thought my MIL was coming to visit for ten days but it was her hubby's brilliant idea that Tessa, Ian and I come too and surprise her. And boy was she surprised it was so fun and we had a lovely time.



The famous three sisters, rock formation.


We went to this really great wildlife 45mins south of Wollongong. Where you could buy bags of animal food and feed quite a range of the animals, from goats and emus to kangaroos and alpacas.

Tessa was fascinated, and really enjoyed the kangaroos which were tame enough to get up close and personal. Here she is with her Uncle and Aunty feeding this friendly and hungry kangaroo.

We also stayed two nights in Sydney at Darling Harbour and did the tourist things like go on the ferry to manly beach and have their famous fish n chips. We went to the opera house and had a look, it really is quite stunning architecture. I really enjoyed the restaurants we had Italian the first night and Spanish the second night for the birthday dinner, the Tapas were very popular.
Were very lucky to get home as the very disruptive ash cloud arrived as we were about to fly home.

Pizza making, Tessa style

On Sunday Tessa and I made Daddy his favourite, pizza mmm. Something great to make when your food supplies are getting low, although I would preferred a few more veges, hehe.

Tessa had a great time, sampling at every stage. She followed instructions well and didn't want to miss out on any step.

Here is the yummy finished product, mmm tasty.

The slightly out of order pics, but you get the idea. I think her favourite part was the rolling, something she like to do a lot, whether it's rolling on the floor or rolling toys along.

Autumn Gold

Well I was looking a few photos on my camera and I thought I would brighten a dreary day and post a few from autumn in the garden. The above is a shot of the nz native hibiscus (the proper name eludes me at the moment). It's quite a subtle pale yellow bloom which only last for a day and the plant is frost tender, but it seems to keep going in our garden every season as it self sows really nicely.


Above is a sweet little nasturtium which you will probably recognize the shape. But this once is a love red orange cultivar which I bought in a mixed punnet a few years ago. Like the hibiscus above it's managed to survive in my garden as it's also a great self seeder.


I just love her gorgeous semi golden curly locks, don't you.


And Tansy above is a great companion plant for stone fruit trees. I have it planted around an early heritage peach called 'Orion' which fruits in early December, which is a lovely start to summer.

And finally this gorgeous golden miniature sunflower is such good value for an annual as is keeps blooming for a long time. Helped along by the sweet Tessa and her deadheading (bringing mummy pretty flowers). Hope you have a lovely weekend filled with a little golden happiness.

Tessa

To celebrate mother's day, my sweet wee girl!!

Some more test knitting

I think this year is fast becoming the year of the test knit. These are my sixth and seven finished test knits for the year so far and I have another two tests on the needles. I guess I work much better with a deadline. And I love the little thrill of being one of the first few to knit a new pattern.


The sweet twirly skirt above is my test of the Tropical Fish Skirt from the very prolific and talented pattern designers Elena Nodel. It was a great stash buster knit, I used some lovely Cleckheaton country paintbox variegated purples and a plum for the trim.

The above and below pics show the test of the Sweet As ... pattern by Amber Bertram. I knit this a month or so ago in size 3, it had a unusual and new to me construction, top-down set in sleeves. This was a gift knit for a different little girl to the gorgeous model in the photos.

Pre birthday celebrations

A couple of weeks Tessa and four little boys celebrated an early second group birthday.
We all met at antenatal yoga class and have meeting every week since the babies were about six weeks old. It has been really lovely to have other parents to relate to as we went through challenges and fun of raising our first babies.

The really yummy birthday cake, but they were more interested in motorbikes, hehe. Who needs themed parties when you can just celebrate on a farm with awesome sheds.


I made felt birthday crowns for everyone with their initial on the top. Although keeping them on the kids was a little challenging. They were quite simple and there are heaps of tutorials on the internet if you interested.


The gorgeous Rori, younger brother of one of the birthday boys.


Everyone had a great time and it was great for all the dads to catch up too.

Yarn dying

I have finally managed some yarn dying this week. The above skein is 150gm of Naturally Sensation merino 8ply. I'm quite pleased with it, now that I have wound it up into skeins, but when I had originally finished I was discouraged.
I used food colours as I have done in the past, but I tried a new and quite interesting technique for setting the colour.
Solar heat, I did this by hand painting the yarn as you would for the steam setting technique and wrapping in clingfilm. But instead of steam setting I lay the skeins in a polystyrene box lined with reflective building paper (aluminum foil would work too) and put it outside in a sunny position and covered with a piece of glass and left it for a couple of days. This works even faster if you have hot sunny days like we have had lately.


The above (out of focus but was closest to colour) pic shows the largest batch I have experimented with 800gm of 10ply Bendigo Woollen Mills Luxury yarn. I love this yarn, and it's really affordable, soft and quite hard wearing. I'm not the only one if you have a look at the many projects on Ravelry.
Now to decide which cardi to knit for winter. A few on my long list are Rosamund's cardi (not sure as this colour is so dark and the the cable details will be lost), Tea leaves, Juliette (8ply pattern) and Kerrera (I'm not sure there enough). Have a look at the links and tell me what you think?


This is the wonderful swift I bought off Julia last month with some xmas money my lovely Mum gave me. It's brilliant you can change the size of the skein and wind it up with ease, it's so much faster than put the skein on the back of a change and hand winding. If you check out her blog you can win one along with a whole lot of other lovely knitty goodies to help support a little girl called Hope who has cancer.
Hope Osborne is a little Wellington girl turning 4 in almost a week who was diagnosed with cancer 2 years ago. Since then she's gone through countless painful and difficult procedures and earned 900 beads as a badge of her journey with child cancer. Please support her and her family in their time of need and head over to Juila's blog and donate.