The Project Bag Swap

I got it in my head that it would be great to swap project bags with the group on Ravelry, so I put my hand up to run it.

It's time for parcels to be sent now and I received this lovely one from AndreaOD today.Red is my favourite colour and I just love it. In real life the tote bag has what Mum refers to as "Penny Red" on the bottom of it (and the straps). The little bag up the top is just going to be so useful and already has my mohair wrap living in it, and it's living in the tote. :o)

The cup says "When I learned to knit I forgot how to cook", which DH just went 'hmph' too and said 'can you forget how to knit please'.
There's a little 'raw scrapbook' that I will be able to turn into something spectacular in a weekend, and some pink Zhivago (it's nice and soft) that DD admired. Oh and don't forget the funky material with the dress maker models on it. I think I might have to make a bag and use that as an accent pocket.

How Easter Eggs are made.

These guys are just sooooo cute.
They started life as a ball of very bright yellow acrylic yarn.
And while I was busy "raising" them I wondered if they'd ever amount to decent egg layers.
But give them a comb, some eyes and a beak and they start laying those chocolate eggs pretty quickly.
My daughter didn't want them to go (she doesn't eat brown chocolate, she just thought the chickens were too cute to go anywhere) and she had a couple of favourites.
But they all found nice new homes and should be ready to lay in a week and a bit. :o)

What am I up to?

It's busy round here.
We're getting ready for a trip to the US and I'm battening down the hatches.
Mum is coming to look after the kids for 2 weeks. Trying to save her sanity by pre-doing a lot of stuff.
I'm trying to get my 'swaps' for Ravelry finished.
Playgroup is having an open day for the Worlds Biggest Playgroup Day.
I made a couple of purses (see the pink polka dot ones below) but I'm not a whiz with zips so not 100% happy with them.
I also wanted to try a new bag pattern so here it is being cut out.Spotlight sent me a voucher - spend $100 get $40 off. Well my daughter's room needed a new curtain rail so I was half way to the hundred bucks just there and it would be a shame to miss out on the discount so I got some fabric to make the kids some bags (Thomas for Little Mister and glittery aqua, purple and pink for the Little Miss). Now I just need some time to make them.

Bah humbug

I've been wanting to make one of these for a while. You might know them as humbugs, though humbugs are more a rectangle shape as far as the lolly was concerned, or sunny boys - a famous Australian iceblock that came this shaped, although also more a little elongated as well, or as the pattern calls it a Pyramid Purse.
The tutorial made it look so easy.
*cough* well apart from putting the zipper in and sewing the last seam across the zipper it wasn't too bad. (that basically leaves sewing the handle)

It's from scraps of material that I've used for my project bag swap.
I'm going to add some stitch markers and put it in my project bag as my 'little extra'.
I hope she likes green.

I'll try and make a few more of these - maybe a bigger size would be easier, it took me about an hour and a half to do.

Jewelry? I don't think so

I've been trying to make some felted bracelets.
So I knit the i-cord and it was a bit sloppy, but I thought felting it would help.

Lessons learnt
1 - the thicker you knit it, the better the end result (the yellow is two strands together)
2 - felting it takes longer than you think
3 - I need to practise i-cord
4 - I don't think I'd ever wear them (but I don't wear bracelets to start with)
They don't sit neat and round, so they possibly might not make it into my swap package.

Any hints?

Follow the Yellow Brick Road

ahh yellow.
Such a happy colour.
It's supposed to encourage intelligence.
For me it invokes feelings of happiness and sunshine. Particularly when added to some other bright colours.
Below are some sneak peaks of a yellow swap that I'm involved in on Ravelry.This swap has almost come together with out me realising.
This is a bag full of goodies for a younger member of the community.
You can't see the bucket loads of lollies that are hiding in there too. Most non-meltable.

I love this little bag. It just needs one more seam hand sewn and it's finished.
I hope she likes it, I think it's cute and funky.
Some wool... Mum spun it and it was dyed (by Maree I think) at the dyeing day down on the farm.

And some cute stitch markers that I made.
The beads cost a fortune but I just love them. I think I'll get some more for me next time I'm visiting Mum. (The stitch markers aren't quite finished I have to get hold of the wire cutters round here somewhere.)
And that's corn yarn in the background, yes, yarn made from corn. I love the soft banana-ery colour.
I'm finding it hard to part with these ones... but they were always meant to go in this swap so I'm just telling myself that they'll have a lovely home.

A very fishy tale

I loved this hat from the moment I saw the pattern.
Mum had this wool lying round - she'd been making some woollen soakers for Boy Wonder, but they never got finished. So when she said she was going to get rid of it I snavelled it up with this project in mind specifically.
It's hand spun tops and it's very funky roughly 8ply - the only change to the pattern I made was the tail and I'd probably make that different for the next one as well. (Oh yeah, there'll be more there's going to be some cold winter days at soccer games that definitely need headwear.)
People looked weirdly at me when I showed them the pattern - perhaps they were wondering 'why???'. But I persisted. I just loved it, I don't know why.
Once it was finished I still loved it but people still give it funny looks.
The one thing I know though, once you put it on you can't help but be very silly.

Oh no.. the fish is eating SuperGirl....
ahhhhhh



My fish - what a big smile you have! My fish - what big teeth you have!
The hat was going to be for one of the kids, originally, probably Boy Wonder, but I love it too much to give it up.
(these photos are by the 4 year old SuperGirl. Unfortunately once she got hold of my camera, I couldn't get it back as she photographed everything in the backyard)





Got the MOTH (man of the house)'s help to make sure there were some photos of the fish at every angle.


erm, yep, that's me imitating a fish.

MOTH had a go then.








It's still mine though.
Oh and for the northern hemisphere visitors it's the end of a nice hot summer here, but we managed to wear the hat that evening, for a while at least.