Mosaic

I've been seeing this around the blog scene recently and, loving the idea of it, I just had to try it for myself. I've listed the titles and photographers below cause I think that's important.

Why don't you try it out for yourself?!?

The Rules....
1. Type your answer to each of the questions into the Flickr Search.
2. Using only the first page, pick an image
3. Copy and paste each of the URL's for the images into Mosaic Maker

The Questions....
1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. What is your favorite drink?
7. What is your dream vacation?
8. Your favorite dessert?
9. What do you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One word to describe you?
12. Your Flickr name?

My Answers....
(titles and photographers for the above)

1. Sunrise at Katherine by Morland Smith
2. Flickr loves Sushi by Drp
3. Art deco bathroom, Elltham Palace by Whipper_Snapper
4. Red Source by Chis (archi3d)
5. Smoking by El sueno de un Mayordorno
6. Acquarello by Konrad
7. Iceberg “Isle of the dead” – Antarctic by Blather
8. Mini pies by bellnad
9. One would by antimethod
10. Jonathan Livingston seagull by jalca
11. Underwater rose by freg
12. Into the wide blue yonder by your funny uncle

I begin to make some sense

I finally made it back on to the Sideways Jacket project. I've been distracted by beanies (still am a little!) and beading and all kinds of laziness. The main problem was that I put it on to circulars due to the large amount of stitches (this is knitted sideways y'know) and then couldn't get my head around how to knit it.
I find this happens whenever I have a glass of wine...it interferes with my knitting gene. It had been annoying me for a while as to why I'd done this, clearly stupid thing. I was sure I'd be able to fit the stitches on my straight needles. It might be tight but it was do able and I'd lost valuable knitting time because I'd tried to be clever.

So after giving myself a stern talking to and still not remembering why I'd switched over I finally returned the project to its rightful needles. I put aside any thoughts of being clever ever again and things seemed to progress really well.....right...up...until...Sunday...night!
That's about the time I realized that I'd forgotten to cast on some stitches. 66 of them....yup 66.

You can't fake 66 stitches.
You can't claim it's a personalization of the pattern.
You can't pretend that people wont notice.
You also can't fit another 66 stitches onto already crowded needles.

It was then I remembered why I'd switched to the circulars needles!!

expanding stash

Yet another beanie has fallen off my needles. This one is plain black and knitted as a work beanie for matt.I've decided the next beanie is for me. I went to see my nephew play football on the weekend and realized that I had never made myself a beanie. And you know what that means.......Cold Ears!!!

Of course you know what else this means......I needed more yarn!! hehehe SO I went out and bought this. The beanie is on my needles as we speak and Mr. Murphy and his law not withstanding I should have photos in a few days!

The Melbourne Quilt and Craft Show

Well the title kinda gives it away. Saturday was spent in craft heaven as I wandered around the Melbourne Quilt and Craft Show. Friday evening there was a bit of panic as I realized that the tickets hadn't come through on the email as promised (life has been hectic recently, normally I would have picked this up much sooner!) but armed with our confirmation email we had no trouble getting in. In fact the lack of tickets raised not a single eyebrow so I wonder if there hadn't been some issues with the tickets.

Anyway....as soon as we got through the doors we raced to book in for the classes we were wanting to attend. That done we, Sandra (aka mum), Gina & myself, happily wandered up and down the aisles, grabbing a coffee when we got tired and spending money on all manner of crafts!

The show itself was huge with an emphasis on quilting (as the name suggests) but there was a wide variety of other crafts including my favorites, knitting and beading. I have no idea how it compares to other years as this is the first one I've attended but we managed to fill the entire day, arriving before 9am and leaving after 4pm!

I attended a class on the Magic Loop method...or knitting socks on one circular needle and have made some progress
I'm still not sure why I picked that colorway as it contains pink, however it is growing on me! I am rather excited about it all as I've tried socks before several times and had no luck with the DPNs....fingers crossed I can finally get a pair finished!

Aside from the sock class I spent a reasonable amount of money...less than I expected and more than Mr Wideblueyarn would have liked. Which is a nice compromise!
Above is a pic of the haul!! Pretty impressive I think! There was, in the end, only one ball of gorgeous kid mohair and lame yarn which will make me a very beautiful dark blue (and slightly sparkley) scarf. Of course there are various beads and findings that I picked up as well but as with the yarn I was very restrained and only bought those beads that sparked an idea or tied in with an existing project. Until our container arrives from the UK and we have sorted through the boxes we have in storage here I feel a little weird adding to my stashes.

Instead I decided to stretch myself by trying out some other crafts and so I bought a patch working kit (top right hand corner with the big red flower), under neath that next to the sock yarn is a very funky Christmas Cross stitch, and just under the sock yarn is an embellished silk scarf kit. this is possibly the most beautiful thing at the craft show and it makes the creative me salivate and want to ignore work and housework and people that want dinner made!

I think I will try to wait until we are in our own house and I can spread out a bit as this project does require some thought and I do need my sewing machine out of storage!!

I think I did pretty well out of this show!

Where I fall over again!

This weekend just gone was a really busy one for us. We have been a bit slack in the catching up with people department of late....lulled in to complacency by the routine of work and the open fire at mums place!

In addition to catching up with a large amount of people we also decided it was time to start having a look around at houses. Not that we're rushing into buying something straight away but it is something we're thinking about and so we need to know what's out there. Plus its fun to
peek into other peoples houses....in a completely not creepy peeping tom kinda way of course!

It was in between a couple of these house viewings that we decided to pop into a well known liquor store to pick up a bottle of wine to take with us to our dinner with friends (as per the catching up with people we know program mentioned earlier).
I must stress that it was before I went into the liquor store that I fell down the steps....but it was
after we came out, when we headed to the coffee shop when I went over on my ankle and hurt more than my pride. Boy did it hurt and although I don't think I've strained it or damaged anything permanently I am still limping.
I do seem to be making a habit of this falling over thing because on the Friday afternoon I nearly had my legs go out from under me in the nearby shopping centre. It was raining and my shoes weren't bought for practical reasons but that didn't make it any less embarrassing as I struggled to stay upright.

Anyway aside from falling over I had a great weekend visiting people, peeking in houses, watching the Banyule Bears under 15's win their match and I even got some knitting in!

Sometimes I even amaze myself

I bought some trousers on the weekend and had to take them up as normal. I'm pretty good at it now having had to deal with this my entire life. I have a system and it works ok. I got to work Monday morning and happened to see myself in the mirror of the ladies toilets........one leg was definitely shorter than the other.

I've been taking my trousers up for so many years I don't even bother to check them when their done now!!! Serves me right! Made me feel a little odd for the rest of the day!

Sideways Jacket

This is my current project (not counting the beanies that I'm addicted to) and so far so good. It's the Sideways Jacket in the Patons Book 1261 (style 14). It's interesting so far...little bit of patterning and knitting the thing sideways is keeping me awake while watching some very suspect TV. Fingers crossed I'll be able to wear this one when it's finished!!

Close up of the pattern....not a good shot color wise.

This one is closer to the color I'm working with.

The arm....taa daaaa!!

Extreme close up of the pattern. Cause knittings all about the extremes!!

Crafty times are here again 2

Despite trying very hard to limit the amount of beads I brought over with me in the suitcases I ended up with a lot.....ALOT!! And then in Canada I managed to add to that substantially (they have great beads in Canada!) Anyhoo I figured I could justify carting them half way around
the world if I used some of them to make things.....
Above is the floral spiral ....loosely based on something I saw in a magazine but ending up nothing like it!!
The silver spiral...need to make one of these for me now.
This was my foray into knotting which I think turned out ok. I've yet to try it again though. Something for a rainy weekend I think.
The Golden spiral. I like the way the pearl round beads gave this one a softer feel. That's the great thing about beads. You can use the same design but switch some beads around and you get a completely different look. Of course after three or four spiral's I'm looking for something a little different now!!!

Crafty times are here again 1

Righto....time for some photos of crafty stuff. I've not been overly productive since arriving in Australia but before then I churned out a fair bit and I think it's time I posted some photos.
I knitted quite a lot of beanies recently for gifts n stuff. I love knitting beanies. So quick, so easy and so much cheaper than therapy!

Plus I love me circulars!!!
Oh and I also knitted a couple of bears from some kits that I found. My first attempt at knitted toys and I think they turned out pretty darn cute. However I doubt I'll make a career of the toy thing so these ones are set to be collectibles!!

And my pride and joy. My first attempt at lace. I think I did rather well in the end..of course it's quite a simple design but has given me the confidence to try something much more advanced!

Brisbane photos

On our way back to Melbourne we stopped in Brisbane to visit my Dad. I'd not been to Brisbane before and I have to say it's a brilliant place. The weather was fantastic, the people friendly, the city was relaxed but with heaps going on and the beaches were gorgeous! I'd definitely consider moving if the right opportunity came up.

View of the skyline.

London has it's pigeons, Brisbane has these things!

The pond in the botanical gardens

What we found in the pond at the botanical gardens!!

Wagtail

Turtle

Our first cockatoo's in 6 years!

View from a hill

When lunch came with a flag I just had to get out the camera!

Normal is as normal does

Despite good intentions life has once again got away from me and it's been weeks since the last post. Life is however, slowly returning to normal for us...or the Australian version of normal at least and so hopefully I will get more time now to post of our adventures.

We've been back in the country for five weeks now and those five weeks have been a whirlwind of faces and places, most of which are familiar to us but one or two new ones as well. We've managed to find ourselves a car and both of us have started work again which makes for a big chunk of normality and routine. Normally I'd say that routine can be a bad thing but in this instance it really is nice to know what the days hold, where I need to be and when I'll be
getting paid for it!! Even so we're still living in at mums (Thanks mum!!) and I doubt we'll
really feel settled or truly at home until the end of August when (fingers crossed) we get back into our house.

It's strange how quickly you adapt to massive changes in your life. How you can be completely uprooted from all that you know and love and still you go about each day as if it were normal.

However we are finding that this time is much harder to adjust to. When we left for the UK we were younger and in need of an adventure. I'm not saying it wasn't hard.....just that we wanted the change and so I guess it was more exciting than difficult. This time we are older (and wiser) and less willing to uproot our lives. We're in a different place now and not eager for the disruption. Plus we have benefit of hindsight. Knowing how hard it was and how long it took us to really feel at home in the UK warns us that this move won't be easy.

With the physical move mostly over now and the things that are considered requirements for everyday life (job, car, medicare etc) taken care off I'm constantly lulled in to a false sense of normality....that I'm home and that everything is as it was. Only to be kicked in the stomach wit h reality whenever I think about home or hear from friends overseas. Each time it hits me that I'm not where I subconsciously thought I was I realize that this move, this grieving for what was, is going to take a long while to process and I really wonder if it will stick or if we'll end up going through the whole thing again!!