Anyone else a bit chilly??

With a sudden dip in temperature, it's been perfect weather to sit in front of the heater knitting. I finished off my scarf for hubby, and he's now requested a beanie. Because this is a step up from my straight scarf knitting, I bought this book at the local Post Office. It's a great book for a newbie knitter like me. Lots of pictures and help with stitches and abbreviations in knitting patterns.

So with book in lap for reference, Ipad on couch for the pattern, I made a headband/earwarmer from the wool I got at the Craft show for Gorgeous Girl. The pattern is free from here

Unfortunately I didn't have the equivalent book for crochet as those skills are a bit (as in very)rusty!
Gorgeous Girl must have liked it though as she wore it to school today.(only true sign that a near teenager likes something!)
Hope you're having a good week! I hope to get some quilting done this week but I've just been presented with two balls of wool from Little J, with the words 'Can you make me a scarf tonight, Mum?' . So we will see....

Darling Harbour 2013

Gorgeous Girl and I headed off on our annual pilgrimage to Sydney for our girlies weekend. It was great fun, filled with shopping,room service, a trip to see 'Warhorse'(which was simply amazing), a day at the Sydney Craft Show and the token visit to something cultural - this year the Chinese Gardens.And here's some photos...

View from the balcony of the Craft Show...

The Chinese Gardens, which were truly beautiful..

And of course I came home with lots of goodies..but managed to resist buying the $600 Alpaca Wool Coat, so hubby wasn't too miffed (and I have the website in case I change my mind! :-)

These included a flannel quilt kit from Fifis Fabricology, the start of a paper piecing quilt from Cherry Pie Designs.. Some lovely wool, some bits and pieces for making Mother's Day tags for next year's school stall and a Smiggles container which I think will be perfect for my rotary cutter! However the suitcase was mainly filled up with the Pikachu onesie that I bought as a present for Boo..really didn't compact as well as I had hoped!

Lots of fun and we came home exhausted, of course!

Hope you're having a great week!

PS Still knitting!

Just keep knitting

Scarf Mk III


One for hubby.
Can't blog now..life is too busy..have a good week!

Knitting....

It's started to get quite chilly here, all the leaves have changed colour, and the heater...which never quite managed to get put away after last winter...has been back in full use.


I've really caught the knitting bug lately and have enjoyed having something to mindlessly do whilst mindlessly watching television...can you tell I'm into things that don't tax this frazzled brain. So I finished my stripy scarf (Paton's Rainbow Yarn) - just need to thread in a few ends. I can't find a wool needle in this house to save myself so will have to go and buy another.
And I thought to increase my knitting skills I'd try something a little harder and made this one for Gorgeous Girl. It's an alpaca and acrylic mix wool from Spotlight and it's lovely and soft.

Next in the queue is one for hubby. I asked him if he would actually wear it and his reply was "if you made me one, I might", so we will wait and see!

Hope you're having a good week.

My scarf knitting continues...

Nearly to the 2 metre mark, so should be finished soon!

Thought I'd share a recipe from one of my SIL's that I made the other night. Everyone ate it except the four year-old but that child would have spaghetti bolognaise 7 nights a week if I let him!

LEMON CHICKEN PARCELS

Ingredients
4 chicken breasts - each cut into two if large
90 g butter
1 tab oil
filo pastry
1 tabs seeded mustard
1 tabs chopped fresh coriander

Sauce
2 tabs lemon juice
2 tabs of chopped fresh coriander
2 tabs of grated fresh ginger (or a tab of ground ginger if you have to)
1 cup thickened cream

1. Heat 30g of butter and oil in heavy pan. Add chicken and cook until browned lightly. Remove breasts from pan and place on absorbent paper. Reserve pan juices for sauce.

2. Place 1 sheet of pastry on bench, brush with leftover butter that has been melted. Fold pastry in half. Place one chicken breast in centre of one end. Spread chicken with mustard and sprinkle with coriander. Roll up to form a parcel.

3. Brush parcels with melted butter. Bake in a moderate oven until golden brown. Approximately 20min.

4. Sauce - add lemon juice to pan juices. Stir in other ingredients. Stir constantly over low heat until it has reduced by 1/2 and slightly thickened.

5. Pour over chicken parcel and enjoy. Serve with salad or cooked vegies...


Well have a great week. I'd better go check on my four-year old as he wandered past 10 minutes with a glue stick, mumbling "and I'll need this..."

The week that was...

Well this week we've been on school holidays and through the generosity of my parents, have been down to two kids for the week. Gorgeous Girl and Little J headed off to Nan and Pop's to ride horses, jump on the hay bales, walk in the mud and eat too many of Nan's famous ginger bickies.

So I decided to spring clean (in Autumn!) the boys rooms, make some new curtains (to replace the ones that I made from teddy bear fabric when expecting our first bub 13 years ago. Alarmingly I found out that I never did quite get to finishing those side seams!) and chase around the two munchkins who were left to enjoy their boring parent's company.


Boo doing some minor mechanics before heading off on a bike ride..

I've also been getting out my knitting needles as I've decided I would like to improve my knitting skills. I have started with a scarf to get me back in the swing of things.(Not that I recommend swinging with knitting needles...down right dangerous...)

Of course the pattern called for a very tricky 10 rows of colourful wool, 10 rows of navy, 10 rows colourful etc etc..and I managed to mess up on the first change so mine will be unique and go 10 rows colourful, then 12 rows navy..sigh...

I have also been making hexagons..

None of these puny 2" affairs for me..these are the mother of all hexagons at 10 1/2" across. see scissors for scale...


Willow, the new addition to the family is proving a delight. She prefers to be carried around like a baby, and purrs crazily every time someone picks her up. Hubby put in a new water feature for me in the garden and she was most interested to try and figure out what this thing was..

I give the water feature about 1 month to live with the amount of soccer (sorry, I mean football) balls that fly around our backyard! I've already had to farewell 3 gnomes, one ceramic lizard and a flower pot... And my brother wonders why I don't use the banana lounge he gave me to relax in our backyard...

Hope you're having a good week!

Friday Funny..