Christmas Ornaments

Well I have enjoyed my little foray back in the world of cross stitching...  These little ornaments were just what I needed to get me interested a bit again.  Quite cute they are too I think.  They are all the Lizzie Kate Jingle series from this year.  As were the 2 on my previous post.  

They have all been stash busters too.  I have used everything that I already had at home from the ric rac, fabric, craft card, felt, thread, evenweave...   I didn't even take any note of the count of the evenweave.  I didn't care really.  There was just a big cut there that was a good colour for them so I used it.  I found more of it today when I was topping up my DMC threads in my DMC drawers.  How fun was that!  Oh it is nice to see you again my little threads of fun!  

A Bit Of Stitching

It's been an age since I have done any cross stitch.  I know why it has taken so long too...  

But in any case, we got some of these new Jingle Flip-it's from Lizzie Kate in at work the other week.  I didn't expect I would actually do them yet, but well here you go.  There are 2 done in the last couple of nights.  They don't take long to stitch up.  I finished them off into ornaments as the pattern cover picture has been done.  It's a nice easy finish so if I put them in at work for people to see, they can see it's easy to finish off something without great expense.  

If you read the post on the horror child the other day, this will come as no surprise.  He is the reason I don't stitch a lot again like I used too.  I need to leave my stuff for stitching out.   Especially if I work on a large project of which I have a couple of large ones I must do.  But the other day when he came running with my empty pin cushion I had my reason for averting such things confirmed.  "Where are the needles?" I yelled.  He proudly runs to the middle of the floor & bends down & yells back "Here!!!"  Fortunately I only had 3 needles in it.  Usually my stitching involves about 30 but I kept them away - for good reason obviously, as what I expected to happen did happen!  

Still Busting Stash

I'm still here.  Just plodding along doing the usual stuff.  

I did get some more cloths made recently.  A friend who I made a bunch for last year loves her cloths.  Her sister was visiting her & demanded Friend take her to the shop where she got her cloths from.  Cool huh?  Someone thought my cloths were good enough to be shop bought.  Quite a nice thought.  Anyway, Friend asked me to make some so she could give them to her sister.  Sure thing.  

I don't use anything else any more.  Especially with a horror messy child.  I can wipe floors or anything with a clean one & put it straight in the wash.  No cross contamination around here!  lol  

& yes I do have a horror messy child.  This morning - walk in kitchen & said child is sitting on the floor with his hand in a new tub of butter.  Oh lovely.  Not that I used a cloth at this point.  Paper towel was called for here else I would be forever getting grease out of washing.  Can't very well wash child with boiling hot water to get it off him!  

Don't let the face of the little one fool you!  

(Daddy took them on a bit of a "bush walk" last week while I was at work)

Fabulous Springy Weekend

Finally the rain has stopped.  It is supposedly only temporary but heck, we'll take sunshine when we can get it right now.  

We had a fabulous weekend though enjoying the sunshine.  Saturday was lots of weeding in the garden.  Felt good to be out there & getting something done in the forest of weeds!  The cows were so happy with our efforts!  lol  

Sunday we were able to go to the Celebrate Spring event at the Tasmanian Arboretum.  We went last year & BJ remembered it & really wanted to go again.  We were there early this time & there was no waiting around to do activities.  We started with kite making.  

They don't look like much but they were fabulous.  They did fly if you ran fast enough.  Not much wind, & we aren't going to complain about that at all.  But they did a good job.  Even DJ tried & tried.  But he ended up having more fun falling over.  We tried them last night at home & they do go really well!  

Next stop was the tent with the beach & rubbish display.  We spent at least 15 minutes here.  BJ was in his element.  I think he told the lady as much as she told him.  They had a good combination of beach things & rubbish you find on the beach so they spent ages looking at all the bits.   Right down to the penguin with the knitted penguin jumpers which BJ was quite excited about too.  DJ just enjoyed playing with the whales, boat & other fish they had sitting on there for the display.  

The Basketweavers had an interactive display too.  It was fabulous.  They had an assortment of things to use to weave into their large "wall".  BJ had a good time playing & weaving ropes through first up.  We thought it would be good to go back to it later on to see what had happened to it in the time we had been elsewhere.  It was interesting.  Of course, anything the big brother does, the little one had to do too...  

The icecream there is divine.  That was our extra special treat for the day.  Of course DJ thoroughly enjoyed it.  

The arboretum is a large tree park.  Quite a natural type of park, & it's great to visit any time of the year.  There is a large lake in the centre where there are a few platypus.  I have seen them before but it was too early in the day to see them today.  BJ did laps of the lake so he could run across the "ninja wall" that Stu named it.  So of course one lap wasn't enough.  Stu took some time out while we waited for BJ to come back around.  

BJ had his face painted.  It's only the second time ever.  The first time was at this event last year.  

Unfortunately the lady didn't know how to do a lego man like he asked for so he got a spider.  ewww...  

It was a good time.  

& only 5 minutes after we were home did this happen...  

Hoodie

I am a bit excited!  

Ok, a bit more than a bit.  I am feeling quite clever too.  

I did it.  I knitted myself a hoodie!  For one thing, that is the second top for me this year!  Wow!  Amazing.  It's never happened before.  

But I did this hoodie.  It is Basic Chic Hoodie.  I am rapt.  It's top down & seamless.  It took me about 2 months to knit.  That in itself is quite something.  It is knitted with Noro Kureyon wool.  I love it.  I still really can't believe I made it myself!  I even got to wear it so far.  I thought it was just going to be too warm for spring now, but nope, the weather has been pretty ordinary so got to wear it for a day already.  Quite cosy.  

So, onward & upward.  I feel like I can tackle almost anything!  

Ok, maybe not anything.  I am still scared of knitted patterns as charts.  I want it written in words!  lol  

But maybe I will get over that if I really want to do this pattern I found.  But in the meantime I have got another ready for the needles.  But I need to do a couple of other little jobs first.  

Blurry Times - Busy Times

 Another month has gone by.  

I had to refresh my memory a little.  A sign of old age of course!  But I am happy to have these birthdays you know.  Plus any excuse for cake.  Every September though we usually overload on cake.  I think we started with cake on Father's Day.  Then a couple days after was my birthday & a few more days after is Stuart's.  The boys have fun at least.  We need cake & candles for their benefit.  Plus I think that week we also had a couple of other children's birthday parties to attend!  Phew...  

So a little bit of this

& a little bit of that...  it was nice that Elmo was able to make it to this one!  

The weather has been rather wet.  So there have been pyjama days on the weekends if we haven't had anything on.  BJ reading to DJ was pretty funny.  

This was a rather sunny spring day.  

Bj wanted the pool.  You WHAT?  Yes it is sunny, but no we aren't breaking out the pool.  Ok, just the clam with a little water in the bottom.  & no bathers on.  Ok, so fully dressed, they played in a little water that was continually topped up with a little more, tipped out, topped up, etc etc.  As you can see from the wee one on the left, he is muddy.  Muddy as anything.  But they had such fun, crawling around under the pool, rolling around on the ground, in the muddy patch they created from tipping out the bit of water each time.  It was so nice that they could run about crazy as for a while in some spring sunshine.  

Goodness, I really need to put in a bit more effort.  

Hope you are all going to come & visit me still.  I will try to lift my game.