Yummy..

My Dear Friend Sue, sent me the link to this blog. I needed to bake for the kids lunches tomorrow and though these would be a lovely surprise.

Ice cream cup cakes
Only ten there .. Pete and I ate the other two.. they needed to be taste tested!

I can't wait to see the look on the kids faces when they see these in there lunch bags.

The recipe I Use:

3 cups of plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
120g butter
1 cup caster sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
175ml of milk

set oven to preheat 180c

using a whisk mix the flour and baking powder together. set aside

in a separate bowl cream the butter and sugar. Add one egg at a time beating well between additions. Add the vanilla beat well.

With a wooden spoon fold in half the flour, then half the milk, then the rest of the flour and then the remaining milk.

Spoon the mix into Ice cream cups. I filled about 3/4 full. I made 12 cone cups and spooned the rest of the mix into patty papers. ( this recipe usually makes 18 large cupcakes)

Bake for 20 mins. The top goes golden brown when cooked and the cakes are firm to touch. You can also put a skewer in to test.

I iced the cone cakes with Butter icing

Another Dishcloth

Waffle Weave Dishcloth
Crochet 4mm Hook
Patons Sunspun 8ply

Crochet takes a lot more yarn than knitting. This cloth takes 50gms to make.
I knitted the previous two dishcloths with that amount.

Self Feeder

From: Baby Book

Michael wants to feed himself. Always grabbing at the spoon as I feed him and making a huge mess. Another Enid Design to the rescue. I used polar fleece for the bib and poly cotton for the sleeves. I didn't bind the edge as Polar fleece doesn't fray. I did bind the neckline with Bias binding using a long piece to make the ties at the same time.

I turned the back edges of the sleeves over 1/4 of an inch and sewed them down with a zig zag stitch rather than double folding a hem.

OH NO ....he's on the move!

He no longer stays where he's put.
Not fully crawling but more of a wiggle.
My baby is growing up way too quickly for my liking.

Those Spare Rib Shoakers he's wearing were knitted by the designer, Rebecca Webster. They were Lilly's and are still going strong.

Bec has released her wonderful pattern as a free download on Ravelry. And she would like anyone who downloads her Spare Ribs Shoaker pattern to give a little donation to Bonnie Babes.

Dishcloths

Waffle Dish Cloth
4.5mm needles
Patons Sunspun 8ply boucle cotton ( an Op-shop find)

Argosy Dishcloth
4.5mm needles
Patons Sunspun cotton Boucle 8ply
I knitted this with one less repeat of the pattern.

Second Sister scarf

Dropped stitch scarf.

This one is very simple:

Row 1 - 4 knit four rows,
Row 5 - (knit 1, yo twice) repeat to last stitch knit 1 - adding the stitches to drop
Row 6 - (k1, drop the yo) reapeat to last stich k1 - the drop stitch row

Repeat the above 6 rows until your scarf is as long as you want.

I used 8mm needles and a mohair/cotton yarn.

Pedal Power

Road train!

I love reading other peoples blogs. I get so many great ideas and inspiration from them. Mandy recently bought one of these handy kiddie Trailers for her Bike. I really loved the idea and had to get one too. We found one in K-mart at Pt Pirie. This one is rated to carry 45kgs. Easily accommodating Lilly and Michael. The plan is to use it for taking Lilly to preschool, when she begins next term.

It's been a long time since I rode a bike and my muscles were screaming within 50 m of riding! I am so unfit. I once could ride 10kms, doing a circuit around Tennant Creek. Out through Peko Rd , along the Warrego road and back into town along the Stuart Hwy. Now I'm huffing and puffing to make it around the block.

I'll have to build up the fitness before I can take Lilly to preschool. I'll start with just a couple of small rides in the service road before I venture onto the main street.

My bottom is also hurting. Bike seats are not comfortable.

Lilly and Michael are loving it!

My beautiful boys

Don't blink .. you may never see all three clean at the same time again!

Sunday Drive - (we don't just talk it!)

We went to the nearby town of Georgetown today. To have a look at some poultry. The kids loved the ducklings and chicks. And I fell in love with a Muscovy drake.

Muscovy Drake - he needs a name?

We soon will be the proud owners of this fine fellow and 3 Muscovy ducks. Peter has to build a duck pen and yard before we can bring the Drake and his ladies home. I think he's a very handsome fellow and he wags his tail.

A local farmer also allowed Peter to shovel out his bull yard and we came home with a trailer full of Bull......! Just perfect for the compost.

One Scarf done

Double Drop Stitch Scarf
Yarn: Amour by Heirloom 50% mohair 49% cotton 1% Polymide
Needles: 6mm

Because I've been such a good girl..

and menu planned last fortnight and saved $300! I treated myself to a little trip to the LYS and somehow these ended up coming home with me:

50% Mohair 49% Cotton 1%Polyamide
I'm thinking scarves for my sisters for xmas?

I'm knitting up a large pair of Longies for Michael.
They will be 60cm in the hips, I'm putting them aside for him to grow into.
I'm loving this wool!
It's the wool I got from Susanne's House Of Wool Soaker Club.

I've also been playing with the blog and worked out how to put my Ravelry WIP's with progress bars onto my blog. It wasn't very hard to do in the end. You just need to find the code on Ravelry and post it in a html gadget on the sidebar!

Book Week Parade!

It's Batman Liam
Nothing Mummy made here - an outfit given to Liam by his friend Joshua

Little Red Riding Hood
Rose
Mummy made the cape using an Enid Gilchrist pattern.
The Pinafore is a Sense and Sensibility pattern. I bought the pattern a while ago.

Alice In Wonderland
Fern
This pinafore is also the Sense and Sensibility pinafore pattern

Tashi
James
The Tashi hair is made of polar fleece and stuffed with wadding. I put a pipe cleaner at the tip so I could put the curl in.

A group photo.
All ready and excited for the Fancy Dress Parade.

The kids were up bright and early. They got dressed and ready for school in record time. They were so excited! The parade was wonderful full of wonderful homemade creations. I really liked the Mr Men outfits, The BFG with his trumpet, pirates, Power Rangers and many other dressed up characters. The kids even got to wear their outfits all day at school.

Swaps with Mandy

I love swaps!

There are some fabulous patterns in here including a really nice ladies shirt and some very cute nightgowns. The three skeins of wool on the left were dyed by Mandy. Some wool wash, mohair and other assorted wools. Thank you Mandy!

Dolly Quilt - Busy Scrap Strings

Busy Scrap Strings
20 inch x 16 inches
blocks string pieced on calico
top cotton, bamboo batting and old pillowcase backing
freemotion quilted.

I thought I would only do three doll quilts for my three girls. But Liam wants a Teddy Quilt, so I still need to make three more. The other Teddys should have one too.

Beetaloo Valley - South Australia

We had a day out at Beetaloo Valley.
It was overcast and cold but the rain held off long enough for us to have a little walk near the dam wall.

We climbed up to get a view from near the top of the dam wall.

Michael had a great time. He loves riding in his back pack.

The kids spotted the roos before Pete and I.

We finished our walk off with a little picnic. We journeyed home via Laura and stopped off and had a Golden North Icecream each. Not really ice cream weather but that didn't bother us.

Dolly Quilt - Busy and Bright

Busy and Bright
100% cotton top, old pillowcase as backing, bamboo batting
A mix of novelty prints from a scrap bag bought from Patchwork Products.
Machine pieced and quilted
15.5 x 20 inches

Freemotion quilted.
The lady who runs the quilt shop here was showing me this easy quilt design.
Achieved by quilting wavy lines across the seams of the block.

This one is for Lilly's doll. Lilly helped lots and was very eager to get her dolly quilt. With helpful comments like ..Mummy hurry up! ... can I have it now? ..... is it finished yet? The wonkyness of the quilting I can attribute to Lilly! *** Insert Cheeky Wink ****

Dolly Quilt - Flower Garden

Flower Garden
16 x 20 inches
machine pieced and quilted
100% cotton fabrics and bamboo batting
Embellished with fabric yo-yo's and buttons

I really can't say I did this all on my own. Ollie Cat assisted. He insisted on putting his paws in all the wrong places. He's got a fascination with rotary cutters and sewing machine needles. I spent as much time shooing him away as I did sewing the quilt. He kept jumping up onto my cutting table and then onto the sewing cabinet. He even had to investigate the ironing board and the VERY hot iron. So If you can see a point that doesn't match that was Ollies contribution!

Bruise Shorties

Handknit shorties
12ply hand dyed wool
Rolled leg, rib and drawstring waist, crotch gusset, short rows and hip shaping
worked on 4.5mm needles making a dense fabric
Hip 56cm, Rise 48cm

I knitted these in the car on our holidays to Tennant Creek. I finished grafting the crotch last night in front of the laptop watching Foyles War on ABC iview. We've upgraded our internet to 25GB and a faster download. I've been a bit naughty with all the podcasts I listen too, I blew our 10GB's this month and we got slowed right down. Now that you can download movies in itunes we're going to need the extra GB's!

Yarn Collectives Soaker Club - Spoiler alert!!

DO NOT

SCROLL DOWN

IF YOU HAVEN"T GOT

YOURS YET!

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OH MY Is this good!

The Colourway is so yummy I'm so desperate to get knitting!

And included was this cute little needle case and stitch markers.
A pencil which doubles as a ruler and a notebook.

This all came from Susanne's House Of Wool
It's Augusts installment of the Yarn Collective Soaker Club

Another hat - Latiss Hat

Latiss Hat
12ply Heirloom yarn
Knitted on 6mm needles
Another free pattern! I love the internet :)

Garden Produce - the first of the broccoli

We picked the first of the broccoli this morning.

Lilly helped :)

Another gardener in town was telling me her Broccoli had already gone to flower. So I picked today just in case. We're having Tuna Mornay with pasta, Broccoli and Silverbeet (also from the garden) for dinner. The kids will complain about the Silverbeet but they love the broccoli or little trees as they call it.

Calorimetry

I've been wanting to make one of these for ages. What is it? you ask. A Calorimetry of course.

Calorimetry is a scientific term describing the measurement of heat lost or gained.

It's a sort of cross between a headband and a hat.

It's a free pattern from Knitty: Winter 2006
On Ravelry there are 4807 projects, just of this knit. It's very popular.
It's quick and easy to knit, attractive to wear and uses up all those odd balls you have lying around.

I knitted mine in Naturally Hand Knit Merino & Fur left over from a pair of longies I knitted for Michael. This wool is so yummy and warm. I'm going to show this one off to my friend Bec and offer to knit her one too.

Sunday is Family Day

In an effort to get more connected with the kids and get off this computer. I've decided Sunday is family day. When growing up my parents would bundle us in the car and we'd go for a Sunday drive. I hated it as someone always threw up or farted!

Today was wet, cold and sunny. But the Bundaleer Forest was magical.

Bec, Brandy and Mickalee joined us in a walk along the Maple Walk.

I finished the pullover last night. It was to be Fern's but was too small so Rose got lucky.
Knit in 12ply Meadow 100% Wool from Spotlight
Pattern is a free download on Ravelry and comes from Last Minute Knitted Gifts by Joelle Hoverson

The Forrest colours are breathtaking.

The trees eerie without their leaves.

The rain held off long enough for us to walk the walk.
We went back to the picnic ground. As the rain started to fall, the BBQ was lit and we feasted on sausages and bread. Drinking lemonade and coffee.

After Bec and the girls left we had a little walk to the sculpture gardens and played on the Musical Sculptures before heading home.

Time to get organised and budgeting

With fuel prices being so high and food prices continuing to spiral I feel the need to start budgeting again.

The fuel on out trip to Tennant Creek cost us just under $1200! Our car is an older vehicle and we did have her well packed. And I don't think fuel prices going up is such a bad thing as a rule. It certainly makes you think before you use the car, a good thing for the environment.

The camping equipment $1100, because Pete insisted we needed a car fridge. As mum pointed out it would of been cheaper to stay in the Roadhouses along the way!

When we homeschooled I was so much better at keeping track of things. Mostly due to the need to keep records for homeschooling.

I made this folder years ago. I called it my Mummy Brain. A name I pinched from another homeschooling mum. I put all our schedules in here. The menu plans, the homeschool records, the xmas list, my planning for my Guide activities and anything else I needed to remember. Since we moved and we stopped homeschooling I've got lax in my ways.

The recipe books

I'm setting myself a challenge to get organised again. The first job is the menu planning. I'm going to do weekly planning and list making. I'm just spending way too much at the Supermarket again. Time to rein in the expenses and record where the money is disappearing too. No more popping into the supermarket to pick up a few things and walking out $80 poorer!

Next -
the cleaning routine - the house is a pigsty and cluttered beyond belief
the daily activity planning - Lilly and Michael need me to get off the computer and be with them more. The kids also need more of an afterschool and weekend routine. I'd like to do the Sunday drive with them, take them out on Sundays and do something fun as a family. I'd also like to re start out family board games night.

There's lots to do! I'll keep you posted on how I'm going.. maybe even start my own organising blog that may keep me honest!


OK I've done it ... Here's the blog: Madquilters Organisation Challenge
Anyone want to join me?