Monthly Dishcloth KAL ( Knit A Long)

I joined a Yahoo group - Monthly Dishcloth KAL

The co-ordinator sends out a few lines of the pattern each day. I liked that it was a total mystery what I was knitting up. This group does two cloths a month. One a picture cloth and another a stitch pattern cloth.

My Flower Child

One of my older magazines.
This time I followed Enid's instructions to the letter.
No short cuts were taken in the making of this dress.

I drafted my patterns.
I bought the fabric yesterday morning from the local quilt shop.
Lilly picked the pink and I found the contrast.

The binding was hand finished. The side seams are french. The gathering at the waist is bound.


My little flower child.
There's plenty of room for growth.
I got Lilly to put the dress on for photos and she's refusing to take it off!

A Walk in the garden - Spring 08

Spring has arrived in all it's beauty
Flowers lift their faces to the sun
Babies and lambs play side by side
In my country garden

The fruit trees awake from the winter sleep
With a blush of blossoms they greet the spring
Bees serenade with a hum of delight
In my country garden

The weeds have had free delight
But now it's time to curb them
The earth needs preparing for the veggie crop
In my country garden

The days are longer
The hens return to the lay
The ducks parade and wander
In my country garden

I know that God is near
His wonders are clear to see
I feel the peace of my faith
In my country garden

My New Oven

Cooking for 7 every night on a standard stove is a bit of a juggling act. I never had enough oven room and would run out of burners for the pots.

Two trays of cupcakes fit nicely in.
The new oven is deeper than my old oven and 800mm wide.

Five burners and more room for my larger stock pots.
There's also a lid, giving extra bench space and doubles as a splash back.

Happy 4th Birthday Lilly

Lilly loved her new Dora Doll from Nanny.

All the gang plus a couple extra.

Lilly had a wonderful day. We went to Preschool and enrolled her for pre-entry next term. Lilly will be attending one morning a week for the first term. She loved helping to make her birthday cake and chose Nachos for her special birthday dinner. September is a busy month for birthdays here.

One new craft leads to another...

Spinning yarns leads to weaving ... Really if you spin you need to do something with your yarn so you really need to learn to weave.

I bought myself a new toy an Ashford Knitter's loom and had my first attempt at weaving. I used the pattern in the manual to make my first woven project a scarf.

Woven scarf
Wool and Feather's yarn

I was really pleased with my first effort.

I'm hooked! This was a lot of fun to make. I'm planning on trying to weave with fabric and my hand spun yarns very soon.

Spring has sprung

Planting up the seeds for this seasons veggie crop.

Happy Birthday - Peter - 50!

My Beautiful Man turns 50.

Food Dehydrator

Ezidri Dehydrator

A new purchase. The local electrical store has just got these in stock. I've had this on my want list for a while. We'll be using it to dry our homegrown produce this year. I'm looking forward to making fruit roll ups for the kids. It can even be used for drying soups and meals.

I used it to dehydrate some oranges. Worked really well. I now want to buy some extra trays to make larger batches as it costs no more to dehydrate 15 trays as 5.

Nan's Chocolate Cake Recipe

Nan's Chocolate Cake

When I was 10 my Nan came to stay with us for a few months. My Nan lived in Wales and we live in Australia. I have many fond memories of my Nan. She loved to bake and cook for us.

My mum recently gave me her old recipe book. Inside on one of the fly pages Nan had written down her chocolate cake recipe. I baked it for Fern's birthday cake. It turned out beautiful.

Nan's Chocolate Cake

1 cup of SR Flour
1 Cup of Sugar
2 Tablespoons Cocoa
2 Eggs
1 teaspoon Vanilla Essence
1/2 cup Milk

Over this pour three tablespoons Melted Butter
Beat for 3 minutes
Bake in a shallow tin at 180c for 50minutes.

Happy Birthday Fern

Fern is eleven.

Baa Baa Brown Spotted Sheep..

Isn't she pretty?

We have a new pet. Saved from being culled due to her markings. She'll have to earn her keep by mowing the lawns.

Handspindles - not another craft? (says Peter)

My new top whorl handspindle. I bought this off a lovely lady, Caroline, on ebay.
Her store is HERE and I can recommend her highly. Great quick friendly service.

Caroline sent me a really informative email too with lots of links to places on the net to help me learn to use my new spindle. Including her own site, which is a wonderful resources for the beginner spinner.

I can't wait to get hand spinning. Will be back later with photos of my first efforts :D

My first yarn.

Colour fun

Last nights dying session.
Landscape Dyes: Cyclamin and Galah - left skeins
Landscape Dyes: Cyclamin, Galah and Fern - Right skeins
The skeins on the left are Knittery Merino the ones on the right aren't
There is a big difference in how the different wools took up the dyes.

I do love the way the Knittery wool dyes.

Surprise Mail - Thank you Moggie's mum

'Jane' AKA Moggie's Mum
on her blog "five Minutes Of Fame" had a giveaway for her 300th post.
Jane was very generous and gave all who commented a gift!
I left a comment saying I would make Lilly a skirt if I was lucky enough to win a charm pack.
The charm pack arrived this morning and off to the shed I headed.

Patchwork Skirt
waist 23 inch and length 18 inches

Lilly modeling her new skirt.