I made a hat!

Yes and I am making that into a song and jigging about as I'm singing it. I'm so happy, I did it! Only problem is now I've done it, I'm going to have to do it again and again, small people have already placed their orders. And who knows I'm thinking Christmas gifts for hard to buy for relatives ;)



Other news. I received my Photographer's swap parcel and was totally spoiled. My partner made me not one but two camera cosies, one for each of my cameras. And they are totally gorgeous. I also received a beautiful photo tree, a hand painted frame and a photo album I can't stop stroking. Here they are in all their gorgeousness.

This is what I sent my partner. I stencilled her a shirt with a big old eye, cos every photographer needs a good eye eh? :D A camera cosy and a journal, oh and a wee dishcloth for keeping her equipment nice and clean. :D


Another thing to share is the package I sent to my From Records to Ipods partner. I stencilled her 2 shirts, knitted a wee ipod cosy and sewed a cassette pin cushion and a boombox clutch bag. One of the things on her wish list was a rectangle yellow boombox bag, well my sewing isn't quite up to that but I can handle a bit of felt so I went to town and I'm pleased to say my partner was really happy with it.


Oh and it doesn't stop there (please make it stop I hear you cry but bear with me please) This is a scarf that took forever to knit as the wool is so bobbly (see close up shot) but I finally finished it and my Mum spotted it on her recent visit so it's now gone home with her and she's told me how to stop overtightening when I'm casting off ;)




Had to share this as it made me chuckle.
This is me!

It starts around 30.

This is how it manifests:

I decide to wash my car. As I start toward the garage, I notice that there is mail on the hall table.

I decide to go through the mail before I wash the car.

I lay my car keys down on the table, put the junk mail in the bin under the table, and notice that the bin is full.

So, I decide to put the bills back on the table and take out the rubbish first.

But then I think, since I'm going to be near the mailbox when I take out the rubbish anyway, I may as well pay the bills first.

I take my chequebook off the table, and see that there is only one cheque left.

My extra cheques are in my desk in the dining room, so I go to my desk where I find the can of Coke that I had been drinking.

I'm going to look for my cheques, but first I need to push the drink aside so that I don't accidentally knock it over.

I see that the Coke is getting warm, and I decide I should put it in the refrigerator to keep it cold.

As I head toward the kitchen with the coke a vase of flowers on the window sill catches my eye--they need to be watered.

I set the drink down on the window sill, and I discover my reading glasses that I've been searching for all morning.

I decide I better put them back on my desk, but first I'm going to water the flowers.

I set the glasses back down on the window sill, fill a container with water and suddenly I spot the TV remote.

Someone left it on the kitchen table.

I realize that tonight when we go to watch TV, I will be looking for the remote, but I won't remember that it's on the kitchen table, so I decide to put it back in the lounge where it belongs, but first I'll water the flowers.

I splash some water on the flowers, but most of it spills on the floor.

So, I set the remote back down on the table, get some paper towels and wipe up the spill.

Then I head down the hall trying to remember what I was planning to do.

At the end of the day: the car isn't washed, the bills aren't paid, there is a warm can of coke sitting on the window sill, the flowers aren't watered, there is still only one cheque in my chequebook, I can't find the remote, I can't find my glasses, and I don't remember what I did with the car keys.

Then when I try to figure out why nothing got done today, I'm really baffled because I know I was busy all day long, and I'm really tired.

I realise this is a serious problem, and I'll try to get some help for it, but first I'll check my e-mail.

Do me a favour, will you? Forward this message to everyone you know, because I don't remember to whom it has been sent.

Don't laugh -- if this isn't you yet, your day is coming!

GROWING OLDER IS MANDATORY.
GROWING UP IS OPTIONAL
LAUGHING AT YOURSELF IS THERAPEUTIC!

A new knitting project.

A hat. Yes a hat. I've never knitted a hat before so this could prove to be fun :/ I'm on my second cast on now. First cast on was a complete disaster as I tried to use the circular needles that I bought a while back....flaming fire ball of horror. The stitches seemed to have to stretch too far to the two ends for me to knit the size of hat I wanted. The way it was going the hat would have fit a bear. And I'm not knitting it for a bear. It's for my partner in my latest swap over at Craftster. I've been partnered with my first male partner and he said he'd like a hat. So as I have knit a hat on my list of things to do I thought hey I can kill two birds with one stone here :) So after deciding that the circular needle route wasn't going anywhere fast I started again on some nice normal needles and am knitting it flat so that I'll just seam it up once I've finished. Only problem is I'm totally winging the whole thing, I'm not following any pattern and I haven't even kept track of how many rows I've done so far. So how will I know when to cast off? Should I decrease stitches as I go up so that it's still a fitted hat and not a big square? Maybe this hat will prove to be the test run and my partner will get the second attempt :D
I haven't gotten much crafting done over the last week or so as I've had a few extra shifts at work, my Mum has been up visiting and the smalls are off school. But I did take these photo's of a beautiful sunset. I love it when I get to catch these moments.

Birthday cakes

Tomorrow is wee one's birthday and every year I try to give the smalls the cake they ask for. In the past I've made castle's, chocolate creations, dogs etc etc. Anyway this year wee one asked for a TARDIS. She is mad for Dr Who so a TARDIS it had to be. So this is my attempt at just that,
unfortunately no matter how much blue food colouring I added to the icing mixture it just would not go dark blue. The cake is actually darker than it looks in this picture but hey ho wee one thinks it's a great cake so I guess the client is happy. :D
Wish me luck for tomorrow, I'm taking her and 3 of her friends (plus big sister and Grandma) to the cinema followed by lunch out then if the weather stays nice to us a trip to the park.

AWOL

Good grief I can't believe I've not blogged for so long. What a terrible blogger I am! I have so much news to catch up on. Well I guess I'll need to condense it all or I might make my page wipe itself out or something equally awful.
Right well Florida/Disney was amazing. Exhausting but so wonderful. The smalls had a great time and to be honest so did me and him indoors. One things for sure we'll definately be going back, if only to go to all the place we didn't get to see because we ran out of time.
Right other news, other news. We've adopted another wee doggy, his name is Oscar and he's a white west highland terrier. He is a cutey. Don't ya think? He's settled into the family great and my big boy seems happy having someone smaller than him to play with. :)
I have been busy busy with swaps over at Craftster and doing things for friends. Such as these onesies for friends who are having/had babies.

The things I've sent out recently have been for the Sakura/Cherry swap. This is what I sent. I handpainted a large black scarf with cherry blossom, knitted three dishclothes with one, two and three cherries on respectively. I also made a felt cherry blossom pin cushion which was on a wristlet decorated with seed beads and the pin cushion was removable and finally I glass painted more cherry blossoms.
And this is the fabulous stuff I received from my wonderful partner, psmommy. The most gorgeous reversable tote bag, a beautiful beaded cherry necklace, the cutest cherry blossom headband and lots of cherry flavoured goodies. What a lucky girl I am :D

I won't post pics yet of the stuff I sent out for the Photographer's Round 2 Swap even though my partner has already received. I'll save that for when I receive my stuff...how excited am I?

I'm also just finishing up the Records to Ipod Swap and am pretty pleased with the shirt I have just stencilled but there is no way I'm posting that here just incase my partner comes for a peek ;)

A shirt I will share with you is this one that I did for a personal swap with the lovely craftADDchick. I did a personal swap with her a while back, remember rosebud the cutest pink bear? And she mentioned back then that she would love a shirt with a thistle on it, sooooo how could I not go on a mission to find one to stencil for her. :D

I've also been busy knitting up lots and lots (think I'm on about 55 now) of wee scarves. My mum helps out in a children's hospice charity shop and they sell these wee soft dogs and when they put a scarf on them they sell them like hot cakes, no scarf they don't seem to sell. So because head office has realised that this shop sells more dogs they are sending them 400 dogs to shift. 400! So to try and help out and do my bit this is an example of the few I've done so far. BTW I don't have to knit all 400...thank goodness.

Anyway that's me back now :D

Word to the wise

don't go out the night before you're due to drive for 7 hours the next day. We were invited to a bbq yesterday, me, him and the smalls..we got home around 3 this morning. Big one fell down some steps and has torn her legs to bits...very sore poor love. I have got bruises on just about every appendage, him indoors is shattered because he lost a nights sleep on friday due to plane delays etc so a late one last night was probably not the best idea but it seemed it at the time.
But on a brighter note we're leaving shortly to travel down to my Mum's to drop the dog off for his holidays and we leave from there for Florida/Disney on Tuesday. Aaaaaah yes we are very excited. :) How much freezer paper do you reckon I can get through customs?
See you all in a few weeks x

I've come to love my post woman

especially when she brings me such fantastic parcels.
The wonderful ;)knitdrinkknitdrink chose me as the next PIF recipient and this is the beautiful stuff she sent me.



A beautiful necklace for me and gorgeous wee braclets each for the wee one's. They were quickly spirited away by the said small people who were as thrilled with them as their Mummy was with her necklace. In fact I think big one has her eye on the necklace too LOL
Thank you so much for them T, you really did make our day (((hugs))) I hope to see you back blogging soon, miss you.

So as tradition stands I now declare that the first person who comments on this post will be the next recipient and so it goes on :)
I'm away for the next few weeks so please don't fret if I don't contact you immediately but I will be in touch

Suprises in the mail

This is my wonderful suprise package.

I've been bad in getting this on my blog but I came home from a particularly trying session up at the school with the kids doing their practise cycling profficency test to discover that a parcel had been left with a neighbour. And it was huge! And you can see why...so much stuff.
The lovely lady that sent me all these goodies did so because I sent her a scarf and a few bits a while back. Bless her. I feel so spoiled and so special - she says as she's munching lots and lots of chocolate. Oh and how many bags of peanut butter M+M's will I be buying when we go over to America later this month? :D Unfortunately my friend has introduced me to a wonderful sweetie that they don't sell in this country.

I've also been busy with my stenciling brush and rustled up a few shirts to send as a surprise to a friend who put us up for a wee break when we visited Dublin.
My friend is mad for her cameras, her other half is a drummer, her eldest son is learning to play guitar and her youngest is a wee tike. Can you guess which shirt is for which person? :D
I'm especially proud of the Animal one as I made the stencil up myself as I couldn't find any online at all. :)