Wednesday 31 October 2012

Beach Huts.

Good Morning!!!

How are you all doing?

Well, I have taken a very small break from all the knitting and crochet that I have been doing lately and completed this small cross stitch of beach huts!!

I have an idea for it, I just need time!!!!  


This week is half term for Bean and Peanut, and we agreed that we would use it to make a start on Christmas presents and gifts they both want to make for their friends, so I have dug various bits and bobs out and have let them have a look and decide exactly what they want to do!!

If I remember, I will take photo's and post them for you all to see.

So until I get a chance......

keep creating and see you sooooooon!!

xx-oo-xx

Monday 29 October 2012

It's Finished!!!!!!

Hello Everyone!

Welcome Back!!!!

Do you remember this post?  Well....... I have finally finished it.......


 You may recall the design idea came from my sketch here, and I pondered and played around with ideas, and finally came up with this sweet little house.


I have quite a large number of pieces of paper all bundled together with various bits of design elements, including the graph I charted before I could even begin to knit it!  I just need to now put them into an orderly manner and into my sketchbook!

Well..... here is the finished article......




I am really pleased with it, and have already received an order for two more!  In different colours!

Hope you have all had a fab weekend!!

Until next time...

xxx

Sunday 28 October 2012

Butterfly Centre

Good Morning!

I hope you are all enjoying a relaxing weekend!

A couple of weekends ago, we took Bean and Peanut to a butterfly center  and we had loads of fun seeing all the butterflies and other animals at the center   

In fact we had so much fun, that I felt I had to share my favorite pictures with you!!!


This first picture is of bean feeding a really friendly little parrot, he was just so sweet and good natured, we couldn't stay away from him and kept going back to him.


This picture of the butterfly was one of many!!  But it fascinated me that the butterfly lay on this notice board as flat as can be in the hope of blending in, and I have to say, most visitors to the center walked straight past it and did not see it at all!!!

I could inundate you with loads of pictures like this, of all sorts of birds and butterflies, spiders, snakes, leaf ants, stick insects and various other creatures, but I thought I would just show off my two favourites!  Maybe some-one would be able to tell me what type of parrot and butterfly they are, as sadly most of the notices about these two were very faded and illegible.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Hugs

xxx

Friday 26 October 2012

A little bit of.......

Helloooooo!

Well, I have been playing with an idea for absolutely ages and ages!

When I was at University, we did all sorts of bits and bobs, and you may recall from this post, that I struggled with the process of transfer printing, right up until my final year, when it all clicked into place and I knew how to use it and create with it, in a way that suited me.

Well I had a lot of bits left over from uni, which I have kept in a safe place to experiment with at a later date.....


Well, I gathered all my bits up that I required......


Traced my template onto the back of my transfer paper, lay them onto my material as I deemed fit for purpose and then.... Pressed, pressed and pressed!!!!

Hey presto!  The end results!!!




I was very pleased with the results, considering I didn't use my press, I used an iron.

The results are absolutely fine for test pieces, and I will be playing about more in the future, as I have a plan for some work like this, but all will be revealed in due course!

Hope you enjoy them.

xxx-oo-xxx-oo-xxx




Thursday 25 October 2012

Yummy Yarn!!!

Hellooooooooo!!!

Well, I can contain myself no longer!!!!!!!

I ordered a mixed bag of yarn, as I want to make a blanket in rainbow colours, and it finally arrived!!!!



17 balls of delicious colour that makes me all happy and warm inside!!!!

I keep looking at it and feeling it's softness and playing with it and thinking....... thinking...... thinking!

The thinking going on is ...... what will this blanket look like?  Will it be stripes? Ripples? Hexagons? Squares? Will it be crocheted or knitted?

So many decisions to make!!!

But....... yes, sadly there is a but!  I have told myself that I am not allowed to do anything with it, until the other UFO's are completed!!!!

It may be some time, as I know without even checking that I have at least 5 UFO's and no doubt, there will be more when I do check!! (Sigh)

Oh, well!  Best get busy and start making progress!!!

Until next time....... get those UFO's finished!!!!

;-D

xxxxx



Wednesday 24 October 2012

Autumn has landed!

Hello!

Welcome Back!

Well, we are heading towards winter up here in the Northern Hemisphere.  Autumn is here and the days are becoming shorter and colder.

We were fortunate enough to have a fairly warm weekend this weekend, so spent some time out in the garden, tidying up and trying to sort out in preparation for winter, when we were distracted by this.........


A somewhat large Dragonfly!!!!  His body was larger than the palm of my hand!!  He is the biggest one I have ever seen, and was absolutely beautiful!!!

We all spent ages watching him, and trying to get as close to him as possible.... I think he thought it was a bit of a game, as every now and then, he would fly behind us and hover for a bit, before going back to this same place (the wall of our garage, by the garage door!) Can't say I blame him, it was extremely warm and cosy there.

The garden has started to get its Autumn colours.....


It all looks extremely pretty and colourful, but, the only trouble with that, is the leaves start to fall off, which means lots of leaf sweeping, which turns out to be an extremely lengthy process, as we rake the leaves..... and then..... who can resist kicking them all over the place or playing in them???  Certainly not any of us!!!!!

Until next time....

Try not to disrupt too many leaf piles! :-)

xxx


Monday 22 October 2012

Update.

Good Morning Everyone!

How are you all doing?  I can hardly believe it has been two weeks since I last blogged!!!!!  Where does the time go to?  

I have been very busy meeting a few deadlines on bits and pieces I had to get done, and I have to confess, I love it when a deadline is looming, as it gives me the drive and passion to get everything done!  I thrive on a bit of stress!!! The weird thing is..... I get so annoyed with myself for leaving things to do so late!!!  You'd think I'd learn and be more prepared next time! But..... NO!  I don't think I will ever change if I'm honest! (tee hee hee.)

Do you remember this post?

Well, I have been very bad, as I have still not completed the second one, but I have started a third one, which is completely different, and uses these colours.......


Yes...... it is knitted, and I have half left to complete!!!  So I am hoping to do the big reveal next week!!!!  I'm really quite excited about it!!! It is not squares...... this was just a test piece to see if I was happy with just two colours!

What have you all been busy doing???

Well, I think I should take myself off and create a UFO (Un Finished Objects) List to put up for you all to see........ as it may give me the incentive to complete them!!!! I'm terrible when it comes to completing things that I want to keep, as my brain is always whizzing about, thinking about the next project....... and my sketch books are being filled daily!!!! We'll see what transpires!!!

Anyway, must dash......... sketchbook is calling!!!!!! 

Until next time...... keep creating!

xxx-xxx-xxx

Tuesday 2 October 2012

Mmmmmmm Cake!

Hello......

Have you ever been working hard (either creatively or day to day), and suddenly decided you could just eat a nice bit of Chocolate cake???????

Well, that happened to me the other day and I remembered my late Mum used to make a Mug Cake, so it took me a while, but I found the recipe she had given me in my useful recipes from family and friends book!

Here is my Chocolate mug cake!

doesn't it look good??????


I had a couple of teaspoons full, and had to take another picture to show you what it looked like!   It was delicious, and very moist........

The recipe can be found here.

You can leave the chocolate chips out completely and ice it instead..... whatever you decide, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did! :-)

Until later........

xxx-ooo-xxx-ooo-xxx

Monday 1 October 2012

Kitten Update!

Good Morning Everyone! 

I hope you have all had a fantastic weekend, and welcome back to my blog!!!

As I previously told you, I have numerous bits and pieces to update you all with, so I thought I'd start by  giving those of you that are interested, an update on the kittens!

The picture below, is the one and only one I have of all seven kittens together, all other attempts seem to have missed one or two, or were blur from them moving around so much!  They were five (5) weeks old here.


 This next picture is one of my favorites  and is a happy/sad picture, the reason being that this was the runt of the litter and he was very sweet natured and very, very small compared to his siblings and cousins.  It earnt him the nickname Tiny.  

Tiny was seven (7) weeks old here, and sadly we lost him to a respiratory infection a couple of days after this picture was taken. You can see him in the above picture Second kitten from the right at the bottom.  If he had survived, I would have kept him, purely because he was one of the kittens I had spent a lot of time with in the beginning, making sure he learnt to suckle after his traumatic start in life, but I guess some things are just not meant to be. But, at least I have this picture of him, and he has a special place of rest in our garden.


In this next picture, you can see the two black and white kittens.  Bean wanted the one on the bottom, a boy, which she has named Treacle. A friend was going to have the one on the top, but changed her mind (she has only just recently lost her own cat.)  Anyway, I discovered this kitten (a female) has a hernia on her belly, and when other friends came to look at the kittens, no-one wanted her because of it, so M has adopted her and called her Whiskers! We have to keep an eye on her hernia, but have been told it's nothing to worry about, and when she is spayed, they will sort it out at the same time.


Whiskers is a very laid back kitten and is quite happy sitting curled up on my lap, sleeping!


In the final picture above, you can see Treacle (black and white kitten) then the next kitten you see (the one he has his paw on) is called Candy (female kitten).  She is Peanut's kitten.  The male kitten (in the corner - Candy has her head on him) is called Crackers.  His owner is a friend of Bean, and she absolutely adores him to bits.  

The final two black kittens have yet to be named, although they have gone to a friend of a friend, so the nice thing is, we get photo updates and news about all of them, which I am extremely happy about!

No doubt, I will post bits and pieces going forward about how Treacle, Candy and Whiskers are growing up.

Sorry if I have rabbited on, but I do hope you enjoyed the update :-).

Until next time!

xxx