Mental Health Weekend

Oh Spring Glorious Spring!!!  Today I spent the afternoon outside knitting on a blanket under the plum blossom while my kids enjoyed the sandpit and the garden.  I started knitting my "Light Speed" shawl (look on Ravelry - it is a really unusual knit!)  The smell of the blossom was divine.  I was frequently joined by the slobbery labrador, the free range chooks, and this sweet bunny (who loves to come up for a pat, an ear rub and a few sultanas!)

When it got too cold we came in and I cooked paprika baked chicken, and garlic roast potatoes and vege, and anzacs and chocolate slice.  It felt so good to be home and simple and slow.
And now my head seems so much clearer and my body feels ready to tackle the challenges of the week ahead.

Happy Spring!
Nell
xxx

Happy Faces

Is there any lovelier flower than pansies at this time of year?  I love their bright happy faces and the way they brave the coldest of Winters!  Pansies always remind me of my dear Melbourne buddies (especially Sharon Mc Callum and Jenni Grierson because they knew I loved pansies and frequently spoiled me with pansy-themed pretty things!)  I have a beautiful little pansy tea-set that Sharon sent as a wedding gift.  Anyway, these are my new little pot of happiness!

Today was a blissful day in the sense that I shrugged off all responsibility for doing kindy paperwork, and cm paperwork, and last year's taxes, and just played and dreamed and was generally quite slothful.
I finished two little hats.

Handspun "Strelizia" with some commercial green from the stash and cream baby wool overdyed in blues.  I really like how the dyeing turned out so I might have to drag the rest of the boring baby wool out of my stash and overdye it!

These two are destined for local newborns.  If people don't stop having babies I will have no hope of having a stall of crafty things at our school fete in October!

I have also located my missing sock (which was started with Lee-Anne and then went missing!  Now I just have to catch up so we can turn the heel together next time we meet.

Work is progressing ever so slowly on my friend's scotty dog beanie.  I hate having to write my own patterns.  I actually don't really enjoy knitting when I have to think.

I have been getting to know the new wheel (named Vera after her previous owner) and I have to say that we are getting along like peas and carrots.  I think I am going to LOVE this wheel once I can get her to stop being so noisy!

Hope you are having an awesome weekend.  My 3 Small Ones are all in bed so I am off to do some more crafty stuff - the dilemma is to spin? Knit? Sew? Scrap?

Happy weekend!
Nell
xxx

Life is good!

Loving -
Spending quality time with my sweet boy in the middle (and this silly selfie he took in front of the museum!)
Time spent with relatives
Spring blossoms, daffodils and sunshine
A small window of pleasurable sewing
The pleasure my children got from giving handmade father's day gifts
Maddie's current passion for photo bombing
The promise of days spent in a spring garden - although at the moment the roses need pruning and the vegie patch needs turning over in preparation for Spring vegies

Admiring -

my new spinning wheel; a Ron Doley purchase from ebay.  It is a bit noisy at the moment but I think after a service, and a few hours of getting to know each other we will get on fine!

Eating - lots and lots of rich celebratory food (including Auntie Rah's cherry cheesecake) and drinking champagne and red wine!

Celebrating - Fathers Day, Spring, Ruby my niece's birthday, 10 years as a Creative Memories consultant

Making - humbug bags for charity, hats for the multitude of new babies being born to school and kindy families, mittens for my tasmanian friend, a crazy scottie dog beanie for my Sydney friend.

Feeling grateful for our busy, crazy, blessed life.
Have a wonderful week!
Keep smiling,
Nell

With a Nod to French General

We've been getting very Frenchy around here lately.

It now looks like an almost certainty that we will be back in the UK and France next year so it is good to have a few little francophile reminders about the place.  This is my new linen cushion that I LOVE from www.houseofyorkinteriors.com I also fell in love with a quilt pattern using my French General Layer cake and have had to purchase another layer cake and the border fabric for it (how yummy is that red border fabric and how good will it look hiding our very sad killed-by-the-kids couch!)

And I have been crocheting more washcloths and came upon this lovely red cotton in a box inherited from James' Aunt.  The box was an old hosiery box with precious bits of lace and sateen and florists tape and wire and a skein of red cotton.  I think it must have been from her teenaged/young adult years.  Anyway, I think the red makes a lovely "French General" touch with the ecru/bone cotton from my stash.

There has actually been quite a lot of gratuitous spending here lately; more fabric at Mannum Craft Fair yesterday (to make a strippy quilt for Mads for Christmas) and some more fibre from the lovely www.kathysfibres.com and a bit more wool from Bendigo to participate in a ravelry knit-a-long (because lord knows I need another project LOL)  Tomorrow my lovely friend Lea-Anne is coming over to knit socks so all in all quite a crafty time of it!

And just because I can; here are the children that were bribed with cake and lollipops so that their shameless mother could go to the fibre fair!

Happy Monday!
Nell
xxx

July Finishes

This morning, while the kids played Pirates, I stitched up all my finished but not seamed knitting!  "Listening" to Pirate Play is preferrable to watching it as I always feel compelled to say "Please don't swing from the curtain rod" or "Don't make your baby sister walk the plank!" whereas when you listen to it you can just enjoy the "Land Ahoy!" and "look lively lads" with Maddie's sweet little pirate chatter of "I'm going to bed now, I am berry sleepy!" interspersed through the pirate phrases! When you are 2 and a half your play scripts tend to revolve around sleeping or eating or going to the bakery for hot chocolate!

Anyway, I digress!  This is a baby hat and adult mittens in "Ivy" (which was also the first wool I learned to Navaho ply)  Not really my colours so destined for sale or the present box.

A present for my friend's newborn daughter Violet.  This is a bunny/merino blend plied with a straight "fairies" merino and soooooo soft and squooshy.  I love the way the bunny creates a fuzzy halo!

My July Quilt Finish was this small wall quilt for the AMQF Alzheimers Benefit.  The theme was "memory" and because my sweet Nanny has all but lost hers I made my quilt with a goat and donkey to represent "Green Acres" which was Nanny and Grandad's farm (a place I have very fond childhood memories of)  I don't like the challenge colours and I have never liked deadlines so this quilt was a tough one to do.

Lastly I finished off a cushion for Maddie's room using the leftover fabric from her quilt, and a pillow for my craft room using the leftovers from the couch quilt.  I love the way Maddie tries to muscle in on every photo!

And just in case, like me, you can't get enough of red and aqua - check out my little piece of loveliness in my Happy Place - makes me happy just walking into that room!
Hope you are having a lovely weekend and celebrating your finishes too!

Colour happiness!

These are my two latest navaho plies.  I have no idea what I will do with them but I love the yummy scrummy colours.  How is it that someone can spend most of their life liking muted autumn/earthy tones and then have a colour breakthrough in their 30s?!  I blame all the delicious quilting fabrics, and the tempting dyed fibres.
Hope your week is rainbow coloured!

Current Favourite Quick Meal - Cheesy Asparagus and Chicken Parpadelle

This has become a recent favourite (and I am just a bit chuffed that it was just a throw together that turned out well!)

Cook up some parpadelle egg noodles.
While they are cooking chop 3 bacon rashers, 1 chicken breast (or more if you like lots of meat) and mince about 3 cloves of garlic.  Fry together in a frying pan with a glug of olive oil.

When it is looking done add a bunch of thinly sliced asparagus and a big dollop (about 1/2 the jar) of Kraft Cream Cheese spreadable.  Turn the heat down and stir through so that the sauce is the right consistency.  You might want to add pepper at this point but don't add salt as the bacon and cream cheese are strong enough.  Don't drain your pasta too well as a bit of liquid helps the sauce to coat the pasta.

Mix altogether. Dish up and put shaved parmesan on top.

My kids have requested this in our fortnightly rotation and it has become one of my hubby's top 3 favs!
Best of all it is quick and requires little or no thought which is ideal for a busy work afternoon!