Can't believe my luck!

Care and diligence

bring luck.

-English proverb.

Now that the internet is fixed, I'm up and running. I plan to answer all the emails that have been sent to me as soon as  possible.  It's interesting how much we depend on the internet and how quickly we are cut off from doing certain things without it. But on a happier note, I can't believe my luck. Look what arrived at work for me........

A Christmas box?? Well no, inside the Christmas box is a stack of goodies and I can keep the Christmas box as well. A lovely lady who lives in town and was a mad craft person has been culling. Lucky me I received her cast off's. Very sad that. lol.

Everything from made up blocks, wooden folk art gear, pens, pipe cleaners, material.....it was like Christmas. Many thanks Margaret. You are very kind. Indeed alot of things made from my treasure will end up at the library. I also received an envelope from lovely Vickie and was stoked when I opened it up to find these wonderful books...

I can see some things being knitted from those gorgeous books. Many thanks Vickie you little love. Oooh Mr. Squiggle is finished too. He was a bit fiddly, there were so many strands of wool hanging off him.

To be truly honest with you though, he is a bit special. The kids have gone wild on the other characters at work already, so Mr. Squiggle has got to be the ants pants of the lot. This is him at another angle.

This is what else happened on the weekend. I found a cute little kitten pattern on the Amy Butler site. It is a free download so you can skip over to her site and have a look around. I made two of these lovelies and took them to work with me. Yes they were dragged around.

I have used scraps given to me from Heather and I knew they would come in handy...I always say that.

Any second it will be tea time, I haven't seen my chooks yet or collected the eggs, so I better get cracking. I will catch up with you soon and happy stitching until then. Kind regards, Anita.

Here's Fido!

I think there are as many kinds

of gardening as there are of poetry.

-Joseph Addison.

I finally finished Fido and what a cutie he has turned out to be. He has these legs that point outwards and he has a tail that sticks up. Now that he is finished.....you know....you just can't have a playschool collection without Mr. Squiggle. I am waiting to see if Heather has any yellow before I start Mr. Squiggle, as all of my yellow is too bright. I might have to go to the Op shop and have a look for a bit of yellow.

I really love the harness on Fido. You cast on 200 stitches, knit one row and then cast off. That's how simple the strap of the harness is. And the girth is made by casting on about 60 stitches, knit 25 rows and then cast off. How easy is that!

I have also completed this months challenge with Bev. When I checked Bev's blog to see what she had made, I just knew it would be something sewn. Bev probably will have guessed I would've done some knitting.

I found an interesting fingerless mitten pattern on the internet...drats I can't find my printout to share with you......however, these mitts are made from 8 ply wool. Fingerless mittens are usually knitted in 4 ply, or the patterns I've ever knitted have been in 4 ply anyway. These knitted up really fast and they will go to a good home. Probably in the go kart trailer for cold winter days. Notice the colour of the mittens? Yes.....the good old bottle green wool, I have a hundred yards of the stuff. I still hope to knit a frog or something with all the rest of the green.

Oops! who's been to the Op shop then? Some great little finds. I had to pick up these great cooking book and actually I am getting hungry just looking at the front cover. Cooler weather is coming in and yes doesn't it make you want to eat something nice and warm. I have been buzzing around my garden lately too. It's amazing what you can do once the weather cools down. There will be more gardening going on during the cool weather.

After I took photo's of my books I went to put them in a safe place and look what I found hidden away.

This has been missing for ages. It has a little stand it sits on but some how they were separated. That's what happens when you put things in a safe place. And guess what.....because I couldn't find this part and knew where the stand was, I decided to put the stand in a safe place until I found the wooden piece. Now do you think I know where the stand is......nope.

I obviously missed seeing a lovely sunset again, I went to download my photo's for this posting and Cory has been at it again. He did say the other night there is a nice sunset and I did hear footsteps on the roof. My son is turning into Fiddler on the roof.

Mother Nature really gives us some wonderful visions.

I need to be going now to tackle my daily chores. I plan to keep the weekend as free as possible of house work so some more gardening can get done.

 This weekend will be spent remembering all the men who fought and died at Gallipoli, giving up their lives to make sure Australia stayed a free country. I am very grateful.

                   Lest We Forget

                            With respect, Anita.

Chooks! Chooks!

I am content and occupied with such miracles

as I know, such as my eyes and ears daily show me.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Wow! Where is this week going? As soon as I go back to work, the days just fly by. It has so far been one of those really productive weeks and much has been completed, as opposed to those weeks where you run like mad and nothing much achieved. As predicted, the playschool characters were a success, and Lovely Lyn at work has pre-warned me that Jemima might go missing. I better knit one for Lyn, so mine stays there. lol.

I have stitched my row of chooks together, and although the photo doesn't do it justice, it has turned out lovely. I tried to take the best photo but not everything would fit in too well, but you can get some idea of what the row is all about. This is the centre piece of the row.

Some of these blocks I have already shown previously.

I had some Debbie Mumm material left over from ages ago but could not really find anything to do with them as they were cut in strips. Now how clever was it to just keep the strips in the cupboard for years and not throw them out.....it's a girl thing. So they came in real handy. The fat chooks in the picture remind me of my fat brood of girls. They are so spoilt now, better than living in those horrible cages they came from. They still lay lots of eggs too.

It's a pity I couldn't get a close up all the whole thing, but....anyway. I thought I would share the army of ants Heather gave to me as a gift.

These are the only ants I like, in fact I would love to get my hands on somemore of them. They are cute. I am also on the hunt for some old cottages bricks like in this picture. They give the cottage we live in such a warm feel.

I have attempted to take a photo of my gorgeous white roses, not sure the name of them, and it isn't the best snap....of course, it's me taking the picture.

Tonight I am going to sew up Fido and take some shots of him to show you, and I want to look for a nice shrug pattern for myself to knit. That ought to keep me busy and out of trouble for the night. Planning on watching the news as well, there have been a few earth tremours lately. A big one happened in Kalgoorlie (a mining town 5 hours away from here) in Western Australia. There was a stack of damage done to several historical places in Kalgoorlie and they did show a bit in the paper.

I have been invited to an afternoon tea with a group of women, they will be selling material to people......probably to people like me. I know someone else who will be getting invited. he he he. Have a wonderful night and I'll catch you all another time. Kind regards, Anita.

Back to work

The bird is known by his note,

the man by his words.

- English proverb.

Finally! I've gone back to work....yay! It was just great to get back to work and see everyone. All the chit chat and giggling, what a pleasure to go back to that. Lots of happy and positive people, what more could you ask for! While I was on holidays I did get to do a good quota of knitting and sewing done, and that was amongst keeping a particular boy occupied.

I was really pleased to get my cute little dragon finished. Here he is...

I have made a few changes, as you all know I have stacks of buttons......many more than Heather. lol. I wanted dragon's nose to stand out, so I used red thread to do the nose. If you love dragon as much as I do, the pattern came from Australian Homespun (No. 81) Vol 11.2). His name is Darrius. I wanted to use my scraps of material up, so I used what I had on hand. He is now living at the library and the kids will get to him tomorrow. I just love the nose..

Today at work Lovely Lyn said to me that she had 2 bags of material for me!!! eeeek! with excitement. I'm usually very well mannered but I almost tore her arms off in my quest to get to the bags. I felt like giving her a big kiss, instead I poked fun at her about how many cups she had laying around the place.

As mentioned I did do some stitching as well as knitting. My row of chickens is now complete and I will take some shots for show and tell next time. I have joined them together with some lovely material...you will have to wait though. Just while I'm on a roll, Bev will be happy to know that I have finished our challenge of the month - something for a male!!

Now I'm off to do something female and that is get tea cooking. It is a challenge to cook for someone wearing braces so I'm on the lookout for new recipes to keep things fresh and interesting. A little while ago Cory asked me if I could say Írish wrist watch' really fast. Can you? Kind regards, Anita.

Playschool mad

Cultivating friendships

provides nourishment

for your heart.

I am so thrilled at all the giggles, smiles and emails my last posting gave to people. I also giggled. Laughing and smiling are so infectious, it makes you want to keep laughing for ages. I have had so many reasons to giggle lately, maybe I've got myself in such a state that I can't stop. I have had so much fun with the boys over the holidays, maybe that's added to the non-stop laughing.

I have had some nice afternoon tea's with friends over the holidays, and a flow of my boys friends coming over. So the balance of doing fun things with my boys and getting some time to myself to sew has been pretty even. I wanted to share some more characters from Playschool with you, because now I have made four of the characters. I have now made Alfred and Jemima and here they are....

Alfred is a hand puppet. He is knitted in 8 ply and inside is wadding to fatten him up and give him some strength to stand up. He has a black plug and orange plug handle. He was super fun to make. Jemima is also made from 8ply wool, and slowly but surely my wool stash is getting a hole in it.

I have used a fair bit of the bottle green in the last few toys I've made but you know what.........there's more....lots more. Hmmm maybe I can find something else to knit using bottle green, a frog maybe? Have to keep my eyes open. Jemima's hair has been done in a black 12 ply, as the pattern recommends. I have a bit of the black left over as well.

Oh I have been able to put those knitting needles down long enough to do some more stitching. I am thinking I'm a bit special for being able to do that.

Yes I'm still on the go with this one. I really love redwork...oh I love all colours, but red is something else! I'm hoping to finish this shortly and then put some patchwork around the stitching. Did I mention I have a stash of scrap material?? Now that the boys are older I have been able to keep my scraps for my own projects. My two boys were real big on dress ups (they would love me saying that...giggle giggle). So they used to get my scraps and make things out of them: headbands, hats, wrist bands when they were super heroes, etc. Now they are my scraps once again.

I'm on the look out for some tiles. Anyone know of a friend or someone that has tiles like these?

The tiles are 6 inches across and I need about 12 of them. We had some plumbing done in the kitchen and I was going to replace the tiles with new ones, but I love these tiles. I want to try and find some before I have to replace them with a more modern tile. Email me if can help. I didn't get to paint Cory's room yet but I'm still going to fit that in soon.

I'm off to give Cory a rematch in Yahtzee, the rotten little stinker blew me away throwing 3 yahtzee's in our last game. I'm still licking my wounds. lol. Can't be too harsh with him, he did make me some lunch today as I've been suffering with a sinus headache since last night. It seems to have lifted now, I can open my eyes!! Everyday is a great day.

I have started making a cute dragon too and I will show him when I have finished. He will go and live in the library with Alfred and Jemima. I will catch you all soon and have a happy day. Kind regards, Anita.

I can be a bit odd.

All life is an experiment,

The more experiments you make, the better.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson.

I hope everyone had the best weekend. I had a house full of boys, and Cory also had his friend Corey sleep over. I didn't do too well in my footy tippings though, glad for the Fremantle Dockers win, even if I hadn't backed them to win. There is always next weekend to do better. I was determined to get some stitching done, I have one block made and almost finished stitching the last one.

Now that I have conquered not getting flash in this photo, I just have to work on getting it straight!

I slouched around the patio on Sunday, ever so determined to get the stitching finished and I'm glad I did, because I had the biggest laugh listening to the boys play darts with their mates. Boys are so funny. Oh I also watched the movie 'Boy in striped pyjamas'. Has anyone seen it? It is a moving story, but I won't tell you about it incase you haven't seen it.

I have been holding onto some photo's that I dearly wanted to share with you all. Ever since I can remember, I have been fascinated with how life was in the colonial days, especially how people worked, lived, did their chores. I can't really explain it or what had even triggered me off. So when we go on holidays anywhere or visit another town, if there is a location that has an old homestead, or cottage, that's it....we're so going.

Now having told you that, I have to come clean and tell you why I've held onto the photo's I took. I can be a bit odd, and after I show you one photo in particular I just want to say......do come back and visit my blog!! The photo's are of an old cottage named Morby Cottage, and it is an historical house that has been preserved and lovingly maintained by a committee that supports it.

The top pic is the front entrance to the cottage.

More pictures of the front of Morby Cottage.

I love this sweet sign hanging up out the front.

Down below is the back entrance to Morby.

 

This lovely cottage was built by John Morrell, an English carpenter. The cottage has much history about it and as a child I used to run passed the cottage (I thought a witch lived there!!), but still unable to take my eyes off the place.

I really wanted to share the cottage with you, but needed a certain photo that was of something inside the cottage. Now here goes....I can't believe I'm going to do this....but here is the photo I had to share..........

No snickering allowed!!!! How narrow are those shoes!! They are a pair of ladies shoes, I could hardly get my big toe in those shoes. An interesting thing is that in all my travels to different homesteads and/or cottages around the country side, the ladies shoes are all so tiny. In the early years people did always have closed in shoes, so feet didn't spread like.......um......the big hairy foot shown in the photo! All had a good laugh now? I did warn you all I can be a bit odd. Actually it is the same I noticed with women's dresses as well, they're so tiny. There I got it off my chest.

I have a few more snaps of inside the house. I so love the kitchen on where the cooking was done. The next few photo's are of the kitchen.

I have also taken some snaps of the bedrooms. John Morrell had about 4 children and the cottage has three bedrooms. Here are a few shots for you to look at.

Do you love the special chair on the left?

The shoes below belonged to a child...so I didn't put my foot up against these pair of shoes. They are only about 4 inches long. So tiny.

There, I am so pleased to finally have shown these pictures to you. I have held onto them for some time now, but over the summer months Morby cottage is closed. I had to wait until now to get those inside photo's for you.

I hope none of you have been scarred, scared, shocked or horrified by my foot. I do hope you loved the cottage. When we were children we would walk out to the town cemetery to clean and tidy up graves for something to do. We ran most of the way there though because you had to go passed Morby cottage first, where we were sure a witch lived. Then we had to run passed the native reserve, because there were lots of dogs and they used to bark really loudly. After all that running (2km) you were almost at the cemetery, you could walk in the cemetery, it wasn't scarey there!!!

So glad to share with you all and have a lovely day. Kind regards, Anita.

My wonderful week

Make happy those who are near;

and those who are far will come.

- Chinese proverb.

Hello to you all. What a week I've had! Getting myself addicted to the knitting book I showed in my last posting, I have now knitted Sad Sack, Bananas in Pyjamas and almost finished Alfred the Hot water bottle. If you don't know them, they are some of the characters from Play School, a children's TV program. Here is Bananas....

I just have to stitch on the buttons, a job for tonight.

During this week we went for a trip to Perth and stopped in to see my sister-in-law Lee. I got Pixie to take a couple of photo's of some favourite things of mine, that is at Lee and John's house. First of all is the Herb garden....

John made this himself, he is very clever. Typical farmer's boy using old farm bits to make things. I just love that wheel and if I could get away with it I would stick it up my top and walk off with it. lol. The container part of the structure is made from old rocks, it looks crash hot in real life. Lovely herbs as well.

The other favourite thing is the dog house. Lee and John have a dog called Ky (I think that's how it's spelt!) and he is a big sook sook. This is a photo of his house called the "Taj MacKy".

Ky even has his own Bob the builder couches.

While we were visiting Lee, she was having a big cull and asked me if I would like anything that was to be given away. See what I came away with....

Aren't they just gorgeous! I have been eyeing these two beauties for years now, wishing I had bought ones just like them. I also took home a cane basket, tupperware spice containers and dishes.

Oh who's the big mug in the background?....love pressing his nose.

I thought I would take a close up of the pattern on one of the stands. Just love it.

On Friday we had to go to Midland, a suburb before Perth, to get Brandon fitted with braces. Poor love, his face ached that night. We have been giving him pain killers to help and they're doing a good job of it. Brandon will have lovely teeth when the braces come off and he is being an absolute champion in the whole situation.

My darling Heather phoned me up this morning to tell me about some material at a craft stall. The stall was being held at a home called Uralia House. It is an old historic house and just a dream inside. Of course I told Heather if I find too much good material I would phone her back with all sorts of abuse. This is a picture of the house first of all.

How horrible to have to live in this house...so lovely, grand and the garden, yum.

So then I go and have a look at the material and come home with some valuable treasure.

There is a fair bit of material in each little bundle and it all cost just $5.00. I was stoked. I immediately went home and phoned Heather. When she picked up the phone, all I said was "Cow" and we both cracked up laughing. I did share my finds with Heather and then had to phone up Bev and tell her about the stall as well. I wonder how Bev went?

I have been a good girl and done all my chores so tonight I am thinking some knitting and stitching will happen. Pixie and Brandon (sore face and all) have gone out for a while, Cory has his best friend Corey over for a sleep over and I have........me. lol.

I am now going to make a shepherds pie for tea and then relax. Still have one week left of holidays to go and intend to spend the time wisely. Oh we have just come across a new hobby - darts. The two boys have just gone mad over it and they have both discovered something interesting about their Mother. She can't throw a dart to save her life. I am a bit concerned about where the dart board is set up because I could easily smash the window with a dart! There is a big board set up behind the dart board as well - for safety reasons.

When the boys first saw me throw a dart they cracked up laughing. The first dart hit the house, the second dart bounced off the wire, rebounded onto the brickwork, where instantly sparks flew off the dart. Honestly I have never seen that happen before. Cory just went to pieces.....oh and honestly I don't know where the third dart went because I was laughing so hard.

Have a great weekend of relaxing and crafting. Catch you all in a few days. Kind regards, Anita.