Winter has arrived....  

And so my friends, our winter has arrived. The grey clouds, the sprinkling tap from the skies, the veins of the creek beds that join our main river are filling. It is very exciting for our community that water comes, and our farmers are overjoyed.

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I am also overjoyed with excitement at my purchase on the weekend. I was quick enough on our local buy and sell facebook page to buy this bargain of two pedestals, pots and plants. I cannot tell you how excited I was when they were unloaded and placed at the front of my house. I will be repainting the front verandah in the coming months and it will be a happy place to sit.

Since the beginning of this year I have been recovering from a broken tendon in my pinky finger and it has been annoying not to be able to produce more items for my stall at the markets and at the Visitor's Centre in town, but I have been bouncing between sewing, crocheting, a tiny bit of knitting and tidying up my sewing room. 😅 A few more cute little girl bags have been sewn and I love the Betty Boop material that I scored from a sale table a little while ago.

This magnificent child jacket was one of those wonderful projects that I really loved making. The striped just placed themselves very evenly as I completed row after row. It will fit a four or five year old.

Of course, another stripey cardigan had to be made as well and the orange colour always catches the eye.

A friend of our family who has become a father for the first time received a parcel from us, made with much love. Expect nothing more than mischief from our family, I had a father and son shirt and one piece made as part of the gift. The father's nickname is Pie, so his shirt had a pie with a slice taken out of it. The slice of pie was then put on the baby's clothing as he is the slice of the pie. They loved it. lol

The parcel was filled with knitted items made in brown tones, as Pie's last name is Brown. I think there is something quite unstable about my behaviour.😁

A cute little baby knitted top, one of the only projects I have made in a while.

So, apart from being limited in my craft work, the other past times I have been doing are the gardening and catching up with friends. Aren't these little chaps just the happiest flowers. I love pansies. For the time being,

I cannot do boxing, lift heavy weights, hold my own weight (as in push ups), but I have continued to go to the gym and do strength workouts. I'm here with one of the group who attends the gym with me. They're amazing girls. The lady at the front in the photo is our instructor and she gives us a good beating. lol

I didn't mention that while spending months waiting for my tendon to heal, I have also had chemotherapy cream treatment on my nose for skin cancer. All is good at the moment but I thought I would share a laugh with you with the new freckles that started up. At the end of the two weeks of applying the cream, my nose was like a scarlet colour. lol I didn't think it was so funny then. 

Every year when we prepare for the Poultry auction, the Agricultural girls get together to set up the pre loved items table. We always have a dress up and photo session when we finished. We are just too beautiful. 

There was also a coffee catch up with the old gym crowd. Always so lovely to catch up with these beautiful ladies too.

Well lovely friends, it is time to go once again. As my finger is now at rehabilitation stage, I'm hoping to be able to share more of my craft works. See you next time.

Ciao, Anita. 
 

 Always remember.... you are braver than you believe,

 stronger than you seem, 

💕loved more than you know 💕

 Well hello there you lovely people 🌹 I hope all is going good for you wherever you may be in the world. Our weather has slowly made the long anticipated change that we, in Australia, are waiting for. In my part of Australia anyway . The nights are cooler with a subtle breeze, and the daylight hours are leaving us a little earlier at the end of the day.

Another thing that has come to an end is my holidays, though these ones were a very testing time for me. I have had this broken tendon that has plagued me for months, however I am at healing stage and can remove the splint more and more each week. At this time also I have had two weeks of chemotherapy cream applied to my nose to kill the cancer cells that have been growing. My nose is like a big hard rock and as red as Rudolph the red nosed reindeer 😅and I am not feeling at all well. The good news is though that the treatment is behind me and on I go. 👌

There is always a balance in life, and even though I've had some challenges, I also have some amazing news.....I can crochet and knit again. 🎉🎈🎉

I'm very happy about that!!!! 😂😂

 Here is my bag collection so far, a few are missing as they have been sold.

While hunting through my yarn stash I came across some leftover bits so they turned into this cute little baby cardigan and woolly hat set.

This sweet sleeveless baby cardigan is another product made from left over yarn too. I had a ball of white and a variegated colour and put them together, so it is an 8 ply piece of work. The pattern is a free download from the internet and one of my favourites.

I must've been on a bit of a roll with using scraps because this beautiful creation is exactly that. There is no actual pattern for it though. What I did was made a few granny squares and joined them together and then found a yoke pattern from the internet and went from there. 

This will fit a child aged four or five years old. I have always been drawn to bright colours and stripes. The different coloured buttons will also add to all that brightness going on.

Another made up pattern is the Bananas in Pajamas coat hanger. I think I cast on 70 stitches and knitted in blue and while stripes and just kept going until it fit the coat hanger. lol 

Now that we have a kitten, I discover that they are a fair bit of work. Every day I have to vacuum the house. All the fluff and pieces of stuff that is chewed up and left all over every floor in the house is unreal!! Frank thinks he owns everything.....

....and when he has finished exploring and destroying everything.........😇💕💕

I have also realized that Milo has way too many balls and toys left all over the yard as well. Each ball is carefully rolled around and then promptly punctured.😂 Now it is time for me to continue my day.

Milo having a quiet word to Moses. Probably about all his toys.

My big itchy, red nose are out of here to find some sort of mischief to get into. Sending you good wishes.

Ciao, Anita.  🌺🌺
 

 A good friend knows all your stories 

A 💕best 💞friend helped you write 📝

😊

Well hello there! Still not much action here due to this rotten old broken tendon, but I thought I'd drop a quick line to say hello and show a few little makes of mine.

I finished off this very pretty poncho by adding a yellow tassel to the ends of the tie. It was almost sold at the markets yesterday but the lady felt it was too big for her grandchild. 

People had a good laugh at the black baby set and that would've sold too except the lady had no one to give it to. I'm so glad that there are many people with a crazy sense of humour like me. 😆😋

(For my lovely Italian friends the words on the garment reads: The sleep that you ordered is currently Out of stock!)                              

                                      🌷

I had bought a beautiful pedestal off a lady in town on our local buy and sell page on Facebook and as we were saying goodbye I noticed this incredible garden urn in her yard. She mentioned she was also going to be selling that and I asked her to keep me in mind. It is now in my garden.

Our autumn is slowly buy surely coming to us, though the heat does not want to go away without a struggle. lol Today is a warm, humid 28C but we have the rain softly falling. A nice change and a good sign that the cooler weather will soon be here.

Below is an order I still managed to make for a customer. She sent me a photo and a message asking if I could possibly make this set. It had no instruction to make the hat and boots but of course, I am pretty talented to look at photos and make the item. Don't ask me how I do it, but it is a strength of mine.

My husband had to take his big vehicle away for the weekend and I usually use it to load all our containers, tent, tables etc for markets. So everything got stuffed into my small Ford Focus. It almost fit and the laughter from my friends at the markets when I rolled up with my boot tied down like this. 😂😂 And.....did I care if they laughed?...nope, not at all. I laughed with them. I told them I was like Ellie May Clampett from the Beverly Hillbillies. lol

Oh my, I do say, Frank has life hard hey?

Well my lovely friends, the sound of all the rain is making me feel like I should have a nap, so that's what I will do. lol Happy weekend to you all and I send you hugs.

Ciao, Anita.

 

 You have to fight through some bad days
😒 to earn the best days of your life. 😊 

Well hello there! I have surprised myself very much. Here I was thinking that with a broken tendon that knitting and crocheting was going to be right out of the question.....but no. I still managed to pump out a few items and I am thankful to my amazing hands.

 

My first check up to see how my finger is recovering was last week. You will notice that my pink splint has now changed colour to black. It has something to do with the mood change about the whole thing. I don't find it funny anymore. 😂😂😂😂😂😂 Not at all. This Monday will make it five weeks done in the splint and three more weeks to go. 😮

 Let me show you some of the things I've managed to make in the last few weeks......💖💖 These little baby boots are part of the collection going to a friend of our family. I've stayed with the brown tones for this little baby we're waiting for. The striped white was a special touch I thought I'd include.

 A little woolly hat will join the collection

However, these boots are part of an order for one of my customers. The boots will have a matching hat and I'm already happy with how the pattern is turning out. Considering I was convinced I would not be able to take orders for the next few months. I'm very thankful.

Just while we're on a happy note here, have a look at this cute poncho that is almost completed. A couple of pom poms or something still needs to be attached to the ties. This will be joining the items for sale at the markets.

So this is all I have right now in the way of my hand made items but there is always the garden to fall back on. The garden has always been my go to place, somewhere I can be alone with my thoughts and with nature. I was very lucky this week to be quick enough to snap up this pedestal. Pretty hey?

Once I brought it home my front yard suddenly was moved around and changed. You may remember in a previous post I showed you all my bird bath I purchased. This big fellow has been moved from the back yard to the front yard.

Still on a good roll here.....here are some of the terracotta pots that I scored for only $20 for 25 of them.

We don't have an overly large property so I've decided that perhaps I could get dwarf fruit trees. Below is my dwarf apple tree.

We've just come out of our long, hot, drawn out summer and even though many of the plants are struggling, I'm amazed that my rose bush has been able to present beautiful roses.

💘 Meet Frank 🐱

 

Let me introduce to you Frank. Frank is now 14 weeks old and we are his second owners. We love him.

He is as cheeky as he looks, one would know this is typical. lol Biting, scratching, pouncing, eating my knitting patterns, taking off with my wool and then looking absolutely sweet.

Probably tired from a night of eating my knitting patterns I'd left on the coffee table.

....and no, Milo doesn't like him. We still love Milo anyway. There's enough love to go around.

Well my friends, it is very late at night so I better try and get some sleep. Over the last few weeks sleep has evaded me but I'm slowly catching up. I send you all big hugs and good wishes.

Ciao, Anita.