Peppermint stripes

I found this peppermint cotton yarn in the market for 50c a ball and it inspired me to start knitting again.

I like this colour combination but I'm not sure what to make with it. Any ideas anyone?

It can't be too big a project as I only have two balls of the mint, one of cream and one of grey. And they're all different types of yarn as you can tell by the variable width of the stripes. The grey is wool, and the other two are cotton. Another knitting no-no I'm sure, but if necessary I can find some grey cotton to match instead. 

So send any ideas this way!

knitted rope necklace

I'd seen some of these around on etsy and knitting blogs and liked the way they drape so I thought I'd give it a try.

I made this on one big circular needle, just knitting round and round until it curled up on itself enough that you don't see the edges.  The trickiest part was switching from the white cotton to the grey wool, but as I didn't want the join to be too neat (and I wouldn't have been able to make it neat anyway)  I just picked up and worked with both yarns for a few stitches at each join.  Then I had to cut the ends and weave them in, which is not my favourite thing, but it made a staggered effect which I'm still deciding on whether I like or not.

Sweet peas & poppies

I've never tried growing sweet peas before so this year I put some in with the veges, and they've just started to bloom in the most beautiful soft colours.

 I'm having trouble uploading pics on here so there's more to come on flickr.





Ranunculs



Sparaxis, poppies and anemones



Winter projects

Over the winter I've made a few bits and pieces that I haven't gotten around to putting up here yet. But today is grand final day and my significant other is very much otherwise occupied, so what better time to put a few photos up?

These lacy cable socks aren't as hard as they look- there's no cabling at all, it's just an 8-row repeating lace pattern. I found it in a book called "Knitting 24/7" by Veronik Avery which has some great contemporary projects that you can knit without thinking too much.

Berni and I tried 'knitting in transit' on the train for the first time and I took these along with a photocopy of the lace diagram - I'm not quite ready to memorise lace patterns yet, but at least I didn't get train-sick.

Here's my phone pouch..

... and an ipod pod

Our first lemon harvest!

These are from the smallest of the three citrus trees we planted soon after we moved in. It's the only one to bear fruit so far, and the poor little tree was so weighed down with them that I felt sorry for it and picked most of the fruit before they were completely ripe.

They've ripened up now and taste delicious in Jamie Oliver's lemon curdy pud! It's much quicker to make than lemon meringue pie, and tastes great. Even better with some cinnamon sprinkled over the top before you put it in the oven. My new favourite winter dessert.

Winter days

It's getting colder and I'm getting back into knitting again.

This little beanie and booties are for my niece.

I found the pattern for the booties here, and made up the beanie pattern myself. Which explains why it looks slightly lopsided. The cables make it nice and stretchy so I'm hoping it will still fit.

The yarn is a lovely soft alpaca/wool blend, finer than I'd ever used before. I thought I would get impatient knitting with smaller needles (4mm) but because these are such small projects it didn't take long at all.

I had to re-learn crochet to do the trim around the booties, and it doesn't look quite like the picture, but I'm pretty happy with the final result, especially for a first try.

Next up: socks!

Keep on walkin'

I know it's been a long long time but I thought I'd say a little hello just in case anyone still checks this blog!

Not much new to report on the vege garden, just the usual winter crop of spinach and silverbeet, and the herbs are all doing well - parsley, thyme, oregano all thriving, and little basil seedlings still poking through where we pulled out last year's plants.

Strawberries are taking over where we planted just one seedling last year, but I don't mind! Hopefully we'll get more fruit this spring.

We also put in a passionfruit vine which is happily twining up the chicken-wire, and some tomatoes of course.

Front garden is coming along too now, we've made another bed with pinks and reds, and a few roses I bought for a bargain $2.oo each! They were just twigs with roots, and half-dead I think, but this morning I saw that one has sprouted little shoots.

And I planted two Albany Woollybushes in the backyard. They're natives that I've seen around here, very pretty with soft pine-like needles, like a little fir tree.

Albert's growing up, he fills up the whole photo frame now!