Birthday Wish List

™ I love this time of the year when the weather warms up and spring is in the air.  Thursday is my birthday and here is the wish list for my family ˜

♥ A crochet book/magazine to inspire me and keep the creative juices flowing!

♥ Some different colours of the Elle Pure New Wool. 

           Love the feel of it, love the colours!

♥ Tray of seedlings, maybe Petunias.

♥ A Woollies potted rose!

♥ Chocolate, especially love Lindt.

♥ A pretty new Maxwell and Williams mug or any other fine bone china mug will do. I know I’m pushing it, but a tea cup and saucer would be nice!

♥ To have my crocheted blanket complete! - I'm working my fingers off on this one!

Orange Roses and Strawberry Jam

What a lovely respite from crocheting my blanket!  Yesterday I crocheted some roses for a tea cosy I must finish for someone special.  I am calling it my “marmalade” tea cosy as I am making the roses with shades of oranges that you would find in marmalade.  I have this lovely soft wool that I was given that has nice changing tones of orangey colours in it.  There is even a little bit of blue in it, wonder what little blue rose buds will look like between the orange roses, mmmm a thought!  I have also received two more orders for other tea cosies from the coffee shop where I display the cosies for sale; so between Sophie and me we are getting these special little orders ready!  It gets me very excited and inspires more exciting pretty projects.

After reading a blog post on yarnroundhook.blogspot.com, I was instantly inspired to go out and buy some strawberries for jam making; hence these lovely photographs of the process! 

I have an Iphone and one of the photographic applications I have downloaded is called “Hipstamatic”, it takes these lovely “aged” photos I have displayed here.  It is such a nice “camera” that I have been snapping away at all kinds of things, look how lovely this lavender looks.  

I love making chalk board hearts.  My husband cuts the wood out for me and I paint them with chalk board paint.  “All things Nice” has magnets glued to the back of it and sits on my fridge! J. 

Look at this lovely photograph of my daughters cat Chloe, she is a very photogenic cat and of course Hipstamatic makes it even more HDR.  (High definition resolution- fancy photographic terms)

I will post the marmalade tea cosy as soon as I have finished it and not to mention, the baby I have been working on since the 1^st of July – THE BLANKET, it is close, very close.

A Pretty Crochet Corner

I am dying to get my blanket done as I am desperate to move on to some other projects.  I want to make some pretty cushion covers and am desperate to get working with some other wools and colours.   It’s been more than four weeks of Rustica chunky.  Make no mistake, I love it and I am delighted with how my blanket is turning out in looks and feel but GIVE ME ANOTHER PROJECT NOW PLEEEASE!  I will not stop though until I have conquered this Kilimanjaro of a project!!

With spring just around the corner, the weather is warming up beautifully here in Johannesburg.  As a result, I have found a nice little corner on my patio to sit and crochet.  Here I can enjoy the view of my “winter garden” soon to be a blooming “spring garden”!  I worked quite considerably in the garden over the past weekend so I am looking forward to reaping the fruit of my labour!  I was busy crocheting with the mauve colour of the Rustica wool and couldn’t help noticing how beautiful it looked against the Pansies I had planted in pots on the patio.  PRETTY!  Flowers do give us nice colour combinations; mm I think a crocheted Pansy cushion cover next!! Ok, let me just get finished with this blanket already, work hands work!

A HAPPY WEEKEND TO YOU ALL!!

Some pretty little Primulas flowering at the school where I work!

Loving August

I love August not just because it's my birthday month but for many other reasons too.

·       I love August as it is a time of preparation for spring in the garden!  The shrubs, trees and roses need pruning and preening in preparation for the blooming and growing season that is waiting.  Shrubs need to be trained into their new growth and not be allowed to develop ugly scraggly tresses.  Perennials need to be divided and re-planted and annuals need to go in for a pretty show!

·       I love it that the sun is rising earlier and setting later.

·       I love the sound of the birds chattering and the sight of them getting active again.

·       I love observing all of creation as it waits in anticipation for spring, swelling buds on the trees and shrubs all ready to burst forth into a new song of joyous flourishment.

·       I love my garden in spring; it always has new little surprises for me and looks so pretty especially after the bland winter browns, bare trees and shrubs.

·       I love having my birthday in August; it’s right near the end of the month just before spring starts and I can wear something pretty and summery on the day.  It is usually always a warm, happy day!

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We celebrated “National Woman’s Day” yesterday being a public holiday and together with a days’ leave on Monday /schools being closed, resulted in a lovely long weekend.  It was lovely to have everyone at home doing their own little “pottering” but none the less together.

I had every intention of crocheting my way to my blankets end this weekend but got caught up in the lovely warm weather and gardening that I only had time to crochet in the evenings, thus it’s not the END of my blanket yet but very soon!!   I will definitely have it complete by my birthday on the 25^th so "Watch this space!"

An agitated crocheter!

I must say, I am rather agitated that I can’t just sit and get my crocheted blanket finished.  I have to steal time in my every busy day to crochet a centre, crochet around the completed centre, sew in the threads, and sew some blocks together aaagh!  This weekend is a long weekend and I am warning you, I want uninterrupted crocheting time; this blanket needs to see its END!!  My family loves my baked goodies and so I have decided that I will either bake Thursday or Friday afternoon as when the weekend has started,  I don’t want to hear… I’m hungryyyyy, what’s there to eeeeeat!  J

Where I work at the Grade 0 school (that is the school readiness year) I often go for walks to clear my head and then get back to my work.  Just a few meters from my office is a large school field where there is always a frenzy of hungry birds that swoop down onto the grounds after the children have had their break time to feast on the left over dropped food.  It is an amusing sight to see, I have seen Pigeons, Crows, Indian mynas, Thrushes, Hadedas and the common little sparrows.   It’s an a la carte menu out there for the birds, sandwiches, fruit, biscuits, chips and more, enough food to feed a flock of birds.  Mondays always seem to be the busiest eating day as there has been no school over the weekend and obviously the birds start getting a little hungry. It is such a luxury to not have to search for food.  I swear, these birds must sit up in the trees around the field waiting for the children to scoot so that they can come to their banqueting table.  So think of the poor birds this weekend, 4 days of having to search for their own food, no buffet table laid out for them to feed on.