The Week That Was

Rather than have a big catch up like last month, I’ll try to have something more regular.  So where to start?  How about stitching? That’s logical.

Remember I set my self a lofty goal of stitching for 15 minutes each day during November.  Well, let’s see how I have gone so far.

Yes, I have kicked that goal, and on most days far exceeded it.

1st

2nd

3rd

For something different, I completed one EPP unit for the Blue Quilt.

After a false start….  I don’t know where my brain was.

4th

This was the first Friday of the month, so Friday Night With Friends, hosted by Cheryll.  Guess what I worked on?  

5th

Chooky hosted another Zoom session on Saturday morning and I was able to pop in nice and early.  Mick was up watching the World Cup Rugby League, being played in the UK, so it worked in well.  More secret stitching, so nothing interesting to share.

6th

Once again, I worked on something different.  I did some knitting…..for much longer than 15 minutes. I’ll explain a little further down the post.

Now onto other things….

Of course, we had our drive to Orange on the cold snowy day and then the gas was cut to our area due to the floods.  To recap, the main gas pipeline runs under the Macquarie river, just out of Bathurst and the flooding has eroded the river bed and broken the gas pipe.  Apparently, this is the biggest gas outage ever in Australia.  Well, we still don’t have our gas reconnected, although very large crews are working their way through town.  They expect that all of Bathurst will be reconnected by tomorrow.  The other poor towns will have to wait longer.  The gas people are working on a solution to put in a temporary gas line to Oberon, Lithgow and Wallerawang by the end of next week and after that, and when the flooding recedes, to reinstate the gas pipeline in a permanent fashion.

On Thursday we visited the Lifeline Book Fair in town.  I was hoping to find some more of the Elm Creek Quilt series, like I did last time, but no luck.  I’ll have fun continuing to look for them.

As you can imagine, we didn’t come home empty handed.  Look at that beautiful Mrs Beeton from the 1890s and for just $3.  The next book down has a very small story for each day of the year, usually only about a page long.  I’ll have fun reading them from the start of 2023.  The others are just reading pleasure.

We had a big day on Saturday, having started early with Zoom and the Footy.  We drove down to Katoomba and I called in to the wool shop I had visited a couple of weeks ago to buy another ball of wool.  As I said earlier, more on that in a moment.

After a nice lunch in a cafe, we attended an afternoon garden wedding.  Finally, after two aborted attempts, due to the COVID-19 shutdowns, the big day arrived…….and it didn’t rain, although it was a bit cool.

The setting was beautiful.

Complete with tiny ducklings.

The sun on the cliffs of the Blue Mountains was a nice backdrop.

Such a lovely event.

Back home, in the garden, our Zephryn Drouin rose has bloomed and added a nice pop of colour to the back yard.

It is virtually thornless and blooms right through the warmer months, so is a favourite.

We picked our first two strawberries yesterday (no photo as we ate them straight away), so they are now netted to try and stop the birds from eating them all.  Yes, that is a lot of strawberry plants.  They have kind of gone a bit feral.  I think there will be jam.

Now, back to that wool I keep referring to…..

Remember I had my fun day out at Katoomba and bought some wool.  

Well, I had a beanie pattern in mind and knitted it up the day after I bought the wool.  I figured I wouldn’t feel as guilty about buying it if I used it straight away.  It looked like the photo on the pattern……..but instead of being a bit slouchy, it was more like a skull cap.  Oh my goodness, what a massive fail.  I did take a photo, but it is so bad I’m not even going to share.  Needless to say a Plan B was required.  Hence, the return trip to buy another ball of wool.

Yesterday, I hunted out the Dad’s wool winder from when he used to spin wool.  I can’t believe it was even where I thought it would be.  Anyway, the first attempt at a beanie was frogged and wound into a ball, ready to start again.

Then, I had a search on Ravelry for something that looked nice and was relatively easy, settling on the Violet Waffle pattern.

It is worked on a circular needle. 

I made pretty good progress yesterday, so should have a finish fairly soon.  I like the texture.  Let’s hope this version is a success.

Lastly, the good news is that while I’ve been typing this, our gas has been reconnected.  Now I can shower in the house, rather than the caravan, and we can use our stove top.  Hopefully, we won’t need the heater, but it is now working too.  Happy dance.  Let’s hope the other towns don’t have to wait for too long.