A Backyard Update

Remember I was hoping for a Christmas tomato.

Here is my photo at the start of the month.  There was a tiny tinge of colour on the top one, so it looked promising.

Well, it did turn red and we were saving it to pick for Christmas. When I went out to water on Christmas Eve, where there had been tiny tomatoes, there was now11 little stalk stubs!!!  Blasted birds.  We do like them in the garden, but we were not happy. 

This is how things look now. Let’s hope that means we can enjoy some of the fruit for ourselves.  I took the photo of the stem stubs today, so it looks like the netting may be working, as there are now some more getting a bit of colour.

Also on Christmas Eve, when I was going to the clothes line I was startled to see a very unwelcome visitor…… A small snake, just over a foot long and very slender.  

This is what it looked like.  Once I looked it up, I realised it is a juvenile brown snake.  Eeek!  Even though it is a juvenile, it is just as deadly as an adult.  Have I mentioned how much I fear snakes.  We came across many when we lived out of town and nine times out of ten it was me that saw them first.

Mick got the long handled shovel, but by then it had slithered under the campanula, which was cascading over the edge of the garden.  Despite, lots of hitting into the plant, he didn’t get the snake.  We didn’t know where it went. 

The plant has now been trimmed back.  In his attempt to kill the snake, my little fairy door, that I made on the Isle of Man, sustained a bit of a beating. Fortunately, the little leprechaun survived.

Sadly, my little pixie didn’t.  He is beyond repair.  Poor pixie.

About half an our later, Mick and my brother were sitting on the back verandah, when my brother spotted it again, near where they were sitting.  They had another attempt to get it, but once again it was too quick, and being so slender, it made its escape.  They tried to find it but had no luck.

So, maybe it has left the area…….which is my hope, or maybe it is somewhere in the yard.  We have lots of plants and garden beds, so it is quite feasible that it is still somewhere around.  I am very wary whenever I am outside now.  Blasted thing!  Did I mention I hate snakes…….

My Secret Stitching Revealed

Remember, back in November I was working away on secret Christmas stitching.  Now I can finally reveal what I was up to.

Firstly, Lou and I do an ornament swap.  The mail from NZ to Australia is being a little tardy, despite being posted ages ago, so Lou’s has not arrived here as yet. Fortunately, mine did turn up in plenty of time for Christmas.

I thought it was about time I made a cross stitch ornament, just to show that I remember how, as I haven’t done anything of any size for many years.  This pattern seemed rather appropriate.

My second project was for some good friends of ours.  Yes, another cross stitch project.  I seem to be on a roll.

Both projects were fun to make.

The Start of My Sock Journey

My Mum knitted socks since her teens, when she, like so many others, knitted socks for the soldiers in World War 2.  When striped bobby socks were all the rage in my teens, I had hand knitted ones, as well as nice thick fair isle socks that were so lovely and toasty warm.  As the craze for knitting socks started up in more recent times, Mum once again got out her needles and joined in, providing both Mick and I with some lovely socks.

Some years ago I bought this ball of wool with the intention of having a go at knitting some socks myself, but never got around to it.    It is a blend of wool, bamboo and polyamide.  Finally, the time has come.

Knitting socks was one of those things that I was going to have Mum teach me…..one day… but sadly that day has now passed.  Thank goodness for YouTube tutorials.

After watching a few tutorials I learned that you can knit socks the traditional way using double pointed needles (DPNs), a long circular needle with the “magic loop” method or with a teeny weeny nine inch circular needle.  I felt that I would end up in a tangle with either DPNs or magic loop, so have opted for a  nine inch circular.  They aren’t all that available, so I bought one online.  

It arrived last Tuesday and is a 2.25mm ChiaoGoo, which coincidentally is the same as used in the tutorials.  After I had ordered it, I came across another YouTube video doing a product comparison and happily, this brand came out on top.  Yay!

I chose a tutorial by the Crazy Sock Lady for Vanilla Socks on 9” Circular. The pattern is purchased through Ravelry.  Her tutorial is really easy to follow.

First, I did a little tension swatch.  It is supposed to be about 8 stitches to the inch.  Mine is 9.  I hoped that in the actual project I may be knitting a bit looser and went with the medium size.

I cast on with my usual method, but it was too tight to join in the round.  The tutorial used a long tail cast on, which I have never tried, so pulled mine undone and following the very helpful casting on tutorial, also provided by the Crazy Sock Lady, I used that method.  It is a bit rough around the edges, but will do for a first attempt.  It is definitely much stretchier, so better for a sock top.

I got stuck in and completed the cuff and started on the leg on the first day.  

On the second day I finished the leg and was ready to tackle the heel flap.  There were two options, one using the 9 inch circular needle and the second using two DPNs.  I went with the DPN option and it worked well.

The heel turn wasn’t too bad either, which was also completed on the DPNs.  After that it was back on the circular to do the gusset, which went well.  On Friday it was time to do the toe decrease and the tutorial’s preferred method was to then change to a long circular needle and use the magic loop method, as the small circular would not work.  Another option was to use DPNs.  I don’t have a long circular in that size, so decided to use the DPNs.  What a muddle I ended up in.  I do, however, have two circular needles in that size in the 40cm length.  Too short for magic loop, but I figured I could use them, together with my tiny circular like DPNs, as they would be more flexible.  It was a strange method, but it worked for me.

So on the Friday before Christmas I have one sock. Maybe I should have been preparing for Christmas, but this was much more fun.  Christmas would look after itself.

Now to see if it fits….. remembering that my tension was quite tight. Fingers and toes crossed…..

Yay! A very nice fit around the foot, if just a tad tight around my chunky calf.  I can definitely live with that and they should fit nicely in shoes too.

Now, I wonder what I will be doing while watching the Boxing Day Test Cricket?  Let’s hope it goes for more than two days, so I can complete my second sock.

Merry Christmas

Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas.

We will be spending time with family and good friends and the weather is actually going to be warm.

I look forward to being back here soon with a wrap up of the year.

It’s Starting to Look and Taste a Lot Like Christmas

We undertook the task of putting up all the Christmas decorations, both inside and out, at the start of the month, so it is about time I shared how things look.

Firstly, outside.

Our street is one of the most lit up in town, and as we are the first house you see, we have to do our little bit, although it is nothing compared to others further along.

Now, please come inside.

The entry.

The lounge room.

Our main tree with oodles of lights and decorations with special memories.  I’ve had the little Santa on the lounge since I was a little kid.

Our three wise men and shepherd.

Big Ted looks after the little Christmas teddies and this year is donning Mick’s Santa hat to keep in the spirit of things.

The new addition this year is the lovely old vintage Christmas picture story book, found at an op shop.

It has a lovely story and is in beautiful condition.  Surprisingly, it was printed in Melbourne, but there is no date on it.

 The sitting and dining room.

Our tree with the special and hand made decorations.  So many happy memories here.

There is a new addition this year, gifted from Maria.  It is so sweet.

The mantle piece.  We kept having to remove the swag and wreath to light the heater, as the weather was cold.  Hopefully, that won’t be needed again.

The kitchen.

Mick suffers the Christmas mugs for the month….just…as they are a bit high for the coffee machine, but I love them.

Finally, my tiny wee vintage Christmas fawn that I recently found.  It’s so sweet.

Mick and I had a play in the kitchen a few days ago, trying a new recipe for mince pies with a frangipani topping.  We did cheat and use frozen pastry.  They turned out rather well and will be made again.  Some left over pastry was used to make a few little turnovers.

It’s hard to believe it is only a few days until the fellow in the red suit comes down the chimney.  A day we look forward to with family.

Stitching Update

It’s time to see what I have been up to on the stitching front this month.  

I have continued to keep up with my 15 minutes of stitching per day, except for Wednesday.  I did go to Spotlight and spent more than 15 minutes buying fabric on their sale.  However, I’m not quite sure if that counts.

Most of the time it has been working away on my knitted shawl/scarf.  I’ve really enjoyed it.  So much so, that it is finished.  I’m really happy with how it has turned out.  The colours are quite different to what I would normally choose, but it will be quite versatile.  It should work with dark olive, light or dark denim blue, black, grey and white. The yarn was nice and soft to work with and therefore is nice a soft to wear next to the skin.  It’s just a nice size too, as well as having nice drape.  (So many "nices" in there.) I can’t quite believe that both yarns that I bought in October have been used up.  Not like me at all.  Now, I’m ready to get something else on my needles, while I’m in the mood.

Until about a week ago I hadn’t turned my sewing machine on at all.  Finally, I stopped procrastinating and decided on a pattern for the Harry Potter quilt.  It is Bonnie Hunter’s Streak of Sunshine. A quick and easy pattern.  I had the blocks made on one day, adding the borders the next.  The pattern called for width of fabric strips, whereas I only had a fat quarters.  It still worked.

Only half of the fat quarters were used, so I proceeded to cut out an identical quilt to stitch at another time.

While I was on a roll, I grabbed a couple of other five fat quarter bundles I had and cut out more quilts.

Minnie Mouse will be a Garden Path quilt by Jedi Craft Girl. That uses pretty much the whole bundle.

 

Winnie the Pooh, plus a few extra fat quarters, will be a Bricks Baby Quilt by Amy Smart of Diary of a Quilter.  It only used less than half the bundle.  Therefore, I also cut out two Lone Star Baby Quilts also by Amy Smart.

I was still enthused, so grabbed another five fat quarter bundle and added a couple of other fabrics and cut out a second Bricks Baby Quilt.  I still have over half of those fat quarters, as well as another bundle, so will have to decide what else to make with them.

All the additional fabrics came from stash too.  I had a rather long length of white homespun, but I used nearly all of it, which is why I had to go shopping at Spotlight, to replace it.

There you go.  A nice little pile of projects to work on.  Having several means that I can also use them as leaders and enders, if I wish.

I have also finally completed the stitching on my little Christmas Bells cross stitch, working the backstitch.  The pattern calls for it to be made into a tiny gift bag, but I don’t think I want to do that.  I still have to make up my mind what I will do.  There’s no rush.  Christmas is still nine days away………OMG!!!

I needed to find something easy in the way of hand stitching and after hunting around I came across a few incomplete origami butterflies.  Some were still just cut out and a few were stitched around the outside.  I have now ladder stitched a few openings and started to play with the folding.  That little lot should keep me amused for a couple of days.

I had decided to try to knit my first pair of socks, but don’t have the right sized circular needle.  I have placed an online order, so will have to just wait for a little while until the mail arrives.  I’m really looking forward to trying them out.  I’ve been watching Youtube videos, so think they should go OK.  Fingers crossed.

I’ll keep you updated.

What I’ve Been Up To

So much for me doing weekly updates.  Time has got away on me.  Let’s see what I’ve been doing so far this month.

Can you believe it, on Sunday we went for a motorcycle ride, this time taking “Olga the Old Girl” BMW sidecar.   We were supposed to go on another ride on Saturday too, but the weather turned cold, so we wimped out.  

Sunday was perfect early summer weather (for a change), so we rode out to the village of Rockley to attend their Artisan Markets.  These have been going for a few months now, but this was our first time to attend.

There was a good variety of stalls, this is just half of them.  We came home with a nice little variety of things.  Lemon Butter, locally made cheeses, Romanian Eggplant Zacuska, local honey, wine from our former next door neighbours and a couple of cards.

The Christmas decorations and lights have all been set up.  Not much different from previous years.  As can be seen from the above photo, there has also been test cricket watching.  Joey isn’t all that interested, rather just being happy in his usual spot on my lap on the lounge on Uncle Chris’ quilt.

The weather has continued to be all over the place.  We very nearly had a frost last week, with all the frost tender plants being covered.  This morning got down to 1 degree C, so the covers were once again out.  That is just plain crazy for mid December.  It hasn’t been nearly as wet, but we have had some very strong winds.  There has only been a couple of days that you could call warm. Most days it is struggling to reach 20 degrees C.  So much for summer.

In the garden we have a new Mock Orange Plant.  We have had one of these in our two previous gardens and do so love the fragrance.  Even this small amount of flowers were quite fragrant.

Our hydrangea down the side of the house is really starting to put on a show.  We have a couple of newer plants that still have some growing to do.

We are now getting zucchinis and the first couple of snow peas.  

The tiny tomatoes have had green fruit for quite a while, but they don’t seem to be ripening yet.  Fingers crossed for Christmas.  The beans are starting to flower.  Meanwhile, the spinach and beetroot have been fighting a losing battle against a pesky little sparrow.  Mick has now netted them, so hopefully they will survive.  The eggplants are a bit slow, but are gradually growing, so we look forward to plenty of fruit later in the season.  

The strawberries were very fruitful, but have now finished.  They weren’t as good as last year, as the plants were getting too crowded and matted.  Mick has ripped a lot of them out and the ground was rock hard underneath.  He has given it a good dig with the tiller, so will be ready to plant again soon. This photo is before he started.

The “Peace” rose had its first buds just before we went away and has now been in full bloom.  Sadly, the wind had made a bit of a mess of it recently.

We have loads of sweet peas that were self sown, so rather wild.  They have put on quite a show, but are nearly finished.

Who’d have thought that this oyster plant died completely back in the drought.  It is now thriving.

We have several bottle brushes, most of which have finished flowering, but this one is still looking lovely.

Our old faithful Indigo is also starting to put on its summer show.

Yesterday, I started reading an e-book and finished it before breakfast this morning.  Once again I was binge reading.  It was “The Family Inheritance”.  It is quite different to the detective or murder mysteries I usually read and I did enjoy it.

Felicity is celebrating her 50th birthday and during the party she learns that her father has just died.  He leaves a rather caustic Will and the story follows the ramifications of that Will and the subsequent revealing of family skeletons in the closet.  I also found it interesting, as I have prepared Wills for many years at work and this just the situation you try to avoid. 

I have continued to play in the sewing room, but that can wait for another day.