Crocheted Headband

I decided I would crochet myself a headband last night to keep my mind off the cyclone heading towards the boys..it was very quick and easy, just all triple crochet, Kasey would like me to make her one as well, I am happy with how it has come up...might make a few more in different colours...hair's a bit messy though...

I plan to spend today doing some baking, lots of things in mind to cook up for lunches etc. We have had so much rain here, there was ankle deep water through the car turnaround bay and carport last night..the yard up the back is so wet, it's gonna be a jungle when it finally dries out enough to be mowed. Hopefully I can get through to the boys today on the phone to see how they fared...it's supposed to be hitting them early morning...I'm hoping it's just heavy rain by the time it gets to them..my hour in the garden wasn't spent quite how I envisaged yesterday, I spent most of it trying to find the missing guinea fowl, with no success...and then I did a bit of weeding, but got rained out. It's too wet to plant anything up there at the moment anyway...this rain is really playing havoc with the vegie garden..oh well, the trials and tribulations of growing food...

Around the place

Been fairly quiet around here the last week. Just plodding along through each day at the moment. I have some vegie seedlings to go and plant this afternoon, did a big harvest off the eggplants the other day, I gave quite a few to the chooks as they had been munched on by something, but I did leave them on the plants for too long as I hadn't worked them in to the menu to cook them. I cooked some up in to eggplant fritters, they are really nice, especially with chilli sauce.

I did manage to get a few eggplants that hadn't been munched on, along with a few other goodies. Still only get 1 egg per day....the girls had better get a move on, or they will be moving out...they are very expensive when they aren't producing, and you have to buy eggs as well as feed them.

I took Diesel back to the vet to get his stitches out from his desexing surgery, he finds the car rides really stressful :) !! (not)

He definitely seems more comfortable in the front legs since he has been on anti inflammatory tablets and glucosamine chews, so hopefully we can keep him as comfortable as possible. I have started to do some knitting and crocheting at night by the fire. I have been watching some online tutorials from http://www.mikeyssmail.com/  His instructional videos are so easy to follow. I have been trying to get the hang of granny squares, and I couldn't get the grasp of it by following a written pattern, so his video tutorial is fabulous. This was effort number 1, my practice piece. I really like the look of the squares with the round centre, just for something a bit different to the usual squares...

And I have told Kasey that I would crochet her a blanket for her bed, so I have started on that, in pink, dusty pink and purples...I have done 2 of those...about 118 more to go! I am threading the ends in as I go so that I don't have to do that at the end...

I am going to alternate the colours around, so that on some the centres will be dusty pink and others will be the darker pink and the outer edges will alternate over the 3 colours as well, to add variation and interest. I also bought some can can wool at the craft fair recently, so will be making up a scarf with that.  I am really feeling like a sweet treat after my lunch, but I am trying hard to eat healthy foods only at the moment, so I am going to go and make up a batch of yoghurt, even though it won't be ready to eat until tomorrow morning, I will have some on hand for when I get the sweet urge tomorrow. We have had the fireplace going fairly regularly lately, and I have been using it to keep the kettle on to boil up hot water for cuppas etc, it has been working really well. I am even organised for dinner, and have a beef goulash with herb dumplings cooking in the slowcooker, I am using the recipe from Sally Wise's slow cooker recipe book, the recipes in there are really tasty, but really easy to make...and I have already done the vegies, so just have to turn them on later. I finished re-painting the spare room, which is no longer spare as Son number 1 has moved back home...we are still waiting on the new carpet in the bedrooms, but it is looking like the end of July until we can get that, as I seem to have a knack of ordering the most popular products, and we are still waiting on the cabinet maker to come and install the robes, so he is living out of boxes at the moment, but he'll be able to unpack into his cupboard soon enough. I am hoping to start on the painting of Toni and Kasey's room shortly so that they are all repainted before the carpet comes in. Anyway, I'm off to make some yoghurt before I lose the motivation....

Craft, sports carnival and a little upcoming trip...

I have had a busy couple of days as usual. Yesterday was spent at sewing class for the block of the month class on my back on the farm quilt. I spent the whole day tracing out the designs to be appliqued on to the individual blocks.  Now have to cut all the little pieces out, attach them to the different fabrics and cut those out, and then glue and sew to the blocks, still a bit of work, but definitely getting there. Last night I finished off a pair of crocheted fingerless gloves that I started the night before. They are really quick to crochet up, and this is my first wearable crocheted item I have made, and I am quite proud of it. They are really warm as well.

Kasey had her very first school sports day today. It was really nice sitting down to watch all of the littlies trying their hardest.  Kasey ran a 50 metre race. She had fun..

I have been to a sewing class again tonight for the evening bag. Tonight we embroidered the front flap of the bag. I left my machine there to have a service while I am away, as I seem to be having some tension troubles, and I don't think it was serviced before I purchased it from the lady who sold it to me, so it isn't going to hurt it. I also need the needle threader replaced, as it has been broken since I bought the machine. The embroidery is coming up really nicely. I have a wedding to do tomorrow, and it is also Toni's year 12 formal, and I am picking Damian up from the airport as well, so a very busy day ahead.  I have started on the few things I could do for the wedding, so it shouldn't take me too long to finish it off tomorrow.Damian is flying in for Toni's formal, and we are going to fly back up to Mackay on Sunday with Kasey and spend a few days driving back down with our new caravan which he has left in accomodation at Mackay. I haven't stayed in our new caravan yet, so I am looking forward to setting that all up, as Damian is likely to have set it up with a man's touch, so I will probably relocate a few things....  :)  I am going to head in to the city tomorrow night and pick the girls up after their formal and drive them back home, so it is about an hour's drive in to the city, so it will be a late night by the time I get home....I am going to need a few days off I think....I am going to make Toni and her friend up a lovely wrist corsage each for them to wear, they have asked me for them and I am happy to make them for the girls, it is lovely that they wish to have some fresh flowers to set off their dresses. I will post some photos of their special day after the event.

Vege garden, Sunday and a near tragedy....

I took Kasey to a Gymnastics open day today, she seemed to really enjoy it. I have booked her in to a school holiday program for a couple of hours tomorrow, and will see what she thinks. If she really likes it, I may book her in to the actual program during school terms. Today I sowed some carrot seeds in the vege garden, cleaned out the chook pen, and placed new straw, pulled out the last of the carrots from the last crop, along with some sweet potato and corn. This is today's harvest:

Kasey enjoying a freshly picked carrot from the vege garden..

I am going to keep the small cob of corn for seeds, as the corn has been delicious, very sweet and juicy, so I would definitely like to grow some more of this variety, as I think it is the nicest corn we have ever had. I think there will be about 150 seeds on the small cob, so I have it in the pantry in a mesh bag to dry for a few weeks. I will probably buy some more in the meantime and plant another crop very shortly. While getting the straw out of the storage shed this afternoon, I discovered a batch of rats in there, Max has turned out to have very good ratting abilities, and made short work of 1, but the rest scattered and took off, but I will let him in there each afternoon to try and get rid of the rest. While I don't like the idea of killing anything, a plague of rats is definitely not needed, and I think Max taking care of 1 in a couple of seconds is much more preferable to baiting them, which to me is inhumane. I also spread some more straw around the vege garden where needed. Last night, I made my first attempt at a crocheted dishcloth. It has turned out ok, a few missed stiches here and there, but practice should improve things. I think I may knit them in future though, as crocheting seems to use way more wool, even though it's quicker.

Toni had a bad night last night, and equally bad day today. As she was leaving a party last night, a very drunk girl jumped in front of her and laid on her bonnet, and fell off and hit her head on the bitumen, and is in hospital with a hairline fracture to her skull, bruising on her brain etc. Luckily, Toni was in first gear and only going about 5 klms an hour, but an ambulance was called and the police turned up, and breath tested Toni who returned a 0.00 result, and the police have told her she was not at fault and have cleared her of any charges or traffic infringements, but Toni feels awful as this girl is a friend of hers.  She has been crying all day, and is worried that her friends are going to blame her, and she has been feeling sick all day about it. It just really irks me that people do such irresponsible things, which causes distress to others. The girl is going to be ok apparently, but will be in hospital for a few days, and she can't remember what happened. It is a very hard lesson for her to learn though. I can only imagine how bad it could have been it Toni had been going faster, or had had a drink at the party....

Friday Wrapup

I picked most of the chillies today. I wanted to leave them until they had started to turn red, but something has started invading them, and has started to chew on a couple, so thought it best to pick them all and leave them on the bench to redden. With what's already in the freezer, plus these, I will have enought to fill Christmas requests for Chilli Jam....it is very popular with family members!

I was quite out of sorts this morning, I have lots of things I could have been doing, but just couldn't seem to get myself started. Finally, I decided to bake an orange cake and that seemed to be enough to get me moving. I put on some pizza dough in the breadmaker to mix, I made a double batch so I could put half in the freezer. I did a few other banking errands, wrapped a bouquet preservation being picked up next week, started the hardening process on one in process at the minute, put on a batch of yoghurt, vacuumed and did a bit of dusting, did a few loads of washing and a quick tidy around. We had pizza for dinner tonight, there is heaps left over, so can probably have that again tomorrow night, we have heaps of quiche left over from last night also, so that's another option also, but I may end up freezing that for a quick easy meal for another night yet.Ann came over tonight as she wanted a bit of help with some internet advertising, and stayed for a couple of hours with cuppas and chats, so that was a nice catch up. I was going to try and start on my vegetable garden planning, but didn't get around to it today, so will put that on the list for the next few days/weeks....I am going to go and get some yarn from the American Yarn shop tomorrow, for some of the sugar n cream yarn, to knit up some more dishcloths, and look for some other lovely yarn for my crocheting plans, and then we are going to go and pickup Toni's formal dress, and may have a nice lunch while we are out, so hopefully a lovely day coming up tomorrow :)

Caravan, Overlocking and Crochet and stuff

Toni had her follow up appointment after her operation at 7.30 this morning. It's all looking really good, and she will be able to go back to school tomorrow. She really could have gone back today, but anyway.....

I made some more Easter eggs today, these were rocky road ones. To make these I combined:

2 packs marshmallows - roughly pulled apart by hand

2 packs red rasberry lollies

1 cup coconut

I melted 3 blocks of milk chocolate, 

and then added the other ingredients, stirred it all up, and put into the molds to cool. This made 8 large eggs.

Then giftwrapped them ready to give as presents.

I also went through the caravan and checked all of the supplies, and made a grocery list for things to buy. I also went to my overlocking class and finished my table runner, I am really, really pleased with it.

My overlocker had a hissy fit at class, and would not work, I only got it back from being serviced last week, so I had to use one of the ones from the class, which was a bit stressful, as I didn't know my way around it to thread it etc. I actually had to get up at one stage and walk away from it, as the stress levels had built up to ridiculous anxiety levels, after that I was fine. I had my overlocker serviced through the sewing shop that I do my classes through, so they kept the overlocker there and they are going to get the technician to try and work out why it isn't working.

When I got home I crocheted one of these little whimisical flowers, I think it turned out lovely for my first effort. I will definitely make some more of these and dust with diamond dust etc, for my scrapbooking pages, I will post pictures when I do some, and I will post some instructions for making these a bit later.