Craft actually

Home!

Its nice to be back. I'm suffering a little bit from jetlag. Miss S woke up at 2am and while she is now sleeping soundly I am still wide awake at 5am. Once the birds started chirping around 4am I had no chance!

Our flight back was fine although it seemed a lot longer than on the way out. I don't think I slept as much this time. My sis flew back with me and was a star helping to look after S who didn't want to sleep very much. Sooze is here for the rest of the month so my mind is ticking over with all the things we should do to make the most of the amazing weather we've having here at the moment. We will start with watching the Wimbledon final this afternoon and maybe have a jug of Pimms for refreshments.

I'm sitting here admiring all the work that has happened in the garden while I've been away. We've had some raised beds put in on either side of the garden. On one side is the "tropical oasis" and on the other side is the vegie patch. A few of the seedlings I planted have survived while we were away. Two tomato plants are thriving and two basil plants are looking pretty good. The rest haven't fared so well, most have been the victims of the two little fox cubs that have been hanging around lately.

Its a bit late too late in the summer to be planting vegies now but I'll treat it as a practice run for next summer and see what we can do. Its been nice and hot so we might get some produce before winter.

Minnow has claimed her lounging position....

 

The tropical oasis

The work in progress vegie patch

Almost at an end

Its been a fantastic month in Australia and I can't believe we're planning activities for our last couple of days. I have sat down to write here a couple of times but have had holiday brain which has been quite pleasant. As always staying at Mum and Dad's aka "The Resort" we succumb to lying around on sofas chatting and sitting on the deck watching the beautiful parrots flying past and admiring the gorgeous sunsets.

I haven't been able to upload any photos due to various gremlins on the computers I've used so this is a quick hello to say we're still alive and enjoying ourselves!

Highlights of the trip have been:

• Sophie coping very well with all the flying in the early part of the trip. We had 6 flights in 8 days and she did great with it all. The long haul wasn't too bad and lets face it ...its never that great anyway.
• Spending time with all the grandparents and even a great grand-nanna has been awesome.
• Having lots of time with Sophie's aunties and seeing her play with my friends' kids.
• Eating gorgeous tropical fruit. Papaya that has some flavour and melon thats not crunchy!
• Oh and I've decided to be vegetarian! Have been reading some anti-cancer books (the China Study in particular) so its mostly for health reasons. But am not quite ready to become vegan yet. The challenge will be to develop my vege recipe repertoire.
• The weather. Oh my God....its been amazing. Why do we live in the UK again?! Our Brisbane winter has been warmer than the London summer. Although apparently that has changed in the last week or so. Oh yeah I remember....the summers here are stinking hot and humid. And you lie around panting and wishing you had airconditioning.
• Having a few family parties including my first birthday in Aus in years.
• A little bit of shopping :) Including some cute fabrics from my two favourite fabric shops. Hopefully I'll get around to making a couple of little dresses for Miss S.

Its been great although we're *nearly* ready to come home now. Next post will be from London!

Latest cardi

A few weeks ago I was talking to P about my next cardigan project. I tend to make a cardigan each year and this year I decided it should be in grey and with cables. Initially I planned to start in autumn but the next day I thought it would be great to do it for the trip our trip to Aus and NZ as it will be winter and I just don't have the perfect cardi (of course). I spent the next morning searching ravelry for cabled cardi's.

I really liked Twist and really really liked Vivian but thought it would be too much to finish in the few weeks. I finally settled on the classic Central Park Hoodie and spent quite a bit of time looking at what yarn people had used. Some of my favourite versions had been done in Cascade 220 and low and behold Loop now stocks it so I ordered it then and there. Loop rang that day to say the colour I ordered was out of stock and I decided on a darker grey they had in. It arrived the next day and I was very happy because it was exactly the dark shade I was after.

So now I've made and blocked all the pieces and just picked up for the hood, BUT we leave in two days so I think it will be coming with me as one of my knitting projects for the trip sadly. 

I may do another post about the knitting I'm thinking of taking for the trip as its getting a little out of hand. As is the amount of baby formula and food I'm also planning on taking. Somebody stop me. 

Neither of these photos really accurately represents the colour - its kind of the shade above but the darkness below. And don't look too hard at the cables because there's a few mistakes dammit.

 

Giveaways

I'm very happy to be giving this yarn away as I've had so many nice comments and so much support from my lovely readers lately.

This first one is for music suggestions (awhile ago now!) and goes to Katie. Yay! 

It kind of looks grey but then up close its more purple and brown? Looks a LOT nicer than I'm making it sound. See why I'm not in sales?!

This one is for support for Race for Life which was just amazing and I've put names in a hat from the Justgiving page as people were way too modest to comment. And it goes to Olivia who is luckily a knitter so will be able to do something with it! And she's expecting a baby very soon (very exciting) so maybe it could be a cosy little hat for later in the year (if its a girl - she doesn't know yet). Or maybe something for her. Its not all about the baby after all. Yeah right. Yay! Thanks again everyone!

One week til we go to Aus. I really need to start thinking about the most important packing decision after what shoes to take....what knitting projects to take? 

Especially as its winter over there and therefore appropriate knitting weather. And my sister did say its getting a bit chilly over there, "Yes it was under 25 degrees this week so we got out the winter doonah (ie duvet)". Bless those hardy Queenslanders :)

A fabulous new knitting book

Yay Pauline's new book arrived yesterday. So exciting - she has been working on this all last year and the Wednesday night knitters got to see first hand how much blood, sweat and tears goes into writing book and designing patterns. I have to admit I hadn't thought about it all that much but if I had I certainly didn't realise the time commitment and the intensity of the creative process. Big respect.

Amalfi

So its been ca-RA-zy around here lately. Well kind of. 

Sophie got to test run her brand new passport last week when we went to Amalfi in Italy for a special 40th birthday party for a friend of Smithy's. 

Wow, this place was way beyond expectations of how stunning it is. I had to close my eyes several times on the drive along the windy road there. The driving is really crazy with people whizzing past and drivers passing in oncoming traffic. I was a bit queasy by the time we got to the hotel but it was worth it as the views are just like nothing I've ever seen.

Below was the view from the hotel room.

We only had two full days there and one day we drove to Positano a bit further up the coast which was very cute. Of course the highlight of any trip to Italy is the food. Even the pizza at the airport is good!

Traveling with a baby was definitely a different experience. Of course there is the extra luggage and I thought I was pretty ruthless but it was still a lot more than the usual carry on back pack.

Its true that they love a baby in Italy. We would be sitting in a cafe and Sophie would suddenly start grinning away. Every time I looked around there would be a young Italian guy making silly faces at her. After lunch in Positano our waiter said to me very seriously, "Yes, (s)he is tired now". I was like wow how does he know? I asked if he had kids. "No I am too young-a, only 21!". Huh. He added, "But all-a babies always need a sleep after lunch". Of course. 

And it was Amalfi lemon season. I had heard about them on Market Kitchen recently - the best lemons in the world apparently. And some were HUGE. We bought a few to bring home. I haven't worked out what to do with them yet. Although I must do something tomorrow as being straight from the tree and all natural they go off pretty quickly.

We got back on Wednesday night so the week went very quickly. I will aim to do a draw for the Race for Life prize AND the inspirational music prize tomorrow as they are both now well overdue. 

Raced for Life

Yeah we didn't race as such but it was a pretty cracking pace considering Gail was knitting and I was pushing a pram. We finished the 5km in around an hour and it was a very enjoyable evening stroll around Battersea Park.

There was a huge crowd and as usual an amazing atmosphere. Paula Radcliffe made a speech to send us off (I'm not sure if she was running it)

Above are the runners warming up.

Below are the knitters warming up.

There were a lot of knitters because there were two separate groups! I Knit and S&B London. 

Lots of cute outfits and moving dedications. We had a few tears at the beginning when they played a bit of a tear jerker movie and I thought that sadly it was a more meaningful event to me now than when I did it a couple of years ago. Crappy.  But probably not surprising given the horrendous statistics.

Thanks so much for everyone who Miss S and I and the I Knit team. Yay!

Long weekend and a Reminder

Firstly I wanted to do a bit of a hard sell and remind you about the race for life giveaway. The run/walk/stroll/knit is next Wednesday. Where did April goooooo?! The team is going great (someone called "Princess" seems to be doing particularly well with her fundraising). I'm not doing so great....I think Smithy might be the only donor and he would much rather have the giveaway yarn OUT of the house than more yarn coming IN! Plus its a great chance - you could mention me and Gail and be in the draw for TWO prizes - its a deal! Just a few quid would be awesome for this great cause here is the fundraising page. I must contact my workmates...I seem to be constantly sponsoring them for stuff...payback time ha!

Phew now thats out of the way....some random stuff.

Looks like we're going to have a sunny long weekend yay! Have lots of socialising planned, BBQs, visitors from the North and lunches. 

Since I've been on maternity leave I decided to take my cooking to a new level (one step above the bottom one that is). I have been a good housewife and cooking dinner *most* nights (although I have to admit Smithy mostly does weekends) and decided to try a new recipe every time. This has been going for about three months now and I'd say I've done new recipies about 75% of the time and have done the old favourites when we really fancy them.

I thought I would really struggle for inspiration but I've been going through old and new magazines and the cookbooks that have barely been used and have built up a stack of ideas I want to try.

I've also become completely addicted to Market Kitchen (on UK TV Food) as it coincides with the evening feed time quite nicely. This week Aussie chef Bill Granger was on talking about his new book Feed Me Now. I got my hands on it and its fabulous. Although so far I've only cooked one thing so I can't really say much about the results but the book and photography are absolutely beautiful and I want to make so many of the recipies. There are all sorts, breakfast, lunch, fancy dinners, fast dinners and pud. 

I've only tried one of his recipies before - a very yummy chocolate and banana cake but I have high hopes.

I also picked up this Gordon one (damn you Amazon suggestions) which looks good but more hearty wintery so it will come out again later.

I definitely want to try this Miso fish recipe...was going to do it Friday night but didn't quite get there after swimming and Friday afternoon tea. (Fabulous Marscapone and Passionfruit Sponge thankyou Robyn). Oh yes and getting the car clamped in between. *sigh*.

I'm going to do a couple of his salads for the BBQ on Sunday - a simple tomato one and a cucumber one. 

By the way if you've emailed me lately I'm really sorry if I haven't replied! I've been pretty busy. Mostly busy enjoying the lovely weather while we can... Its essential to get out in the sun as much as possible in case it disappears again for another year. But everyone is saying "I've got a good feeling about summer this year!". We are all so desperate after the last two years rainy summers. I hope they're right.

Oh yes, here is another reason I've been distracted....

Giggles
Originally uploaded by Hells Bells

Alpaca blanket

Andrea got the blanket in the mail yesterday so now I can blog about it! (a relief to know something like this arrived ok)

I used this lovely pattern from Marie Grace Designs. Its genius. It was so relaxing knitting round and round with a simple lace pattern so you had to engage the brain occaisionally.

I used Blue Sky Alpaca Melange in Cornflower. Twelve skeins. I think the last two repeats used about half the yarn. I started with two skeins in the stash and put in THREE more orders to Loop as I went along! Three different dye lots but I couldn't tell the difference. Blocking made a huge difference although it took time to get up the courage to immerse it in water.

I chose this colour because I read on a website that blue is good for cooling, calming, reconstructing and protecting. Also good for serenity and helping to soothe the mind. And its my favourite colour so it was lovely to knit with for a few weeks.

 

Apparently Andrea is having to wrestle with Lewis for ownership. Maybe he thinks stuff I make is just for him.

Andrea has finished her second round of chemo and is ok but very tired. Apparently its normal to have a big crash for a while after chemo. Not surprising really.

Summer is here

Bare legs! Never before seen daylight!

Planted herbs - the girls supervised.

Planted tomato and basil seedlings - the babe supervised.

Strawberries, lavender and rosemary.

Barbeque.

Key lime pie and British strawberries and cream.

Knitting and basking.

Monday is here and its raining. Much more typical weather.