Back to all things Home ......

I've had a rather extended weekend with rostered days off on Thursday, Friday and again yesterday!  That meant I had time to get my cleaning, washing, numerous errands done including taking Scruffy to the vet yet again (this time for an injection to help with his arthritis and a check up on the toe) ....... getting all of that done left me to have the time to dedicate to some crafting!  I spent  a wonderful few hours on Saturday with a friend from the local Ravelry group meeting up at the café here in Bundalong and getting a one on one spinning lesson from her!  So my first actual  spinning of more than a tiny handful .......

 and then learning to ply it and turn it into a skein! A rather small skein I admit, but hey, it's my first ever and I'm soooo pleased!!!!  As has been the case in the past, I took my wheel up (another 2nd hand one which I thought was right), but alas it was missing a vital part! (This was the case with the other wheel I tried to learn on a year ago) .... Luckily Jill had brought her travelling wheel and let me learn the basics on it.  Hopefully the missing part will be replaced before too long.

 While I was out spinning and knitting, Pete was busy with some of his burls.  It's great to see him having time to do some crafting of his own, and I can't wait to see how these come out!  We've been burning these bits of wood for years in our wood fire without even thinking twice, until recently when our friend from up near Gympie showed Pete what he had been doing with some of them, so since Pete had a few here he is giving it a bit of trial .......

 It's been soooo cold here this past week I felt I needed a beanie that I could pop on for around the garden and out walking! A lovely easy pattern which I enjoyed making.  I picked up a couple of balls of Cleckheaton Country naturals from the Wangaratta Woollen Mills when I was there meeting up with the girls last week - I haven't used this yarn before, but I was really happy with it - lovely to work with, nice and squooshy lol and it feels quite warm!  In fact I'm sure I picked up a couple of balls of this when we visited Cowra a year or so ago .... I need to pull it out (or perhaps in with the stash now living in Qld??)

Getting back into basics I managed to get some baking done on Sunday morning as well. I really do enjoy baking from scratch and using whatever fresh ingredients I can ...... Managed to use some of our pumpkin for the scones, fresh walnuts for a date and walnut loaf that was still in the oven when I took the photo, and lemons from one of the ladies up the road for the lemon drizzle cake!  We are set for snacks for the week and then some!  Over the weekend I also set about knitting up a few swatches - it seems that Laura Aylor is having a Mystery Knit Along which will make up some type of shawl/ wrap ....... its all very mysterious ........  You can make it in either fingering

weight (4ply) or dk (8ply) and there are 2 sizes of wing span 70 inches or 80 inches. After wrapping a tape measure around me, I'm happy to go with the 70 inches and since I'm after a lighter wrap (hopefully for those cooler mornings/evenings down by the beach lol) I'm using fingering weight - some wollmeise in Igor and some 4ply Bendigo Luxury in Mink and mixing those with some delightful Cascade Heritage Silk - all from my stash I might add!  I think they look nice together, although it took 3 swatches to work out which size needle I'll be using ...... let me know if you plan on taking part in the MKAL!  Click on the link above to see more about it.  I love the way the colours look against the wood - seems it would be a lovely wrap to wear through the woods as well ..........

Yesterday I decided I needed to bite the bullet and get those houses finished off for the Down the Rabbit Hole BOM ........ it felt very good to get them finished off and sewn together! So now I'm caught up on the May pattern at last!  I had soooooo much trouble with these houses and I've had to add bits in and they sure would not get any prizes for sewing or quilting, but they are done!  I sure hope the rest of the quilt gets better from here .........    It's lovely to feel like I'm actually beginning to catch up on some home things again! 

Home Alone

This weekend just gone was the annual Bendigo Wool Show weekend, but this time I didn't end up

going.  It's difficult to make too many plans too far ahead when the house is on the market, and so Pete was asked to go on a fishing weekend with a couple of guys from here, so I declined heading to Bendi since it's difficult to work out accommodation and such at short notice on such a busy weekend, plus  Scruffy wasn't keen to stay home alone for the weekend, so I opted to stay  home with him and let Pete take off fishing to Lake Eildon............. It was certainly worth it since he came home with 5 nice trout of various sizes which gives 7 meals (8 if you count the one I cooked straight away on top of the wood stove and gobbled up lol).  His first time fishing for trout! What a shame we don't have a smoker.

Frost on the Front Yard, Bird Bath frozen solid

Meantime, I contacted some of the girls I usually go away with as there are a couple of car loads that head down from the Canberra area each year and pass through Wangaratta so they can stop

Frost on the hollyhocks and sweet peas

at the Woollen Mills here.  It's kind of a shame the mills here are not anywhere near as good as the Bendigo Mills, still it was a great opportunity to catch up with the Canberra Crew and after leaving them and heading down the street I also ran into one of the girls who travels down from Bega! We managed to catch up over a quick bite to eat! I did manage to still purchase a couple of balls of yarn which will at some point turn into some socks and a beanie!

Winter Therapy

Being home alone for the weekend meant I pretty much spent the time in yarn heaven with girly movies playing on the television lol,   It was sooo cold, but the fire inside was going well and I had the top of it covered with my kettle for ongoing cuppas, some sweet potato chips and a pot of yummy soup ready for whenever I felt like it!  - I finished knitting the Winter Therapy Scarf, and I also finished the Peach ripple crochet which is part of the cushion cover set for DIL and son, and have started the Meadow Ripple one.  I'm trying to get a set of 6 completed - so 3 down with 3 to go!   I managed to get a short burst of sewing done on those houses for the "Down the rabbit Hole" quilt - I can't say I'm enjoying making the 40 houses 

Peach Ripple Cushion Cover using Bendigo Cotton Yarn

and I'm now a month and a half behind in the BOM, so I am going to have to get them finished! I have all the body sections completed, and just have 8 more roofs to finish (paper piecing), after which they can be put into 4 rows of 10 houses on each side and hope and pray they end up the right size!!





Apart from that, Scruffy and I did a bit of garden work - cleaning out the chook pen and getting a couple of garden areas ready for some planting, and managed to get some snail mail written........   But apparently the weekend is over already!!

I do hope you all enjoyed your weekend!

A Woolly Hobbit Weekend

8ply cotton yarns

It's been raining here since Wednesday this week, so its been particularly wet, cold and wintery this weekend!  After getting the groceries and errands run early Saturday morning, which included picking up a parcel from Bendigo Woollen Mills ........, it seemed absolutely perfect for knitting and crochet!

  During the week I finished off 2 of the crochet cushions which will be part of birthday gifts for son and DIL in August. 




I made a start on them whilst we were away, and I've made a start on one of the ripple covers now to! They are all getting made using Bendigo Cotton 8ply which has such a lovely drape and is so soft and lovely to work with!

 

 

With Foxtel having a marathon running of "The Hobbit" and "Lord of the Rings", and the rain still going outside, I was a very happy little beaver surrounding myself with yarn!  I've been a lover of Tolkien since I was a teen - way, way before the movies were even thought of!  I made a bit more progress on my latest Therapy - a scarf pattern by Laura Aylor and one of my favourites.

Now that we know we are going to still be down here over Winter, I know I am in need of another jumper (sweater for those of you in the US ) ...... and perfect timing as I decided I wanted to knit up another of Laura's patterns - Sleepy Hollow.  Don't you think this photo of our tree outside fits with that name??  I was disappointed that I wasn't able to catch the raindrops coming down, and the fog lifted just as I came out to take the photo! 

Anyhow I pulled some of the yarn out from the stash that I kept here (my stash is now split between here and Maryborough - not really sure how that's going to pan out yet ???)  This yarn is

a country spinners variety, from the Woollen Mill in Wangaratta. I love the shade of mauve, kind of a dusty colour.  It's a DK weight (8ply) for those of you wondering and seems to be knitting up nicely so far, although I'm sure it will slow down a bit when I start on that cable work down the front.
I've had a few people ask about the crochet rug I made for the verandah at Maryborough and I'll be making another blanket using that same design and plan to share it here on the blog.
So that's pretty much been my weekend here, and I have to say it's been delightful lol

Also want to link this post in with "Wool on Sundays", even though I'm a week late!click on the link to go and visit Rainbow Hare!

Wool on Sundays

As Holidays End

Its a little sad that holidays come to an end.  I'm back to work this morning, but realised I didn't end up doing the wrap up from Maryborough. More work got done on the house with Pete sanding down the back stairs which had partially lost the lacquer from them.  We decided to just use oil to coat them as it can be walked on almost straight away and is easy to reapply. I managed to unblock the drain on the dishwasher and we got a few bits of furniture into place, and Pete patched the hole from the old air con.......  and I did a little bit of crochet work .  We did manage to get to one of the Sunday Markets in Harvey Bay where we picked up this lovely old lamp and coffee grinder. 

We also found a lady who was selling little Desert Roses and purchased 3 of them for Dad who was to arrive on the train from Brisbane that afternoon. We had invited him to come up for a short visit if he wanted to see us while we were closer, and also give him a chance to see our home. While it seemed he enjoyed the visit while he was there, apparently he was not at all happy that I didn't agree to going around all the real estate agents to start looking for something for him. 
 After having gone through 5 processes of organising places to move to for him at his requests (2 of which ended up as actual moves and the other 3 falling through due to him changing his mind once it was time to sign things )- all within the past 2 and a bit years ...... and him not being happy with any

once there, I have to say I'm not going through that process again when I know he is in a safe environment and in an area he lived in for most of his life, and was always wanting to go back to.  After having adult children living with us until a couple of years ago, around the time that Dad moved down to Yarrawonga - we feel it's time for us as a married couple to actually be able to do something for us and make plans for our future. 
After taking him to the train station on Tuesday morning for his return journey, I have to say I felt quite washed out!  The following day both Pete and I came down with something - I'd say the flu as it was very "flu like", but I'm not entirely sold on that.

Pete also put up my swing chair on the veranda where I had

imagined it would go, and finally I was able to add the crochet blanket that I had made just for this spot.  I love how it looks in this spot on the veranda, and I was very happy to get a chance to try it out ......... the perfect spot for the winter afternoon sunshine!
 Scruffy agreed with me and was happy enough to get his photo taken on it.  I might also add that he decided to try out the Vet while we were up there - one of his toes came up quite swollen and with a ulcerative type wound on it which needed attention.  Of course it only happened the day before we were ready to leave - antibiotics, cream etc etc!!!!  The vet even phoned us 2 days later while we were travelling back to check on how he was doing!

Oh, and we were able to get rid of the piano that had been left here! You can see it going down the stairs in the top photo! After Pete getting a builder to come to have a look at something, it turned out he had been the owner prior to the ones we purchased from and he had actually been the one to do many repairs to the house bringing it back from being in a state needing repairs!  He told his wife about the piano and  we were more than happy to give it to them!  They organised a removalist to come and collect it and they left us with some old photos of what the house had looked like back in 2003 when they first purchased it and over the next years to 2009 as they made restorations to it.

We left Maryborough on Thursday after the electricians finished putting in some more lighting under the house.  So long little fella, look after the place till we get back here again!

 After spending the night with our friends in Curra it was time to make the long trek back home to Bundalong - 12 hours driving on Friday with an overnight stop at Parkes in a pet friendly cabin,

and then another 6 hours on Saturday and back to a temp of -5!   I'm pleased I ended up with an extra couple of days off at the start of this week.  The house echoed when we got home with all the furniture that was moved, and so I've moved a few things around (again!!), to make it a little more "home like and lived in".  Now today it's back to work .................

Cows along the Newell Hwy