The shearing is all over.

 The shearing is all over...

Scarves for Sweden

 These scarf photos were taken a very long time ago. Before the scarf was even half finished!

A great white light!

There is a great white light in our home, it is the direct result of some white paint and some, ok many, hours of brush-wielding by oneself :-)

In the black

I'm in the black...

The Shearing Shed

Ever been inside an Australian shearing shed? Come on in. This one's old...

The green skirt

Yesterday I mentioned that I'd been thrifting/op-shopping/vintage hunting... wanna see what I found?

It's a scarf. Or is it?

It's finished. The scarf is all done! And it's gorgeous. Even if I do say so myself :-) 

Well, when you start with wool that looks like this, you can be pretty sure the finished product will be just as lovely - yeah?! It was the kind of wool that you just HAD to buy. Like the paper in this shop. We all know that there is already wool at my house. It's in the white cupboard, you can see it for yourself. So really, I shouldn't have been buying wool. You can blame my little sister for this one too ;-) Even unknitted it deserved some photos on the white table..... 

When I started to knit it up, I used only a very basic knitting stitch. Garter stitch. My public justification for using only this basic stitch is that I wanted the wool colour to be the feature. We all know that my real reason was impatience! I wanted it done fast. 

Even with this beginner's stitch it looked gorgeous. Lush even. Though not vibrant. Kinda dirty colours. Then I realised why I liked the colours so much; it looks like the winter sunset colours on the hills at the moment. With the end of the autumn colours and the duller winter colours. Here look at this shot, squint your eyes half-shut and you can 'see' wintry hills can't you?! 

No? You're only seeing my gorgeous scarf on a white table?! Oh. Sorry. I can see hills ;-) Did you notice that the scarf was no longer joined to knitting needles? It's finished in that shot above. Yay!!!

Sooooo. When I put the finished scarf on the white table to take photos I started foof-ing. And that is dangerously fun, see here for the A Beach Cottage version of 'foofing' from last Friday. I LOVE that other people do silly things like this too. It does not mean our life is boring, it's means we appreciate the little things - see the A Beach Cottage post link for that too! Anyways, back to the scarf on the table. There was something rather great about it lying flat. You could see all the colours and the texture.

Well, then I just had to start playing around with the photos. I even waited another day for the light to be better. Then I set up another group of props :-)

Somehow, in the middle of all of this foof-ing I realised that the scarf was going to stay on the table. At least for a few days! I liked it as a table- runner. And THAT got me thinking... there are only so many knitted scarves and beanies a family can have. Really. But, as for table runners, and cushion covers. Well, now that is another story hey?! I think we have a new set of knitting projects to plan. I love planning! How exciting! Now, what was that we were saying about a boring life? ;-)

You'll have to wait to see this scarf actually being worn :-)

Have you done any swapping clothes to house stuff? Or vice versa? I had a lovely time and I hope you have a lovely day wherever you are..... And I will continue my preparations for a very exciting adventure.... more details soon! It's the reason for my delayed posting today.

Wool in the White Cupboard

This is the white cupboard. It's the white cupboard that used to be my Grandmother's medicine cabinet to be exact. And when you first open it you still get that whiff of old medicine. It's only recently become white. And it's only recently been allowed to reside in our living area. Even more recently has there been wool in the white cupboard. So here is the story of the white cupboard, and the wool within!

My Grandma lived in a true seaside house on the east coast of Australia. She and my Grandfather bought the block which was across the road from the beach. They bought it before living by the sea was fashionable, when your average couple could afford a patch of land where now you pay squillions of dollars. You see, there is nothing between that house and the beach except bush. You lie in bed and hear the ocean roar, you open the window and smell the salt, you cross the road and walk to the beach barefoot. The house they build themselves, on weekends when they brought the family with five kids and camped on the block. The house itself was just two rectangles, one for living and one with bedrooms, joining these two rectangles was a hallway. And in the hallway lived this cupboard. Full of medicines. Jars, bottles and potions.

When my Grandma had lived out her days by the sea the medicine cupboard came to live at my house. I loved it. I loved the smell of it and the way it took me back to that hallway in the house by the sea. But not everyone in my house loved it. You see it was this rather ordinary brown colour and dingy looking. And when one doesn't have the emotional attachment of the smell of medicine of a cupboard in that seaside house, well there is no magic to see past the brown.

So, I decided to wave the magic white paintbrush over the cupboard. After many coats (turned out the 'paint' was a stain and once I'd started I had to continue!) it looked a rather different cupboard! Everyone in the house thinks it's a lovely cupboard now. And it is a rather handy hiding storage spot for all the games and some of our arty stuff. All pristine vintage glass on the outside...

But chaos on the inside...... and that, my friends, is just the top shelf!

Well. To get to the wool part of this story. If you've read this post you would know that there had been a bit of wool floating around this house. And the balls of wool seem to be growing in number too, strange isn't it?! I've also found that balls of wool and children don't mix, I had to find a place to store it and quickly. Out of sight and out of reach! The cupboard seemed ideal but where in the cupboard???

Not in this drawer, though now all the paintbrushes are together.

  

 Nor in this section, though I MUST do something with these gorgeous little shoes one day! 

Finally I took everything out of the cupboard, put some things elsewhere, put some things in the donation box and the bin. Then I carefully put the remaining things back in the cupboard whilst holding my breath and crossing my finger and toes... It worked, see, here's the wool going in! Looking all lovely in a basket of it's own and with my very precious instruction book that I need so much in the basket too. Right where it's easy to find - yay!

 

Please excuse the stray dab of yellow paint on my pointer finger, I nearly got waylaid in the paint drawer it was almost too tempting!

Ah the joys of an organised white cupboard! Not only does the cupboard look pristine on the outside, the inside is (almost) neat too! It'll never be perfect whilst there are multiple sets of hands trying to store and grab their games and art stuff in there. Who am I kidding, as if small hands 'store' things! Unless they've actually learnt the lesson of clean-as-you-go from Monday's blog. But I am very pleased to have a place for my wool in there. Small things people, small things. 

What have you organised in your life lately? I've also been trying to organise my week days and the littlest girl, it generally means working out just what I have to say 'no' to. More about that some other time. I'm still working on it and probably will 'til I have my very own seaside house along with the wisdom of age. Huh! We can all dream hey? About wisdom and seaside houses!!!

'Til next time.

A Beanie for the Boy (& Girl)

Last winter I decided to learn to knit. Nothing too crazy about that is there? Lots of people are learning to knit, it's nearly a cool girls game! Weeellllll, it's just that my mother is a fantastic knitter and has been since I can remember. So I had a brilliant opportunity to learn when I was living at home didn't I? I could have learnt all the fancy stitches and how to use circular needles and all the other knitting-type things that I can't even imagine. Now I live too many kilometres away to duck around for a knitting lesson.... lucky for YouTube! You see, I discovered that there are many other people out there who can knit too and they have made these great little videos and popped them on YouTube just for people like me! Good on them, I say!

SO. I learnt to knit. Just. I could do the basics. I could knit and purl but only after I'd checked in with my other learning resource to work out which stitch was which:-) My other learning resource is a fantastic little book .......given to me by my mother inlaw (another knitter of note). Casting on was mastered, along with increasing and decreasing. The ultimate was learning to cast off so I could finish my first scarf! In total I made one beanie and two scarves last year. The beanie was really too big, but I told my gorgeous girl it was to fit over her pony tail and keep her ears warm - which it does very well thank you! But really it was all very basic. It was a short career which disappeared with the cold weather.

As Monday's mandarin post noted, the cold weather is setting in again. And the knitting thing has resurfaced. You see, there are now two little heads bobbing off to school each morning in the fog and frost. Being the proper mum that I am I wanted those heads warmly clothed and in school uniform colours as well. There's the knitting challenge..... a beanie for the boy and girl.

After a quick trip to Spotlight I was equipped with wool (acrylic actually, it's tougher for the hurly-burly of school). Then I hunted about for my needles and that trusty little book. And after a quick refresher, 'cos I couldn't remember anything from last year, I started casting on and knitting. I love the look of the knitted piece, those ripples almost look like a clam shell! Plus, it feels so lush.

After knitting to the point above something made me pause (knitting is compulsive you always just have to do 'one more row'). Lucky! One quick hold-knitted-square-to-head measurement showed me this boy wasn't going to fit in this beanie. So I started again, which is always good practise isn't it? Eventually I got to this point and checked that it would cover his head and ears... It looked pretty right. Phew.

This next shot was a bit of a mistake but I like it :-) 

While I was happily knitting away I was trying to casually gauge the boy's level of commitment to his beanie. You see I was showing plenty of commitment to this beanie, I even knitted in the car on a recent daytrip. So I wanted to know that he was going to be as least as committed as I was. He could then continue where I cast off (and yes, I meant that pun!). It didn't seem too promising though, oh he wanted a beanie alright, he just didn't have the vision to see how a piece of knitting would become a beanie. Until I decreased and cast off. Here it is just waiting for a sewn seam.

Then he was in. He got it! He could see it was a beanie. His beanie.

Overnight (well it happened that way for him) a beanie was built. One quick seam, a few knots and we had a beanie for the boy. This shot is him modelling one version of how he is going to wear it. Apparently. I was going for the skull-cap look, he's done something even more extreme. His imagination is MUCH more developed than mine! We'll see how it stands up to the playground ribbing. But at least his head and ears are warm. And yay for kids with character (controlled character though!).

That's not the end of the story though. As soon as the girl saw this uniform-blue version she was asking questions.... hers from last year is a pale lilac (!?!). Her choice! And I wasn't proficient enough to decrease and then cast off so it's of the stitches-drawn-in variety. Mind you, after decreasing to a centre point whilst my fingers tried to play twister, I'm quite the fan of her basic beanie! But what's that saying? What's good for the goose is good for the gander? Well, we had it in reverse, the gander got the beanie first. And the goose wanted one.

Well, of course I made her one too! I was quite happy to, I need the practise! I dropped one stitch in hers, bummer. Don't tell her though, it's near the seam and you can't really see it. Actually one of the photos below has it in it, see if you can spot it! Here she is, grudgingly posing after a long day at school. She's our girl with gorgeous hair.

And so we have a beanie for the boy, and girl. I'm actually thinking I'd quite like one! The girl could do with a pony-tail fitting version too. I even hunted through the old needles in the 2nd hand shop today! Maybe this is the year to increase the job description, I just might try for more than two scarves and one beanie. Who knows?! But at least two little bobbing heads are already warm and happy. 

Hope you are warm and happy too!