From a distance.....

The urge to write a long, deep and meaningful post has me remembering that this blog is for knitting and crochet and unlike my original blog where I let it all out. I remind myself that my friends here maybe don't know me that well. So I am going to try and keep this short and sweet. 

This week a sweet little boy was taken in a tragic accident. His family who many may know from (Sparkling Adventures). obviously is suffering. We cannot do much from a distance. But we can offer our love, a little financial help, and for those of us always armed with hook or needles, we can knit or crochet in his memory and to wrap our arms with loving intent around his mum and sisters. 

A dear sweet friend has taken the initiative to put together a Blanket of Love and is calling out around the world to those with a heart for it, to knit or crochet one square (or more if you like) measuring approx 25cm  in any shades of red. The deadline is the 16th of July.  As I have mentioned before. Knitting and crochet is a therapy for me, I offer love, pure intent and prayer with each piece I create. This time was no exception....

As I plan to post this out on Monday, I am working a few more rows around the outside. It currently measures around 40cm square. 

There is a facebook page set up to try and raise funds to cover the funeral costs etc.  And also to rally help in other ways.  If you would like to help or spread the word, the link is here. 

The loss of a child in any circumstances is a terrible tragedy. I can only imagine what Lauren is going through right now. My heart cries for her and her family.  From a distance I will continue to send out healing and prayers. And hope that you my friends can spare a few moments to do the same. 

PS: For those of you who are not on facebook and would like to help. Let me know and I will email you the address to send the squares to. Thank you. 

Love, Peace and Harmony to all 

Hugs and smoochies 

xoxoxo

Ahoy there! We have a FO....

Yes you heard me! I actually finished something...are we impressed? Wonders will never cease hey? 

So which one did I finish? Was the title a clue? How about my little seaside garlic up there? LOL Yet another little gem that just grew on my window sill. Did you guess yet? 

No? Well I guess I will tell you then. Little Fisherman Sweater, finally complete after sitting on the shelf for weeks (cough cough) AND weeks. Yes I finally got my act together, stitched it all up and then went hey....that neck looks a bit small. So had to improvise and add an opening shoulder part. 

Of course I did not block it and then the bottom was curling up too much so I just did the bottom. :-) Lazy much? 

Pattern details and yarn used is on my Ravelry Page.

Am I happy with this one? Not really. I would not buy this yarn again. Although it is lovely and soft as far as acrylic goes, it fluffed up a bit already and I imagine with washing it won't last too long. The pattern called for 3 100g balls when in fact it only took one and a bit. 

Its a bit hard to see the pattern in the picture but it looks quite nice in real life. I love the colour.

Now do you want to see something that makes me happy? Look how my little celery has grown...

Ahhhhh BIG SMILES! I am so loving this celery! Yes I am! 

Have a wonderful weekend everyone. 

Hugs and smoochies xoxoxoxo

FO Friday......

I know I promised you a bunch of finished projects and since I have not got off my butt and finished them I thought I better show you something........

Drum roll please.......

And there we have it, a little headband which by now is soaking up the sun in Bali, with the other headbands I made to send to Ida. They hitched a ride with my friend Robyn who left yesterday.  In three weeks, I shall be joining them and visiting myself! Yay! I am so looking forward to some WARM air. 

Have a wonderful weekend everyone. 

Hugs and smoochies xoxoxoxox

To Frog or Not to Frog, this is the question?

So do you remember, the sweater I was knitting a little while ago? The one which knitted up ever so quickly - Until that is, I got to the collar part?  Well, if you don't, I am going to have to leave you guessing because I can't seem to find a picture. Maybe this will jog your memory? 

Ahem, well I have picked it up on several occasions, and as you well know, put it down AGAIN. I just cannot seem to feel the love for this pattern. Once I got into the swing of it, its not that hard - although one of my girls thought so when she saw me knitting. "OMG mum, that looks so hard! Why are you doing that?" 

And I find myself once again wondering, "Yes, why am I doing this when I don't really like it?" Hmmmm. So I am about half way around the collar size, still need to do the sleeve cuffs and all around the bottom. I know I would not wear it myself. As I don't like it! However, it may just fit my daughter Meagan who said she liked it, and on and on my but but buts went. 

Meanwhile, while all this "butting" was going on, we took arrival of this....... Meagan asked me to make her a warm winter coat and she chose these colours to make it in........

And of course, I could not wait to play with it and  I got stuck into some serious crocheting instead......

For once in my life, I actually did several practice runs, why? Well because this pattern calls for Noro Silk Garden and as the coat is way too long, this would be far too expensive so we decided to buy the yarn from Bendigo Woollen Mills and hope for the best.  The yarn is Serenade, which is a mix with Bamboo. It is very very soft and quite lovely to work with. The colours are a bit darker than we thought they would be but it is still hooking up quite nice. My several attempts at the swatch had me a little confused. While the pattern is very easy once you get the hang of it, It seemed a little off skelter at first. I ended up going down two hook size though as the called for 9mm hook had the whole thing looking just a bit too holey. 7mm turned out to be the perfect size anyway so off I went. 

And so far, I have this much of the bottom going already. 

Now I am not sure whether the yarn will be enough or not, but we can always buy some more. The cost so far is $78 for the six 200 gram balls. Noro would have  cost far more. 

As for that sweater up the top there, you know the one? LOL I am extremely tempted to pull the whole thing apart and make something else with the yarn. Something that I will enjoy knitting more you know? What would you do? 

Ahhhh decisions decisions! 

Have a beautiful day everyone! 

Hugs and smoochies xoxoxoxx

Itchin' for some Stitchin' ?

Hello my lovely friends, 

Its not often that I mention my past addiction with all things cross stitch around here. I say past, as a few years ago I was very much obsessed with this hobby and for a while there I rarely picked up hook or needles at all. 

I would like to say I am more balanced with such things lately but with all the unfinished projects I have on the go at this time, we all know thats not true now don't we? 

For the past month or so though. I have been itching to get back to a little stitching and finally while my daughter was visiting over the past two weeks. We got down to some serious stitching business.

Meagan has been really getting into Cross stitch and thanked me for some kits I had sent down to her with my sister recently. Of course by talking about it we both felt like doing some and so it began. The extremely wet and cold weather gave us the perfect excuse. 

First we dove into my huge pile kits and she came up with a nice baby one to do and got stuck into it.  She actually managed to get quite a bit of hers done, even more than in this picture. Reminds me much of myself when I used to speed stitch. LOL

Gemma saw her and she wanted one too. She chose some dancing bears (you know the ones, that have little sayings attached "Dance as if No One is Watching, Sing as if No-one is listening etc etc. She also has gotten a little further along. I will have to show you more pictures later when I get a chance to take some. 

Ashlee also came for a visit and she picked out a little bear kit too. Unfortunately I don't have a picture of hers, she came and went. I will try and get one next time if she brings it up next visit. One night the boys even got a little jealous and got in on the action.....boys can stitch too you know?  Mind you there attention spans did not last much longer than this......

Me? Well, just like my pile of unfinished knitting and crochet projects, well.........there were about 5 on the go to choose from.......I chose this one.......

and it reminded me why I took a break in the first place. Apart from my creaky bones that have been giving me grief in the cold weather. All the kits I had been working on are full stitch charts, where the background is all stitched as well. Lots of blending of colours, changing different stitches and well you know, not quite as relaxing as I remembered it. Probably should have gone for the white background one which would have been at least easier to see the tiny holes LOL. That said I worked on it for a few days and got a lot more done than the picture shows before putting it down and getting back to some crochet (of course I started another project! My bad! LOL)

Now I am off to the library to change my books. Catch you later.

PS.. There is a great give away on offer over at Not Your Average Crochet, go enter for some lovely goodies. And good luck! 

Hugs and smoochies xoxox

A little ray of s u n s h i n e...... on a rainy d a y!

 Wow, three times this past week I have been so kindly gifted with the Sunshine Award. It has also been three time that I have started this post and not had the time to finish it (seems to be my life story lately, not finishing things you know? LOL) , so I aim to try a little harder today. :-)

First I would like to thank the lovely ladies who passed it on to me....

BIG thank you's to.....

 Kepanie, Knitspiring Odyssey

 Hazel, Hazel's Crochet

 and 

Kashi, Kashi's Corner 

In receiving this award we are asked to list some of our favourite things.

Favourite animal? 

I LOVE them all. Along with any living being. I could not choose one over another. This saying says it all.......

(Art work by: Carl Brenders  Southern Art Gallery ,)

Our house has often been a bit like a zoo with so many animals in residence. We are however at the moment down to only 3. Two dogs, Bella and Miko and one Crazy Cockatiel called Mookie.

This Miko, she is 3,  and yes she is wearing a dress, don't judge me ok? She was cold and I don't have time to make her a coat right now, I found this dress I started a while ago and it is doing the trick.

This is Isabella Pickles aka Bella, she is 7.......

And this is Mookie......She suffers from regular PMS...seriously, she does.....

Favourite Drink?

I would have to say water would be my favourite, closely followed by tea, coffee and wine. I love them all.

Favourite Number?

I can't say I have one really.

Facebook or Twitter?

I have never been a great fan of either, however, my kids signed me up for facebook a long time ago just so I could look at their pictures and then later as it became more popular and even my mum was on there, I finally caved and started using it.

My passions:

I think I have far to many to list. haha!  I am pretty passionate about a lot of things I think. And we probably don't really want to get me started on some things lest I start rambling. So I am going to say for today, my family, my pets, my garden, the planet, HERBS, Healing, Knitting, Crochet, Cross stitch, trees......I am pretty much in love with trees, well any living thing really.

Small things make me happy. Today my excitement is over my celery.......I read somewhere that you can grow celery from an old stalk bottom and as there just so happened to be one wilting away in the fridge the other day I decided to give it a whirl.  The celery was cut off straight across the top and the bottom and placed into a small dish of lukewarm water. On the second day I noticed that it was already starting to grow and by today (day 3) it looked like this......

Yes I was rather excited that it happened so quickly! I am easily pleased by such things. :-)

Favourite pattern:

Ooooh there are a few over the years that I went back and made over again. One was a little diamond patterned sweater, I made it about 4 times in hoodie, sweater and cardigan form, can't recall the name though as it was many many years ago....a current favourite would have to be this one..(Zoe Mellor), I love the flower pattern and the lace along the bottom. I have made it all in white and in these colours.....

Giving or Getting:

Giving of course, although I don't mind getting either. Some things work both ways, like HUGS! I love giving/getting those. Makes me feel all fuzzy inside!

Favourite day of the week?

Hmmm I don't think I have one really.

Favourite Flower?

I would have to say Elder Flower as she is so tiny yet so packed full of goodness! Such good medicine...Blessed Be....

Favourite country:

Australia! I have only left twice so maybe don't have much to compare it with,  but I have to say I am rather grateful to live in this beautiful country!


As this award seems to be well travelled already with most of my friends already having it. Its a small blogworld afterall. I am only going to give it to one person. I would like to pass the award along (no strings or rules attached - you can do the meme if you want to) to the lovely.......


Hilde:

I really love her blog and I am sure if I lived near to her she would have a hard time getting rid of me if I came to visit. I am very much in love with your garden Hilde. :-)

Hugs and smoochies all xoxoxxo

Till next time, keep safe and BE happy!

LOVE

Watcha doin' ? Wednesday

Well its been a busy couple of days and although I have two very almost finished projects to show, they are not quite ready as I need to finish stitching them up.  And well we all know that would be the boring part right? 

So I went ahead and had a practice run of some little flower motifs as I am planning to join Kashi for a Japanese Flower Scarf CAL. Here are my samples so far.....I am not sure whether to go with this or not. The scarf is meant to at least colour match a hat I made for my daughter last xmas but this yarn is better suited to knitting I think. It was extremely lovely to knit with but is looking a bit iffy with crochet to me.....what do you think? 

Can you see the bits where it catches and pulls? I can! And it is bothering me as such things do. Maybe I should try using a bigger hook, this one is made with a 3.5mm . The yarn is 5 ply Merino. 

My plan was to make it all in the one colour but I am not so sure now. Hmmm

My 2nd daughter arrived yesterday and last night found us all huddled inside around the fireplace as it was blowing a gale outside, raining and cold. Today was not much better. We consoled ourselves by choosing a coat pattern and ordering some yarn from Bendigo woollen Mills. I get to have fun with the yarn and my girl gets the coat.  :-) 

Later in the day I got a nice surprise when my brother and sister in law popped by with a little gift....

I already had some of the green Beetle yarn myself so now I do believe I will have enough for a bigger project. There is also some lovely baby wool in 4 ply in the mix. How lovely! The urge to start several new projects is upon me! I am however, trying so hard to finish the ones I am already working on, really I am. hehe! 

Hugs and smoochies  xoxox

LOVE, PEACE & HAPPINESS TO ALL

Up-cycle that puppy coat....

On the weekend, Zak and I went down to Sydney to my oldest daughter, Ashlee's house for a bit of a PJ party aka sleepover. 

While we were there, Ash pointed out that Miss Charlotte had quite outgrown her puppy coat that I had made for her already.  We at first thought that maybe I could just quickly crochet a plain one but then Ash pointed out what a waste of this cute little coat and all that gorgeous pure wool. 

So, In true Karisma fashion I just went ahead and ripped back the bottom edging rows of orange and used this to knit the coat a little longer. Then I unpicked the tummy seam and as I just so happened to have some of that yellow yarn along with me, I decided to crochet the rest. 

Simply a row of single crochet, 3 rows of double crochet and joined with a row of single crochet again on the other side. 

 You may remember me leaving off the leg edging before? This is because I have found that my dogs in the past prefer not to have something on their legs and it also allows for easier stretch. I then edged it with a row of single followed by a row of double at which time I ran out of yarn. I would have like to add another row of single crochet but it looks ok. 

  

Somebody was not too happy about trying it on, even though she had been shivering non stop beforehand. 

Mum, why for you put this on me? 

Hmmmm I am not sure if I like this humans, what are you doing to me? 

No Nana, I don't want a kiss.......

No seriously! I .......don't like you a n y m o r e ! ! !

Well, maybe just a little... hehe....

After a little while she is more comfortable in her jumper and turns her mind to more important matters, like the fact that Zak is eating ice cream and not sharing.......

Nana, Zak is not sharing his ice cream......

Of course in the end her cuteness wins over and she gets a bite (excuse blurry picture, there was a bit too much movement going on....Ice cream is exciting stuff you know?)

Today is my birthday and I am very excited to be off to the airport to pick up my 2nd daughter Meagan who is coming to stay for two whole weeks! Yay! So if you don't see me much you will know why. I will however try to post if I get the chance. 

Have a wonderful week everyone. 

Hugs and Smoochies...

xoxoxoxoxoxox