National Gallery Knitta Please Event

Denise fondling the knits - photo courtesy of NGA

It's the next best thing to saying "I was here" when you were

actually sitting at home, hundreds of kilometres away......

The National Gallery has been outfitted in all the lovely knits that were

collected from all over the world.

You can read more on Grrl+Dog's blog and also see a

wonderful photo of the front entrance with the poles all covered on Buttontree Lane's blog

A ring for moi and a ring for Her

These were our 'rewards' for the knitted strips that we had done for the National Art Gallery - thank you Denise!

O Wise One was wearing hers, with her engagement, wedding & eternity rings = how sweet!!!

I am very patient....most of the time

I've been waiting very patiently to see what the poles of the National Art Gallery are looking like, since they have been covered with lots of luscious knitting and crocheting. I found this photo on the Gallery's flickr page with some of the pieces laid out on the floor in readiness for the installation. Imagine being able to see it all in person - how wonderful that would be.

On to business....it has been quite a hard slog this month getting items ready for The Chocolate Crow Trader's "Christmas in July". The ideas were there, but why do they all come flooding in with just 3 days to the deadline! So this is what we have ended up with, for this coming month.These are long (48cm) antique children's stockings from USA - they come complete with ‘authentic” age spots and small holes!
We have attached some beautiful, wide antique lace around the top of the stockings and added a hanger from bias cut ribbon. An old photo in a replica frame, ribbon bow and a crystal heart have been attached to the front of the stocking. On the foot of the stocking is a fabric banner with “Christmas 1910” printed on it.
We have stuffed the stockings lightly for the photo, although they look quite nice without any stuffing as well. This is your chance to own a real, prim stocking! We only have two available.Christmas Trees
(Tree’s height 30cm & 23cm)
These thick felt, free standing trees needed some embellishing to turn them into something special. There are antique mother of pearl buttons scattered throughout and lots of ‘doodle embroidery’. The ‘insides’ of the trees have had red and white fabric adhered to the felt, to cover any ends of embroidery threads and to make them look special too.
Whilst we only have one set of trees already embellished we do have 2 sets of green trees (see the background of the photo) and another set of red trees that can be embellished to order.

Needlefelted Baubles
A set of 6 needlefelted baubles that would be suitable for all year display,
on a feather tree or a prim style tree.
We are happy to do other colour combinations or patterns for you.

If you are interested in any of these items or would like

to know more about any of them, please contact me.

So that is what I have been doing for the past few days, what about you???

The scarf

I decided that I needed a black scarf to wear out to a dinner (with other clothes!) on Saturday night, at which husband was the MC, so I bought this e-pattern from MK Carroll .
One ball of wool later.....a nice lacy scarf.
As it was some time since I had done much crocheting I was quite happy with the way it turned out and it would be interesting to do the same pattern in different types of yarn. However, I didn't get to wear the scarf as I had a cold....... so wasn't able to go to the dinner after all.

The last time I was in Lincraft I saw this book **twinkling** at me - it is very comprehensive and should answer any of my questions in the future.

There are lots of stitches in there for me to try out - maybe in YELLOW!

Then in a parcel last week I received a tintype photo album that I was lucky to win on ebay. I have been watching out for a cheap one for ages and this one was mine.It has 13 old tintype photos inside and a few gaps.

The Scene Was Set

After yet another trip to Adelaide on Friday to the accountant (all finished now, though) we were ready to have a quiet night. The cherubs had been invited for a sleepover,

husband had bought some new cheeses and crackers to try...............I had the choice between these 2 men to keep me company for the night

and I had some new pyjamas to snuggle into.

You know, don't you that it all went 'upside down'! Cherub 2 came home before teatime, the cheeses didn't taste as nice as we expected....thank goodness we bought 2 packets of them!! I ended up having a 'sleepover' with Cherub 2 so that he didn't feel too upset about not sticking out the sleepover at his friend's place and I didn't even get to choose between the 2 men. Just finished knitting a strip of yellow for Grrl, if you have checked out my previous link to her blog, you would see it is to decorate a public convenience - so how appropriate is it that I found this yarn that looks like strips of toilet paper woven into it???

Wednesday already

Don't you love it when you visit your Accountant? No....neither do I. Husband and I visited ours on Monday to find out that he needed some figures entered differently - that's fine - but then he said that he needed them by 9am Wednesday as he was going on holidays at the end of the week. Also fine but when your accountant is in Adelaide and it takes you 2 1/2 hours to get there, that means it also takes you 2 1/2 hours to get home to where your figures and computer are.

So Tuesday was spent all day checking bank statements, entering figures and not enjoying it very much at all. Especially when I wanted to be doing other things, in readiness for a crafting weekend coming up very soon. Thankfully the figures were all done by 9pm on Tuesday and husband very kindly offered to do the trip back to Adelaide again today, to take them to the Acccountant. The recent request from Grrl was for some long, narrow, yellow strips of knitting - the "O Wise One" (my mother) suggested that I use some circular needles rather than just having 3 or 4 stitches on regular needles and having to turn rows all the time. So the "O Wise One" gave me some of her circular needles and I set out to see just how long the strip would be. I know it is a little hard to see the needles in the photo as they wanted to kink and bend but they produced nearly 6 metres of a narrow knitted strip. I've since knitted a couple of others in finer knit as well. It is only today that I have discovered what Grrl has wanted them for!!!!Even "O Wise One" has knitted a strip for Grrl and the National Art Gallery - it took her one day - whilst it would have taken me several!!!!!!! This photo was taken a few years ago but it is a common scene in my parents house - they are watching the football - Dad (known as Pappy) is sooooooo enthralled in the football that he wouldn't have even known that the photo was being taken and RR (O Wise One) is multi-tasking. She is watching the football (maybe her beloved West Coast Eagles), has 2 cats on her lap, knitting, and has the telephone, cup of tea and TV controllers all next to her, very accessible.
We women are so good at being comforters, providers, producers and entertainers, whilst men can only do one thing at a time!!!!!