I just love this! And I'm going straight out tomorrow after school drop off to get some rub on letters! I will have to get some beautiful scrap book papers as well I think and a couple more balls of Cleckheaton natural 8 ply cotton for the next cardigan that is already 1/2 done. 
I did night shift this weekend and I completed this gorgeous cardigan while I suffered it out at work, lucky it was not too bad at the hospital and I got lots of spare breaks to crochet.
I used this pattern after being inspired here- a new found blog I've found. 
I made the size L: 11-12 years but only using a 3 1/2 hook which made things pretty tight, it has turned out really small. So I guess it will be a present or go into my Etsy store when I get that sorted!
So I compromised. 
Then and I think this may have been a small mistake watched Ghostbusters as they are now hooked, had a yummy gardeny dinner and followed it all up with the most chocolate ridden, lolly, icecream, make your own creation feast you could imagine!!!
Yesterday I turned it into a shirred dress for me, after which I am not sure about the stripes and colour, so it can be a 'House Christmas Dress' I think!
There was alot of shirring going on and wider than normal straps for me, it is very comfortable and cool.
She picked this gorgeous stuff out for me to make her a skirt, just the usual skirt! 
We had a hard time choosing, Kelani have the whole range. Click here to see Amy Butler's website and the Love range, my favourite is the Soul group.
There was enough in the main skirt fabric leftover to squeeze a bag out, I have nearly put these things out for retirement (O.V.A.H. if you know what I mean), I've counted up at least 60 of these things I've made and am over it! But when I saw the exact amount needed for a bag leftover, it seemed a waste to fold it up for the shelf so I got the bag template out and did another. They are just the most useful bags and so lovely with gorgeous fabrics under shiny plastic! I am glad I did it now. 
My recent Hippeastrum purchases, love em!
My old wheelbarrow of Petunia's is coming along nicely too.
Sunflowers just sprouted.
Green Cucumber
Baby Golden Squash, these were really good.
Everything is growing strong and fast!
A night's harvest! 5 eggs, some beans, lettuce, squash and silverbeet...all eaten up for dinner!
And finally, another Versatile Wrap Skirt I finished off tonight. Made from an old tablecloth, not too sure about this one though.
Mum and I are into roses and hippeastrums at the moment and we have picked up a few miniature roses each from Big W surprisingly. I got a lovely mauve (above), cream and a tiny tiny hot pink one that Joey picked out and is now "Joey's Rose"! We bought cheap enough terracotta pots and now they look so beautiful in the sun at my front door, I think I might go back and get myself a few more...
This is my prized Hippeastrum which I have been waiting so patiently to flower to see what colour it is since I had forgotten.
Check out the before flowering pic! Tomorrow we are heading back to the Hippe Farm to get a couple more special ones.
And this is just something that is looking sweet at the moment, a couple of old tea pots with some holes drilled in the bottom filled with Heartsies. I am on the look out for some more old teapots.
And lastly, some fresh picked flowers from Mum's garden on my hall stand. You can just see some Blue Forget-me-not's amongst the bunch.
This is my new rose "Just Joey", its a standard and I've planted it out the front of the fence in this little rocked section between the 2 driveway gates. This was Nanny's favourite rose. It is an orangey peachy goldy yellowy colour! Petunias in front of it.
This is something special! A gorgeous Hippeastrum, not sure what name, but def a named one. I bought 3 last year from the Hippe Farm nearby and plonked in, I love how they just come up amongst the other stuff. There is another really special one just about to burst out the bud, stay tuned for that!
Here it is ready to bust open!
And lastly a happy wheelbarrow of petunias, I pulled out the pansies, they were well and truly finished in here. I have made a pact with myself to 'flourish' my seedlings 3 times a week to give them the best chance.
This is really yummy, not sickly sweet at all and uses delicious fresh ingredients. 
Mango Macadamia and Caramel Cheesecake
...look closer to see the flowers below...
...now look really closely (next picture) to see the baby Mangoes! 
Above is yellow zucchini and baby golden squash, which I'd say will be ready for harvesting next week.
It's taken us a while, but finally we did it, thanks to Dad! Before we went to New Zealand we had our dam wall dug out (still alot more work to do in that area) and while we had the big digger in, we got him to churn up the soil where our vegie garden was to go. Then while we were in NZ, Dad rotary hoed the area and formed up these beds, 4 in all .
It is awesome and this is how it is looking at 4 1/2 weeks after planting.
The vegetables were all seedlings when planted and fed with dynamic lifter and mulched with mushroom compost. We have hand watered daily. In the pic above, Stephen is watering the watermelon, which will grow down the gentle slope towards the River.
Above picture also has sweet potatoes and potatoes.
Cherry tomatoes growing amongst the garden out the front, these came up on their own and we transplanted them to this sunny spot. We have been picking cherry toms for weeks, again thanks Dad!
Here is tonights harvest. I turned the cherry toms into Fresh tomato, prawn and bacon pasta: I can give you the recipe if you want ;)
And the silverbeet went into the lasagne for tomorrow night! I am on a bit of a gardening, cooking fresh food roll at the moment, so I hope you enjoy it!
Stay tuned for my next update: Mango Macadamia and Caramel Cheesecake including pics of my Mango tree.
If you are clever you can get away with the original hem on the tablecloth for your skirt and I decided this skirt didn't need the contrast band around the bottom so left that off. I used up every last bit of the tablecloth(almost, the scraps left were not even worth the scrap pile) making the ties, and I make my ties longer than the pattern says, the longer the better. 
Sandi Henderson has released her new fabric range!
I am so sorry Farmers Market, but you are out and this is in! Actually you will probably work together, so you can stay. I still have 2 metres of Vintage Cherries in my stash, one day I will hang it in my bedroom when the bedroom gets built...
This seems a bit more grown up but still so pretty. I love this combination (below) which Sandi says she has a dress combination cut out for herself in.
It was a perfect day that day, as is today, as I woke up to Happy Anniversary wishes from you, Lilly and Joey! A bunch of flowers and card that you all chose together, how sweet!
Our wedding day was so much fun, esp in that wind at the beach. I'm cooking salmon for dinner and nutella crepes for dessert, hope you all like it...
xxxLeah
My little boy turned 4 on the 4th of July.
I made him Very Hungry Caterpillar cupcakes to take to kindy.
and a number 4 chocolate racing car cake for his Maze Mania birthday party.
This is my gorgeous boy... post party, filthy dirty, sweaty and fired up ready for more cake. He is wearing a Joey appliqued singlet, he looked cute, he is cute, I love him, said that!
My cousin had a baby girl recently named Violet.
This is a play quilt I made her, very quickly and very novicely! 
I used Farmers Market, scraps from Nanny's stash including a little appliqued house she had made amongst it and some old embroidered doilies. I had to do a brick pattern since cutting the squares perfectly with the rotary cutter and being very careful didn't help when some of the fabrics were so loosely woven and put them all out of line!
and this view is not some weird artistic angle...if you look closely you can see a male King Parrot in the Jacaranda tree behind the clothesline! This makes me sooo happy, they come fairly regularly, always in pairs and eat the sunflower seed bells we put out for them. We watch them from the verandah, they are so beautiful and wild and flying around where they should be, I love them, said that!
Soon I will show you the baby quilt I made, quickly made, for my new cousin Violet, 2nd cousin, something like that, a daughter of my beautiful cousin Bek.
...either way it will be very cute, you'll love it!
To enter my giveaway, just leave a comment by clicking on the comments link just below and tell me anything, I don't mind, I will enjoy reading the comments, I always do.
The winner will be drawn next Sunday the 28th, so you've got all week to enter, goodluck!
Make sure you leave me your email address or blog link so I can contact the lucky winner!
This pattern comes from the stash of patterns in my Nanny's sewing treasures, it may have even been one Mum used to make up for me when I was little.
This pink one is reversible in soft pink cord and green polka dots for Eleni. The white applique piece on the front is vintage (op shopped!), I've got another ready to be chopped up. The green buttons on the front are not doing much for me, so I am changing them, yet another trip to Spotlight!
And this Sesame Street number was given to Kirsten, our adorable little 4 year old friend. The Sesame Street fabric (an old sheet I think or maybe even curtain) was given to me by Kirsten's Mum, she's a good girl. I made these shorts first up when she first gave it to me, thanks Mel!
The lining of this one is hot pink cord, it looks great over jeans with a long sleeve white top for winter.
This would be one of my favourite things she draws, we find this particular note alot, in random places around the house.
This one is for Joe, in browns and creams, I've done a Jet blue version in 12 ply as well, but no pics of that one! I have used this pattern for both of Joe's beanies, and again upsized it to fit better.
So after all this crochet, I needed somewhere to keep my tools and patterns. I had made this bag pictured below earlier this year using this pattern, which I had seen on Lisa's blog and got all inspired and luckily was able to make it then and there with the bamboo handles I had in my stash, as you do!!!
For the crochet tool organiser, I had no choice but to match it the bag and used some more. I think, possibly, this crochet organiser would be my most favourite 'thing' I've ever made. Not sure if its the fabric choice, the usefulness of the thing, the cute button loop or what,
but I love it.
Here is the inside of my organiser. It's got room for about 6 hooks even though I mainly only use 2 different size hooks, a pen, scissors, unpicker, needle holder, note book and a spot for the current pattern I am working on. I guess this is just a version of a crayon roll.
Mum has just finished the most gorgeous ripple scarf for Lilly in pink, purple, green, blue and orange and a bobble scarf for me. She's been busy, I only took posession of these items tonight, so stay tuned.
Joe boy wanted icy poles, I had white choc chips leftover in my hand, a new stash of berries in the freezer...so this is what I came up with!
Berry Choc Chip Pops
1 cup natural yoghurt
2 cups vanilla icecream
1 cup mixed frozen berries (forest fruits pack: strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, cherries)or fresh berries if you have them
1 – 2 tablespoons agave nectar or more to your taste, but taste first after the choc chips go in
½ cup white choc chips
Process choc chips till crumbly then add remainder of ingredients and process to combine till the fruit is chopped up smaller. Pour into moulds, tap to remove air pockets and freeze, add paddle pop sticks when firmer.
Makes about 10 – 12 pops
Agave Nectar is delish, my friend Jen found it for me, you could use honey instead.
I've also sewn some smaller square bags with inners filled with rice and peppermint oil, they are for the freezer for headaches and I can confirm they work..unfortunately I had to test one out this afternoon. Will post pics of them soon.
we had the smallest bit left so made a zippered pouch using this tutorial, it took no time at all and is so handy inside these roomy bags.
I love this Kaffe Fassett fabric and we used a favourite small leopard print for the lining.
Gathering her supplies, we got the box of embroidery threads back from Granma.
We needed a keyring for our new post office keys to go on, something that would hang up in the car and be easy to find. Lill looked through her new craft book and found this great idea.
Pocket Lockets
* a cute little felt pocket with a ribbon attached to your key, the ribbon slides up and down to reveal the key.
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