The past few days have been hard. A very very dear friend found out her unborn babe had died on Wednesday, and birthed him on Thursday. Her baby, Xavier, was a very much longed for boy. She's on the other side of this wide brown land, and it's never felt quite so wide before. I'm going over soon, but I wish we were closer.

So ... something brief today.

The husband needed a new hot water bottle (despite the warnings, he insists on using boiling water, and eventually the old one sprang a leak. In the bed. He got the wet patch - heh!). Of course, a new hot water bottle needed a new hot water bottle cover. In bright bright orange and black.



Apparently I have to remove the decorative elements though. I did insist they were manly geometric shapes, but no dice.

The other thing I've made this week is coconut macaroons:



1 tin condensed milk
4-5 cups shredded coconut
1/3 cup plain flour

Mix.
Drop teaspoonfuls on a tray lined with baking paper.
Bake at 180 C for 10 mins.

Allow to cool, and try to pack some away before they all disappear at once.

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And lastly, a gratuitous lemon photo, just because it's beautiful and bright and just what I need.

Saturday night in front of the tv

I like watching The Bill. There - it's out - my big Saturday night is sitting in front of the tv watching a combination police drama/soapie. And crocheting.

At least it gives me a couple of hours every week to work on a big project, and the latest one is finished:



Appropriately for someone who spends Saturday nights in front of the telly, it's a giant granny square blanket. It's big and it's heavy and I don't want to think how much all that lovely wool cost. The photo doesn't really do the colours justice - it reminds me of raspberry and chocolate and cream, and it's really delicious :)

In two weeks I have ...

Worked. A lot. A number of clients are involved in a conference at the end of the month, and are desperately trying to get documents printed in time. Being at the end of the process, things are a little hectic around here right now, and it's not finished yet.

Read several books:


I'll have to read the rest of the Twilight books soon - I do love a good vampire tale!

I read the Dinotopia children's novel before handing it over to Miss Tizz, just to make sure it was appropriate for a 7yo (and I recently read The Princess Diaries for the same reason).

Mary called Magdalene is the current book by the bedside - it's a novel, because not too much is known about the historical figure, and very interesting so far - she's currently plagued by Canaanite gods & goddesses.

Watched a number of episodes each of Torchwood (Season 1, Episodes 1-9 - definitely a show for adults! Oh my! Dr Who was never like this!) and Lexx:



Crocheted (while watching the above):


Changed my hair colour - this one is a Joico purple - it's quite bright in the sunlight!


(Like my superhero cape? Trying to prevent the colour from bleeding all over me - I've been waking up in the morning with half my face purple! Nearly forgot about it today when I went to answer the door ...)

Sewed patches onto Miss Tizz's Guide sash (and unpicked the ones I put in the wrong place :P):


Picked apples & pears:


Made more bread from the Artisan bread in 5 minutes a day recipe, and made my first batch of English muffins. The baked product disappears too quickly, so here's a picture of the dough (you can't say I don't thrill you with exciting photos!):


And the I worked some more.

Year 2 diorama, and catalogue mods

Miss Tizz came home from school one day with a request for a shoe box. After much searching for one that hadn't been converted to an alien habitat, or that holds 'precious' little things and can't be touched, the X-man generously donated the box from his funky jungle shoes.

Today the shoe box came home again, but now it's a zoo diorama, with lions looking out hungrily from behind not-very-secure bars:



They're looking at two plasticine people, who are fortunate to be sitting in comfy armchairs in front of the lion cage:

(The X-man)
(Miss Tizz)

And because I know you want to see the whole thing:



Meanwhile, back at home base, the X-man and I had also been getting creative. It all started with beer bottle faces (note: we're not beer drinkers, so they're all sad, mean or somewhat seedy looking fellows):



We decided some other Christmas catalogues needed some modifications ...



This was a really odd looking iced Christmas cake, even before we turned the icing stars into a face:



Happy coffee:



Of course, Four Arms from Ben 10 had to get in there - a gin bottle works well, and the X-man even added his omnitrix on his shoulder:



Bratz dolls are much cuter as cats:



I had to ask what he was drawing on this one, but it should have been obvious - exploding pom poms! Apparently influenced by the Dr Who Christmas episode with the killer Christmas trees:



Cats again:



And my personal favourite - evil vampire teddy. That kid is in so much trouble, and he has no idea!



Catalogue modification is way underrated - you may well see more of it in the future.

A most interesting monotreme

How gorgeous is this little fellow:



He's an echidna (apparently), made by the X-man on yesterday's preschool visit to the Australian National Botanic Gardens. The children dipped into a pond for bugs and tadpoles, had a good look at them up close, and had a jolly good time by all reports.

Bring me my walking frame!

I must be getting old. I made crocheted cotton bookmarks on the weekend! For some reason I find this very amusing.



And look! I made a flower too!



So if you get something in crocheted cotton for Christmas, know that I had a good time making it ;)

School holidays - Day 8: Blooming pomes

Apples and pears, that is ...







Notice the raindrops on the bush rose. This is still a bit of a novelty around these parts.


And these little guys are either bookworms (as I told the children) or really friendly little bacteria. Heh.



And you don't want to know about the dead rat next to the driveway. Ugh.

School holidays - Day 6

Miss Tizz wrote a story for me, and I thought I'd share, including the overuse of exclamation marks LOL.

Once upon a time there was a very mean dragon named Lolly. He was named Lolly because he was the only dragon made out of lollies! The sort was cloudy. If you don't know what cloudy is, it is a lolly that when you suck it, it gets bigger! Lolly is mean because he gets angry because everyone eats him. Even his mum and dad!

Finally he says to everyone "Stop eating me!!"

They stopped eating him and also stopped being his friends!!!!

He was so sad he was not going to give up finding new friends!!!!!

Every night and day he searched and searched. But he could not find new friends!!!

But one day when he was about to give up, he remembered their favourite place - ACT!!!! Lolly went there straight away to find his friends!!

At last he found them. They thought he was here to tear down the place, so they hid. He found them again. He said he just wanted to say sorry, and he did!!!

They all became friends again!!!

The end

In other news, I promised an update on the stripey crocheted thing. It's a bag (almost), and it's been fulled and dried now. Didn't felt and shrink as much as I thought it would, but then our water temperature is limited to 55 degrees C, and hotter water probably would have been more effective. Regardless, I'm happy with my first foray into fulling. Now I just need to line it and finish making up.

WsIP

I'm finding photographing the true colours of wool very difficult, and the current works in progress are no exception. I've done a bit of fiddling in Photoshop to correct these photos a little, but they're still not quite right. Any photography tips?



I'm hoping to have an update of this ^^ one within the next few days. It's ready for my first attempt at fulling.

The other love knot project

This is the result of the other love knot crochet project, which I actually finished first.



It's very similar to the one in the previous post, in that it's a simple rectangle, except that this one is a bit narrower. The major difference is that the ends are joined together with a half twist, making it into a Moebius strip. Again, it can be worn as a shawl or a scarf, and you don't have any loose ends to deal with ;)

Love Knot shawl

I finished the love knot project on Friday night - it's a shawl :)

What do you think?

The colours are closer to the real thing in the second photo. It's a simple rectangle, a little longer than Miss Tizz's wingspan, and fine enough that it can be worn as a light wrap or scrunched up as a very warm scarf.

He loves me, he loves me knot

I may have had better weekends healthwise, but it meant I could take the opportunity to spend a whole evening away from the computer (and work) , wrap up in a dressing gown and blanket in front of the television, and crochet something new. It was also helpful that Miss Tizz had a birthday sleepover at a friend's house, and that the X-man and The Husband went for the party (and stayed out late, social butterflies that they are!).

It's taken me a while to figure out the instructions for a crochet love knot (or Solomon's knot, or any one of several other names) but once you get the hang of it, it's pretty straightforward. The trickiest bit is keeping the loops even:

















And Brenton Rickard won another silver medal - this time as part of the men's 100m medley relay team. Yay!