blog delays.

so that last post was written about a week and a half ago... it's just taken me this long to get my photos together with my words, i've been working simply stupid amounts. excellent for the pocket, not so great for the blogging...
the money's been excellent for planning the boyfriend and my big new years escape. we're heading to tassie for falls festival in marion bay and then some touristy type activities. stay tuned for lots of photos from that!
here's a little ripple update for you all... it hasn't grown much for the above mentioned reasons.



and because i've been making some more of these...
i've been meaning to string them together but i'm still figuring out how to. any suggestions?



oh and i'd tell you about how marvelous the backyard looks, but it looks like a jungle... i had a bit of a crack at it yesterday after work but it's still a mess. delaying that old chestnut til we're back from holidays i think. too much effort in this heat!
so what's everyones plans for christmas? i'm heading down to mum and dad's place tomorrow night. night out on the town to catch up with old friends on chrissie eve and then lots of dinners and lunches and some working thrown into the mix.
happy holidays everyone!

feeling festive.

on our last visit to my parents house, we packed the boot full of all our christmas stuff. ok so our tree and a washing basketful of decorations.


it took us a few days to find our festive spirit to get it up (and also the time to do it together, i've been working ridiculous amounts, hence long time between blog posts), but when we started there was no stopping us. we blasted out some carols and probably generally annoyed the crap out of our neighbours.
but doesn't it look lovely?


i like to try and buy a few decorations every year and it was fun reminiscing as we hung them on the tree. this year i think i'm going to aim to buy some more tinsel, good stuff though, i have no tolerance for crappy tinsel.
while the tree is looking pretty festive, the rest of the house isn't. i stumbled upon a lovely little tutorial from lucy at attic24 snowflakes! i know it doesn't snow here in australia, but what better reason to fill the house with lovely handmade snowy goodness? much nicer than that terrible spray on snow stuff that you spray on your windows and that then melts into the glass because of our 40+ summers.


i hooked up half a dozen or so last night while waiting for dinner to cook. they were sooooooo simple. except under no circumstances try this pattern with 8 ply wool and a 1mm hook, i did and i was nearly driven to distraction. the hook is just too small for that size wool.
i've actually blocked these, i've never blocked before because i'm quite lazy so i took lucy's advice and invested in some spray starch. it even smelled nice!
i didn't have anywhere proper to block them (like foam or anything) so i did them on the carpet... shhhhhh! don't tell the real estate agent!



they're still drying so i'll keep you posted as to how they turn out.

ripple update.

it's been a while so here's some little pictures of my big blankie work in progress. it's not quite big yet.


but it's almost lap sized. if you cross it over a few times :D. i've run out of wool for it AGAIN, but it's been nice because i've almost finished the scarf side project i've been working on. it's getting verrrrry long. i'm thinking i might hide it and give it to the lover boy for our anniversary (we're saving for a holiday so gifts will be cheap this year).


also my lovely mum came to visit today. and we got busy, spending too much money at bunnings again. 3 metres of black plastic and 10 bags of bunnings cheapest bagged potting mix later, we'd filled the biggest of the planter boxes.


then we got to sowing some vegie seeds. lots of them! i can't wait til they start popping their little heads up. will need to get some sticks from the park to keep the birdies away.


this little pansy had seen better days. i though it was done for. it used to sit on the kitchen sill in our old house and then got relegated to the bathroom when we moved. my boyfriend told me it was dying and kept smelling up the bathroom so it got moved to the outdoor table. and it absolutely loves it there! flowering again and everything. happy flowers :D



and THIS beautiful thing popped out of a horrible tree which was full of scale when we moved in and i thought would probably just die. it fought off the scale by itself and out came these little beauties. there's about a million buds on the tree so it'll look pretty for ages hopefully!

melbourne weather.

today it's gone from being horribly hot, humid and completely breezeless to raining, thundering and blowing a gale. four seasons in one day? yes indeedy.
before it turned into winter weather, i managed to get a little project done that's been on my mind for a little while.


remember this little box? i'd filled it with some sage, rocket and broccoli seedlings. and then i realised that as i'd made them out of treated pine and i hadn't lined the insides, they'd probably be leaching nice chemicals into the soil like arsenic. i promptly pulled all of my little seedlings out and sadly threw them away.


i couldn't leave it like this. looks so bare and barren... my first thought was $2 potted colour from bunnings, but there selection is usually pretty narrow. i wanted choice! and then i remembered the amazing looking nursery on my way to work, that i drive past several times a week and swear to myself to go and visit one day. well today was the day.

i drove through the magnificent wrought iron gates and headed to the entrance. how wonderful does the furniture look? ok you can't see it particularly well... but i LOVE it. one day i'll have a cute little outdoor set like this, instead of the sad number that's currently inhabiting my back yard.


and the choice here was amazing! the whole nursery was almost the size of an entire bunnings but only with plants! it was heavenly! i wandered around for a good hour, even in the horrid heat. i settled in for buying in this section though. look at all the colour!


i only just managed to leave one of these parasol behind. i love these little creepers! definitely one of my faves. i had a nice red one at one stage but it didn't quite survive the move. things kept getting "dropped" on it.


i got back to the car, quite proud of my self-restraint. 5 plants for $12. not too bad really.
as soon as i got home i gave them a quick water and had a bit of a cooldown myself. then outside i went with my little shovel and bottle of liquid fertiliser. i played around with the arrangement a little and am now very happy with the finished product.

so very cheerful! i can't wait til they grow together a bit :D
definitely need to go and purchase a bag of mulch in the next week though. this little box gets very dry very quickly in the hot SPRING sun. stupid weather...

notable absence.

my apologies for the long spaces between blog posts. my capped internets have been driving me crazy! it would take about an hour to load a blog page to read, let alone upload pretty pictures to show you all. in any case with that madness behind me let me fill you in...

after my last post, i went back to the country to visit my parents again. this time though, i actually got some damn gardening done. i called on some help from this one.

and these old moles. they were both much more helpful than the damned goat. with boss cocky shouting encouragement (probably insults, he's hard to understand) and the chooks milling to find any tasty tidbits that were coming out from the clumps of weeds. they only occasionally went for my finger nails instead...


i worked away a little bit at this little garden bed. it's outside the gate of my mums vegie garden and it's been my dream to turn it into a little flower patch since we moved in (7 years ago). this summer it's going to happen! i can see it now, nicely mulched in daisies and pigface, brightening up everything, with some nice pavers leading up to the gate. it'll happen, mark my words.


i still hadn't managed to get any ripple wool so i was working frantically on this baby. it's getting quite long now. this is on the fourth ball of five so it should be finished soon. and i can't wait for it to be done. scarves are easy but get a bit monotonous. i can't wait to sink my needles into some juicy beanies. yes i think you'll be hearing quite a lot about beanies in the posts to come.


and to support a good cause, i purchased this lovely shade of nailpolish. opi are my favourite and if you buy this colour (queen of pink), they'll donate $10 to breast cancer funds. amazing. and pretty too! the colour reminds me of fairy floss :D


as for those pesky weekly goals, the teetering pile of filing is still there, teetering away. that's todays big goal actually, only a week after i decided i'd do it.
this weeks goal is to finally book tickets for the boy and my's new years holidays. and i've just done this. one way only though, i'll let the credit card recover a bit before purchasing return tickets i think.
i'm thinking a ripple update might be coming soon, it's been a while...

internet fails.

oh dear me. my internet's are capped. which means it takes approximately half an hour to load a webpage. and 18 years to upload photos.
so a very unexciting, pictureless post this week.
a teeny update then:
planter boxes are here at the new house, waiting to be lined and filled (no arsenic poisoning for me thanks)
and this weeks goals are to get a handle on the massive pile of documents to be filed, precariously balanced on the keyboard tray of our desk. and to get the lavender that mum bought me from the inverloch market into the ground to spread out their little rooties.
photos as soon as i can upload without tearing my hair out i promise!

country visits.

spent the majority of this week down at my parents house in the lovely countryside.
thought i'd do a little bit of gardening whilst mum and dad were at work...

i even remembered to take a before photo this time... unfortunately then i had the VERY unwise idea to get this beast to help me.


she didn't want to help so much as she did want to eat the fresh leaves off the fruit trees in the orchard and try and remove my kneecap with her horns.


which meant i wasn't very good for gardening... or work particularly in the days after. damn goat. so needless to say, there was a lot of this being done (i ran out of ripple wool last weekend and haven't had a chance to get anymore, will stock up this weekend though)

this, if you're wondering, is a scarf. a little in between work in progress. it was going to be for myself but the boyfriend put on his sad "i have no winter scarf" face. to be honest i don't have on either but i do have all summer for that selfish nonsense...

also i'm very excited as these lovelies are finally coming home to my new (well getting older now) house. it was my little goal for this week. well and to finally get my tax back. think i might make myself a little goal for each week so that i don't end up doing stuff all the entire holidays. maybe i'll share them with you all on here...
i think my goal for next week will be to save some money to be able to fill those lovely planter boxes!
ooh and next time i might fill you in on what i am planning to green up the planter boxes with.

a day in the garden.

i woke up this morning and the sun was shining in through my bedroom window. after doing gross bill paying type chores, i pulled on my (very dusty) gardening clothes and got out amongst the sun and dirt and lovely green things.

first job: pull all of the weeds out of this little garden bed. i really should've taken before photos as well as after photos as you would not believe what this looked like before... you could barely make out the little grape hyacinth plants either side of the rose amongst all the weeds surrounding them. but tick that off the to-do list now.

second job: re-pot some sad looking house plants. they'd needed to be done for months! the violet moved with us in june, so it was the most desperate. the gazmania was a birthday gift in august and the maiden fern was a $2 bargain from kmart somewhere in between. hopefully some more room to stretch their roots will perk them up a bit.

third job: weed out this little brick section. again without a before photo you won't believe the extent of my neglect, but let's just say you would've had a hard time knowing there were bricks under there... i rearranged some of my pots from out the front onto here too, the ones that weren't enjoying the afternoon sun as much as the others... now they'll hopefully be happier getting the milder morning sunshine. see my little gazmania there, happy in it's new pot? it was having quite an awful time on top of my heater, they like it hot but not that hot.


tomorrow: i don't own a whipper-snipper and last time i borrowed one there was way too much frustration with the line and what-not, so tomorrow's job is to trim the edges in the backyard along the fence. i have this feeling it will probably take a while seeing as there is barely half of the backyard...


and for those of you who are interested. RIPPLE! i've almost finished an entire colour repeat now. i'm pretty excited about it. i think that it should probably have a name... what do you think?

freedom

yesterday was my last exam for 2009. i now have 4 and a half months of freedom. well there's work but you can't get study guilt from working...
so i may have done some procrastination in the past few examy weeks. the ripple was started.

and i may have just kept rippling. i bought the light green and purple to add some colour zazz in as i thought that the dark green/blue/black combination was a bit old man style. i added them on but the dark green/blue/black combination was just tooooooo dull even with the added colour zazz. the dull needed to be broken up.

frog frog frog frog. a whole box of frogging.

did you notice my manicure? it's for an animal print themed party that i'm going to on saturday night. took me a few hours but i kinda love them :D

so i've gone from having a 5 and a half row ripple to a one row ripple. shouldn't take me long to get it back to 5 hopefully... i don't have plans for tomorrow til i have to leave for work at 2ish. i'm rearranging the colours so that they go dull bright dull bright. hopefully it'll make it a little perkier for the eye.
stay tuned for the completed coloured pattern. tomorrow? maybe saturday? possibly sunday. before the week is out!

procrastination

i had a test today at 3. so instead of studying or being in any way productive, i procrastinated. it's how i roll.

i had these old bananas... they were looking pretty bruised up so i did really not want to eat them. bruisy bananas make me gag (i know that's pretty well a euphemism or whatever but NO)


so out came the trusty old muffin recipe. this is a recipe my aunty gave me. my cousin was about one when she gave it to me and she's nine now so this piece of paper is at least eight years old... it's travelled with me to four different houses so it's pretty amazing i haven't ripped/burnt/covered it in muffin mix/thrown it out.

mix everything up in my big green mixing bowl. favourite that i got from my besties. i should really probably use a wooden spoon and traditional-it-up but i have to use metal spoons to serve it up so i try and save dishes for the boyfriends sake.
patty pans, just like when i was a kid... saves on mess too. i'm the lack of mess queen.

into the oven for a while. had to keep an eye on them as my oven is notoriously crap for baking. if you put anything on the top shelf it's sure to burn and if it's on the bottom shelf and you're not careful it'll burn on one side, leaving you with half burnt, half raw muffins/carrot cake. brianna at rollinginfabric has experienced that little gem...
half an hour in the oven and voila. muffins for afternoon tea with study. although i honestly didn't really feel like them after licking the muffin mix out of the bowl. mmmmmm muffin mix. i did however take them to uni with me to share before/after the test. they were good to take the nerve off/commiserate with. commiserations for me unfortunately, i didn't do as well as i would've liked. this is to be expected though as i spent all morning sleeping/cleaning/baking and not actually studying...

wool sale!

so i decided, instead of waiting to save the money to buy the 18 million balls of wool i'm going to need to make this ripple i have in my mind, i'd buy the balls one at a time. this way it'd cost me money gradually and would build a little bit of suspense with myself AND perhaps give me some time to, you know, study for the four exams i have coming up...
so in i went to spotlight, in my hour break between shifts, to find my one little ball of wool...
but spotlight had a different idea, this is what i walked out with...



20 balls of wool (plus my one ball that i actually went in to purchase) = $21.
gotta love a wool sale :D

stay tuned to see some new pictures of the newly started ripple, if the sun ever comes out that is. iphones aren't the best for picture taking in bad lighting...

EDIT: i may have gone into spotlight again today, only intending to buy the next ball of wool for my little ripple, and found myself with another 9 or so balls in my shopping bag... oooopsies. more pictures soon.

waiting.

all week, well the last two weeks really, i've been saving up for a little spotlight trip to plan colours for my next blankie project.
so this morning i got up much earlier than i had to and made the trek via public transport to spotlight in box hill. soooooooooo excited. almost jumping out of my skin with excitement. walked in the door and there was a little 2-3 year old girl screaming her head off. turn ipod up. all good. head off towards where i thought the wool section would be. through manchester, party, fabrics, homewares, back to registers. WHAT? where is the magical wool section??? second trip around the shop revealed ONE teensy little wool section. all the lovely wools crammed into one tiny little aisle. well actually there wasn't very many lovely wools at all. well there were a few nice wooly feeling ones but they were black or cream or pastels and what my heart really wants is bright greens and blue and lovely sea colours.
i have a sneaking feeling as well that there was once 2 wool aisles in the store but the second aisle has been taken over by CHRISTMAS decorations. in SEPTEMBER.
rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant.
don't get me wrong i love christmas decorations, but i only love them in december. where they belong.




in any case. i've been working on a little ripple scarf, from my practice attempts... it's coming together quite nicely. except that i've ran out of wool for it... saturday, i'll get more wool for it on saturday. it's quite easy now that i've got the rhythm happening for it. and it's the perfect size to take on the train, bus, lectures and everywhere really!




so while that's in hiatus while i wait to get some more scarf wool, i'm working on another little something. i'll let you see it grow to see what it is... i bought the wool today in spotlight, it was the nicest one there... i may have started it while in a lecture. bad nicole.