Busy little hands

I have to admit that I have been very lucky as a few weeks ago I was asked if I would make some of my things for Wyreena, a local gallery's Christmas gift exhibition and then a call went out for crafters to make things for Little Red’s Craft Cupboard and I got accepted too.  So the last few weeks I have been busily making things, trying to get enough products made. 

In the past when I have made things for a big order my brain seems to run away with all these fantastic ideas of things that I could possibly make and I get a bit overwhelmed, and then don’t know what to do, sit on it for a bit and then do that last minute panic that I won’t get enough made in time.  So this time I decided to just settle on a few well trusted items.  In the past my children’s toys have seem to have sold well, so I thought a few of these and maybe some new smaller in size Christmas ornaments.

And here are the final products...

A little group of owls (did you know that a group of Owls is called a Parliament?  Neither did I until a few seconds ago J), a little Miss and Master Frog, some crochet hanging birds, crochet stars and my favourite little Santa hat brooches.

I also managed to squeeze in another little frog for a Little Miss L.  I thought that maybe a little dress might have been in order and of course a little flower to pretty it up.

Besides all the crochet one of the other things that I have been busy with over the last few weeks is my garden.  I must admit it got quite a bit neglected over Autumn and Winter so when spring started it was a bit feral and needed quite a lot of work, but I have managed to get it back to how it used to be and this year I have been rewarded with the most beautiful display of my roses yet.  Last week we had some beautiful warm (almost summer evenings) and I would sit on my front porch step just drinking in the beautiful scent in the air.  It was such a fond reminder of how it used to be at my grandmother’s house.

Just looking at the pictures it seems I have a bit of a thing for orange/peach coloured roses.  I don’t know why as I don’t think I own a single thing in these colours J

 
Anna
xo

Here's what's been happening in my little world

As a child did you ever do show and tell at school?  For those of you who don’t know what it is, it is when you all take it in turns (a different child every day) to bring something special to school and each morning you stand up in front of the class and talk about your something special.   I am not sure if it’s still done in schools today (Little O is not up to that stage), but I used to love it.  I loved hearing about and seeing what other children had as their special thing.  (I must admit the best days were when the other children bought in their pets.  Coming from a house that had no pets this was very exciting).

So today I am going to do a little show and tell.  I have been away for a little while so I thought it would be nice to have a bit of a catch up.  As you know I have been working on a few little projects, craft and non craft, and I have finally finished them.  I have also completed a few others along the way too.

Do you remember these...

A friend of mine J takes baby portraits and asked if I could make a few headbands for her.  So here they are finished;

Unfortunately I didn’t have anyone little enough to model them on but when J takes some photos I will be sure to share them with you. The bottom one is a little crown. As I wasn’t sure of the size that J may need I made it in rows and added a piece of elastic at the back to stretch. 

 

I also made some little flower brooches to in different colours.  I decided not to sew them directly onto the headbands so that way J could change the colours to suit the baby or even not include them at all (and I have since seen them in some of her other photos not on headbands but as hair clips, clever girl!).  To be honest I can’t remember where I got the pattern for the roses but just type in ‘crochet flowers/roses’ in Google and hundreds of patterns will come up.

And here is another of my finished projects...

For the life of me I can't seem to get this picture to rotate the correct way, so you'll just have to visualise it the correct way round :)

A little friend of ours, Master R has just turned 5 and his obsession for the last few years is dinosaurs.  When I saw this picture on Pinterest I couldn’t not make it for him. It was perfect.  As this pattern link is only for the spikes I decided that I had been set a challenge and it was one I was going to finish.  I made up my own beanie pattern.  Several attempts later and many scribbled on pieces of paper this was the finished product, one which I am very proud of. 

As I had been using Little O as a model he sort of got the impression that the beanie was for him.  I did have to break his little heart and tell him it wasn’t and it was for Master R instead.  This didn’t make him too happy.  So I then went and made another one for Little O. 

This time instead of crocheting the beanie I decided to knit it.  Little O didn't like the flaps covering his ears. The pattern comes from Knitted Critters for Kids to wear.  I borrowed this copy from our local library. I just used the basic knit in the round beanie, and then added the spikes to it.  Little O loves wearing it.  We do have to take it off him quite a bit at the moment as we have been having some really hot weather and it is making his little head sweat something shocking.

So this is where I am up to at the moment.  Thank you for staying with me and sharing in my show and tell for the day.  I hope you have enjoyed it.

Anna

XO

P.S One thing I forgot to mention is after many weeks of testing my patience we finally have some little snow peas growing.  Little O loves picking them but is still not sure about the taste of them but he’s slowly coming around.

Can you see it hiding in there?

A bit of this and a bit of that

So the last week and a bit have been filled with jumping from one project to another.  I just can’t seem to focus on one thing and finish it.  I only have a few more rows to go then add a border and I have finished the granny ripple blanket but then I get carried away by another thing.  Below is a sneak peek of my new distractions...

I am hoping soon that I will find my hooky rhythm.

Another non craft project that I have been working on is a bit of gardening.  Unfortunately the fence around our vegetable garden was damaged by a certain dog that will remain nameless and he managed to destroy the little garden that we had.  I haven’t fixed the fence up yet (I have basically given up on it) and decided to try and grow some vegetable plants in pots on our deck (at least this way I can keep an eye on them).  So I have a bit of a before and after shot.

                                                      Before...

 

                                                      After...

It was excruciatingly painful waiting for these little seeds to grow.  Everyday Little O and I would go out and check to see, waiting for their little green heads to poke through the soil.  And then finally there they were.  Now it’s the waiting game again for the edible parts to start growing.  Did I tell you I'm not very good with this whole patience thing.

Anna

xo

P.S   If anyone has any recipes for natural homemade pest repellent I would love to hear them.  I have little green caterpillars already attacking the leaves of my green beans.