At last Autumn has arrived

 We have had such strange weather lately. A couple of weeks ago it was quite hot but now there has been a cool change and it seems that at long last we are heading into Autumn. I am sure the plants in the garden are quite confused.

Learn to crochet

I noticed on one of the blogs I follow that Jennifer from Fiber Flux is starting up a Learn to Crochet series today. Sorry for the late notice but there might be some readers out there who would like to follow along.

What is your favourite stich for making dishcloths?

Due to the recent renovations, any craft projects I had on the go were put on hold due to the disruption of strangers wandering through the house and the constant dust that was subsequently generated by those strangers (tradies).  I really need to make some soap and will get organised with that soon but in the meantime I thought I would try and get back into the swing of things and crochet a dishcloth while refreshing myself on how to do the Iris Stitch once again.

 

A festival for yarn lovers

Today I visited Warwick's Jumpers and Jazz in July Festival with a couple of friends and the event is getting bigger every year. If you had the time you could easily spend a couple of days there. As today was a Monday it was probably quieter in town than it would be on the weekend but there were still a lot of visitors about.

Plodding along.

I was going to name this post 'Puddling along' but the online dictionary tells me there needs to be water involved and there is certainly no water, as in rain, around here at the moment. It has just been hot, hot hot!  The older I get the less I can function in the heat for some reason.

The rain we did have before the heat set in made the kikuyu grow overnight and areas I finished weeding a couple of weeks ago are now full of weeds once again and it is much too hot to be outside pulling them out. It seems that the rest of the bloggers around the world have hit the ground running and are well and truly organised for the year and making this and that and decluttering and so on. Not so in this neck of the woods as all I seem to have achieved in the crafting world is one button necklace.

Learning the Iris Stitch

At a recent get-together for members of the former Down to Earth Forum and the current Home Maker's Forum my friend Judy gave me a couple of dishcloths and I have been quite impressed with the fact that they don't go out of shape when they have been twisted and turned as I try to get the water out of them after use...unlike a couple of mine :-)

Soap review

Remember a while back when I first used my new heart shaped moulds when making one of my favourite soaps Castile Bubbles. There was too much soap mixture for the six moulds so I used one of my older heart shaped silicone moulds as well and had the bright idea of embedding a little red heart shaped soap into the middle of three of them as an experiment. The lovely Suzie from The Curing Room had included the little red hearts in a parcel of Fragrance Oils she had sent me. 

Dishcloths and Sew Alongs

There seemed to be a lot of interest in the Garden Dishcloths to Knit book that I mentioned recently. So far I have only knitted one of the dishcloths in the book but plan to knit some more when my brain isn't being pickled by this protracted heat wave. If I survive the 38C days coming up on Sunday and Monday I will start on another one. It is a bit hard to concentrate when you have sweat pouring off you during such hot days :-) So now I have finished my dishcloths for January and February in the Down to Earth forum's Dishcloth Challenge as I am knitting one a month.

A Festival for Yarn Lovers:Part 2

This is a continuation of my last post about the Jumpers and Jazz Festival in Warwick which we visited on Monday. I took too many photos to put into one post so I hope you don't get bored with them. 

This is the statue of Thomas Joseph Byrnes who was the Premier of Queensland for a few months in 1898 until he contracted measles and then pneumonia and died at the age of just 38. He represented Warwick in the Legislative Assembly which I guess is why his statue sits in the main street in the middle of the traffic. I grew up in that town and wasn't even aware of his story until I just did a little bit of research. I always thought he was an old man. How sad that he died so young. Anyway, his statue sports a beanie and scarf during the festival and when I look at it the next time I am visiting I will think of him in a different light.

A Festival for Yarn Lovers

Yesterday we drove to Warwick for the annual Jumpers and Jazz in July Festival. I used to have a look at the yarnbombed trees many years ago when we were visiting our mum and when the festival first began but since then it has gone from strength to strength and is now held for 10 days during winter each year.

Twiddlemuffs or Calming Mitts for dementia sufferers

One of the really nice things about blogging is that you get to meet other bloggers online and recently I 'met' Maria from The Next Stage which is a blog about her next stage of life after retirement. I am always particularly interested in blogs written by people much the same age as myself as I like to see how they are adjusting to no longer being in the paid workforce due to retirement. Maria is a very talented person and shows some gorgeous craftwork on her blog. Recently in a post she showed  photos of craft items she has been collecting to give to local charities and I was intrigued when she mentioned someone had knitted Twiddlemuffs which are calming mitts for people who suffer from dementia. What a great idea!

So many UFOs!!!

Does anyone else have a lot of UFOs? I am sure I am not the only one. I decided I would take note of what projects I have started that need to be finished otherwise I will start some more and just leave them to be finished 'one day'.

Tunisian Crochet Workshop ~ Simple Living Toowoomba

Once again we have a terrific workshop lined up for those who live in the region and would like to come. Our co-ordinator, Margy, will be teaching us Tunisian Crochet which I am sure will be very interesting to learn.

A nice surprise in the mail

Just before Easter I received a parcel containing some lovely swap items. My swap partner had been unwell at the time of the swap a few months ago so I was in no hurry for her to finish her items until she felt she was on top of things once again.

The Prayer Shawl

Have you ever heard of a Prayer Shawl? Well I can't say I had, apart from the Prayer Shawl or Tallit worn in Israel, until one of the young girls on the Down to Earth Simple Living Forums showed us a photo of a Prayer Blanket she was making during Lent. Each morning she would start off her day by crocheting one square and saying a prayer while she was making it and when it is finished it will be given to the Knit One Give One charity. What a lovely thing to do!

Crochet Button Necklace

Last week I was cleaning out some of my craft 'stuff' and came across a pattern for a crochet button necklace in an old Spotlight Get Creative magazine from 2011. As I used to do a lot of beading I thought it looked interesting and kept it but when I read through the instructions I realised you don't have to know anything about beading as you just need to know how to crochet a chain.

Crochet Towel Toppers

I used to watch my Mum crochet toppers to hang her hand towels years ago and thought that was just something 'old' people did as she was in her nineties at the time. I didn't mind though when she gave me some to use along with her padded coat hangers. Although I had been 'into' crochet when granny square rugs were the rage back in the 1970s that was about all the crochet I had attempted until the last couple of years when I have been motivated by some of the very skilled members on the Down to Earth Forums. Of course not everyone there is experienced with the crochet hook and there are also lots of us who are plodding along and learning as we go.