Things I learned from Knitting

Whether I wanted to or not. Isn't that a great book title. I found it while pinning and laughed and laughed. Just quietly, I am not going to buy the book, because with the exception of Jo, not a lot of knitting happens at knitting, but I do learn lots.

The strange thing is that by sharing I seem to learn the most about myself and get a new perspective on my own life and circumstances. While we all have a whinge, a giggle and maybe another whinge or vent, at the end I actually go home and feel better. I have new ideas and am actually trying to change the way I think about things. A big thank you to those wonderful girls about whom this book is obviously written!!

Cake - osaurus

I finally got the silicone moulds to work - with cake! With a little spray oil and flour the dinos happily dropped out and the boys love them!

Happy mothers' day

I hope the mums. grandmums and mums to be had a wonderful day. The bug squirrel took some incredibly flattering photos of me too early this morning which I wont be displaying here - however here are the mugs that the boys made me at kinder.

Then we hosted lunch for my mum and family. A shot of Mr P , Mum and me. Mum is in the outfit that we made for her. The jumper and the leggings are from fabric at some time from Darn Cheap.
We have decided to run in the jumper to make it less box like - but otherwise a happy day.

Oh and mum loved the cushion!!

Over scheduled!!!

8am Basketball

9am Open Kinder

9:30am Kick football at Mothers day Auskick - wear Pink

10am Door Bitch Greeter at Kinder Open Day

1pm Relieve my mum from looking after twins

1.05pm Fall in screeming heap

I must learn to say no - but not to my babies.

For My Mums Day

Mothers Day is swiftly approaching, and as with every year, the challenge is to find something to make for her. With her birthday also falling in May, this always proves to be difficult. Mr P and I feel that she probably has enough jewellery this year and we need to change tack. We made a jumper out of brown and gold stripe knit (I need to get a picture of it!!) and some thick leggings to go with it. Matched with an improved belt we were done - but the kids.....

There is only so much room on ones fridge for artwork so I was trying to think of an idea using their art and then I thought of a cushion.

Each of the boys did a drawing of Nan on a rectangle of fabric. I used Pentel Fabric pastels as they give good colour and don't need too much pressure. Benji used the wrong side of the fabric but thats ok too.

I had a new pillow that I used as the cushion and covered it in silk furnishing fabrics (honestly which I had in my stash - they were given to me in offcut sizes.) The trim I got for a steal some time back and I appliqued the drawings on.

I was really pleased with the result and it was really easy. The front and the back are different fabrics - so the pictures can either be displayed, or hidden depending on the situation. The cards (top picture) we made using photos of the kids artwork. While I say this was easy, I do have to own up to a little shortcut - no zip, or closure of any kind. Yep, I simply sewed the whole thing shut. No washing of this little beauty!

Dip Dye

Mr P's birthday is coming up. He is now working as a teacher and needs some funky duds for work. I did the obligatory wander around Chadstone and saw a shirt I liked. The one thing I didn't like was the pricetag. So I made my own!

Basically the shirt was a check shirt, which had been dip dyed, but from the top, not the bottom. Easy enough. Hello Kmart for a check shirt and I also picked up a white long sleeve top to dye the bottom of. Then to Lincraft and I bought a packet of powdered RIT dye in Navy.

I made the dye bath up in a bucket which was wide enough for my shirts and as deep as I wanted the colour. The dye was fairly concentrated.

I did make some errors.

1. I put the bucket in the kitchen sink. No there isn't dye everywhere, but there wasn't really enough space. I was doing another one for me, but the whole top jumped into the dye.

2. I tied the fabric that I wanted to stay undyed in elastic bands. This meant that the remaining fabric was folded. It was better to hang the garment flat so the colour was more even.

3. Gloves would have been a good idea.

Apart from that it all went well. I left the shirts to soak for about half an hour and then rinsed and dried them. I was really pleased with the results:

Shirt dyed top down. Dye chosen to match the colour in the shirt. Need majority cotton shirt.

I have always liked these - and it worked well.

**Edited- he has now been given gifts. Both fitted and looked really good. He liked them and didn't even realise I had dyed them myself (Despite seeing my Avitarian hands previously!!!)

Mothers Morning Tea

I love Kinder! Today they hosted a morning tea to celebrate Mothers Day.

The kids sang us song, gave us gifts that they had made at kinder, drawn cards

and then we sat outside and had biscuits and juice. What a lovely way to spend the morning with my boys.