Still Breathing....

It seems like forever since I have had a chance to stop by and sit for long enough to write anything substantial. This has been a whirlwind of a year for me, some good and some bad, but I'm still alive and breathing, and that's what counts!

My health has been my main problem in the past few months, I have been diagnosed with Hypertension, finally! after months of not knowing what was going on with me. It all started with anxiety attacks, which resulted in me being admitted to the Emergency Department at the closest hospital, 50 kilometres away from us.
The anxiety attacks aren't as bad now that I have been diagnosed and am on medication to treat the hypertension, but they still rear their ugly head from time to time, mostly when I am stressed out about something. Along with that, I have the joy (NOT!) of paying a visit to my GP every week for an injection to treat a Vitamin B12 deficiency. Don't believe it when they tell you that you will just feel a little sting, those suckers HURT!!! lol

Aside from all that has been going on with me, our daughter has been struggling with her mental health and some days are a lot worse than others. She has been diagnosed as Bi-Polar, with a few other things going on and her mental health is not the best at present. But she's still with us and fighting to get through each day, and as long as that keeps happening, I feel some sense of relief. I am so proud of her and how she managed to survive like she has, with all this being dumped on her plate of life. She is a trooper and she is a lot stronger than she likes to think she is! I couldn't imagine my life without her in it, through all the good and bad days and everything in between, I'm so glad she's a part of it.

Love you, to the moon & back, Naggy! ♥

Our son and his wife are settling in to married life well, they have their ups and downs as all couples do, but they are still together, still in love and happy. We don't see them as much these day, now that they are "all grown up" (lol), but when we do, we make the most of it. Josh, just left for Melbourne this morning, he will be gone for 3 weeks, working down there. His area manager put him forward for the job and he is the only one from country Victoria that is travelling down for it. It's going to be strange not having him around for those 3 weeks, it's probably going to be even stranger for Amanda, they haven't really been apart all that much since the wedding, and never for this amount of time. I think this will be a real test for them. Maybe it is a lead up for bigger and better things for Josh, he may be getting groomed to move up the ranks at work, which would be a great thing for him. He works his butt off and deserves the recognition. I'm so proud of him!

The Lovebirds! :) 

My husband has been my rock through it all and has been beside me every step of the way. I'm lucky he has some pretty broad shoulders to carry all the weight of the problems all the girls in his life seem to be having this year!

My Rock!

As well as having to deal with me and my health issues and our daughter with her mental health issues, my mother-in-law has also been going through a tough time. A month ago, her partner passed away and she has become very reliant on my husband for everything. She has never been alone before, she left home to move straight into her married home with my father-in-law, then when they divorced, she moved in with her partner and they had been together for 19 years. So it's a real wake up call to her, to find herself alone and having to do everything, after always having someone there.
This has lead to my husband getting numerous phone calls and visits with her, because she has no idea of how to do anything on her own and he has had to assist her with just about everything. It's a real strain for him, and it shows, he is trying to run his own business, make sure I'm ok, deal with our daughter's issues and also deal with his mother, it can't be easy for him at all. But he is the type of person that is always there when you need him, and for that, I am extremely thankful and find myself very blessed to have him in my life.

Next Tuesday (29/6) will be the 1st anniversary of mum's passing. I can't belive that a whole year is gone already. The days are easier to get through now, but I still have my moments where I miss her like crazy and I think I always will. She was my whole world and I have found it so hard learning to live without her, but I'm getting there.

I miss you...

Well I think that will do for now, there only so much I can write and if I don't stop now, I don't think I ever will.

'Til next time....

Spring Into Summer

Mother Nature has definitely been playing a strange game this past year.
We have just moved into Autumn (Fall) here in Australia, after a Summer that wasn't as "Summery" as expected. It was more Spring like.

Flowers were blooming when they shouldn't have been, new growth was sprouting on trees and babies were being born!

We were lucky enough to have a new family created in a Bottlebrush tree in our front yard and I was lucky enough to have a decent camera to document it all.

My husband called out to me one afternoon and asked me to bring the camera. What greeted me, once I got out there, was a nest with 3 eggs sitting in it, tucked neatly into the tree.

The adult birds were never far from the nest and kept watch from a distance whenever we were outside, but it seemed they trusted us, and we never touched them.

Investigation showed that the birds were Noisy Minahs - they definitely live up their names too!

For more information and to listen to how loud they can be, there is a great wikipedia article. 

We watched the nest every day. The older birds would come and play tag at sitting on the nest. About a week later, we were greeted with these:

Sadly, one of the babies didn't survive. We had a major thunderstorm and I think it was just too much for it. One of the eggs took longer to hatch than the others, and we're guessing that the one that passed away, was the "runt" of the litter.

As the days wore on, they got larger, and noisier!

Finally, about 3 weeks after they first hatched, they started to resemble the birds that they would become, full-feathered and ready to venture away from the nest

Finally, they decided it was time to move on and they left the nest. The empty nest is still sitting in the tree, waiting to see if we have another family move in, sometime in the near future.

Big Changes Ahead!

Things are definitely on the move with my life, and I'm glad to say, for the better :)
I'm in the process of finalising mum's affairs and getting her life belongings sorted out, the wedding has been and gone and was wonderful! Work is about to wind up for the year, and my 1st official pattern has finished the testing phase and I'm going to release it here today!

But the biggest, life changing event for me is - after 33 years, I have finally given up smoking! It has been 7 days since my last cigarette and the cravings haven't been anywhere near as bad as I thought they would be. I woke up last Thursday (19th Nov) and just decided that I was no longer going to smoke. So far, so good and I plan on doing whatever I can to remain smoke free! Time to get healthy!! :)

I still miss mum like crazy, I don't think that feeling will ever go away. It was such a bittersweet time at the wedding, knowing that she was there with us in spirit helped, but it would have been wonderful if she had of actually been able to share the day with us and experience it in all its glory.

The wedding was the most beautiful occassion I have had the pleasure to be a part of, and I'm not just saying that, because it was my son marrying the love of his life. It was a well organised, laid back event with people that mattered being there to enjoy the whole day.
The bridal party looked stunning and the groomsmen were nothing but perfect gentlemen!

The bridesmaids - 2nd from left, is my daughter, Ebony.

I love this photo! It captures such a sense of fun!

This would have to be my #1 favourite of all the photo's I have seen so far. These 2 are made for each other ♥

The garter was worn with pride on the day and was tossed at the end of the evening. The bride didn't want to let it go, but I promised her that I would make her a replacement for her keepsake box, and she was happy with that, so it got tossed :)

And now that the testing has been completed and I am happy with the way it has been written. Here's the link to the free pattern :)

UPDATE (24 February 2022) - The link to this pattern has been updated and it is now available as a free download on Ravelry.

Dainty Little Garter - PDF

If you have any issues with the Ravelry download, please let me know and I can supply an alternate link :) 

Enjoy!

My First Official Creation!

Since my last post about the passing of my mother, life has done a complete backflip on me and now we are in the process of planning a happy occassion.
On Saturday 15th November at 3:00pm, my first born and only son, is getting married!!!

It's an exciting time for all of us, but also a sad one, knowing that mum won't be able to be there and witness her grandson taking this huge step in his life.

I have been busy helping them out to put things together for the wedding. They decided they wanted to create their own invitations from scratch, so we went on the hunt for materials to make them.
They wanted a rustic theme, so we managed to find something that was suitable and this is what we came up with....

The front of the invitation - it's amazing what you can do with paper doilies, twine and hessian sheets.

The inside, with a pocket made from a paper doily for the RSVP card.

They also wanted to make their own place cards, so I designed some using Publisher that fit in with the invitations. Just some simple tent fold cards with a name tag placed on the front (sorry, no pic of those).

As well as that, the bride didn't have her "something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue" arranged. 

So I set to putting something together for her: 

• The something old & borrowed is going to be an antique marcasite watch that my mother was given by my father on their wedding day in 1965, which she passed on to me on my 30th birthday and I wore on my own wedding day.
  
• The something new & blue is a pattern of my own design, a garter
  

I hunted in all the usual places - Ravelry, Pinterest, blogs, Google search, and could come up with nothing that looked "right" for the day, so I got out my hook and some crochet thread that I had in my stash and set to work designing one.

I had to play around with it until I got it looking how I wanted. It's just a simple little pattern, but I love how it turned out and have actually decided that I am going to publish it and offer it on Ravelry :) 

I'm calling it - Dainty Little Garter.

This is the actual garter that I made for the bride (and she loves!)...

I'm in the process of adding a store front to my Ravelry and once it's done, this will be my first official pattern release!

Once it's set up and finalised, I will be including the pattern link on this blog, so stay tuned! 

Wish us luck for a smooth day with wonderful weather :) 

Goodbye - Is The Saddest Word

The past few months have been a real whirlwind of ups and downs. Some have been more than I felt I could cope with, but I've made it this far and each morning I wake to live another day.

On the 26th of September, I said goodbye to my best friend, my confidante, my inspiration......my mother. She passed away peacefully, after a long battle with dementia and other health issues. It was the saddest day of my life so far. Even though it has been expected all year, with late night phone calls from the nursing home telling me they think "this is it", to calls at work where I've had to drop everything and run, it was still a huge shock to all of our systems. I got the call that morning and she passed away a few hours later.
I believe to this day that she waited for me, because she took her final breath as I entered her room.

I miss her so much, every single day! My life feels like there is a void that needs to be filled, but nothing can replace that empty place, at least not in the way that it was filled before. I know over time the pain will lessen, but for now, it's still as raw as if it was yesterday.

Rest in peace, mum. 

A social butterfly, carried to Heaven, on angels wings.

 

I'm Still Alive....

It seems like it's been forever since I had a chance to actually sit and pay a visit here. With work, family and other things going on in the past few months, I feel like I haven't really even had time to stop and scratch myself.
Today I decided that enough was enough, and here I am!

In the past 4 months, I have officially become an 'empty nester'. My son and his  fiancée finally moved out on their own into mum's house at the end of April. They've settled in really well and are loving being out on their own and being independent. It's taken a lot of getting used to for me, I still have days where I go to talk to one of them, then remember they are not here.

On the upside, I can now put something down and not have to worry about not being able to find it again, my house is cleaner, I can watch what I want (much to hubby's dis-satisfaction) and I don't have to play taxi to anyone, seeing as they both now have their licence :)

My daughter is still out on her own, she had to move house, which was a big job, but we got it done and she has settled into her new home and is happy there, which is what counts.

Mum has had a few ups and downs, we had a pretty horrible few weeks where they thought that she wasn't going to make it. She had a bad episode in late April/early May where she aspirated into her lungs and they thought they were going to lose her, then again in late May, when she was battling a bad chest infection, but I'm glad to say that she is still with us and battling on like she always has. It's at the point now where she doesn't recognise anyone anymore, which is heart breaking and it's very rare that she even speaks to anyone, but just to have her here still, is enough.

With all the goings on, I decided to put my Mood Blanket project aside, so that has come to a standstill. I have a decent size batch of squares made, which I may re-purpose into another project, I'm not sure what yet, so they are stashed away until inspiration strikes.

I have managed to get a few other things off my hook though. With the cold weather we are experiencing now that it is Winter here, I have been busy making throws. The Red Heart Corner to Corner (C2C) has become my favourite and so far I have made 2, which I am really happy with.

These are photo's I took while I was working on them, I don't have photo's of them completed at this stage. It's too dark and dreary to capture the colours properly, so when the weather is nicer, I will probably take some :)

I have a thing for monochrome at the moment, so this one was born from that:

This gorgeous coloured yarn had been in my stash for a while and I needed to find something make from it, this is the result, which I love! I had 2 similar skeins in different types and they both worked  beautifully together is called Moda Vera Bouvardia in the colourway - Canyon Flight and the other is Moda Vera Noemi - Pink Mix.

As well as those, I've put together a couple of smaller projects, both of my own design.

One was a cover for my ottoman that sits near my crochet chair and has a lift up lid that of course hides some of my yarn stash :)

This is the view of the top:

 The side on view:

And this is what is hiding underneath lol:

Finally, I have finally managed to get my hands on some Red Heart Aran yarn. A chain store (Big W) here in Australia has finally started stocking some of it, not much, but enough to allow me to buy some to try.

I bought a couple of skeins of their purple and white and made myself a brick stitch throw (which you can see lurking on the back of my chair in the centre photo above)

It's just long enough to cover my feet and allow me to snuggle up under it if I want to, when it's really cold.....

 This is a close up of the stitch pattern and edging I used....

And the latest thing to come off my hook, which I just finished last night, is a cover for my Ipad. I had been wanting to make one for a while, for when I take it to work, etc with me, so I went to my stash and found some yarn that I thought would be perfect for the job.

I designed the cover myself, using a basic cover pattern where you make a chain as long as you need and then work up from that in the round until it is the length you want. I wanted a flap on mine, so I could close it, so I set about designing one that I would like and allow me to attach some buttons (which I also had in my stash). And then I went on the search for an applique, which I found in my stash from a Maggie Weldon pattern.

This is the end result of what I came up with and I have to say that I am really happy with the results :) 

My next project is finding a pattern for a rug out of t-shirt yarn for in front of my kitchen sink. If I can't find one that I like, I may just have to create one of my own.

I'm still working, teaching IT 2 days a week and am studying as well, so on top of everything else, there isn't much time left for anything that I really want to do.

Until next time....

Back In The Swing Of Things...

I know that I said that I was going to try and update this on a regular basis, but time has just gotten away from me lately. Today I finally have some time to sit and actually spend more than 2.3 nanoseconds here, so I thought I would pay a visit while I had the chance!

I'm still plodding away with the Mood Blanket Challenge, I'm about a week's worth of squares behind, but I'm catching up. The hotter weather has finally started to disappear, it's still quite warm here, but nowhere near the 40°c+ days that we were having.

I've had yet another change of mind with the Mood Blanket squares and have decided that it was just going to be too plain for my liking. So I hunted through my stash and found a book with a variety of really nice square patterns, so I have been slowly working my way through, pattern by pattern and am going to incorporate these in amongst the "plainer" blocks.

The book I am using is called "50 Fabulous Crochet Squares" by Leisure Arts. There are some gorgeous patterns in this book and I plan on making all 50 of them :)

Here's just a small sample of them, from the book cover...

This is where I'm at for now with my squares (sorry for the picture quality, it was taken in a rush), you can see the squares from the book that I have made so far...

I still have some catching up to do with the "charity afghan" square - 3 each of the pink, light green and dark green, then I plan on getting back into the book and making some more of those gorgeous motif squares.

I'm still working these squares with the Bendigo Woolen Mills 4 ply cotton and am only just starting to make a dent in the skeins. They are 200g in weight, so I think that I am going to have plenty to see me through this project, and if not, I'll just have to pay another visit there to get more! ;)

In my last post, I mentioned that I was running behind on making my sister's birthday presents. I ended up just making her an owl (sorry I forgot to take a photo)in 4 ply cotton and bought her a cute little word art plaque that was all about sisters. She loved them to bits and they only arrived a day late. I'm saving the scarf to make in the cooler weather and will send it to her as a "just because" gift when it's closer to the time that she will actually need it and can wear it :) 

As well as catching up on the squares and my sister's gift, I took part in an amigurumi swap with another lady from one of the Facebook groups I'm in. I ended up making her an owl from Moji Moji's Rainbow Nesting Owls pattern (surprise, surprise! LOL) and a little kitty from Little Muggles - Violet The Kitty and she was very pleased with them. I didn't take a photo before I sent them, because I wanted to get them in the post quickly, but she did share a photo when she received them...

The lady had requested pinks and purples as her preferred colours, and this is all that I had in my stash at the time. I was quite happy with how they turned out. Although I didn't have any pellets to weight the bottoms so they don't quite sit as well as I would have liked. But the main thing is, she liked them :) 

In return, this same lady sent me an ami, it was the first one she has made and I think for a "1st timer" she did an excellent job. Of course, she knows me well enough to make me an owl!

The picture above is of the owl she made me and she said that it was from the Soren the Barn Owl pattern. I love it!!! :) 

I can't believe that we are already nearly 2 months into the new year! Time seems to go past so quickly these days!!

Anyway, looks like my time here for today is up, so I better get back to doing what needs to be done around here and hopefully the updates will be a little more frequent from now on :) 

Oh...and before I forget....