A Flower Necklace

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas with their friends and family.

Yesterday I wore my orange frock and needed just a little something to joosh it up a bit. So of course out came the crochet hook, some embroidery thread and a button and voila :-)

An Iconic Kiwi Christmas Tree

The Pohutakawas are all out and blossoming around Auckland. 

They seem extra red this year and there are dozens lining the roads

These pics are from one in the front garden

And in crocheting news, a couple of starfish wash-cloths from a retro pattern. 

I'm celebrating my pattern reading prowess :-)

 

Retro Crocheting

Found this fabulous collection of crochet books from the 60's and 70's in a shop in Paeroa when we were on the way home from Tauranga earlier today. 

Can't wait to try and read some of the patterns so I can recreate a little piece of retro crochet :-)

On a similar vein, it seems that Loo Roll Cover Dolls are finally making a come back, I've sold 3 in the past 3 weeks.  That's as many as I've sold over the past 2 years altogether!

Holidaying in the South

We had a week in the South Island last week. Amazing!

NZ Fur Seal on Farewell Spit

We went to the southern most point of the New Zealand and the northern most point of the South Island. 
We saw the cleanest water spring in the whole world bubbling from the deepest spring in Australasia, the deepest lake and the longest suspension bridge in New Zealand, a 140 billion year old petrified forest and a beach of gem stones.  
We drove on one of the largest sand-spits in the world, where we saw fur seals, whales and birds from Siberia.

Purakaunui Falls in The Catlins

The most photographed Waterfalls in NZ

Seeing such amazing things is a great reminder that New Zealand is a beautiful country of amazing contrasts

Snowmen for Summer

Childhood in the northern hemisphere means that even 25 years after moving south, Christmas still conjures up images of snow scenes.  

I can't share with you the Christmas pressies I'm making for my friends because some of them read this blog and I'd hate to ruin the surprise. So I thought I'd share the amigurumi snowmen I've made for my co-workers.

I'm fairly happy with the result. As usual, no pattern means they are all different, and I was a little miffed when I realised I had to do the sewing bit (I always end up with more holes in my fingers than in whatever I'm sewing!)

I'm pretty impressed with how organised I am this year with Christmas presents. How are you going?

A visit to the Art Gallery

Auckland Art gallery recently had a refurb with a new bit added.   It's a very cool airy open space, loads to see and even better it's free! :-D

 The flower chandelier, the flowers open and close, it's enormous, I loved it, bit too big to have at home though!

 A room with mirrors and stripes, it gives a feeling of infinity.  

A Belgium artist made it in the 70's.  It was really interesting, though it did give me a bit of a headache and vertigo

I think the same artist that made the chandelier did this one.  

It's at the entrance of the art gallery, this photo is from above

A Long Weekend

Long weekends are worth going to work for.  Love them!

The spectacles case c'est finis (practising my French for the rugby later tonight)

 

Other things on the crochet front: well I woke up this morning thinking about Christmas Presents and then I started to get flustered.  So it's time to write a list and think about what I can make this year, a little worried that I can't top the slippers from last year, I have a couple of ideas, just not sure how to make them :-D

And being inspired by the beautiful flower pictures that T@Poppy Place takes I thought I'd share a picture of the orchids that we bought in Pukekohe the other day (at $3 a stem - a real bargain!)

What ever you're doing for the Rugby World Cup Final tonight, enjoy it.  And yes it would be nice if the All Blacks won :-)

Growing Stuff

Spent some time this week in Tauranga and Taupo.  That boat makes me so angry I can't talk about it.  And I lost my $10 bet on the RWC so i can't talk about that either (serves me right for trying to be loyal to my roots :-D) 

And so lets concentrate on the positive stuff:

What a gorgeous spring day!  I went for a wander round the garden and I spied tomatoes growing, and the sweetpeas are going well too.

Growing on the crochet hook is an experiment in beads and cotton.  I'm aiming for a spectacles case....

And exciting holiday news, we're having a week away in November, and we're off to Nelson, Invercargill, and the Catlins using some of the airpoints I won last year.   And since Andrew is quite anal (oops) a detailed gentleman we're even writing an itinerary!

Out and About

A couple of weeks ago we popped up to Matakana for a weekend.  It has a pretty good Saturday farmers market and just out of town there is a craft market too.

It's been a few years since I was at Matakana and it's moved from sleepy country village on the way to the beach at Omaha to popping visitor destination.

 St Andrews church by the craft market. Reminded me we live on a Pacific Island

 I'm a sucker for a tree tunnel

Brisk winter walk along the beach at Orewa

An amusing crocheting interlude

Auckland has those pesky motorway on ramp lights that are turned on in peak times and allow one car per green light through. My 25 minute commute to work would be 15 if it weren’t for these traffic lights.

Each night for 10mins I whip out the crochet, turn up the radio and inch along in traffic fairly happily.

Last night on my way home, the man in the ute next to me was having a great time laughing away. Then he beeped his horn and started gesturing to me and to the car in front of him.

This was kind of weird – us Aucklanders tend to sit eyes front in traffic and pretend there is no one else around. Good grief – what if we made eye contact and had to acknowledge each other?!

On a whim I threw away acceptable sitting in traffic ettiqutte, I rolled down my window and asked what was going on – he pointed at my crochet and at the sticker on the car in front of him and totally cracked up.

I inched forward, craned my neck and read the sticker. 
It read: “Stay Alive – Don’t knit and drive”

Teeth Itching Finger Clenching Creativity

Sometimes I feel like I have amazing creative things just busting to get out, it makes my teeth itch and my fingers clench.  Lately I felt the need to have a change of pace with my crocheting, I wanted to be more creative... I've started several things (as usual).

These are the most successful of the experiments.... not quite ready for WOW (World of Wearable Arts) but maybe a step closer :-)

Purses...

Cup Cake Door Stop.....

Crochet for the home....

...... and it's not even kitsch (well, much anyway)!

I'm a bit of a hoarder and keep any bit of yarn that is more than 30cm long. I started this blanket a month or so ago (this was the 4th attempt) and it's made up of all of my remnants.  

My nephew says it's "gangsta" which made me worry about being kidnapped by gunpoint whilst I was napping on the couch.  Or maybe it's like Arthur Dents towel and instead of being full of nutrients it has different drugs in it (not sure I want to risk sucking on it though!)  It's a kind of log cabin pattern that I made up as I went. Pretty 'gangsta' eh? :-)

We are renting quite a new house, which is something very different to what we've lived in before.  It's very warm for one!  And it's a little lacking in character, especially the kitchen which has all those lovely clean sterile lines with quite a bit of stainless steel.  So I crocheted some nice bright cotton dishcloths (yep they're almost granny squares I couldn't help it....).

They're working out really well, some soy cotton and some cotton cotton.  Apparently they last for ages too :-)

A cold blast and a winner!

Winter has hit in full force this week with the South Island covered in snow, and hail and snow storms even further north than Auckland! It's so cool to see the pictures in the news of expressions on faces who have never seen snow falling before :-)

Looking at the blue sky Miss Jack and Mr Ber ignored all weather forecasts and headed out to the Manurewa Botanical Gardens on Sunday for a walk.  We had 3 mins of sun before the heavens opened.

Aww cute baby ducks

Congratulations to MJ who has won the give-away of slouchy fingerless mitts.  I did the random number pick on internet and the first winner was Anonymous - which I know was my sister and I already gave her a pair of fingerless mitts the other day, so I did a redraw :-D

Ultimate in Kitsch?

A toilet roll doll that is dressed in granny squares, popped in the Etsy shop this morning.

My need for kitsch ness this week has almost been sated. 

Next.... finish my macramé

Felt like a bit of Kitsch

At the beginning of the week I read a fab tutorial on how to do macrame, (thanks Mel) so that has set me up for a kitschy week.  I'm about to attempt a granny square loo roll cover doll.

In the meantime this is a collection of Kitsch I found when I did a search on Felt.  We just need a couple of pink flamingo garden ornaments to really round it off  :-)

alxmackenzie

$45.00

greyststudio

$110.00

reallyreally

$20.00

nicoladawn

$16.00

oddoneout

$48.00

reallyreally

$8.00

It's a Giveaway

I experimented making these slouchy fingerless mitts yesterday and they remind me of the slouchy sock fashion in the 80's. They made my legs look really short and really didn't suit me and yet I wore them religiously.

I've been wanting to do a give-away for a while, so be in to win these slouchy fingerless mitts, they are crocheted from a viscose blend yarn. Kind of light and yet still warm.

 

Leave a comment sharing your favourite fashion faux pas before 11th August and be in to win.

Poncho and Gloves

This is what I've been up to lately. 

Lots of lovely yarn from Skeinz

I even managed to kind of follow a pattern :-)

 

 

 Gloves made for friends, I've even attempted a kids pair, so we'll see how they fit... 

Laid out like this they look like hearts (awww)

Now I'm in a bit of a crochet stasis, waiting for the next wave of inspiration

A Green Scene

A green scene for a lovely weekend :-)

Fab new boots bought on a trip to Tauranga, 

Beautiful bag bought in Italy as a present from my parents, (a pretty close match)

Spike my dwarf cabbage tree, liking his new home

 A great dew this morning. I hadn't washed my face in dew for a while, it felt great!

New poncho with gorgeous greens is coming along well 

Flower Power

A new addition for the Felt Shop

Flower Power head bands for grown ups

They make pretty cool necklaces too :-)

High Tea with Crochet

A couple of weekends ago we got poshed up and went to the Langham Hotel in Auckland for High Tea.

It was yum!

At the table next to us one young lady was showing the other how to crochet.  It was all I could do to not dump my friends and go and sit with them! I held back until the end and then we had a quick chat about the fab stuff you could make :-)

This is my favourite thing I've made this week: 

 
I was going to tell you about the new thing I'm making however I have a tendency not to finish everything I start and I'm not really sure if it'll work at this stage so I won't tell too much.

Felt like Crochet (as usual!)

I'm working away from home this week and can't upload photos to show you what I've been making, so in the mean time enjoy these fabulous crochet items from Felt :-)

crochetnz

$28.00

ruffle

$25.00

paisleyjade

$10.00

eejaydesign

$20.00

poppynbee

$54.00

alxmackenzie

$40.00