Motifs and Meditation

You may already know that to counter my tendency towards impatience whilst sitting in traffic (and man has it been bad the past couple of weeks!) I crochet.  And so over the past 3 weeks my 'driving' time has resulted in 42 motifs which I've put together to make an afghan/blanket, I quite like the result, I'm calling it Flower Garden

I have mentioned before that my sister is an Ayurvedic practitioner and teacher.  Yesterday she encouraged me to go to a workshop with her to see a lady called Mother Maya.  And so yesterday morning saw me at a kind of commune in the North Shore of Auckland, in a room full of floor cushions with a load of people dressed like they should be in India, (picture the Beetles in their hippy stage with their guru and you wouldn't be too far off)

To say that I haven't had much success with my brief flirtation with meditation before might be a slight understatement (I tend to shuffle, jiggle, giggle, fall asleep or go deep into a fantasy world). And yet yesterday morning I not only meditated for 40 minutes, I enjoyed it and found it really peace-invoking (not sure if that's a real word!) Did the day change my life? Time will tell.  It certainly gave me another technique for inner harmony whilst in the traffic though :-)   

Craft and Sewing Show

Had a great morning at the Craft and Sewing Show at Greenlane this morning.

There was lots to see and I also went to a class and got to play with the hot glue gun (always a sucker for a reason to get the hot glue gun out!) 

 

Not sure what her name is yet

 

 

I also saw a fantastic display of freeform crochet which kind of put mine to shame and gave me inspiration all at the same time, especially since the people who were displayed were fellow team mates doing the freeform crochet-a-long on Ravelry

Talking of which - it's been a big learning week, I've almost mastered a crocheted bullion stitch, done loopy beaded stuff, tried a version of irish crochet, done crochet embroidery and also messed about with different lacy things.  Phew!

Sewing Stuff

This past weekend we were in Wellington and had the chance to go Unveiled, an exhibition at the national museum Te Papa. 
It covered 200 years of wedding fashion from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (fab!).

 

As I looked in awe at the hand made lace and dresses of the 1800's I thought it might be about time I shared my first adventure into the skirt making dream I had not long ago.

Lets just say, I learned a lot; including such gems as the difference between bias tape and piping, that I need to measure before I start cutting, and stretchy cotton is pretty stretchy to sew, even though it might not feel like it, oh and it looks way better off than on....

All in all a really good learning curve :-)

Flowers & Scrumbles

This morning I was packing my bag for a weekend of wedding meriment in Wellington after a brief stop off for work in Napier.  Once I'd decided on the wedding outfit (I'm still unsure..) next was deciding how much yarn to take and which project to work on for the weekend.  I also added an extra ball of purple acrylic to make flowers. 

Over the past year, whenever I've been on a plane or in the departure lounge I sit and crochet flowers and give them to my fellow passengers.   As I picked the yarn I thought I'd share this wee thing I do because I really get a kick out of the smiles I see when I give them away, it feels good :-D

HerHook's influence is all over this

except it's like we're yarn bombing people instead of things!  

The freeform crochet is coming along -  I have found that it looks better on certain days. It's in 3 bits (called scrumbles) at the moment. We get to join them later on, or, when we feel like it.  This is the biggest bit/scrumble on a good day. 

Adding a piece of cloth and learning how to crochet around it, and adding something that wasn't anything to do with crocheting or sewing  has been the highlight so far, even though it meant lots of needle holes in my fingers.  

Freeform & Truffles

One of the ladies I met last week with work told me this recipe for Oreo Truffles.

Very easy to make, they taste fabulous, though they do look a little like bits of, (the boys in the household think cats poo in particular) anyway you can decide....

The instructions:

3 packets of oreos, 250 grams of cream cheese,  bizz it altogether and then blob it on sheets of baking paper, top with melted chocolate and a sprinkle of cocoa.  

March is National Crochet Month in the USA, and the peeps on Ravelry have decided that this year it's going International.  So I've joined the freeform crochet along, we get instructions to add on to the piece each day, this is it at day 3...