aaaah - cuppa tea

Hello coldness - bit of a shock after being in the Equator last week at a primo 35 degrees!!

Just as well though as it's prime time for a cuppa. Have you seen these cool things ... Tea Rose Queen ... it's a tiny flower bomb that spreads out with the hot water...



I got it from a tea shop in Elliot Stables called aah! - a great place for lunch (we had tapas and sherry at El Faro but there are some great french/italian spots too).

Would look great in a glass teapot ... I had to resist the temptation to buy one! Tastes good too - an earthy, green tea with no fancy pants leaf added. They can be reused up to 5 times although they do look a bit manky after the first replay!!

A splendid weekend indeed

The weekend started with coffee, breakfast muffins and fresh guava jam from Kerikeri. Steadily, all plans of concreting, log splitting and window painting were put to the side and crafting took hold! Hooray!

A much delayed birthday pressie for Lara was finally completed - my first feather and fan stitch in a linen/cotton mixed yarn. I found a sweet wooden pin for it in Wild and Woolly.

I'm re-vamping my Baby Beanies on Toggle so got down and churned out a few aubergines and blueberries. I've got some new photos done too and need to sit down for some photoshopping work - babies are hard work to shoot!

Another project finished up was the green beret from She Knits in Cleakheaton Studio Mohair. My band was pretty loose so I threaded some skinny elastic through - all good now. Trying to take photos of a beret is impossible - all the pattern is on the back - but I think from this selection of over-exposed shoots you should get a feeling for it!!

A final project was making some hot water bottle covers out of an old semi-felted jersey. I got 3 covers out of 1 adult jersey. mmm toasty feet!

Another work trip coming up this week to Malaysia - I've never been there and am very excited at the prospect of Malaysian curries and warm weather!

Keep on clicking folks ...

The Wool Company

New Zealand really is quite a land of knitters. I'm amazed when going through small towns just how many have yarn shops. I should start listing them ...

For me, another weekend, another wedding in Palmerston North and another trip past Utiku's yarn shop - The Wool Company.


Just a few hanks for me - this 8ply in KHAKI - and I'm thinking of something similar to this Cleckheaton pattern.


And I don't normally like this sort of multicolour (in OASIS) but it kept appealing to come home with me. Maybe I'll do a little cropped cardi ...

Jeez, I didn't really need anymore yarn now that I think about it - my last post about "stash-busting" and here I am "stash-enhancing"!!!

Mia in Yellow

This is a little project I finished recently for a new niece - Mia. It was created in the spirit of de-stashing and doing a little designing.

The idea was for a tunic dress that the little babe could wear and as she grows it becomes a top. The armholes had to be quite wide for that idea and while initally I wanted to do little puffy cap sleeves I ended up keeping them flat and wide.

I'm not so happy with the neck line - without the model I couldn't figure out how big to make the neck and just ended up casting off loads of stitches. It still looked too small so I didn't add a moss stitch neckband as originally planned. I had thought of adding a big ribbon around the middle to pull it in and make the top half more of a bodice.

Knitting on 5mm, I doubled up some old 8ply yarn which is really soft (I think it had some acrylic in it) in a nice mellow yellow - not loud canary yellow. A couple of crochet buttons here and there and it's lookin' pretty. A good project to save some space in those stash containers.

A de-stash was needed as TTP, Davina and Fresh Tea's little button came to stay this week and of course that meant several LYS trips and more yarn purchasing! While I don't think they got the warmer weather they were expecting we had loads of fun with trips to the beach, Kelly Tarltons and LYS! It was fun having little Ella stay - kidshave that back-to-basics approach to life - live in and enjoy the moment.

Right I'm off to find purple nail polish for a wedding this weekend - have a nice one!