I really should be focusing on finishing my cross stitch project no. 128 (shown in my previous post), but when browsing the web yesterday I came across a simple sock pattern on Andrea Wong's blog (www.andreawongknits.com then follow the link to the blog at the bottom of the page). Seeing as I've been meaning to try knitting socks for some time now, I decides that this was as good a time as any. While in Australia I bought Patons Big Baby 4ply yarn (60% acrylic, 40% nylon 100g/420m) in this variegated color (picture above) which according to the label is Color 3910 dye lot 763786. It's really thin yarn and even though the label says to use 3.25mm needles I don't have any double pointed needles in that size, so I decided to go for 2mm needles instead. I'm still on the ribbing, but I've decided to only do 3 inches of ribbing as I prefer short socks, but if these work out fine, I might just make another pair where the leg part is longer all the way up to my knees. Anyway, the photo below shows the ribbing at about 1.75 inches which is where I got to yesterday. During my lunch hours I managed to add another inch or so of knitting in between beeing interrupted every now and then. So tonight I'm going to finish the ribbing part and carry on with the pattern. Will show updates shortly.
These two little cats will eventually find their way to Australia, but first I need to make their little clothes and finish all the other things that I promised to make and send. I've basically got just the cross stitching things to finish, the knitting part is all done. These two took about a day each to knit up, and another day to sew together. I just finished them yesterday, as you can see they're not quite identical, because I used several different knitting techniques and sewing techniques. I hope the little boys I made them for will like them though.
These darling puppies of mine are also my co-workers, as in they're at the office with me all day long. Rusty (the small hairy one) is usually the only one that sleeps on my desk, but Dakota (the black one) decided last week that she also wanted to sleep on the desk, and so i had to put a blanket on my desk and here you have both of them half sleeping. Actually Rusty even helps me move the mouse around and on ocassion even helps me typing, although it's not really typing, he just decides he wants attention so he sits on my keyboard. Luckily he's not done any damage to anything i've been doing. And my desk is also large enough to house both dogs, my PC and my work, so they dont bother me too much. I love having them there with me and it gives me an excuse to go outside and take them for a walk, otherwise i'd spend all my time cooped up inside. This way i get some fresh air every two hours and I get away from my computer which is always good also.
My friend in South Africa had her 1st baby, a little boy, last November and I made him a whole bunch of little gift, which I still need to send, but what with all the holidays I haven't gotten around to it, also the mail here is extremely slow due to all the gift people send over Christmas, so to be on the safe side I'm waiting till next week to send her everything. I hope she likes. I sure loved making these little gifts.
So here are the other gifts I made. I think I showed progress photos of these while I was in Australia as that's where i stitched them all. I just finished them off when I came to Portugal because that's where i'd left my ribbon and stuffing. The little tins I bought in Australia at Lincraft (really fantastic hobby shop, wish we had something like that here in Portugal). So here you can see the front and backs of each item. The top one I made for my gran, the middle one I made for my aunt and the bottom one on the right i made for my mum as her star sign is a ram and she loves sheep, so i thought it very fitting. Actually the tin is really appropriate for my gran, as she actually has one of the original Singer sewing machines depicted on the tin. She got it when she was 12 years old and went into apprenticeship as a seamstress. It still works and it's well over 60 years old. I'm definitely keeping it, or my mum is anyway. I love working on that one as you have to peddle to get it to work, seeing as i'm still a novice at a sewing machine (my mum usually does all that for me), this one is great because i can decide the speed I'm going to go at.
First of all let me start by wishing everyone a very Happy New Year. These are the knitted gifts I gave away at Christmas in 2009. The first picture shows a Cuddle Bunny which is a freebie from Lincraft Australia, the yarn I used is something I had in my stash and that I'd bought years ago in Holland, it's really cuddly and soft. I've actually made this one twice. This one in blue and then one in a dark purple which I made for a baptism. The second photo shows the finished Best Friend kit I'd bought in Australia (i showed the progress in a previous post), and this is the finished and sewn together item. I made this one for myself but my mum liked it so much that I'll be making one for her as well. The only thing I have to do still to make it 100% complete is make the clothes, but I'll be doing that with the help of my mum and gran when I've finished the two cats I'm currently making which will then be shipped back to Australia for the little boys of the friend I stayed with as they begged me to make them for them while I was there. The two Christmas Stockings were Kits I bought at K-mart Australia and they're by Palette Collection. They were both really simple to make and I managed to complete them in a day each. These I gave to my two close work colleagues here in Portugal as we always exchange presents at Christmas time. I got a lovely necklace and some scented candles on a little plate, which I've already used and they smell really nice.
The little heart to the bottom was just a pattern I found on the internet (mochimochiland) and I had to try it out. Since then I've already made one using double pointed needles to create a seemless heart and that worked out really well, so I'll be creating a whole lot more over the next year.
These are just some of the t-shirts I ended up buying for friends and family. The shirts to the top were bought for 3 little boys all of whom were born this year more or less 4 months apart. I bought bigger sizes though, so they can have a lot of wear out of them while they grow into them.
The shirts in the picture below were bought for my cousins and the one in the middle for my dad as he collects beer things, and this one has the logo of Heineken Beer, but of course has a whole of lot of Australian things mentioned on it.
On one of my last days in Melbourne, I came across The Cupcake Family and I had to buy these mini cupcakes to take back home to share with my friend. I swear Melbourne at least is cupcake mad, as everywhere I went there were shops selling cupcakes, or recipe books or even whole kits with all the necessities to make them. I might have to ask my friend to send me the desk calendar with the cupcakes as they have a recipe a day.
These little ones in the picture were chocolate and vanilla and they were delicious.
So it's been a while since last I wrote and with good reason too.
My last weekend in Australia was spent with my friend in Sydney. We caught the 8am flight from Melbourne on the 27th of November and landed around 10ish in Sydney after which we made our way to our hotel via train and then walked the rest of the way. We managed to check in to our room at the Darling Harbour Holiday Inn. We went to our room and changed clothes as we'd left a wet Melbourne behind to arrive to a very hot Sydney and then left to explore the Darling Harbour area. By 17.00 we were so tired, having gotten up at 5am that morning, and then walking around the Sydney heat that we decided to head back to the hotel, but not before getting some food for dinner. We ate in our hotel room and we had an early night. The following morning we got up at a reasonable hour, had breakfast and went off towards Darlinghurst, Paddington and King Cross. We had planned on taking a bus there, but our tickets weren't good for the buses going in that direction so we walked the whole way. By noonish we were pretty much done with the whole area and headed towards the Royal Botanic Garden where we came across a pub/bar with my name Raquel on it, but we didn't go in as we had lots more to see and we'd just had our rest.
We walked through the Royal Botanic Gardens towards Mrs. MacQuarie's Seat which is this place carved out of the rocks where the Mayor's wife used to spend her days watching the boats coming in to dock at the wharf. After having a look around there we walked along the waterfront towards the Sydney Opera House which is magnificent. As we got there it started to rain a bit, but we didn't mind in the least as it cooled us down slightly (it was over 35C that day). We had a good look around the Opera House before heading along Writer's Walk towards the wharf where we caught a ferry back to the hotel at the end of the day.
Our third and final day in Sydney we took the ferry back to the wharf close to the Sydney Opera House and from there we headed to The Rocks, and area on the other side of the Harbour Bridge which we'd not had the opportunity to explore the previous day. When we were done walking around there we took another ferry to Taronga Zoo with the intention of going in, but the entrance fee scared us off and we went on a Nature walk instead, but we only walked half of it, because by this time our legs were pretty tired of having walked the whole weekend. Finally we headed back towards the hotel catching a bus after doing some souvenir shopping where we spent about and hour or so relaxing with our free drinks before heading back to the station to head to the airport and back to Melbourne.
