my, errr umm, her creative space...

Lily overheard Andy and I talking to some friends about homeschooling one evening over dinner. Obviously the concept quite took her fancy; this is after all, the girl who has no interest whatsoever in going to kindy (unless it's with Tully). She asked lots of questions about homeschooling and decided it was for her. So now most days I'm greeted with the question, "What activities can we do in homeschool today?" It's a game I'm more than happy to oblige with and we've been having a load of fun.

Here she is on her first day at homeschool. What you can't see is her little red kilt, she chose to dress in her "school girl" outfit for the occasion.  It was a very industrious session indeed involving lots of writing, shapes, drawing and cutting and pasting.  Cutting and pasting is a favourite at homeschool.

And for her homeschool I couldn't resist these gorgeous metal pencil containers from Smiggle. I've been wanting some of this type of thing for ages and was very excited to find them in Smiggle. I heart Smiggle.
for more creative spaces hop on over to kootoyoo

I promise to do a grown up creative space next time :)

the essentials of a good baby carrier?

One that can hold an unwinding cake of yarn, of course!!

I've been knitting a lot with Toby in the stretchy wrap but the trailing ball of yarn was always a bit of an issue. How incredibly happy was I when I discovered that the hood of the ergo doubles as a very handy ball holder and the yarn unwinds very easily from it. Excellent!  My knitting has just become even more portable.. hehehehe
As for the little baby, he has developed more than a passing fascination with the wool winder. If he's any where near it he tries to grab it and play with the handle crank, which is all very cute ... just as long as there's no yarn on it or I'm actually trying to wind a cake of yarn.  

I've even discovered that if he's unsettled watching yarn being balled is strangely calming for him.  I wonder if it has anything to do with me knitting in labour ....

fruits of the season

two contrasting images from the garden...

signalling the changing of the seasons as autumn drifts into winter

The last of the tomatoes.

These have served us well this summer and have provided endless fodder for Lily who picked and ate nearly every tomato that ripened straight from the bush. She does like tomatoes. The one or two that I did get to sample were delicious.

Once the stems start to whither and die back you know the yield is nearly over.

and this is incredibly exciting for us, our first lemon yield!

We live close to the beach and it is notoriously difficult to grow lemons here apparently, everyone has told me it takes a few years for the lemon trees to establish themselves and fruit. We've had fruit from all our other trees; apples, peaches, nectarines and olives. But never lemons, not in the six years the trees have been in.  

This year our little lemon tree is positively sagging with lemons, how awesomely fabulous!!! No more bought lemons for us!  

Everyone should have a lemon tree in their garden.

The last of the leaves are dropping from our other fruit trees, and Andy picked the last of the apples a few days ago.  

my creative space

This knitting business has been occupying a fair bit of my creative space this week, test knitting for milo, churning out some little vests. I love this denim colour in the lusciously soft Pear Tree merino.

And there has been a little bit of sewing going on, I've raided this special pile of stash for our upcoming stocking, 'Local Love'. So far it's looking something like this, as I grab little snippets of stolen time in the sewing room, a couple of pockets here, some topstitching there, inseams here ..... you get the idea.And this is what's next on my list. I scored this cute little book in an op shop. Lily has picked out plenty of things for me to make, mostly a wardrobe of clothing for her dolls. It has some great little patterns for some Steiner styled dolls. And when I've finished everything for the stocking, I'm allowed to start on the pattern which came from Kelani (see sidebar for link) It's sooooo cute, I've picked the fabrics and we're going for pinks and greens for Lily.


jump on over to kootoyoo for some more creative spaces, add yours even!!

six months already ... where the heck did that go?

I can hardly believe that this little smiley dude is six months old today!!!! Man, it's gone fast. I was discussing this with a friend the other day, with your first baby, the first six to twelve months seem to go quite slowly but second time around; bam! I think it's because you're so aware of those milestones with the first one and when they meet them; whereas with the second one you just accept that they happen.

I was woken early this morning, actually about the same time I woke six months ago with the realisation that I was in labour with contractions less than five minutes apart, by an insistent little man who was ready to be awake. This is very unusual for him, I fed him in an attempt to get him to sleep but no joy, so I gave him a taggy blanket to play with. He proceeded to take great delight in rubbing it all over my face, and squeal in utter delight! I gave in and enjoyed the moment :D

Toby has been a terrific baby thus far *touch wood* An absolute joy; happy, content and very entertaining. He's a cute little dude with his expressive eyebrows, they're a family trait from my husband's side. They're quite distinct for a bub, I think all the grandies in the family have them except for Lily. They almost look like they're constantly raised in surprise. So what did he think about reaching his half birthday?

erggh Mum, non plussed really.
So what are his tricks? He can sit as you can see, say Daddy, hello, Lily and num num which is me or my boobs, not quite sure which. He can grin like a banshee (whatever that means), squeal, giggle and loves to interact with other people; he often tries to get a smile out of strangers, he's very friendly. He's on the move when he wants something, a sort of commando crawl thing, and in the past week he's mastered the bum shuffle. No teeth as yet, but there's one that's just about to break through the gum line.
And how cute is this. The adorable big sister who absolutely dotes on her little brother. She's a treasure!

boys and their toys

Andy has been in New Zealand filming so we took the opportunity to pay a little visit to the Pint household. We had our usual lovely time chatting, drinking chai, shopping, watching the kiddies play, refereeing kiddy spats and talking crafty stuff.  

This little series of photos are my favourite from our visit.  I love the way Asher uses the rug as his road and I love the way these two little guys are down on the floor together doing boy stuff.

Too bloody cute!!!

creative space

ahh, the joys of winter, well, almost winter.  

Here's my creative space for today, and probably a good part of the next few wintery months ahead.  Redgum fire in the combustion stove (low low emissions), test knits at hand along with a block of lovely fair trade dark chocolate and some sweet organic chai in my favourite cup, which I just noticed has been decorated with a sticker by the sticker fairy. hmm.  

I'm sipping my new favourite tea today, I've drank chai for years but my new love is this Tulsi Red Chai Masala; absolutely divine.  And even better, it's caffeine free. Big winner in my books, I don't do caffeine well.

I'm knitting with some gorgeous WOOLganics yarn ( the darker pink) a test knit for a new pattern that is transforming with some help from the Rainbow child's imput, and some old stash yarn which is being transformed into the smallest rainbow dress I've ever knit; for Aurora a Barbie sized doll. I'm knitting it on a nine inch circular needle(23cm) which is the tiniest circular I've even seen!

See my little notebook there, it's where I jot down all my scribbles for my pattern developments.  I like to use a nice notebook.  When Toby started moving around I found him eating a page out of it one day, very handy indeed. It's been lying on the floor all day today and tonight when I went to pick it up I found a special little gift in there, a bit of baby milky chuck, a nice little posset.  How special.

What you can't see in this shot is the dollies surrounding my space as I knit, play with bubs and play Barbies all at the same time. Today I was Belle, I like Belle apparently, she's my favourite because she wears a yellow dress apparently.  

You may also be able to just spy the mandatory clothes horse that maintains its place beside the fire all winter long.

for more crafty lovin' check out some other creative gaffs over at kootoyoo

milo

you might, just maybe, if you were paying attention, remember a little while ago I previewed a sneak peak of milo, my new pattern. At that stage all you could see was a wee bit of the cable and some garter stitch. Well, I finished milo a while ago, quite some time ago actually. It took me a little while to get around to blocking it, and then a little to get around to trying it on Toby.

To be honest, at first I didn't know whether I liked it or not, I wasn't quite sure whether it was exactly as I had planned. So I let it sit.  Silly really because as soon as I tried it on Toby I realised it WAS exactly what I had planned and I loved it.  

It's a seamless knit, knit from the top down.  I like this construction technique as you can try on as you go.  It's a great technique for kiddies jumpers  too, as you can easily unpick and add a bit extra length to the body and sleeves and thus get a few years out of your garment.  I digress ...

Toby has worn this with a little white shirt for that fancy dressed up for a wedding look as well as long sleeved tshirts for a rancho relaxo feel. It worked equally good either way.

This little sucker is in testing phase and shall be released soonish.  I'm going all schmancy this time around and publishing it as a download.  schmicko.
I should mention the yarn, it's all about the yarn of course.  This is an Australian organic 8 ply in one of my fav colourways, 'Brassica'  from  one of my favourite dyers, the yarn cafe. It has a lovely handspun feel to it with a residual lanolin.  I don't think it's available anymore, but Elissa has some other even more sensational yarns there; try to resist the pear tree, go on I dare you!!!

Oh and for those who are interested, the Rainbow Dress in sizes 2-10 is now in testing phase too and should be available for release within the month. excitement