GARDEN CRAFTY STUFF

This awful Covid  Pandemic has meant that we have been unable to visit family for six months even when they live only  an hour's drive away, so we were happy to load ourselves into the car and travel up to

to Mt Tamborine to visit Tony's sister recently on a lovely Spring day..

Tony's sister is very artistic ( she makes those wonderful tea cosies which I showed you here ) 

and mosiacs  like this .

 

She has been keeping herself busy while in lockdown.

 doing lots of work in her tiny garden and it is ablaze with flowers in containers.

Not just the usual pots of flowers I have to  tell you......

but quirky chairs painted pretty colours with  pots set into the seat part 

and filled with colour - coordinating flowers

Like these !

She also decorates the chairs with small flowers, butterflies and hearts which she makes from pottery.

Aren't they pretty ?

But her creative energy doesn't stop there.

She has been creating tiny gardens in large shallow containers

planted with succulents and using pebbles

tiny minature houses, toadstools

people

tiny garden furniture

 and sometimes tiny animals to complete the scene

There is even a tiny  tea set .

You just need to have a creative mind, don't you?

Cheers.

 

COVID LOCKDOWN PROJECT NUMBER TWO

My Covid yarny projects have concentrated on using up what bits and pieces I have managed to gather together from previous projects completed over the years.

The first one was all the bright colours.

This final one was to group together all the softer colours and included some quite small bits to use 

so a different design was formulating in my head.

First I made some solid, 4 round squares - three of each colour where possible but totaling approximately 30 squares in all. 

With the first ten I then crocheted a fifth round in cream, 

sewed them together, then crocheted around the whole thing  in cream then added a few stripes of   pink on each side.

Then I moved on to the mossy green for a few rows making the bottom of the blanket pink.

The next row was made up of multi-coloured, 4 round squares using the small quantities of four colours for each square.

I then crocheted a final row on each square with green, then sewed them together and added a few rows of green and cream on either side.

Moving up towards the top I introduced a bit of purple ...

before adding another row of solid squares surrounded by blue this time.

There were now some very tiny bits of lots of colours left and lots of white scraps so they made up the next major row of squares , 

Using all the bits of the other colours and cream I crocheted several rows to link them together. 

Then I joined the two sections together.

Things were now getting a bit desperate yarn-wise .

The final row of solid squares were joined with what little pink was left.

It didn't go very far !

Luckily the lockdown is easing and in order to finish the rug I had to take myself off to Spotlight to try and match the colours to finish off the rug.

Of course there was no pink of the same colour but a slightly darker shade seemed OK and that and a ball of blue and two balls of cream came home with me - all  at sale price !

I joined the final  section to the rest of the rug and finished off with a few rows of cream, blue and the new dark pink.

Yes, that's sort of how I had planned it to look.

Now for the finishing touch - the border.

A couple of rounds of cream to pull it all together and try to fix any wonkiness caused by yarns of different thickness although they were all the same ply

then

A bit of blue - enough for once around.

A bit of dark pink - enough for once around

and a final round of cream shells

AND ALL THOSE ENDS TO BE SEWN IN 

and the final finished product

TA DAH !

What's next ?

Cheers.

LOCKED DOWN IN BELLBOWRIE

Like the rest of the world  we have been locked down at home during this world wide pandemic caused by the Covid19 virus.

No visits from friends or family, 

no outings to the city or shops,

 no visits to cafes or restaurants ,

no haircuts , perms or hair colours to hide the greys!!!!

no visits to elderly relatives in Aged Care Facilities.

Luckily , I can add to that,    no sickness .

It seems that all of that and the actions of our government in closing our borders to the world have finally started working and the outbreak in Australia has been contained and not developed to the awful stages in has in many other countries.

We are still locked in our homes but there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel and some restrictions will soon be eased .

In the meantime during the last 8 weeks of lockdown we have cleaned  and cleaned and cleaned this house.

Boy, did it need it !

The back of cupboards that have not seen the light of day for more than ten years has been exposed and washed down, linen cupboards have been tidied, old blankets cleared out to new homes where they will be needed in the coming colder months and the floor in these cupboards  - oh my  did they need a clean up!

 Dust, dust, dust like I have never seen before !!!

Anyhow it's been done and it is all sparkling now !

Added to this Tony was in the throes of renovating the two back bedrooms

and they have now been completed with paint refreshed, new carpets, beds and bedding and windows that slide properly.

Lovely .

It seems that all plans for this lovely holiday to see the Northern Lights will have to be cancelled. 

Such a shame but the finances have taken a considerable hit and travel is out of the question until the world is safer and a vaccine for this awful disease has been found.

So what else have I been doing?

I've been clearing out my stash of yarn.....

all those bits and pieces left over from other  past projects.

I made a vow not to order any more online and just try to do something with what I had.

This is what I have come up with so far.

It became quite difficult towards the end when I didn't have enough of a colour to get all the way around and would have to join in a colour that was not the same so I called it  day.

It has ended up a good size though and nice and bright and will be well received in front of the tv in the coming months.

My next project is now on the go.

Here is the palette.

I've since added a couple of tiny bits of a darker blue and brighter pink 

and I've got rid of the little bit of grey (I think ??)

That's it !

Hope there will be enough there to come up with something pretty.

I'm off to a good start.

Cheers.

DISAPPOINTMENT

Today, Tony and I should be wandering the streets of Paris, our favourite city in the world,

at the end of a five week trip to Austria.

Visiting places like these.

Unfortunately that holiday had to be postponed at the last minute on medical grounds.

Due to pre-cancerous changes in some cells, major surgery was called for and I am thanking my lucky stars that modern medicine has made the experience so trouble free and painless.

Now for the mine field of trying to recoup costs via credit card free travel insurance.
Our flights were able to be changed ( a precaution we took for the first time because of all of our Oldies ) but, as I book all our accommodation in apartments via the Internet, I am struggling to gather all the information required from several different apartment owners with different cancellation policies.
Luckily the end amount is not large - only around $2000 - and a small price to pay for continued health.
I consider myself very lucky to have dodged this bullet !!!

I'll let you know how the insurance claim goes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Recuperation time has been spent on making Scout some items for her trip to Sydney for the Flyball Nationals.

Her club colours are purple and yellow.

A rug to cover the mattress in her crate

and a pillow to rest her weary little head on were required.

 Looks like she is happy with both of them.

Now Sally wants a rug for herself so it is underway.

I'd better get busy, it'll soon be too hot to crochet.

Cheers.

PS. I have now rebooked our flights for late April next year and given us another week as a bonus!

JULY PROJECT

Hello, I'm back!

 

I've had a week or so of doing practically nothing while suffering with a chest infection.

Two recent bouts of illnesses for someone who is rarely ill is ENOUGH !

So today I'm giving you a sneak peak of my latest project.

 

As you will know on our recent holiday I fell in love with Positano.

 

 

How could you not ?

 

 

So I have decided to turn this outdoor area into a Positano themed room.

 

 

This requires lots of lemony props as Positano is all about lemons.

 

 Of course I couldn't afford to bring all these lovely ceramics home with me

 



so I've been working on gathering together some lemony props. 

 

 Life-like plastic lemons in my mosaic vase.

 

and a painting project to add a bit of zing ( and lemony-ness ) to a wall plaque that was already out there.

 

 

 

 

 

There's been a bit of sewing too

 

so it's all coming together nicely.

 

Now, we just have to wait till the weather warms up a bit so we can use the outdoor area without freezing !

( It's been very cold for Brisbane - down to 2- 4 degrees here at night then up to 15-20 degrees in the daytime but with cold westerly winds ).

 



Hopefully there'll be a grand reveal soon.

 

Cheers.