The house hasn’t progressed much yet.

We now know we have off street parking which is great! We have a few glitches with plans and we are waiting on the never ending titling process.

We picked out our roof tiles and our house bricks.

We are also going to get some dark blue rendering on part of the house and have cedar look garage door and house door.

And the view from top of the area we are building in.

These are earlier stages so they have been completed a while ago.

I haven’t been spinning as much as I like. I have dyed and spun this yarn a while ago but I didn’t get a chance to knit it up to anything.

I spun it so it changes colour from blues to greens.

I made it into a hat.

And the top view

I knitted a baby set for one of ACA’s uni friend’s who recently became a dad. I mailed it to Turkey but I haven’t heard if they received it yet or not.

I forgot to take a photo of it in the day light, so I quickly snapped one with the flash before I wrapped them up.

I knitted the booties two at a time. Love magic loop!

This is technically from January but I forgot to blog about it! I finally finished the “shimmer shawl” that I started eons ago.

I knitted it with beautiful handspun yarn my friend spun just for me! Look how pretty the yarn is.

It really shimmers in the light from the silk in it.

Currently I am working on a pair of mitten’s for V. It is my ravelympics project. I have so little time to knit these mittens are growing in slow motion.

It is from yarn I have dyed some months back called Henna Night. V’s mum, Jess picked it out.
Speaking of Jess and V, they sent me a lovely box of goodies for Valentines day. Here’s me wearing the butterfly pin they sent me,

Loooove it!

Hermoine the builder!

(Sorry for the horrible photo. I forgot my mobile (that’s “cell phone” to my brother) at home so I used ACA’s phone to take the photo)

It is so much flatter! They blasted a lot of the rocks and filled up the road. ACA is standing on what will eventually connect to our driveway. It is so exciting to see the house getting built from scratch. We have so many decisions to make. We have to pick things like brick colour, mortar colour, roof tiles, the colour of the roof tiles, the garage door, the outside door kitchen tiles, counter type, cabinets, carpets, wall paint and on and on and on. It is nice to have choices but I am no interior designer and I am tempted to just tell to make everything blue. The next step in the house building process is for the land to get titled to us. Right now the whole area has one title and it needs to be divided up into individual lots and titles. Once we have the title of the land, then the construction can start. Exciting stuff!
ACA and I are not big on gardening. We are planning on a rock garden for our new house and maybe a small veggie patch for me to play with. The house we are now renting has a huge backyard. It is so big in fact that the owner has a permit to build another house there! We’ve been getting a lot of rain lately so the grass in the backyard has grown to alarming lengths. On our holiday break ACA and I decided to tame the yard. After moving the back yard (a three day process!) I was able to walk to the other end of the garden where there is a large tree. I noticed that the tree had fruit on it! Turns out this tree was a plum tree. Who knew?! Here is a photo of my “harvest.”

They tasted so sweet I couldn’t believe it! I promptly told ACA that I want fruit trees in our backyard as well. He said I don’t take care of plants. I said “I will take care of the ones that grow food for me!”
There is also a lonely lemon tree next to the plum tree and I noticed that was flowering.

I am hoping this means we might get some lemons from the tree. My father-in-law gave me some citrus fertilizer so I will put that around the tree. Heh, who knew I had a green thumb?!
I finished knitting and crocheting a couple of little things for my friend Jess’ daughter V. She’s the one I’ve been knitting socks for. This time around I also knit her a cardigan and crocheted an ear flap hat.
I call this pair “Cici Socks.” “Cici” is pronounced “gee-gee” and it is a childish word for nice.

I knitted these socks from the left over yarn I had from these socks I knitted for myself. I don’t think I’ve blogged about them before. The colour of the yarn is more true in this photo.

This pair is called “Nemo Socks.” The yarn used here is the very first yarn I hand dyed!

This is the “stay on hat” because the previous two hats I knitted for V refuse to stay on her head.

I later added a pompom to it. In my professional opinion an ear flap hat must have a pompom! This hat is to go with the “Helene for Cupcake” cardigan I posted about last time.
Cupcake is V’s nickname so I thought it would be appropriate to make her a cupcake.

I named the cupcake “V.” Creative huh?

Lastly here’s Hermoine, who deems any reading material I am interested in as the perfect resting place.

And I crocheted a Mr. Tickles for a friend, which makes me really happy!

The arms have elastic in them for maximum tickling power.

Finished knitting Helena for my favourite cupcake, V.

Knitted a “Dolly” for another friend’s daughter.

The doll’s name is “Yildiz” meaning “Star.”
I dyed a three yarns inspired by my favourite summer fruits.
This one is mixed berry

This one is “Karpuz” (watermelon)

And this one was for my friend Amanda’s birthday called “Kremali Cilek” (strawberries and cream).

And just for fun a picture of me knitting when I was around eight.

That piece was supposed to be a headband but it never got finished. I stopped knitting after that effort and didn’t pick up yarn or sticks till I was twenty-two or so.

Love the frog closure, love the “chicken foot” stitch pattern, love the colour, and love the yarn. And what might the yarn be? Blue Sky Alpacas: Alpaca Silk. 50% silk 50% alpaca. In one word “YUM.” How much does it cost? $21 AUD a 50 gr skein. How many skeins do I need for my size? 14. 21*14 = $294 AUD. Add 8 dollars for shipping, I got myself a short sleeved cardigan that costs $300 AUD. And I don’t wear short sleeved cardigan, so figure a couple more balls for sleeves and I am broke. I would have a lovely cardigan though!

The other garment that I love from the magazine is this wrap sweater. (Again photo taken from the IC website)

I love wrap sweaters. They fit my figure beautifully and cover all the bits that needs covering. I like the scalopped edges of the sweater, and how the tie of the wrap is formed by the same scalopps. Made with the recomended yarn it would cost me about $175 AUD. It is still very expensive but compared to $300 it’s starting to look like a bargain. I wonder what I can substitute for Zitron Noblesse. I do want to make this sweater. Any ideas?

Am I giving too much away?
I ordered Spin Control by Amy King last week. Today it was waiting at my door step when I came home.

Now that I got the basics of spinning I want to do more. I want to be able to spin a specific type of yarn for a project. I only flipped through it so I don’t know how good it is. But I am looking forward to reading it.

It could have been worse.

And congratulations to the newest Nobel Laureate, Mr. Obama! Here’s to a world without nuclear weapons.

I didn’t notice the little guy (or girl, how can you tell?!) until it started moving out of the junk mail. I was eating my breakfast and it took me by surprise. I watched its progress out of the junk mail and over to ACA’s chocolate sticks. I thought ACA would prefer his chocolate sticks snail-slime free and I doubt the snail would have cared for the chocolate sticks. After taking a picture I took it out and I let it go it’s way.
When I got back home from work it was gone. It was nice knowing you snail buddy!

ACA looked at them and said “I didn’t know Dexter donated to Salvos.”
Oh ha, ha! They are not torture devices, clearly. I didn’t have an idea what they were until some ladies helped me out at Salvos. I have a habit of randomly talking to strangers around me when I have something to share. There was a pie pan with a removable bottom, like this one. I never seen a pie plate like that before and I thought it was very neat. There were two ladies looking around the same area and I showed them the plate. They were amused at how amused I was at the pie plate. We chatted for a while and they really seem to know their kitchen stuff. So I showed the three items I was carrying with me and asked if they knew what they were. They did. The first one on the left is an apple corer, the one in the middle is for loose tea and the last one is a melon scoop. I bought them all, 50 cents each, why not? I didn’t buy the pie plate, I am on a budget you know.
I brought them home. I left them in boiling water for 15 minutes. I poured off the water, put some more water and added citric acid to the pan and boiled the gadgets for a second round. I think any germs on them would have died by 30 minutes of boiling.
Tea spoon is really neat. It opens up and you can put the loose tea inside and it shuts with a satisfying little click. I made tea with it yesterday and I enjoyed swishing the spoon around the cup watching tea diffuse into the water. I also ate an apple yesterday just because I wanted to play with the corer. I think I will also use it to cut out neat shapes out of fruits. Wouldn’t an arrangement of fruits in shapes of little tubes look interesting? Especially if I scooped up melons with my brand-new-to-me melon scooper? Will have to play with that idea on the weekend!

I have a pair of socks made from this yarn, and now she can match me! I cast on for a purple pair tonight, let’s see how it’ll turn out.