four funky ladies for tea

Here are the first four tea cosies that I have crocheted. More to come...but I think I shot out of the gates so quickly that I need a bit of a rest from tea cosying. So I thought I'd do some flowers to cover a cushion for the couch. It's not finished yet as I have to sew it onto the cushion, but I'm loving it sick so far. Thanks to Lucy at Attic 24 for the pattern and oceans of inspiration.

the tea cosy tally...

so far totals 4. I went on a bit of a tea cosy frenzy last week but have to take a break and do some granny square therapy as I haven't granny squared for a bit. I've been busy doing these before I had the almost fatal dose of tea cosy interuptus....

and this was the start of a cushion but the colours were all wrong, so it's morphed into a pin cushion which I am completely in love with...and how sadly exciting was it that all my fine needles have a home in the large holes of the vintage button in the centre. Should I be scared of myself?

it's time to get cosy...

Husband and I are in the throws of starting up an espresso bar in a small bead shop that I own. Of course it's gonna be cute and quirky with a bit of a junk shop theme; a bit like the bead shop. Also, as we are tea snobs, we have to do leaf tea in tea pots with cute little cosies. I've never made a tea cosy before, so I'm on a bit of a steep learning curve. Here's a pic of my first attempt at making one of our small teapots rather cute.

the combustion stove is a cracker

If you've read my profile you will know that we purchased a 1950's house which was pretty much in original condition when we moved in and we've been trying to renovate it and modernise it but at the same time pay homage to the fabulous 50's in which it was built. The kitchen in particular is a room that we love and seem to spend most of our spare time in and was definitely one of the quirky highlights of the house that made us sign on the dotted line with the real estate agent. Two features of the kitchen that we love are the aluminium trim laminate benchtops and the combustion stove; both of which most people in Australia rush to rip out of their newly purchased home, but we on the otherhand are in love with. This is our second winter in the house, but with so many things going on last winter (painting, sanding, carpeting, polishing, garden planting, deck building etc etc) we didn't fire up the combustion stove as we knew we had to get the chimney checked and cleaned first, as who knows when the last maintenance was done on it.

Da dah dah da da! Yesterday was the day that we lit the long awaited match and got the stove going. Ross the Chimneysweep came on Monday and cleaned out the chimney & gave us the OK to light the stove.....he also showed us the working of our Graham stove, as of course we had no idea other that this bit is where the wood goes and this bit is where you stick the biscuits to bake and don't sit plastic on the top bit otherwise it will melt!!!

How exciting and toastie warm was our kitchen? Very!

You may not know it, but I grew up on a farm with a combustion stove and I have fond memories (do I sound old saying that?) of the kettle stirring gently on the stovetop and of tins of condensed milk left for a couple of hours in a saucepan of water so that it would turn miraculously into a tin of caramel. I'm not going to mention the fact that we also had to use the combustion stove in 40 degree heat in summer...now that would completely spoil my grown up warm and fuzzy childhood memories wouldn't it now?

my hard to resist balls of wool

naughty balls of wool
Originally uploaded by fredtheemu

these are the balls of wool and more that just had to come to my house today!

accidental bags of wool

Is it a good thing to have a woollen mill factory outlet in your town? Me thinks yes and no. There are great bargains to be had with bags of wool that are priced per kilo and you can run amok making all sorts of things out of just one bag. Half a bag of recently purchased wool has made me a great woollen cardy and it only cost about $20 for the full bag. That's an absolute bargain isn't it? And there's enough wool to make another jumper or cardy too.

The down side is definitely the "accidental bags of wool" purchases that seem to happen to me when I just "pop" into the outlet to see what they have. You see you HAVE to do this, as you just never know what may be there. So of course you HAVE to keep checking in case they have just put out exactly what you are after. I'm on the hunt you see for a really lovely lime green 8 ply wool that I KNOW THEY HAVE SOMEWHERE as I've seen it in the lady behind the counter's personal stash. But the unfortunate thing is I always end up with accidental purchases in my hunt for the illusive green wool. Take today for example, as I just popped (there it is that word again"popped"...popping you see can be very dangerous indeed!) into the factory outlet and once again came out without my lovely green wool :-( .....but picked up two bags of equally lovely other-coloured wool that I don't really need, but couldn't leave in the shop in case I will need them one day. One bag is 18 balls of a lovely turquoise alpaca & wool blend & the other is 10 100g balls of mauve 8 ply which will team nicely in my current cushion cover project. All for a bargain basement price of $38.50. Don't tell the man that lives at my house OK?

yay! I'm finished.

I bought a bag of wool from the RSPCA op shop and it was bloody expensive in RSPCA op shop terms ($10 - gasp!). The bag contained a whole bunch of earthy strands of wool all about 80cm long...I think perhaps it was wool to make one of those hooky rug things. Silly me thought, great recycling and super colours & the lengths would be perfectly fine for doing granny squares. Well, that length of wool is just fine and dandy for the chain ring & 1st round in a granny, but the rest of the lengths had to be joined! Major bummer, but hey look what I made! The bag is just ace and I love it already & have even worn it. Husband was a bit non-plussed and daughter disappointed as it's too big for her - but Just The Right Size For Moi!