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.

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!

Rippley Rippleness

Couldn't wait to share these ripples........my cushion cover in the making.

broken promises

After an indulgent trip to the local woollen mills' factory outlet a couple of months ago I promised to myself that I wouldn't go back until I'd completed the projects that I'd bought the wool for. Well that promise didn't last long and I accidentally found myself back at the woollen mills this week to hunt out a "couple of balls of wool". Yeah, that's what happened last time I went there for "a ball of wool" and came out with a massive bag of wool. You see you can't just buy a ball of wool. It's impossible. You have to buy bags of the stuff as the prices are so cheap and there is definitely no guarantee that they will be there next time you go back there because it's the factory outlet kind of thing. Sooooo I broke that promise to myself and feel quite good about it really. I only have one project to go in the previously purchased bunch, so it's not that bad..........is it? So my next project is to get this ripple crochet thing under control. Under the inspirational guidance of Lucy from Attic24 I am attempting a ripple cushion...in a feast of colours of course as if you have lots of colours, then it's bound to match something in your house. In the meantime, here is a pic of the "ball of wool" that I bought at the woollen mills the other day.