Still here

I am still here! But I haven't been on the internet much lately. Sometimes because my internet reception isn't working but mostly through choice.
I'm trying to balance my life and I'm finding I'm enjoying real life a bit more lately.

The weather this Summer has been wierd.
We've had so many cold, windy, rainy days. There has really only been a handful of hot Summer days.
So when they do happen we are making the most of them and heading to the beach, the pool or this lovely local waterhole we found recently.

But like my little Buddah here, mostly we are just being...

The hat that grew itself.

The latest hat I just finished crocheting kind of grew itself. I had no idea that I was even making something when I started...
You see, my sister gave me a freeform crochet book for Christmas and I didn't really have any idea what to try making so I just grabbed some random wool from my bag to try out some of the cool motif patterns.
All the stuff I crochet is kind of free-form because I don't follow patterns but make it up as I go but I haven't done any real free-form (actually I prefer to call it free-stylin' crochet lol) since I made this poncho for Mr T when he was a baby.

I started making some free form patterns, some odd shapes and triangles and then tried a few spirals. I LOVED making the spirals and got carried away making all different sizes and colours.

So I started thinking about joining them all together and seeing what I could create.

The result was a strip of spirals and circles that were about long enough to go around a head. I crocheted the crown of a beanie and sewed the pieces onto it. Then filled in the gaps with more crocheted circles.

The end result looked pretty funky but I decided I wanted to define some of the spirals a bit more and embroidered more spirals in 2ply cotton... and got carried away and embroidered many more spirals...

My embroidery skills are not the greatest, I stuck to chain stitch because it is about one of the only stitches I know. When I was reading my wonderful friend Char's blog over here at Begborosteel yesterday, I laughed at her description of her "caveman" quality embroidery...I can totally relate to that.

So here's the hat, I'm not sure if it is even finished yet, I might add some beads and tassels to it to make it even more over the top.

Which brings me to the much procrastinated task of packing away my craft supplies for when we move... I've already packed my sewing machine and some bits and pieces but it is so hard to work out which yarns I can't live without for a month. And I keep putting it off because I just need it all accessible just so I can make one-more-thing...
I guess I'll do it eventually, perhaps as the removal truck is pulling into the driveway :P

Zan's Birthday again!!!

I can't believe another year has passed so soon. Zan celebrated his 15th birthday last week. We went tenpin bowling. The kid.s really loved it especially the littlies who had never been before.
Mr T and Tui pretended to drive these racing cars. I didn't want to spoil their fun and tell them that you could put money in them and play a racing game ;)

Zan was disappointed with his game at first but soon found his mojo...

Afterwards we went to The Noosa National Park for a picnic at the beach. It was a perfect Spring day.

Tui immediately stripped off and jumped into the closest rockpool.

While the older ones were catching a few waves ou the back Tui and Mr T had so much fun building sand castles, digging holes and splashing each other and us!!!

Mr T was fascinated by these sea anenomies that close on your finger when you touch them.

Happy Birthday Zan!!!

Spent a lovely winter day at the beach at the Noosa National Park.

It was chilly but never cold enough to stop Mr T having a swim. And Tui loved the sand and water and ended up quite wet too!