Here & Now | November 2018 Link-Up

Loving // Cooler days after the heatwave we had a week ago and the garden bursting in flowers on most of the plants. I'm also admiring the beautiful handspun yarn samples and hand dyed/spun/woven coasters I was sent by Vicki Cornish of Bonsai Woman. I interviewed Vicki for Yarnologie Issue 02, and she was kind enough to send some samples of her gorgeous work.

Eating // Fresh strawberries from the patch with yoghurt most days, and there's a chicken roasting away in the oven as I type. It smells delicious.

Drinking // Less tea as the days warm.

Bits and Pieces

Summer is arriving, bringing with it all of the things that I love and also dislike about the season. Hot long days aren't a favourite of mine (don't get me wrong, I like the days being a little longer but they are a fair bit longer than I'm used to now I'm living in New South Wales). I'm a woolly kind of person at heart, and because of that autumn will always be my favourite season - the cups of tea, snuggly blankets, endless knitting and joy of baking things in the kitchen.

2018 Christmas Ornament Swap - Come Join!

I'm so excited to be hosting the Christmas Ornament Swap again this year! The very first swap, last year, was such a success and everyone had so much fun. I remember I had to close the swap sign-ups earlier than I'd intended due to the overwhelming response. The same may happen again this year, so if you want to join us, make sure you sign-up! All the details are below.

My Makes for the Christmas Ornament Swap

This feels like the most overdue blog post of all time, but I thought I'd still share what I made for the Ornament Swap anyway!
First of all, I'd like to say thank you to everyone who participated in the swap. I'm glad it was such a positive experience and that everyone enjoyed it so much.
For now, here are the ornaments I created for my swap partner - a bauble, a gingerbread house and a little Scandi-inspired Santa. I loved making each of them, but the Santa was by far my favourite. He reminds me of those little chocolate-shaped Santas that appear every year.
Knitting the ornaments was so much fun as I got to complete projects in just a couple of hours, and then get started on the next one. It's nice to make something that quickly occasionally, and it was hard to stop at just three!

For the bauble, I used this pattern and WOOLganic DK in Grapefruit Moon & Chilli Pepper

For the Gingerbread house I used this pattern (it was so fun!) and Adagio Mills Alpaca DK in Chai for the house and WOOLganic DK in Grapefruit Moon for the roof

And for the Scandi Santa I used this pattern and WOOLganic 4ply in Chilli Pepper, Adagio Mills Alpaca 4ply in Clouds for the embellishments and a scrap of Grapefruit Moon in 4ply for the face.

Rainy Day Crafting

This morning began with the loudest clap of thunder waking me from the deepest sleep. I'd been woken like that countless times throughout the night, to thunder accompanied by very bright lightning, the sound of rain and wind and the occasional shake of the house when it was really loud. By early this morning I'd had enough, and decided it would be better to get up and have a cup of tea rather than trying to salvage the night any longer.

The day was very grey and quite cold. With the storm well and truly going on until late mid-morning, I ended up having an unplanned half-day off. When the thunder and lightning are so close by, we leave the computers and internet connection unplugged, to protect them from power surges. It turned out to be just what I needed. I wouldn't have given myself a day off today if I hadn't been forced too, but I was forced to and so, wearing winter clothes and feeling very out of place for an October day, I sat at the table and crafted with wool.

Join the Handmade Christmas Ornament Swap!

I'm so excited to be sharing this with you today! I've been planning it for a little while and it's been quite hard not sharing it with you earlier. I am hosting my very first blog swap this year and I hope you'll join in and we'll all have lots of fun together!
I know in lots of ways it's too early to mention Christmas, but when it comes to making things by hand I don't think October is too early at all.

The Christmas Ornament Swap is something I have devised as a way to have fun making a couple of ornaments and sharing your craft with other like-minded souls, without it being a big commitment or ending up taking up too much time. I wanted to provide a way for fellow crafters to have fun, get creating and maybe even make a new friend! The swap is supposed to be fun, relaxed and something that isn't too big to commit to, for time reasons as most of us are already a little bit busy coming up to the end of the year.

Anyway, let's get into the details of the swap, shall we?