now he is six

 

My latest post, featuring this beautiful boy on his birthday, can be found at Never Too Hot To Stitch.

I look forward to your visiting my new blog site. While you're  there, would you please change my blog address in your reader. Thanks

May your stitches bring you much joy.
Lynne

Happy 80th Birthday Mum

Mum and her three children taken at the Longyard Hotel on Sunday 1 June.

I love you very much!

Happy Birthday WM

I'm sorry you had to be back at work for your birthday -- it would have been more fun to share the day during our fantastic holiday.

Have a great day.

I love you very much -- you are not only a wonderful husband, you are my best friend.

perfect autumn weather to celebrate a birthday

A few months ago, I watched an excellent documentary on the ABC (Australia’s national broadcaster) called Making War Horse. I expected it to be about the movie and wondered why it was being broadcast so long after the movie‘s release. But it was the “off-season” (the non-ratings period over Christmas-January: Australia’s summer holidays) so I didn’t think too much about it.

However,  the documentary was about the stage production done by the National Theatre Company (England). I found the documentary fascinating (do watch it if you haven’t seen it – it’s 49 minutes well spent) so when I found out the production was coming to Sydney, I asked WM for tickets for my birthday.

We saw it on Wednesday night – it was breath-taking and deeply-moving. We hardly knew where to look, there was so much going on. At the same time, the puppets are so life-like in their movements that we soon forgot that we were watching puppets. One no longer sees the puppeteers/actors. We have not seen the movie so the story line was new to us; I was so pleased it had a “happy ending” but, even if it hadn’t, the whole production was just brilliant and I’d love to go again before it closes.

We live in the metropolitan area of Sydney but, as part of my birthday treat, we stayed in the hotel in the same complex as the theatre. We had been upgraded to a one-room apartment with views over Darling Harbour (one of the inlets in Sydney Harbour). What a great birthday present.

view seen at 10:30pm

almost the same view in the morning

Yesterday, was a national holiday in Australia. We call it ANZAC Day. It is a day of commemoration of all those who have served our country in war and is held on the date of the landing at Gallipoli (a beach in Turkey) by Australian and New Zealand forces in 1915 as part of the British forces. The Allied forces lost 440,000 lives, of which 8,709 were Australian,  in the ensuing campaign which lasted until 8 January the following year.


The flags on the Harbour Bridge were at half mast until early afternoon.


Because it was a holiday, WM and I took advantage of the beautiful weather and spent most of the day ferry-hopping around our beautiful harbour.


Firstly we took the ferry from Pyrmont Bay to Circular Quay

ferry coming in to Pyrmont Bay Wharf, taken from our hotel room

then hopped on a ferry to Mosman (and return), then the ferry to Balmain where we disembarked and went for a walk for a little over an hour.

Balmain Court House

We then hopped back on the ferry to Cockatoo Island and back to Circular Quay.

After a late lunch/early dinner at City Extra restaurant at Circular Quay, we hopped on the ferry back to Pyrmont Bay, collected our luggage from the hotel concierge, and caught the light rail back to Central and a train back to our home town! We had to wait quite a while for a taxi, a lot of people were returning home from a day of celebrations but we finally arrived home a little after 7:30pm, happy but extremely tired.

Here are some more of the myriad of photos WM took during our day away from home!

the city skyline from our hotel room

old wharves/warehouses transformed into very expensive apartments

the northern approach (road and rail) to the Harbour Bridge

Luna Park occupies some prime real estate on the north side of the harbour

Sydney skyline from the harbour

two icons that probably don't need a caption!

looks like a postcard, doesn't it?

some Sydney Water Police in their new boat

I’m sure it’s true that it’s one of the most beautiful harbours in the world! And we saw just a fraction of it!

twenty seven years ago today

This little ray of sunshine came into our lives making our family complete – just the three of us.

taken when she was thirteen days old

Tomorrow she joins her family (husband and two sons, aged three and twenty-one months) in their new home town after spending ten days here without them packing, sorting and fixing.

a candid shot taken with my iPad hence the grainy photo

I love you, DD, and I’m sure gonna miss you! xx

missing in action?

I have been busy this past week. My mum arrived on Friday 22 June to stay with us for a few days.

On the Saturday we visited my brother and his family.

On the Sunday WM and I celebrated Younger Grandson’s first birthday with mum, MIL, DD, SIL, Older Grandson, Younger Grandson, DD’s bestie (the boys' godmother) and SIL’s two sisters.

Younger Grandson opening presents with his daddy and daddy's two sisters

On Monday I went to my sewing class (mum stayed at home and enjoyed the peace and quiet), then took mum shopping in the afternoon.

Tuesday was Younger Grandson’s birthday so we had DD and the Grandboys here all day. SIL joined us for dinner.

the grandsons have arrived!

Wednesday was mum’s last day with us so DD and the Grandboys visited again.

We stayed up late on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights watching the tennis. WM and I don’t have pay TV so we can only watch the tennis while it’s on from 8:30pm. I taped Lleyton Hewitt’s game on Tuesday night and we watched it on Wednesday morning before the family arrived. The Australian tennis players didn’t do very well this year; all but one was out in the first round, and Sam Stosur, who won the US Open, was defeated in the second round. Very disappointing.

Meanwhile, I have been knitting. I finished mum’s socks but she wouldn’t model them for me.
She only tried on one but she says it fitted perfectly!

I have also been knitting on the other one of these.

And this morning I cast on a cowl to knit while on the train, taking mum to Strathfield station to catch her Countrylink train. I plan to get it finished while watching the tennis tonight. It’s hard to concentrate on turning a heel while watching tennis so the socks will have to be a non-television activity, at least until the heel is done.

Happy First Birthday Younger Grandson

Riding in the toybox given to him for his birthday (with toys in it) by Grand-Nan, Grandmum and Grandad.

Older Grandson's description: "Oh Daniel, you're so smile!"

birthday books

I had my birthday a few days ago. Would you like to see what my mum gave me?

Proof positive that I am still into knitting! LOL

Happy Birthday DD

Twenty Five Years. (Where did they go?)

DD aged 3

Happy birthday, Darling Daughter. I love you.

Happy First Birthday Grandbubby #1

You brought a new dimension of love into my life.



Happy birthday, darling boy.

time for knitting

I will have plenty of time for knitting - I must have plenty of time for knitting. Not lace, not cables, just miles and miles of something simple! For my birthday yesterday, WM bought me the boxed set of all the Jane Austen novels on DVD, including my favourite version of "Pride and Prejudice" with Colin Firth as Mr Darcy! That's 21 hours and 10 minutes of DVD watching ahead of me!!

To keep my place when I am doing those more complicated (graphed) patterns, mum bought me a magnetic place holder.

And, just in case I get tired of knitting and Jane Austen, mum also bought this:

This wasn't really a bithday present but how could I not show you this gorgeous photo:

GS#1 nine and half weeks old modelling his cousin's new beanie (made by me)!

Happy Birthday, Darling Daughter

Twenty fours years ago, at 9am Australian Eastern Standard Time, a little ray of sunshine came into my life - one of the most wonderful things that ever happened to me.

I hope your day is wonderful; I look forward to spending it with you (and Quilting Arts TV).

I love you so much!

happy birthday T

Not that she reads my blog but she might one day and she'll know I was thinking of her! Besides it's not every day one turns

Happy birthday younger sister.

Happy 75th Birthday Mum

Some of you may have thought that I have been a bit quiet on the Textured Knitting front lately but I was working in stealth. Sometimes my mother reads my blog.

Last week was mum's 75th birthday and this was my gift:

It was knitted in Bendigo Rustic [colour Aran!] 8ply and I used a little over three 200g balls. It was started on Wednesday 21st April but some days no knitting was done - days when I just couldn't face the cable needle again. There are a lot of cables in that jumper, believe me! Two trees of life on the front and back plus two on each sleeve.

Moss [seed] stitch diamond panels on all four pieces plus the lobster claw cables.

Phew - textured knitting indeed.

I started it in the round but then realised I would have to knit back and forth above the armholes. I decided to knit the sleeves flat because I figured I could seam it more easily that way. Remember the child's sweater that found its way to the frogpond? It was the trial version for mum's jumper. Was the child's version worth knitting? Well, I did do short row shaping and a three-needle bind-off for the shoulders so some of the lessons I learnt were applied. Also the lesson of not adding the sleeves one row to one stitch was carried through! [And that child's sweater was almost finished on the trip home so you'll be seeing it here fairly soon!]

The knitting was finished on 31st May. It sat for a few days while I waited for some dry weather to block it [that never happened; it rained all week]. While I waited to block, I contemplated it - I thought the neckline was wrong but DD tried it on and it looked okay. On the eight-and-a-half-hour trip to my parents' place, I seamed it and sewed in all the ends. Mum never blocks her knitting so she wouldn't notice but I sure can so please don't look too closely!!! I wasn't happy, something was niggling away at my brain, but I couldn't put my finger on the problem.

Mum loved the jumper [sweater]. She was so excited! As soon as mum tried it on I saw it - the neckline was too low in the front and way too high in the back! But no-one would let me take it apart to fix it!! :-(

So mum has the jumper and I have the pain of knowing it's not right!! She'll wear it one cold day and find it uncomfortable and, because we live so far apart and she thinks I'll never know, she'll never wear it again. Or, worse still, she'll try to take it apart and correct it herself! I hope not because I've used techniques [three needle bind off, knitting in the round, mattress stitch] that she's never heard of let alone used!

Superficially the jumper looks great and mum is really happy. Just remind me to get my hands on that neckline next time I visit them!!

Happy birthday mum!

the last birthday books

Now, my crochet library has enough books and we're back to a wishlist of knitting books!

Thanks WM for caring enough to buy what you thought I'd like and not asking me to buy my own gifts!

two more books came yesterday

My extended birthday continues:

Aren't the colours in that bedspread amazing?

An Australian book which will require a few hours of reading followed by a few more hours of playing!!

birthday gifts 2009

It was my birthday on Saturday and WM was a bit disappointed. He had been late in ordering books from the Book Depository in the United Kingdom and only one had arrived.

I think I'd like to make the wrap in the top left corner. It's done in filet crochet [a technique I've never tried]. You can see a bigger picture here; look under the "book" for the word copyright and click, you should get the page with the wrap.

Apparently I have three more books to wait for - my birthday will extend over several days I think!

Birthday gifts

It's almost a week since my birthday but the excitement of my DD's engagement had to take priority.

I received a gift card, a lace blocking kit and a book:



And we're going to Cirque de Soleil!

Happy Birthday DD - 22 today

Where have the years gone?


Picture taken last year on friends' property