At Last!

Monday my daughter Penny and her family arrived from Australia. Tuesday the parcel that Penny posted in June arrived! She could've saved the cost of postage.

As well as the yarn I asked her to send, Penny posted some shoes and other goodies. I will use the yarn, of course, but am thinking of knitting a top rather than crocheting one. Here's a close up of the label:

Ice Drop Version

I tatted another of muskaan's spiral snowflakes and then wondered if I could turn it into an icedrop. I could. It did take me a couple of goes, but the idea was sound. I think there's already a spiral icedrop, so this will have to be called something else. 

Practice Spirals

Muskaan's Spiral Snowflake is small, so I used thread left on shuttles to try it out, which is why my colour changes are a little strange. It's also why I used bare thread spaces instead of 2 ds chains for the centre of the second one. I really like the spiral, it has a wonderful sense of movement. The josephine knots and their placement are genius because they accentuate the spiral effect.

I must confess I was daunted by five pages of pattern! Then I realised that the pattern itself is only half a page. I needn't be put off by extra information.

Now that my shuttles are empty, I'll make another spiral in one colour.

Enough For Two More

I had enough of the wildlife fabric left for two more market bags, so I bought another metre of lining material in town on Wednesday. I've cut both out. That'll give me eight market bags and three small bags, from five metres of the main fabric.  Now to see how far I can sew before the power goes off again!

Thimble and Scissor Keeper

I've wanted to make this ever since I saw it on Dedri Uys's Look At What I Made blog. At last I got around to it. Here's a link to the pattern. I think my thimble must be smaller than Dedri's, I had to adapt the pattern a little, but it was pretty straight forward. This is for me. I'm hoping it will help me keep track of my scissors, which are forever disappearing down the side of the chair, or falling on the floor. But I may make a few more for gifts.

Chiascuro

I made these pot holders in black and white as a house warming gift for a friend. I was glad I looked up my previous post about pot holders because it not only had the links to the patterns, it had a reminder that I'd found a better way of starting the zig zag pattern. Aha, I'd forgotten that.

Mouse in Purple

I crocheted another mouse, with a purple dress this time. I had just enough pink for the inside of her ears, phew. Here she is with the owl (who still has no wings):

I had planned to write earlier in the day, but our electricity was off all morning. South Africa is experiencing 'rolling blackouts' - the state power supplier is switching different areas off for four hours at a time to conserve power. The Afrikaans term 'beurtkrag', meaning taking turns to have power, is more positive than blackout or load shedding, but whatever you call it, it's annoying! My plans to sew this morning went out the window. On the plus side, that window is now clean.