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Monday 27 November 2017

To Be Read....

I'm a bit of a bookaholic.... actually I'm not that bad but I come from a family of readers and honestly I love sitting with a book in my hands. Yesterday morning I started the day with a book and a cup of tea on the back patio. It was heaven! This morning I barely could force myself to put the book away before dashing out the door to bootcamp. This hasn't always been the case. For the last couple of months with Uni all books have just been placed by the wayside.

But I'm finally settling back into reading and relaxing and just finished 'The Upside of Unrequited' By Becky Albertalli. Really lovely read and much more realistic than a lot of young adult books. If you want a nice enjoyable fiction this is a highly recommended book.

But after finishing that book I started going through my other books. Some I own and I MAY have visited the Library on the weekend.... actually not on my own it was at the request of Lana. She was really really really excited to look for more books. I'm not going to stop that excitement. She found some good looking books and I may have picked up some more J.D. Robb.

I'm reading all the in death series out of order and some audiobooks and some physical. I actually picked up 4 audiobooks while I was there too. Makes my drive to work more enjoyable.

But then I was also looking through the bookcase in the craft room and this is what I found in my TBR pile....

I visited a couple of fetes a couple of months ago and got a pile of books really cheap. The top two books were a dollar each. Jane Eyre I treated myself to as it's one of the fancy covered classics. I will need to read it again it's been a while.

I've read Wicked and Son of A Witch a while ago but despite owning these two for almost a year O just haven't read them yet. I will just have to bite the bullet and read them.

Actually looking through my photos and thinking about my book hauls recently I just realised I don't have any photos of my pile of about 5 new Nora Roberts and Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas (birthday present). I think I will be well occupied coming up to Christmas and well beyond. We shall see how many books I actually get through. I also have a pile of craft projects that I want to do as well.

What do you enjoy reading? I love a good fantasy, romance or crime novel. But I'm not into thrillers, more the mystery style. I also don't mind a nice chic fiction/YA.

Do you have piles of books you're trying to get through? I'm hoping to go through a decent chunk of this as I just relax into books again.

What are you reading?

Happy Stitching,
Caitlin


Wednesday 15 November 2017

Escape to the Country

Last weekend we managed to get away for the weekend and do a little bit of 4wding and camping. Of course being me I took my craft stuff away and ACTUALLY finished finished a project including sewing in the ends!!!. More on that when I share the pictures. We went away to a place called emu creek 4wd park. It was a running park but became run down as the old owners lost interest. Then family of friends of ours bought the property and they're slowly working to bring it back and restore it to a working 4wd park. The purpose of the weekend was to go down and help clear lantana and find the old tracks, a lot of them are barely visible as they have become so over grown.It was a great weekend away even if I did spend most of it studying as I had my last exam today. That is another semester down :D

But study aside I want to talk about entirely happy things. On the way down the weather was a bit miserable, and we were really worried about a very wet weekend. But thankfully it stayed cloudy and wet enough to keep the temperature down and sunny enough to have a ball.
I took this photo on the way down, you can see the cloud cover on the mountains behind. We had to travel through that later. It was stunning to look at.

Of course I snuck in some knitting in between feeling car sick. This started as two rows of stitching.


The campsite was awesome. Lovely wide grassy areas and a flushing toilet!!! That's a big thing for a campsite. Here is our set up. We had the one tent and then the tarp for shade. It was really quick to set up and only took us about 30 minutes and once the creep of gear was packed away at the end it was relatively quick to pack down. We have it down to a fine art.


They had excavators and everything to help clear out the mess. If anyone tells you it's a good idea to introduce a new plant to an area tell them they're idiots. Lantana may be a pretty flowery shrub in England but here it's a noxious weed that is a bloody pain to deal with.


The kids found an old rope swing that was actually still in working order. They spent most of the weekend swinging off it. Either into the water when they had swimmers on or just out over the water when they didn't. I was waiting to find that he'd got his only jumper sopping wet... but thankfully it survived.

Now I did promise to mention my finish and here it is. This is one of two horrible photos of me wearing the beanie but you get the idea. I actually finished the stitching and sewed it up so it was a useable beanie straight away. It does feel a tinge short but not horribly so. Being a rib stitch beanie there is enough give in it and it covers my ears so definitely covers his. That said he was more interested in swinging off the aforementioned swing to really care about it. Hence the bad photos of me wearing it. I honestly think I need to make one of these for myself. They are truly a quick and easy stitch and very warm and comfy to wear. If you're wondering about the pattern it's my own design. I have instructions here.

Of course you can't go camping without trying to capture the magic of a campfire. This one was pretty awesome and burned beautifully warm. It wasn't COLD but there was still a distinct chill to the air, which meant I was wearing two jumpers most of the weekend... go figure!

 Then on the way home we got to enjoy this view. It was beautiful and I was so grateful for our lovely weekend away.

We needed this break as the chance of getting away for any decent time over Christmas is slim as it's the busy time for James as things like to grow. The joys of owning your own business you have to be there and do the work if you're the only around to do the work.

Anyway I hope you enjoyed my photos of our trip away and I wish everyone happy stitching,
Caitlin

Monday 6 November 2017

Batwing Summer Top

What do you do when you have your first free weekend for too long to remember? I should have done a LITTLE bit of study for my last exam for the semester but I just needed a weekend to recover. Instead I spent most of the weekend sewing.

I happened to be near spotlight on the weekend and may have visited with the kids. When we were there I wanted to get some fabric to make myself a couple of new summer tops just for lounging around in. I have a top that I love to wear that is just a very very very loose top with no shaping designed for draping over your body. Well while we were there and I was fending off requests to buy faux fur and polar fleece (it's tooooooo HOT!!!!) We spotted this stunningly awesome neon fabric. I'm sorry I don't have a good photo of just the fabric by itself. I was a very bad blogger and didn't photograph anything of this process. Actually I really don't have any photos of anything until the end. I was just enjoying the process of making again.

I did up this sketch to show you a rough idea of what the shirt looks like. Really loose and comfortable. The arm is just a folded over cuff sewn onto the shirt and the neckline and bottom hem are overlocked and folded over. I did most of the top on the overlocker. Rather than sewing and then overlocking I just stuck it all through the overlocker.


Now most people this neon colour would wash them out but my daughter is a lucky one to have dark skin. She can wear sooo many colours I can only dream about.


 Here is the finished top. You get an idea of the fit of this top. It's not 'fitted' at all. Actually I could probably happily wear this top as well. But she wore it all day Sunday so I call that a win.

I also have enough fabric left over to make a pair of shorts to match so she's going to have enough to wear this summer!


Would anyone be interested in a photo tutorial of how to make your own top? I have enough fabric to make myself two tops in this style so I have something to take a photo of. Let me know and I'll make sure to take photos of the steps to make one for yourself.

Happy Stitching,
Caitlin


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