kookaburras and a little knitting!

Went to lunch the other day and was greeted by this cutie. It's a kookaburra for those that aren't familiar with Aussie birds. They're the ones that laugh at you when they speak. Literally their call sounds like a laugh. 

Watch this video below to hear them. :D They make me smile!

This kinda shows the difference walking to and from the train has made to my fitness and abilities. A typical day used to be at most 4000 steps. I was lucky to hit that on an active day. Now it's easy for me to go over 8000 steps daily which I really love!

 

 

My tiny tiny bit of knitting. My yarn is all tangled and honestly I need to get in the bag and sort it but ... I'm being lazy! 

 

You can see the frustrating tangle here.... I'm not even using that dark purple right now! but it's gotten all tangled up as well :( 

 Happy Stitching, 

Caitlin

Fun yarn update

 It was a weekend of playing with yarn. I needed to make up a couple of gorgeous presents for my friend that I was seeing over the weekend so I quickly whipped up a couple of bookmarks for her to use. I am going to have to have some fun in between gnoming and make a pile more of these because they are cute and fun to make. Very quick to stitch up.

Both patterns were freebies I found through ravelry. I love their search engine!

 

The two ended flower pattern can be found here

While the Rose can be found here ... though this actually links to making the stem and then you follow it through to the rose pattern. Both flowers are really easy to crochet and took very little time but look absolutely gorgeous in the Bendigo Cotton. 

Now let's talk Gnutmeg the Gnome. If you don't want to spoil the mystery this is Day one and two of stitching so if you haven't got there yet don't keep scrolling. This is the last project I'm showing off so you're not missing anything but gnomes!

Day one we did the beard. I love how the nose was integrated into the pattern. It is so clever! I was really unsure about how it would turn out and ended up pleasantly surprised.

Then the second Day of knitting came out.... This one was dangerous!! I had to start knitting in the round and I realised after the needles were going every which way and the swearing was getting more pronounced that I really needed to rethink! So I did! I stopped what I was doing, pulled it back to two needles and worked from the two needles to start bringing it into the round. SOOOO much easier. I have a funny feeling this happened the last time I tried to start knitting in the round as well! 

As you can see here.. this was the end of day one's knitting. I took my knitting to watch the softball.

I am speculating here but I'm thinking this may be part of the hat. BUT I am not sure. We shall see as more clues get revealed!

Happy Stitching, 

Caitlin

Peppermint Purple SAL update

 So it's been about 6 months since I last updated about this piece. That is not because I kept forgetting to post about it ... it was honestly because I caught up one week and then put it down for half a week waiting for the next pattern and then started stitching something else and that is where I went wrong. As with a lot of long term SALs it's very easy to just not pick it back up when the next part is published. I was really good for about 16 weeks or so. Then other projects took precidence and I forgot about it entirely. 

 Then in the last few weeks I started catching the train to work each day. I really really love this extra time I have. On top of the exercise I'm getting, that is just makes me happier, I am managing to stitch or knit each day. 

It truly is the small things that help. I've also started working on the gnomemkal which will be so much fun. I've never done a mystery knitalong and this is great fun. 

Here are the pretty colours I'm using. They are going to look so nice together 😊

Happy stitching,

Caitlin 

MY DESIGN IN A MAGAZINE!!!

Now if you follow me on Instagram or facebook you would have already heard this exciting news but for those that haven't here goes!!!

There is a new digital magazine out from Australia featuring Australian and New Zealand designers. It's called Down The Rabbit Hole and is now available to buy on their website. 

But why does this have me so excited? ?  Well one of the designs in the magazine is one of mine! They put a call out a few months ago and I answered and they accepted one of my designs!!!! Cue dancing around the room!!!! It's been a long fight to get more of my designs out there and recognised and this is absolutely great :D 

My design Summer Koala is one of the designs that you can get a hold of when you buy this magazine.

This little cutie is all ready to go swimming in the heat of summer. It's a quick little stitch and won't take you long to do.

Actually the whole magazine has so many cute designs and I am going to have to stitch a few of them. 

 Anyway I hope you enjoy this magazine and you find some cute little patterns. 

Happy Stitching, 

Caitlin

P.s. I wrote this two weeks ago but forgot that I hadn't posted it at all! Silly me so I will have a few posts coming out all at once as I am disorganised right now. I blame Christmas crazy already starting. I am looking forward to the christmas holidays!