Crafting roundup

Despite all appearances of inactivity, there has been a slow trickle of crafting over here in the last few months...

Winter knitting, with first a hat for Poppy, who chose the wool herself. A little persuading out of a very fluorescent shade of pink took place, I must confess. I'm not confident that I could knit whilst trying not to catch sight of bright salmon pink wool. Fuschia was much more bearable:

Then a pair of wristwarmers for me. These had the virtue of being finished in time for winter wearing, and also featured my first attempts at cabling! I was very pleased to actually finish a project for myself in the actual season I began it in...and the best thing about these? The wool was such a bargain at our lovely local op shop. And I still have 3 balls of it left!

Then I was at a friend's house for a fortnightly craft group and made this:

Everyone was a little nonplussed. Myself included - I'd meant to try making these a long time ago, after seeing them here. I think it's been about 2 years since I first learnt of them, and how to make them, and now I discover that they are called Penny wheels or yo-yos, and also that they are springing up all over the East coast and North of Australia. Who knew?

Not quite beach weather

Today we visited my cousin's grandmother, known to us as Baba Luba. She lives in a place called Black Rock, in the bayside suburbs of Melbourne, which turned out to be only about 45 minutes by car from our house.

Poppy was very excited to learn that Baba Luba lived very near the beach. Delighted, she proclaimed that she was going to bring her bathers...but we ended up having to wear this kind of thing instead:

Such is Spring in our part of the world.

Much fun was had at the beach, though. We found shells, glass worn smooth on the edges by the waves, seaweed to take home to feed the garden with, and Poppy's new favourite thing: rockpools!

All in all, a successful foray into beach territory, but a little more warmth, a little less wind (and rain on the way home) and a little more opportunity for actually getting wet, with actual seawater, is being looked forward to with great anticipation at our house.

Note: being responsible citizens and all, we did not souvenir seaweed from the beach for feeding the garden. We did not brandish great bunches of it whilst walking, and festoon a certain neice's pram with the stuff on the way back from the beach. I did not stuff it into a garbage bag to take home and then almost lose the lot to the dog before I got to soaking the salt out of it. That would be plain rude, and, I'm led to believe, illegal. Don't say I didn't warn you.