Final handbag, and new uses for Easter Bunnies

I finished the last handbag, this time in shades of green and beige. It is now for sale on Woolhogs.

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I like the colour combination, I think it has a fresh look. Great for spring!

Remember these bunnies: I made them before Easter, and I posted this picture then.

There were a number left over, so I have made them into garlands.

Each garland is about 65cm long

 



I hung them on my mantelshelf to show them off/

 



This one has an arrangement of three different colours.

 

The rest have more random colours

Don't they look pretty?

Three handbags and a cake

I have finished two more handbags, and also baked a cake!

 

I love this bag, and it was fun to make, as I just let my imagination run away with me! Both sides are different. It is made in cotton, and lined with blue felt, which gives body to the bag. It will offered for sale on the Woolhogs site shortly, as will my other bags.

All my bags are one-offs, so any person who buys one will know that she will never see another like it. There are no patterns, I just design as I go along.

 

 This is the other side of the bag, complete with a heart and some flowers.

The pink bag is quite plain, the only decoration being a little string of pink pearls at the bottom of one of the handles. It is also made from cotton, and is lined with white felt.

This is the bag I made some time ago, another cotton creation, this time lined with turquoise fabric, used double to provide body to the bag. On the other side the top band is plain white, as opposed to the small granny squares on this side.

Then I decided to bake a cake. I have made this cake dozens of times, and it gets eaten very quickly. It is called 'Hot Milk Sponge Cake', and is made by beating together eggs and sugar, adding flour and baking powder, then adding butter melted in hot milk. I have never had a failure using this recipe yet!
It doesn't keep well in my house because it gets eaten quickly, especially when my friends call!

I filled with cherry compote. I found  jar of this in the back of my pantry shelf when I was having a tidy up. The recipe suggested butter cream, but I find that it is too sweet. I prefer a jam filling with a sharp-ish tang to it Raspberry or apricot would be good as well.


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Finished!

I've finished the order at last. Apart from the hats and jackets, I have made six pairs of booties and six pairs of baby shoes. Here they are:

 

 I decided to trim the baby shows, just to make them pretty!

 

Each pair is a different colour, although the style is the same

The booties are also all different colours, and have a more 'masculine' colour range to suit boys.

Most are trimmed with buttons,

 

 

The last pair I made was the ones at top left, I finished them at ten last night!

 

 

Today I am taking things a little easier, then I shall finish the handbags I have started, and then start on makes for Creations at Talana!

 

 



An autumn walk around my garden.

 

I took a walk around my garden this morning, carrying my camera. One of the first things I found was that this cymbidium orchid was blooming, so I brought it into the house where we could enjoy it. There is a pink one as well that is putting out a flower spike, that will come inside as soon as it opens.

 

We planted this Natal Wild Banana several years ago, and every year it gets cut down by frost, but bravely grows again.

We are going to have a massive crop of oranges this year. Strangely enough, there are no lemons at all on the tree. Last year we had an enormous crop.

I made these wind chimes, using left-over lengths of brass curtain rod, with a piece of black pipe in the centre. They are hung with wire from a couple of short lengths of wood joined in a cross shape.

I love this pin oak. It's fast losing its leaves, but they make wonderful compost! This tree is absolutely huge, and casts a great shadow in summer.

This is lemon grass. I seldom use for cooking, but it looks good in flower arrangements! I'm am going to divide it, and plant some under the bedroom windows and near the back stoep, as it deters mosquitoes. Citronella oil comes from lemon grass.

The re-hot pokers are blooming. This is a wonderful indigenous plant, and adds autumn colour to the garden.

 

 

 

 These irises made a lovely show of colour among all the green leaves

 

 

        Our house is called Palm Tree Lodge.
We had two of these Phoenix palms,  both with ferns planted up the trunks.

 

Two years ago, one of the palm trees died. We hat it cut down and removed, but the root was determined to stay. It was very wet, and could not be dug out. We were having a party on the Sunday after this, so, on a very drizzly Saturday morning, three of us made this rockery. I bought plants in bloom, such as petunias and pansies, to add a little colour. They eventually died, but the succulents and aloes have thrived,

This is called a shrimp plant. No explanation needed!

 

    This huge stagshorn fern grows on a bottlebrush tree.

    I must find out how to separate it, and grow some on other trees.

    Indigenous clivias are spring blooming plants.

    However, I have a few of these plants that do not know this,

    as they like to bloom in autumn!

This ivy-leafed geranium is such a glorious colour, and has been blooming for well over six months.

This chlorophytum (hen-and-chickens or spider plant) is growing so thick that we shall soon have to remove some of it, to stop it suffocating other plants.

 

I grow a lot of herbs, and one of my favourites is Rosemary. It loves a hot, sunny spot, and the blue flowers are pretty. It's good to flavour lamb and chicken

 

 

 

I am always surprised when I walk around my garden, as I often find things that have been forgotten.
I hope you have enjoyed looking around with me.

Baby jackets

The past few days I've been making three baby jackets (more commissioned work!). I had found a picture on the internet that my buyer had liked, and looked for the pattern. When I found it, it was completely unusable, as the recommended yarn must have been extremely thick, as a 9mm hook was required! So I had to adapt the pattern to double knitting yarn and a 4mm hook. I cannot image a baby wearing a jacket as thick as the pattern suggested.

 

 I had to make the jackets in three sizes, and this is the smallest one.

 

 

 

I changed the colours slightly for the medium size jacket.

 

 

The large size has predominantly blue colours, with just a couple of stripes in light purple.

 

 

 

I'm off this afternoon to help with the church flowers. As Sunday is Pentecost, we do red flowers, to look like flames. We have been promised a lot of aloes. I'll take some pictures and put on this blog.





Lots of hats

I've been given a commission to make hats for small children, two each in a small size, and two each larger. Here's the result:

These are the two-tone purple owl hats. Don't you love those googly eyes!

 

More purple this time: little girly hats

 

 



 

Then we have the monsters. Weird eyes and sharp teeth, with four ears on top!

 

 



 

More girly hats - the blue selection

 

 

Then we have the cream girls' hats, in two different styles.

The ones at the bottom look like knitted rib, but are all crochet.

 

 

Then two that I made just for fun.