Weekending

Today I shall be taking a jar of jam to the neighbours and explaining the screaming they no doubt heard last night.

I made my very first mandarin jam yesterday, with a dozen mandarins from our neighbours tree. It was much more time consuming than I had anticipated. I doubled this recipe but only used the rind from three mandarins and two lemons. Peeling the skins, removing the membranes and seeds, then chopping a dozen mandarins is a lengthy process. Especially when baking bread, fixing dinner, supervising baths and nursing a baby along the way. Luckily my husband makes a rather wonderful, if somewhat impatient, stand-in pot stirrer. The results though are seven jars of beautiful jam, containing nothing but mandarins, lemons, rind, water and sugar. One jar saved especially as a thank you to our wonderful neighbours.

Possums are determined little creatures. We have one such little Brushtailed friend fiend who keeps managing to wiggle his way in to our garage despite our best efforts. Last night, after we presumed he had vacated the cavity beneath the bath to partake in his usual night time ramblings, we affixed a plank of wood over his garage entrance route. Determined to keep him outside for good this time. To my dismay, he was late in leaving his bath place abode, and at 10pm could be heard trying his usual exits in the garage to no avail. The possum proofing was working, except that the possum was trapped inside. My jam was cooling and my husband was sleeping and things were going bump downstairs. What to do. I woke my husband, who showed little interest in getting out of our warm bed. I cajoled him into coming down stairs with me and I grabbed the broom just in case.

This in turn lead to my bemused husband watching on as I chased said possum around the ceiling joists downstairs with the broom. He was supposed to be helping me. Apparently he was tired. So, I have a broom, the possum is running over the open garage door, then darting back inside and I am trying to shoo him out again. As you can imagine, my husband was even more amused when our dear possum unexpectedly launched himself at me. Flying through the air, possum paws outstretched, he landing on my jeans and foot. And I, well, I would like to say I remained calm and saw him on his way outside and calmly brushed my hands together in an 'that's the end of that' fashion. But, as you will no doubt have guessed, I screamed. Then did a little screaming-jumping-up-and-down-shaking-my-hands-get-it-off-me-get-it-off-me dance. Which I'm not proud of, but which had the desired effect. The poor possum ran, leaving me with two nice scratches on my foot in the process, but finally scampering out of the open garage door. My husband laughed all the way back to bed as I repeated several times in a shocked, high pitched sort of way, "Did you see that? It jumped on me? It JUMPED ON ME!"

I lay away half the night listening for tell tale bumps and scratches. Now I'm off to reapply some antiseptic and visit the neighbours with jam and explanations. And perhaps nap this afternoon...

How was your weekend?

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Cohen and I made paper chains to hang around the doors yesterday. A great distraction as the storm hit. When Cohen got a little nervous about the rolling rumbling thunder we sang, 'I hear thunder, I hear thunder, hark don't you?' over and over until he was so engrossed in playing with his toys, he wasn't the least interested in the thunder, or the paper chains. What's a mother to do in such a situation but hope the power stays on, make a cup of coffee and weave in the ends of a newly finished crochet blanket in appropriately stormy colours? Indeed, that's what I did. 

And of course, look lovingly at the Flower Press tea towels that arrived in the mail and wonder how one is to part with them come Christmas...

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The first baby blanket is finished. The overcast weather has helped me justify adding stitches instead of doing laundry. The new plants Dave planted are enjoying the sprinklings of rain. I just love this silver plant with it's lovely purple flowers. If only Cohen would stop picking them and throwing them away.

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The problem with my local post office is that it is just about next door to an op-shop. The problem with that op-shop is that there are two more op-shops in walking vicinity of it. The problem with having three op-shops in walking distance is that you are always bound to find something. I think that is a nice problem to have though.

The only other problem is that I brought another blanket, and we all know how much I really need another blanket...

Is it just me, or is this crochet snowflake motif kinda cool? And the colors are cool too, sort of, right?

It was one of those finds where you are standing there inspecting it and wondering if your taste is really off. Yes, you love thrifting, yes, you love crochet, but there is such a thing as bad crochet, and you have already been responsible for bad crochet yourself. Can you be trusted? Should you buy it? Will you husband divorce you if he notices you've brought another blanket home? Or should you pay the ten dollars, tuck the blanket under the pram and keep walking?

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Thank you to the lovely Evie and Lexi for mentioning my jewellery on their blogs. You guys rock!

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How does one photograph a giant granny square properly?

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The little granny square blanket I finished last night. It is a gift for a little boy who is already five months old.

The second granny square blanket is Cohen's. It has been hanging over the rocking chair in his room and is perfect for laying over him while he naps.

Looking at the two of them together, they seem quite different. I've used the same yarn, but a different hook size - 3.5mm for Cohen's blanket and a 4mm for the smaller blanket. I also used two chains between each cluster of stitches on Cohen's blanket and only one chain for the smaller one.

I definitely like the look of the closer stitches better.

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A sweet little giveaway on over here.