Leafygal

You're Jesting

Just in case you were wondering, I have finished some knitting projects recently.

The Jester Booties have been felted (more properly fulled as they are knitted items not fleece)
I think they need another go in the hot water to shrink them a bit more. They looked bedraggled when wet but spruced themselves up once dry again. The pattern is actually titled Old World Booties

The Dog Coat has been done for a while now. It has been waiting for photos

First I couldn't get my usual model to wear it because she had 2 episodes of torn dew claws and I wasn't game to try to pull anything over her feet. Now she has modelled the coat but won't sit still for a photo.

I resort to a static job. The coat has gone to the shop and hopefully someone will buy it for Xmas.

It was fun to knit. I used a pattern for Latvian Mittens and just applied it to the plain vanilla dog coat shape.

The Years roll by

I've just passed another birthday milestone. Having a birthday where your age aligns with the year number has one major drawback, especially if your birthday is towards the end of the year. I tend to think of myself as the age I will be that year for most of the time during the year.

Let's clarify that a little bit - I can no longer remain coy about this so admit to now being 58 years old (or 58teen as I have seen on another web site!)  Because the year is ending in 8, I think of myself as 58 whenever I wonder how old I am whatever time of year it is.
Just before my birthday I had to remind myself that I was really only 57. Somehow that didn't sound nearly as old.
New Year's resolution. I am only 58teen!

We did have a lovely day out with lunch once again at one of our favourite spots The Ol' Duke in Portarlington.
The weather wasn't quite warm enough to sit on the deck but we had a great view from just inside.

No photos of food, but I had Walnut crumbed brains with the most deliciously freshly made Waldorf salad. Main was slow roasted lamb shoulder with a spicy masala sauce, melting warm eggplant salad and a little Chinese spoon of creamy yogurt and garlic tzatziki style embellishment.

Tony had the calamari salad followed by crisp skin Kingfish on an Asian salad with a red curry sauce.
We both greeded out with desserts - Chocolate fondant pudding for Tony and a blueberry Sauternes jelly with vanilla mousse and almond biscotti for me. A NZ Sauvignon Blanc and a Pettavel Late picked Riesling accompanied this lovely meal.

We had promised Pepper a walk so we waddled along the foreshore and threw the ball for her. We needed the walk more than she did after the food.

The rest of the afternoon, late by the time we got home, was spent reading a magazine and snoozing - me,  or just outright snoozing - Tony and Pepper!

Zentangles

I've discovered that the many hours I spent in lectures or meetings perfecting my idiosyncratic doodles were not wasted.

There is a newish art form called Zentangles which is a combination of the meditative state of Zen and the Tangles that evolve from allowing your pen to make repetitive marks on the paper.

Who knew that what I started doing 40 years ago would surface as a valid art form today.

The 4x6 group (Artist's Post Cards) that I belong to is doing a Zentangles swap and I churned out 3 to send off. Here they are!!

I stepped outside my boundaries a little here by adding to the original format:

 -  different marks such as hearts squares, dots and fern frondy thingies

 -  other weights of line using chisel pointed markers

1.  -  colour

I hope my "doodles" are enjoyed

(Shame I wasn't smart enough to commercialize the idea and make squillions of dollars selling "How to" kits)
 

Little Fishies

I forgot I had promised a photo of the finished Mixed Media friends swap pieces. Here they are. I was quite pleased with them and once I had spread them out like this thought they would have made a great wall hanging. That will have to be my next task! 

Here are just a few of the detailed ones

(I also forgot to mention that this photo appeared on the home page of the group - pretty special eh!)

The ragbag

Ragbag posts are what happen when you haven't posted anything for ages and you have lots of different things to blog about.

Activities Include:
    A busy weekend starting with a family dinner at the house in Ocean Grove to celebrate what would have been my father's 90th Birthday. We opened his hoarded single malt whisky and enjoyed it for him. (24th Oct)
    On the Saturday morning the Morongo Old Collegians' AGM and luncheon (as president I had to attend) although it meant missing out on:-
    Back to Ocean Grove celebrations to mark 50 years since the Proclamation of the Township. I remember pushing my decorated pram in the parade next to my brother's decorated tricycle. Apparently we both won prizes for some art works as well, according to contemporary accounts in the local paper.
    I did get to the dinner that evening held in the OG Bowling Club where I had spent so many lunchtimes with my father in recent years. The Dinner was delicious against all expectations and we had a good time. Having my brother on board helped us to come second in the history of OG Trivia quiz. (Who else would know the absolutely exact location of the OG railway station?) There were at least 4 other members of my Primary school class there and we were just able to recognize each other!
    Sunday morning spent going through all the family photos,  newspaper clippings and other treasures with my cousin Ann who is the Menzies family historian. We found things that neither we nor she had seen before so it was quite productive.

 Our day off Tuesday was spent taking Tony's mum out for lunch for her birthday. She has recently moved from her unit in the retirement village into a  serviced apartment in the same location. It seems a very pleasant place to be and she still has access to the old Casey family home as the community centre at Edrington Park.

Caught up with friends on the Monday evening as they have been down for the "long" weekend of Cup Day.

Melbourne Cup Day saw us lunching with friends in Melbourne. Pepper came too and enjoyed her day with 2 pugs, Millie the black one and Oki  the other one and Gemma, their "cousin",  a silky terrier Jack Russell cross. They all behaved in exemplory fashion although Pepper seems to get bored with other dogs after a while. She ended up snoozing on the mat in the doorway and watching proceedings from there.

A photo at last - Ann's grandson Freddie finally got his jacket and it still fits him - and isn't he gorgeous in it!!!