As you can imagine once the fierce sewing fest prior Christmas finished, I did nothing crafty at all - it was lovely to take a break, smell the roses, read books and lounge about as I am want to do when we're home (in NZ) for a break. Probably the most creative things I did over that time were to help put up tents and stuff a whole lamb to popped on a spit - which incidentally was delicious - I must check if I have a picture somewhere and I'll add it here.
When we got home from the Christmas break Melbourne weather turned fierce - what seemed like weeks of over 38°C temperatures over the day, dropping to ~24°C over night if we were lucky. Needless to say the air con was going all the time (thank goodness I had the forethought to put some in the bedrooms in November before the heat wave. Crafting and cooking were put aside as my sewing table is on a mezzanine floor above the kitchen (so gets quite warm despite air con and fans going steadily) and the last thing I was going to do was turn on the oven and counteract the air con! I spent my days thinking of creative ways to make dinner that didn't involve heat (much easier said than done with a 17 month old who at the time was not remotely interested in salad or veges of any kind!) And watching tv under the blanket directly under the air con unit - ridiculous how cold it gets when you sit there!)
zbl & I also spent a bit of time in shopping malls organising her a bit of a winter wardrobe - I know I should have been making it myself, but read the bit above about the heat wave! Winter wardrobe in the middle of a heat wave - what the???
So on Feb 8th, we headed off on a month long adventure to Shanghai. tl's work required that he spend a bit of time there to get some traction for some work he was doing, and additionally we will most likely (95%) be moving here in the near future, so it was an opportunity for us to see the city and see what we thought!
So we went from a heat wave (I think it was about 26°C when we left for the airport at 7am in the morning) to snow - I think it was a max of 4°C on the first day we got here - hence the winter wardrobe requirements :-)
I just remembered I did make something for zbl, I made her some mittens - which she wore and wore and wore, which is awesome as I thought that most likely she would just take them straight off! Having said that she is a practical wee thing sometimes, and she recognises the benefits when her hands were warm inside them and cold outside them!
So what have I been doing while I've been here, to keep me busy rather than spending all nap times watching tv, reading blogs and playing hay day?
When I was in Auckland for Christmas, I mentioned to the aunties that I was going to teach myself to crochet, so my lovely Auntie Ann taught me some basic stitches right there on the spot - very easy and very quick too! So I brought over a few balls of wool and had a go at making some basic granny squares.
I am quite pleased with how they turned out - I really should have got more done, but never mind! As you can see, two of them are bog standard 5 row granny squares (I went and had a look here to remind myself what Auntie Ann had taught me), the one in the middle is called a bulls eye square and I found out how to make it through pinterest (of course) from this lovely tutorial.
Now that I have the basics down, I need to make something a bit larger - my sister sent me this link which looks entirely doable, now I just need to decide on the colours!
Anywho, zbl & I are heading back to Melbourne this evening on an overnight flight, so wish me luck with getting a (now) 19 month old to sleep not in a bed for a decent amount of time (the flight is nearly 11 hours) so she wakes up and feels like she can face a full day (we get back at 10am Melbourne time).
