10 things you (probably) didn't know about me!

Just for a bit of fun, and to see if you learn a thing or two:

1. I've ridden an out of control camel down the sand dunes of Byron Bay (NSW - Aus). This was part of the holiday from you-know-where!
2. I've been known to sing on stages throughout Victoria, and I can't hold a note!
3. I've earnt a legitimate gold medal from the Victorian Little Athletics State Championships, without even setting foot on the track (or field) 
4. I've lost a toe nail by dropping a brick on it.
5. I've never set foot outside Australia, although I've been to 5 of the states.
6. I've been hospitalised 5 times.
7. I've never broken a bone.
8. I wear glasses for long distance when driving at night.
9. I've para-sailed on the Gold Coast. (Qld - Aus)
10. I still, to this day, do not eat pumpkin after a bad childhood experience.

Curious about any of the above answers? Leave a comment and I'll explain in a new post.

On another crafty note, here's the 18th birthday card I made my niece. I just wasn't happy with the selection in the shops.

A few different craft projects

Here's a progress pic of my scarf, as of April 20th when I had finished knitting 2 balls of wool. I'm currently finishing up my 3rd ball now. Unfortunately it's looking similar to my last effort at making a scarf, skinny, fat, fatter, skinny. LOL

On another note, it was recently my niece's 18th birthday and I wanted to come up with something special, or a keepsake type gift for her. Unfortunately I didn't dream up any brilliant ideas, but here's what I did make for her. The first pic is just a whole lot of bits and pieces for her car, which her dad bought for her. The container is a car rubbish bin that attaches to the back of the seat. I've included things like a car charger for her mobile phone, tissues, wipes, a steering wheel cover, jumper leads etc.

The second pic is a chocolate bouquet I tried my hand at. (It looked so much better in my head!) I used a cardboard gift box for the base, wrapped some red and white "happy birthday" ribbon around it and added floral foam to the box. I found some heart shaped chocolates wrapped in red foil, and also bought some lindt balls wrapped in red too. I cut out some flower shaped pieces of black cardboard and stuck the heart chocolates to them. For the lindt balls I used red cellophane and black tissue paper squares to make "petals" around the chocolate. I then attached wooden skewers to the chocolates and poked them into the base as well as the "18" thingy that I'd bought. Then I just tore up some red and white tissue paper and screwed it up to cover the foam base. Although this pic doesn't show it, I then wrapped the whole thing in clear cellophane and added some of the matching ribbon to it.

The third pic is of a balloon bouquet, once again not as pretty as in my head! I bought a black and white gift bag and added more floral foam to it. I put balloon sticks into the foam and added some 18th birthday balloons.

A WIP pic and some knitting!

Here's a progress pic of my 3 Christmas bears as of the17th of April:

I've put my stitching aside for the moment to work on a knitted scarf. I found some pretty "fuzzy" wool for 75 cents a ball (at The Reject Shop for you Aussie ladies who might be interested) so decided to make a scarf. I recently bought a new cardigan/jacket thingy in a bone colour, and some camel coloured boots so a brown/cream scarf will tie in well with those. I started this last night, after reading my instructions on how to cast on. I tried knitting as a kid, but didn't go on with it. I had to get my mum to cast on and cast off, as I could purely knit in basic rows. Thanks to the wonder of the internet, I've since found simple casting on instructions and can recall how to knit. The problem is I don't have casting off instructions, LOL. Not sure how I finished the other scarf I made a few years back. I'm hoping this one is a little better as the other one starts out fat, becomes thinner, gets fatter in parts......not my best crafting effort :-)
Anyway, here's the pic, what do you think? I love the fact it's so fuzzy you don't actually see the knitting, probably a good thing considering my last effort at making a scarf :-(

Australian Open Karate Tournament

Last Friday we had another early start for another karate tournament. This one was the Australian Open and had competitors from Fiji, New Caledonia, New Zealand, the UK as well as interstate competitors. In DS's divisions there were a couple of kids from interstate as well as the usual ones he comes across in Victoria. He was entered into 2 sections, the kyu grade (basically anyone who isn't a black belt from what I can gather) and the open (for everyone including black belts). He had a major loss of balance in his first kata in the kyu grades and lost out in the first round. He didn't let that bother him in the open though. He got a bye in the first round, he won his second round 3-0, then lost 0-3 to the eventual winner in the third round. There was a repecharge system in place, meaning he could come back and try for one of the third place medals on offer. He came up against the 2nd place getter from the Victorian Championships and won 3-0, taking the bronze medal for his half of the draw. Another Victorian took 3rd place in the other half. First and second place getters were both from interstate and quite strong, so he did well.

Apologies for the washed out pics, not sure why the camera won't play fair today:

  

I'm still cross stitching away on the 3 Christmas bears, making good progress.

Is it Christmas yet?

It certainly feels like it with one Christmas cross stitch piece finished and another one started. Not sure why I'm in Christmas mode, but I'm going with it! I started this one on Saturday the 3rd of April, it's a free design I downloaded from the Cross Stitchers Club website. Here's the start I've made, and what it will look like once done:

  

Hmm, not sure why my parcel looks washed out, I used the same DMC colour that was listed. Maybe backstitching will bring it to life a little more.

A Santa Finish

This needs a good wash and iron, then some plain buttons added to the jacket as well as some holly and berry beads either side of "Merry". I'm not sure how I will finish it just yet.

Here's the details:

• Name of the design  "Claus and Company banner" 
• Chart is from a kit by JCA Needle Arts, kit # 02841. It's adapted from a design by Giordano Art Ltd
• Fabric is a piece of white 25ct evenweave
• Thread came with the kit. It was fun sorting it all, trying to work out what colour was what :-(
• Stitch count is 146 x 99
• Completed in April 2010. I'm not sure how I'll finish this one off yet

It's been a while....

...since I posted, especially since I posted cross stitch stuff. I almost have another finish to show off, but in the mean time here's a progress pic:

I just need to finish off the "Merry Christmas" and add some holly leaf beads and some red ball beads either side of the wording. Not sure how I'm going to finish this, the kit is made up as a banner and includes instructions so I might do that. Wish me luck!

Oh, and on the karate front DS had another tournament on the weekend, taking home a 2nd place trophy in kata and coming 4th in kumite. He also graded on Saturday, after training for the state team that morning. He's now 4th kyu, or orange belt.

Victorian Karate Championships

The state titles were on last Saturday, and we needed to leave home at 6.30am, not my idea of fun. I woke DS up at 6 (he readily got up, excitement will do that! I wish he was excited for school every morning) and we were out the door, eating breakfast in the car. I was tired, having gone to bed at 11.30pm because of last minute alterations to his gi. Do you know how hard it is to properly iron a 14oz gi? Especially when you're tired, having a mini meltdown and stressed to the max about the length of the pants? Do you also know that if the cotton setting isn't getting the creases out, you shouldn't - under any circumstances - up the heat to linen? Ask me how I know this. I managed to wake a few times during the night and woke for the day at about 5.15am. Yay! Did I mention I'm soooo not a morning person?

Anyway - DS's event was on first and he seemed OK, not too nervous or anything. Of course I didn't let him know this was an important tournament, he didn't need the pressure. I literally did all the stressing for him, I was sooo nervous in the week leading up to it, LOL. There were a total of 8 competitors so a nice even round with no byes. He won the first round 3-0 flags, then moved on to the second round where he also won 3-0 flags. This meant he made the finals, so was guaranteed a silver or gold medal. At that point I was ecstatic, I really didn't care which colour his medal was going to be. He had set himself a realistic target of top 4, meaning he'd win a medal because of the repechage system, so he blew that goal out of the water. In the end he also won the final 3-0 flags, so didn't concede a flag in all 3 rounds!! He didn't even realise he'd won the tournament, when his coach told him he was gobsmacked, LOL. Therefore it looks like he's made the state team for the Nationals in Sydney in August, which he is mega excited about. I thought he might struggle this year, being as though it's 8 and 9 year olds (he's recently turned 8) but he did it. All the other medalists were 9 years old I think.

Here's a pic of the medal, it's a nice heavy weight one too:

A karate surprise

Last night the karate club had an end-of-year-celebration (yes, I know it's February . It was held over from last year.) It was held at the local pool and the weather was perfect for it. There was also a small presentation, with 4 perpetual trophies awarded, one for kids about 8 and under, one for 9-12, one for teenagers and one for adults. Guess who won the little kids one? DS was sooooo excited to receive it, it's literally half his size!
Here it is:

Another karate tournament

.....and this time DS wasn't as successful. He performed well but the other competitors just performed better. He was unfortunate in that the age group was 8 and 9 years and he's just turned 8, and it was also orange striped belt and above and he's an orange striped belt too, so he was up against it. He lost out in kata in the first round but did better in kumite than I was expecting. He won the first round, and the second round it was nil all at the end of the round. They went into overtime and DS was one point up when the other boy got in a kick in the last few seconds bringing the score to 2-1 his way. It's all good experience for him and made him realise he does have to always work hard because you never know who's going to be better or stronger on the day.

Next up is the Victorian Championships, where he will also have strong competition with the best in the state competing. Fingers crossed!

Another cross stitch finish

I was after a basic cross stitch design to stitch for my youngest son who doesn't like the dark and is prone to nightmares. I wanted him to be able to see it in bed at night and know that he is safe, hence I came up with this simple design. I wasn't after anything pretty, just a simple design I could stitch quickly for him. Oh and by the way, he hasn't had a nightmare since I made it a few weeks ago. Touch wood! For some reason I thought the flourescent DMC thread was the glow in the dark one so did about half of the design before realising I was using the wrong thread. Then I restarted in the right thread, but I hadn't measured the wording properly so that was off centre and had to frog it again!

Here's the details:

• Name of the design -I guess I'll call it "Love you always" (original hey?)
• Chart is one I designed
• Fabric is a piece of navy 25ct Lugana from Zweigart
• Thread is a the DMC glow-in-the-dark thread
• Stitch count is 39 x 30
• Completed in February 2010. I just mounted this on cardboard with a bit of padding. It's backed in red felt. My son keeps it between the slats of the top bunk bed (above his head) when he sleeps.

All quiet on the western front

*snort* Yeah, right! I wish :-)
Kids have gone back to school, after school activities have started back up and I've gone back to work. I'm not organised at the best of times so it's taken me to week 3 to kind of get a grip on things, LOL.
I'm now driving over 100km a day, just to get the kids to and from school now that DS #1 is at secondary school. He is settling in really well and seems to be enjoying it, for now anyway! The homework has just started so we'll see how he manages that. DS #2 is starting extra training for karate too, and tournaments are getting underway soon so that's more driving for me! He has his first one on the weekend and it's meant to be 35 degrees. Not ideal weather for sweating it out in long pants and long sleeved top in a basketball stadium that probably doesn't have air con.
Calisthenics has started back up for me too, and the numbers are disappointing this year. We are struggling to get enough ladies to even be able to compete, let alone compete without losing 5 points. Fingers crossed we get a few newbies to join.
Cross stitching has been pretty quiet, I'm still working on the Santa piece and have started a small design to keep in the car. I'll have to drag it out and post a WIP pic soon.
Oh, and who can forget the 2 days of massive flooding last week. Thankfully our home and land were OK, but in town there were branches down, and roads and footpaths underwater. Crazy summer weather!

Testing my new signature

Not sure why it looks a bit washed out though....


Just trying another one too..

A different stitching project

Yep, you read right! No more cross stitched cupcakes for the time being. I need to buy some matching fabric for the last few different coloured holders, so I've moved on to something different. Just to be sure it will be finished in time, I've started a Christmas kit! Yes, I am aware it's still January, LOL. This is a design I saw finished on a message board post at 123stitch and thought it was cute. Did some asking around and found the name of it, and another board member even posted links to some for sale on various auction sites. There were 2 for about $25-$30 US and one for $5. Guess which one I chose? LOL. I think I had it in my hot little hands for a grand total of $11US.

The other night I started to sort the threads and remembered one of the many reasons I hate kits!! It took me forever to work out what they meant by their list of colours, turns out some appear to be blended threads. Of course it didn't help the sorting when I discovered I had an extra 2 skiens, and that I find it hard deciding which one is super mega ultra very light brown and which is just plain mega ultra very light brown. GRRR. Anyway, I've sorted them out and made a start, time will tell whether I sorted them correctly!
Here's what it will look like:

And here's the small start I've made:

The name of the kit is "Claus and Company banner" by JCA Needle Arts. It was produced in the '80s I believe but there are still kits out there.

New blogger template

Ok, so you might have noticed the new look blog. I decided it was time for a change and googled free blog backgrounds. Found a heap of pretty ones, and the instructions sounded easy enough. Problem is, most of the pretty graphics are lost off to the side, I don't know why you can't see them. Sure, I can shrink my screen to 50% to see them, but then you can't read the blog.

Well, after a bit of investigating it seems it might be my tiny pre-historic screen that's chopping off the sides. Oh well. Guess I'll just have to play some more and find the right background for my screen. Another addiction in the making??