Happy New Year 2008

Happy New Year 2008

Now I can show you some pictures of finished projects.

A pair of wristy's and a matching hat for Al.

Christmas tea cozies x 3 one each for my Mum, my friend Debbie and us.

Last night we went out to a meal and party to celebrate the New Year. The food was delicious and the party was great fun.

Knitting - WIP

I have been knitting lots of small projects lately and because they are gifts I have not been able to post pictures. Now I've discovered that I forgot to take photos of two of them! (Christmas tea cozies) silly me.

I have been knitting a hat for Em, she adores sheep. So when I found a Sheepies hat here I decided I had to make it for her. I have also discovered that there is a pattern for matching mittens

Today we are travelling down to Dorset for Christmas with my parents.

I/we wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

from Jane, Tony Al & Em

Chocolate Log, Mulled Wine & Carols and yet another cold!

This week Em iced a chocolate log in Food Tech lesson (cookery to the rest of us)

It was delicious, and there's not a scrap left.

I also managed to take a photo of the Christmas tree at my favourite time of the day.

Only five more days to go 'til we finish for the holidays, yipeee! I've caught yet another cold!!! I'm sure you can guess how fed up I am at catching it again (5th time this term), though almost everyone at school has also got it.

Last Monday was the school carol concert which is held each year to raise money for the St Patrick's night shelter in Brighton. So I went along to join in and then my friend Sally and I served mulled wine and mince pies to the parents and villagers who attended. I couldn't drink any wine because I was driving but it smelt wonderful, I had a soft drink with a mince pie it wasn't the same though.

Christmas gift shopping and card writing is all finished and the cards have been posted. I'm as ready as I'll ever be.

Preparations for the season

We have been decorating the house for Christmas.

My favourite time is in the evening when we turn out the lights and just have the tree lights on. Magical ....

This is my favourite photo of Tony Al & Em taken last Christmas at a Garden Centre close to my parents home in Dorset.

Introducing .......

My new car, it is a Renault Megane 1.4 extreme and this is the photo of it in the local garage showroom. We collected it this morning at 10am and went for a drive, oooh its lovely.
Knitting progress is on Christmas tea cosies but I won't post pictures just yet as that would spoil the surprise.

WIP finished

Finally I can show you a picture of Robert the bear, who I have been knitting for Tony's Birthday. He is from a book -The Knitted Teddy Bear by Sandra Polley. Tony chose him and decided he should be red. I used Rowan Classic Poppy and Donkey colours with added plastic beans to give him some weight. I finished him off with a golden yellow bow.

We also gave Tony an ipod video which I made a pocket for from material and batting.

Happy Birthday Tony

It's Tony's Birthday today. He is the best daddy in the world to his two girls Alice and Emily, and my best friend/husband.

Happy Birthday Darling.

Love from Jane, Alice, Emily, Mum and Dad (visiting Australia) xxxxxxxxxx

Coughs & Colds

Tony and I have succumbed to yet another cold which is accompanied by a cough which makes your eyes and ribs ache (because we are coughing so much) ouch!!!

Last weekend we went to visit Al at Uni, took her out to lunch at Frankie & Benny's. Caught up on each others news and had lovely food.

Thankyou all for your comments I do appreciate them and was delighted to find many other tea/coffee drinkers amongst my blogging friends.

A Stash of Tea

Monkee is really happy, he's found my stash of tea.

There's PG, Assam, Jasmine, Green & Yorkshire

Which one does he choose? PG tips of course,

Jane's favourite is Yorkshire Tea or a fruit smoothie.

Tony likes coffee or grapefruit juice

Emily likes milkshake, chocolate or strawberry.

Aaaaaaah! a lovely cup of tea

So what is your favourite drink?

Please leave a comment and tell us what you think!

I'm sorry if this post is all jumbled up blogger is being contrary!

Monkees Rule!

Look who's come to live. (Monkee maker has been busy, you didn't know she supplies PG)

"There's a monkey in the box of Tea" said Emily jumping up and down in excitment

'Can I come out now?'
'Hello!'

'Phew, its nice to be out of the box!'

Emily made Monkee a little house so he could eat his smarties and drink tea.

'Mmm, tea'

'Ah, that's better.'

'This is a picture of the inside of my little house!'

'Hey I found a friend'

Recharged Batteries

We had a lovely weekend down in Dorset. On Saturday we visited Sherborne for Cheesy Chips in the Three Wishes Restaurant and we had a wander around the shops. We found two small Christmas gifts and added several more things to my wish list (the sort that will just remain a wish, because we/I don't really need these things!). These are a beautiful Radley handbag in black with a brown dog motif and matching stitching, a pair of amethyst earings, Port Meirion crockery and a coffee set in white with a silver rim.

Then in the charity shop Tenovus I spotted a pretty glass bowl which I couldn't resist. It cost £1.75 (approximately $4 US).

This morning I took these photos with the sun shining on the bowl. It has a lustre finish and looked stunning in the sunlight.

This evening Em has lost a tooth and is hoping the Tooth Fairy will visit!

WIP Knitting a Teddy Bear for Tony's birthday.

"Hands off Christmas"

After reading Little house by the Sea blog which had a news item on it about Down grading Christmas. My reaction was how dare they (the think-tank)?! "Hands off our Christmas"

Happy Halloween.

We won't be trick or treating, but we will have a bit of fun with evening meal:

Brains with blood sauce (Spaghetti bolognese)
and
Death by Chocolate cake!

Last week's art work

Last week on about Wednesday when I was feeling a little better I noticed that the garden had some beautiful autumnal foliage so I put together this little arrangement.

Then as my parents are in Australia at the moment visiting my Aunt. I thought I'd write an airmail letter, but it was plain white without any decoration. So I sketched the leaves and coloured them in with pencil, hopefully if the letter gets wet the drawing will survive.

Not perfect but I was pleased with it, it is a long time since I did any sketching/painting. I finished the letter on Sunday, so now its crossing the world.

Back to school

That break went too quickly.

Friday we went to Ikea in search of a lamp & cushions which we found as well as some items for the kitchen, managed to spend £93!

Saturday and Sunday were filled with the usual household stuff. We did manage to go out for dinner on Saturday evening to Appia in Storrington, delicious food.

Alice went to a Halloween party at Uni and sent us photos,

Scary!

Feeling better

What ever that bug/virus was, it left me feeling washed out and tired until Wednesday.
Yesterday I felt much better so Em and I went out to find a winter coat, we succeeded. We also visited
and bought some Rowan classic wool (Poppy and Donkey colours) to knit a little bear for Tony's birthday.

Wilhemina Witch and Penfold & Rosie Monkey too.

For the last two weeks I have been making Alan Dart's Wilhemina Witch as featured in Simply Knitting magazine for Al who's away at University (I also made a little cat from Jean Greenhowe's patterns and he's called Penfold).
Because of my cold/virus bug I couldn't go to see her as we had planned this weekend so Tony went instead. This is the photo he took, as I had forgotten to take a picture before Wilhemina and Penfold went to their new home.





Whilst he was out visiting Al, I stayed home with Em and made a sock monkey whom Em named Rosie. Em had great fun looking through my Gran's button box for the eyes. She also found a pretty buckle, so we put it onto a piece of ribbon around Rosie's waist. Then I found some real Mother of Pearl buttons and we made them into a bracelet.

My bug is now finally going and I'm begining to feel much better although I am worn out by lunchtime! I'm now going through the squeaking & coughing phase.

Virus has got me!

I've just about survived the whole half term with only one cold and two days before half term I start a dry throat. (groan) now I feel as thought my head is full of lead and my nose is stuffed full of cotton wool and bright red. Time to go back to the chair in front of the telly with some knitting. So I thought you might like to see a photo I took on my Dad's birthday in July, we went to see the Yetties in concert. At the interval we came out of the marquee, there was a beautiful sunset.

Helicopter Visit

The weeks are flying by, often I can't post because I think I don't have much to say. But today at school we had some excitment that I can share with you.

A helicopter flew in, to visit the Primary School for a couple of hours. They had the chance to look inside the 'copter and talk to the pilots.

I know that our students would have loved that chance too. Some were fortunate to have lessons in rooms on the side facing the field where they landed and it caused a lot of excitment amongst the year 7's (11-12 yrs) on our corridor.

Later the Helicopter returned home.

Wool, Socks and Shopping

Saturday morning we went shopping. I found shoes, trousers, skirt, 2 blouses and a jacket. Then I dropped into the Fabric Shop and found some beautiful balls of sock yarn which I couldn't resist. This Duo is for a pair of socks for me.















And the threesome is intended for a Christmas present once I've knitted them into a pair of socks for my Dad (sssh its a secret! But its ok he doesn't do computers and the internet)

Then I bought some wool to knit a halloween theme gift, more about that when its done.
When we got home we had an Autumn (spring) clean and sent the spiders packing, which left us with just enough energy to go out for and Indian meal.

Today I did the Ironing (which I hate) and Tony washed the cars. (Its the weekend and we are working as hard as during the week when we are both at work!) Finally after lunch I was able to get on with blogging, oh and Thurday evening I finished my pair of socks hoorah! woohoo.

I did enjoy making them and I have made some mistakes along the way (one heel is deeper than the other) but I would like to knit some more socks as well as all the other projects I keep thinking of.

Meanwhile I'm off to do some knitting, I'm working on the Candle Flame Shawl which nearly drove me insane until I found the corrections here because I kept pulling out the few rows that were wrong.

Sorry if this post comes out all over the place but nothing is staying put today. Three times I had to reload pics