How to: Make a T-Shirt Yarn Necklace

In my last post, I showed you a picture of a giant ball of stripy yarn. Just to refresh your memory, look below:

Would you believe I have TWO of these?? Each skein is approximately 200 metres! It's a stretchy type of fabric known as t-shirt yarn or "tarn". (You can google how to make t-shirt yarn and there are lots of intructionals about how to make it from old t-shirts. I'm more of a ready-made kind of girl!) 

I've been wanting to make SOMETHING with it for ages, but the only patterns and projects I've seen have been for crochet. So I decided to bite the bullet and teach myself to crochet, I didn't think it would be too hard, given I more or less taught myself to knit. I found this pattern for a fabulous chunky knit basket which I thought would be perfect for this type of yarn. Also, it is fairly large so I figured a I would use up most of the yarn. 

Knitting Madness: Hats, Boots and Headbands

This past week I've been inspired to get back into a bit of knitting. I haven't done any the past couple of months mainly because it's been too hot for wearing wool, and we've had nice weather so I'd rather be outdoors!

It started because I wanted a gift to give a friend who is pregnant & was feeding our cat for a few days while we were away. I've got a pattern booklet from the Australian Women's Weekly (Great Winter Knits circa 2012- I bought at our local hospice shop) and a lot of the colour ways are grey with a bright contrasting colour. As I have a whole bunch of grey wool scraps, I thought I could do "something" and just get a couple new colours of wool. At Spotlight they didn't have a light, buttery yellow that I was imagining, so I settled for bright Orange and Turquoise blue. 

The pattern I always use for my hats is from Ravelry and available for free here. I just adapt it to whatever colour or size I want. Most of my wool is DK 8ply so I use 4.0mm or 4.5mm straight needles. 

Chelsea Winter Gluten Free Chocolate Cheesecake

One of my favourite things about Christmas is all the delicious food that you get to make. I have a sweet tooth so I'm always drawn to desserts and treats! Because of this, I usually get the task of making dessert for Christmas day, so I begin trawling through Pinterest for recipes and inspiration! (Seriously what did we do before we had Pinterest??!!) 

Triple Berry Blondie (Brownie)

Here's an easy recipe when you want something sweet for an afternoon tea or dessert, but don't want to go to the effort of making a cake. 

This recipe I made up as an adaption from the Edmonds Illustrated Cookbook. If you love the regular Edmonds book, then you really need this one! 

Things I'm Loving: Christmas 2013

Everyone loves Christmas! Here are a few things I'm loving about Christmas this year.