Brrrrrrr....

The Mother of all storms is hitting The Mother City - aka Cape Town - this weekend! It started raining last night (Friday) and hasn't stopped yet, and the wind has now come out to play as well. (As I type this, it's 4:15 on Saturday afternoon)

Check out Windguru's prediction...especially the waves for Monday....that's higher than our house!!

 I found this stunning scarf pattern while perusing Pinterest two weeks ago, and decided I HAD to try it out! Besides the fact that the pattern and blurb about it is written with tongue in cheek and lots of humour, it's really easy. I did mine with DK wool as it's the wool I use the most, and I'm soooo chuffed at how it turned out! I would really like to try a 4ply one, just to see the difference. Have a look at the pattern here for those of you who are looking for something to make using up all those bits of wool. I can highly recommend this pattern - it's fun and easy to pick and put down whenever!
 

Just in case I didn't like it much, I only cast on 300 stitches...next time 500!

The woven look that you get. The top half is the knit side, and the bottom half is the purl side.

I was really eager to tangle this last week, but fortunately (from a finance point of view and unfortunately from a crafty point of view), I was asked to temp for a staff member who has gone off to Durban to run the annual Comrades Marathon. I did eventually finish challenge #119 though, and I thought it worked quite well. SO onto challenge #120 and I finished it and in time!.

Challenge #119

Challenge #120

 
We're having soup, bread and table tennis for supper at a friends house tonight - perfect for a winters day! Stay warm everyone - especially those in the southern hemisphere!

Love 

PennyB

Autumn in May

Apologies to my blog friends for being absent for so long! I have no excuse that's not to say I didn't think of any! I have battled to complete some of the Diva's challenges on time, and when I miss the slideshow deadline, I stop....very sad! 

I've been busy creatively in other ways though...I now have my own Pinterest account/page and am finding quite a few interesting things to try....one of which I did for supper tonight!
 I made mini steak pies in the muffin pan (the pinned recipe made cherry pies)! I adapted the recipe slightly though, courtesy of a friend of mine and poured thick pancake mixture over the top instead of a pastry case. They...were...delicious!

Just out the oven...oozing gravy

Cut in half to cool down

With home made chips and salad...yum

Zendala Dare #54 from The Bright Owl caught my attention and after completing the Earth Day or Amanda Day challenge, I was still caught up in mixing colours with the black and white.

And then I got started on a random art work with complementary colours blue and orange....it was such fun to do!

 Hopefully, I can finish this week's challenge on time (I'm still working on the previous one)...

PennyB
 

Winter...where?!

Greetings! 

Well after our winter rain and cold last weekend which had everyone scurrying to find the winter woolies, we're now having an Indian Summer. It was a "balmy" 30 degrees C today with a bit of a berg wind(a hot wind), which had everyone stripping off all those layers you tend to pile on in autumn! 

Every Friday, we go to our public library and get out books! We are a reading family and the youngest gannet now has control of dad's library card as well as her own - which means she takes out 14 books every week!!! While browsing the craft and drawing shelves (something I have to do, JUST in case there's a new book...) I found a book called BIG Knitting. It was wonderful! The smallest needle was a 10mm and the biggest was a 20mm, and the only wool you used was chunky and extra chunky - so everything knits up really fast! 
I found a pattern for a shrug, which I made for the youngest gannet using one strand of double knit and one starnd of chunky.

The shrug!

Youngest gannet posing with her shrug as a scarf!

Scarf again!

I also now have a  Pinterest page! These little amigurumi patterns pooped up one day as the interest of the day and I fell in love! Amigurumi is Japanese crochet done with small hooks and fairly thin yarn. There are some gorgeous patterns and I've done these two!

The purple one is a Monster and the pink one is a baby owl. The monster is only 5cm high!

On to tangles and things...I decided to do a zendala using my new set of French curves! I was half way through the ZIA, when The Diva  posted her latest challenge-Amanda Day or Earth Day as our mere mortals know it! My zendala was already in blues and greens and just fitted right in!

Challenge #115: fingers. nzeppel and twisted rope.

Happy crafting
PennyB

Autumn/winter!

Hi all

Well the Easter weekend and our 4 day holiday went by in a blur of sand, sea and sun as we spent 4 days in Durban at the SA NIpper Championships-23 Lifesaving CLubs from around the coast and 650 nippers all converged on the beach. Both gannets did very well with the youngest ending 5th flags, and the eldest coming 10th in the malibu final and 14th in the iron nipper! Very proud parents.

Caitlin in her paddle to the beach in the malibu finals

I didn't manage to do much drawing while we were away as we had to be at the beach at 7:15am and then only left at 5:30pm before heading off to the daily prizegiving and dinner! Last weeks challenge also got the better of me, as it was back to school here in SA and everything started off at a run! I'm particularly annoyed with this because I liked the challenge last week! Sooooo...I sat in the lounge last night (quite something for me at the moment) and tangled this weeks challenge - "You with stars in your eyes" - , AND I finished it!

Challenge 114! Tangles used are inapod, shattuck, indy-rella mixed with joy by Sandy Hunter

Happy creating
PennyB

Easter time

Happy Easter!

 Easter weekend has arrived with some interesting weather with it! We had the beginnings of a Black South Easter yesterday-just no rain. A BSE in our part of the world is the strongest wind with horrendous weather that uproots trees, roofs off houses etc. 

Our usually calm and friendly sea with monster waves that came right up the ramp!

My colourful mandalas have taken a while to complete, but I played and finished.

Finished! Thanks Eden Elle for the inspiration

 

Last weekend was such fun at Nippers-we had our Micro Nipper Carnival! The Micro's don't compete because they're too young still, so we have a carnival every year at the end of the season just for them. (Micro Nippers are 4-8 years old). We had 4 of our clubs in the Western Province taking part with Fish Hoek having 52 little lifeguards in training! All in all we had 110 little people on the beach that morning!

The start of the Beach run-which was only 400m!

Challenge 111 took me the whole week to do - not from lack of inspiration-but every time I wanted to sit down and tangle, something else came up!

CHallenge #111

 We're off to Durban on Wednesday for South African Nipper Nationals-35 clubs and over 300 NIppers over 3 days,Thurs, Fri Sat-and then fly back home on Sunday and back to school on Monday...hectic week ahead!

HAppy Creating everyone and hope you have a blessed Easter with family and friends
PennyB xxx

Hi all!

I can't believe  another week has gone by so fast! The last 2 weeks of our 1st school term are always crazy, but this year it's even crazier! We have 3 days next week as Thurs 21st is a Public Holiday and Friday is a school holiday...and the last week school breaks up on Thursday as Friday is Good Friday! Our Nippers all have Bootcamp next week as well: training every night from 5-6:30, with dinner provided and then a sleepover on the Saturday as the following weekend is South African Nipper Nationals in Durban!
 (And then after all of that, it's back to school!

Phew! I finally finished my pencil drawing of a White-fronted Bee-eater. I usually draw flowers - I'm a lover of bright colours-but this bird got my attention, so....

This is the picture in our Country Life magazine.

Stage 1: the sketch

Stage 2: colour added with Inktense and Graphitint pencils and then watered. I then got stuck into the head with the dry pencils...

Stage 3: the body, using layers of dry pencil and lots of little feathery strokes...

Stage 4: the finished branch and bird!

I wasn't so sure of the Challenge this week from the Diva....I had a few ideas, but none worked. It was the Enthusiastic Artist who finally gave me the inspiration I needed to complete my tangle. (I even used one of her strings!) I'm really chuffed the way it turned out...AND...I used a few new tangles too!

Challenge #109: tink, scallops(with a Penny variation), paizel, twile

Now to find another picture to draw with my pencils...! I have found some awesome photos on Eden Elle's Pinterest page. (She's the Draw, Doodle and Decorate lady, and I LOVE her blog - She has so many wonderful ideas!)

Happy Creating
PennyB

Step by step...

Greetings from a very hot Cape Town! Today for the most part we are house bound as it is the Pick 'n Pay Cape Argus Cycle Tour...36 000 cyclists...105km starting in Cape Town and ending in Cape Town after riding around the peninsula! We can't get out of our suburb today as the race comes past until 3pm this afternoon!

The eldest gannet has had an AMAZING week two weeks ago..she secured her first photo shoot on Saturday for a major clothing retailer here in SA! She was scouted at a school rugby match last year by a top model agency here in Cape Town and has been for some training. I got a phone call on Monday saying she was needed....so on Saturday, we were flown to Durban (2 hours by air) for the shoot for the autumn fashion insert and then flown home!

Her Z-card!

And on top of all this, she came 2nd in her high jump at the Inter schools athletics competition on Tuesday, and went through to the zonal trials on Friday. AT the High Schools inter house swimming gala: she came 3rd in butterfly and 1st in backstroke, and both her relay teams came first! I am such a proud mommy at the moment!!

 

One of my favourite blogs to visit on a regular basis is Draw Doodle Decorate. Eden has the most wonderful ideas with colouring in with markers and her paintings are amazing! I'vw started a circle design like hers and am busy with the colouring with my new Sharpie markers that I got when we were in Orlando on holiday.

My Draw Doodle Decorate inspired drawing about to be coloured.

More colour...

I'm finally managing to get the challenge completed and uploaded this week! I will freely admit though,I don't like this tangle! I played around trying it out and ended up with the page below! It's very seldom I give up on a page. I was determined to finish it and went through quite a few of the entries to The Diva's weekly challenge before I found one that I thought I could work! (Thank you Margaret Bremmer)

Challenge #108: Keeko, Whyz and leafy things!

I've got a few more arty creations that are being finished off, so I might even blog twice this week!!

OMG...I almost forgot...this is the maiden blog on my birthday present from my wonderful hubby....a laptop!!!!

Happy creating
PennyB