Another beautiful free shawl crochet pattern

I pinned a whole heap of free shawl and capelet patterns recently with every intention to make each and every one of them either for myself, as gifts or both! After finishing the Pineapple Lace Shawl I moved on to this gorgeous design that really caught my eye. I left off 2 rows around the bottom but it turned out beautifully and as a very simple pattern, I highly recommend working one up for yourself or as a gift! You find the free pattern by clicking HERE.. the only thing is you will need to sign up to the Lion Brand website to access it, but with so many other free patterns available on that site, it's probably not too much of a problem :o) Feeling inspired by the purple and black on the last shawl I made, I was eager to use that colour combination again and after a few hours of happy crocheting, I finished up with this:

It has been wrapped in white and red striped paper, tied with a box and had a tag attached to it under the Christmas tree :o)

Nailed knitting, chocolate, wine and a very squishy photo session

Hiya! I am completely and utterly exhausted from a busy weekend and a photoshoot earlier thisafternoon...thought I'd just pop in to my lovely little corner of the interwebs here with a post for anyone out there who reads them :) *waves*

I have totally nailed this knitting thing... behold! No dropped stitches! It looks like a scarf, and I suppose it could be used as one but it's actually (or at least it will be tomorrow) a newborn wrap that I needed for my shoot tomorrow. Hoorah for being able to make my own props and stuff when I need them! ^.^ Look at my sexy knitting!

I also made some clippies! I was asked to make some for my friend's daughter as she has crazy red hair and obviously needs pretty things to hold it back a little. It's a rare occassion that I'm asked to make things for people... made me feel pretty chuffed actually!

Oh!! I was lucky enough to receive a very kind and thoughtful thankyou gift from my photography clients this afternoon ^.^ I was not expecting anything at all, it was really touching! After doing so much work towards to my photography lately (and I'm certainly not complaining!) it was just really really really lovely to be given a gift. Chocolate and wine.. The way to my heart! So thankyou to the beautiful family I worked with today, you are wonderful people!

Aside from all that I've been spending a mostly quiet weekend at home with hubby and the fur babies playing Skip Bo and Smash Bros on the Nintendo 64.... pretty fantabulous weekend I'd say!


Here's one of the photos from my session today.. see the rest at Quirky Bean Photography if you'd like!

I probably should mention the whole shoot was based around smooshing cake into each other's faces ;)


Bonne nuit my friends! I need some sleep!

Oodles of gingerbread, another lovely scarf and a huge trip to plan!

I told you I loved this pattern! :o) I've made another one in this really gorgeous green as a gift to a close friend of the family. It's lovely and soft and I really hope she enjoys it!

 

These past few days have been a bit hectic here at Shmoogle Bean HQ... me being sick on and off (cause still unknown!) makes for slow progress! I recently made up my annual batch of gingerbread men and sent them in with my husband to work to share with the staff he works with and the lovely librarian ladies. From what I hear they were well received :o) I always make extra for the cleaning ladies, the grounds keeper and office staff as I really don't feel like many people give them thanks at the end of each year for all the hard work they do. Last night saw yet another Christmas gift finished and checked off my list.... I am running VERY low on time to get them all done!!! AHHHHHHH!!!!! But I'll manage :o) I'm not even going to think about how many I still have to do because I may fall over but swords up and charge onwards! The trick is not to look down!
I call this, my Bubblegum Hat hehe

Pretty neato right?

What are you doing for Christmas? Going anywhere?

We are!! To Albury in fact ^.^ Yup, on the 22nd of December hubby, myself and our two fur babies will pile into our clunky old car at 3am and head off from Armidale for a 13 hour drive. The whole of my husband's family (his 4 other brothers, their wives/girlfriends, his sister, nephews..everyone!) will be at his parent's house this year so we're making the great annual migration to join in :o) Previously our funds weren't going to allow us going anywhere but it turns out we get a bit of holiday loading from last year *jumps up and down with glee* and we will make it! Hoorah! I'm not entirely sure whether I'm looking forward to the drive itself though... although we're planning every stop, fuel refill and snack break it's always nerve wracking to travel anywhere over the Christmas period...especially over a long distance. Plenty of music for us, chew toys for the fur balls and we'll be alright. Needless to say we're both pretty damn excited!!!!! Now if only I could be sure I'll have all this pressies made in time! Eeeep! Oh and I guess I'm also a little nervous coz well, let's face it... I've gained a few kg's since the last time everyone saw me and I guess *shuffles feet* I'm just really self conscious. I'll live, it's not the end of the world... but it haaaas been bothering me just a tinsy bit.

Anyway MOVING on from that delicate (or chunky lumpy) topic..

oh look!
GINGERBREAD HOUSES! Sorry for the totally LAME-O photos but they are being stored in a giant blue plastic tub at the moment to keep them safe until they're delivered to my Armidale buddies this arvo :o) Seriously you open the lid and it smells like heaven in there... OM NOM NOM I made gingerbread houses last year too... from my own recipe actually ;) (smug face) haha but really if you'd like the recipe you can find it by clicking >>>HERE<<<
Ok so I'm not the most skilled decorator in the world, and my construction skills are a tinsy bit dodgy but they are holding together! Thumbs up! I could have taken them out of the box to take a pretty picture but it would disrupt the Tetris-like harmony inside the box and I'm too scared I'll break one haha









Now my icky sick self is going to hole up on the lounge for a while and watch Alien 2.

:o)

A beautiful shawl, Stargate and more Christmas presents off the list!

Isn't she a beauty? This gorgeous pattern you can find for free on the Caron website and I highly recommend making one either for yourself or as a gift! It is just so B-E-A-utiful! The pattern is suprisingly simple to follow, and depending on your crochet speed, won't take too long to complete :o) I just gotta say how much I LOVE LOVE LOVE the black and the purple together! I had visions of being clever with black and orange to create a butterfly wing inspired shawl using the same pattern but we'll see ;) It's now wrapped in red and white striped paper, tied with a bow and under our Christmas tree.

I've been in Christmas present making overdrive lately... that happens when you leave everything til the last minute! Typical Tash :o) But I'm slowly making headway, I've been focusing on getting all the gifts for the girls done first.... mostly because I'm completely stumped as to what to do for all the manly men! Oh well..I'll think of something! Lucky I have so many free patterns and inspiration stored on Pinterest...or I'd be pretty well stuffed! One of those things happens to be this beautiful free shell lacey scarf pattern from The Art of Zen Crochet which, I might add, works up an absolute treat!

I've fallen so much in love with this pattern that I'm currently working on another scarf, this time in an absolutely stunning sea foam green.... I'll show you later ;)

Now the reason why I mentioned Stargate was because recently, my husband and I started watching it from the very beginning with Season 1, Disc 1 and are currently up to Season 4 somewhere... Hubby watches it while I sit and work on my Chrissy pressies and there was one particular line that caused me to burst out into uncontrollable giddy laughter. It was of course a Teal'c line that got me, and I suppose reciting it now won't be nearly as amusing as having seen and heard it on the actual show. But anyway...
Colonel O'Neill 'What are we going to do now?'
Teal'c 'I hear of a place when human females do battle in a ring of jello'
Colonel O'Neill 'I'll call Daniel'
 I just lost it...  I guess you really had to hear it to get the full effect, but trust me it was classic! Teal'c is one of my absolute fav sci fi characters!

Now I'd best get back to my present-creating! I'm running out of time and there's alot to be done!

Much love!