Would posting a heap of photos help you forgive me for abandoning this place?

Okay.. just roll along with me here….

First up, recent photos of the kids!

I love his feet and toes.

Through my (fisheye) lens.

Look at the way he is looking at her! LOL.

He was about to push her!!!!

So…. are we interested in what I’ve been up to recently?
Well.. I’m having school holidays at the moment and return to Uni early July (which is soon!!)

I’ve been knitting loads and reading loads, happy to be away from assignments and exams for a bit!
Here some photos of my WIPs (Work In Progresses):

My Olive blouse, knitted with Wollmeise (Blau Tinte 100%) and the collar was knitted with Malabrigo Sock (Caribeno). It’s an endless Stockingnette stitch right now and I only work on it when I need a project that doesn’t need much brain juice.

Well I thought knitting a blouse or cardi in sock weight was bad enough…. Clearly I’m insane to start a Featherweight cardi with malabrigo Lace. I know, right? It’s not in hibernation yet but this is at the bottom of my WIP list. Grrr.

This is my Huntington Castle Pullover. Knitted in Rowan Summer Tweed. I’m left with just a little bit of the hood and seaming the sleeves to go!!!

Uh… another semi-abandoned project… This is crochet and I’m trying to make a hexagon blanket throw for our sofa.

I have another major WIP (possibly the last of its kind too) that I’ve been brewing and that is this:

Which kinda explains why I’ve not been updating much (on top of the school work and housework I have!)

I know my tummy is big for weeks (16 weeks now) but I am assured it’s normal as it is our 3rd baby and my insides expand much faster for subsequent babies.
I’ve JUST finished with feeling nauseous and horrible everyday and am now able to keep my dinner down much better. My spirits have improved although I still feel tired a lot of the time.

We are not finding out the gender of the baby and he/she already has a nickname! It happened when one day we asked the kids,

Me to Sunshine: Do you want a baby brother or a baby sister?
Sunshine: Hmm.. I want a baby sister.
Me to Chubbs: Do you want a baby brother or baby sister?
Chubbs (eyeing the carrot in his food bowl): I want a BABY CARROT!!
Thus, we have our little baby carrot.

Okay dokey. If you are on my list of Facebook friends, you’ll be able to see the other photos I’ve taken……
Once again, sorry for the absence… I will try to make up for lost time.

I finished it last night and did the stem and leaf this morning. Sunshine named it “Napa”. I have no idea why.

I’m very honored to be chosen by Salihan for her free kit! I was unsure at first as I’m very very bad at crochet but I’m so happy that she sent it to me as I’ve learned so much from crocheting this pear!

Salihan sent me a ball of Panda Zoomy (I chose green) and some brown and some green yarn to crochet the stem and leaf. And also safety eyes for the pear. And of course, her awesome pattern.

I had to buy a 6.5mm crochet hook as I didn’t have any, I started on the pear, frogged, started again, frogged again… and then just when I got to the end of the increases (which was quite a lot done!), I went to Salihan’s video tutorial and found out that I was crocheting WRONG!

Lets just say that I did unnecessary steps and was using much more yarn than ‘normal’ and it really looked like I was running out of yarn. So, I FROGGED IT AGAINNN!!! My mum did it for me so that I could avoid uncontrollable tears pouring out from my eyes if I were to frog it myself.

But there is a silver lining in every dark cloud…… I learned the proper way to crochet and enjoyed the process much much more. It’s no longer something ‘frightening’ to me. And crochet, although uses more yarn than knitting (to obtain the same sized object), is much much faster. I finished Napa in less than 2 days (not counting the froggings)!

A note to people who intend to crochet this though – You MIGHT run out of yarn! I didn’t have enough at the end and had to cut away the long tail from the first ‘cast on’ (is that what you call your first slip knot in crochet? I have no idea!) and joined it to the end. Even then, I didn’t have enough to decrease all the way and was forced to close up the pear without completing the decreases.
Maybe I’m just a loose hooker (haha!) and use more yarn than others?

So if you’re a loose hooker (this never gets old!) like me, best to stand by with more yarn!

Oh oh! I forgot to mention that I embroidered the mouth in another shape than the original pattern. It’s a kissy pouty lip mouth ( ’3′) <– like that. Does it look cute? Hehehhe!

Once again, thank you Salihan for giving me the chance to crochet this pear.

If you are interested in this pattern, pop over to Salihan’s shop. She has patterns as well as finished pears for sale.