September Daze

September is just flying by this year. I don't know where the days are going because I have not accomplished as much as I had hoped. I had planned to have my teapot cosy finished by now but I am still on the main part. No appliques have even been started yet. But I am getting somewhere with my little extras.

Even with my crochet progress going slow, I have had a lot going on in my family's daily life. We have had birthday's and camp, markets and dance recitals. On the second the kids and I caught the train down to Maitland. The kids spent the day with their dad while I did some Birthday shopping at the large monthly markets. It has been years since we lived in Maitland and I had forgotten just how huge and busy they are. I picked up a lot of birthday presents for the three of my kids having Birthdays this month. I loved the stalls that buy direct from the factories and sell for the much cheaper factory prices. My two youngest children got their presents from those stalls, while I just happened upon a Harry Potter stall for my much obsessed eldest daughter. I managed to pick up a couple of PlayStation games for my eldest son. Needless to say all the children were happy with my haul.

My Birthday was also this month and I managed to pick up a few things for myself. 

I couldn't go past the cute little knitted cupcake pin cushion. I was in need of a larger Afghan hook with a longer cord and found one at the same stall as the yarn. The yarn is 100% wool in beautiful bright colours. I am going to make myself a Tunisian simple stitch scarf for next winter with it.
 Here is a closer look. It mostly looks blue, but there is green in there as well.

The Handmade and Home Grown Markets just happened to fall on my Birthday this year. They are only a very small market and mostly sell baby items. But  my kids managed to find me a cute owl cushion and also brought me a little owl cross stitch from GO-LO, our dollar store.

My mum dropped me off a bag of presents as well before we went to my daughters dance recital.

A very cute bunch of solar owl lights. Mum was disappointed when she found out I already owned two of the bigger ones at the front. But I love them and was happy for another.

Earlier this week mum was telling her next door neighbour about the teapot cosy I am working on for my swap partner and not long after, This was passed over the fence for me.

I love the rooster tea set! I also got given candles to go with it.

My best present is yet to come! Yesterday while I was at mum's showing her how Ebay worked, we got to talking about how I want to learn how to sew again. Mum has been wanting to teach me for ages but her old machine has PMS issues. I have not wanted to be the one to finish her off for good. Well mum told me how said next door neighbour's daughter had just picked up a brand new sewing machine for cheap. Usually cheap means crap when it comes to machines, but he hunted through the catalogues to find it. What a bargain it was!

A saving of 61%!! Surely they would fly out the door. So we quickly headed down to the shop and I brought home my newest fun toy.

Mum spent some time showing me the basics and sat back and laughed at my attempts of straight lines. I learnt I have a lead foot but once I got that under control I managed to sew together three sides of some scrap material.

Unfortunately our material shop closed down earlier this year so I am waiting patiently for my mother to bring me some material to practise more with until we go shopping next week. I did manage to repair a
big rip in my favourite knitted jacket though. If anyone has any idea's of a basic learner sewing pattern for me to try, please pass it along.

Enjoy what is left of September!