Central Markets, Siem Reap

Just because I like to think about life beyond home in Rotorua (especially when it is raining), for you today I have selected some pictures I took in the markets in Siem Reap. I love the bags made from recycled sacks. The t-shirts are pretty cool too.

On the loose

 

Madge and Edna enjoying an afternoon on the lawn

I have worked out that I can let the hens out to scritch and scavenge. So far they have returned daintily to their house on being bribed by a handful of pellets.  

Party gal

You can't turn one without cupcakes!

 

Annie Jean turned one last week. My first ever bit of baby knitting can now be unveiled. 

I made the pink/red jacket first, but it had so many mistakes that it became just a prototype. It took quite a lot of unpicking and researching online to make any sense of the pithy pattern instructions. Frustrating, but I was not to be beaten. My second attempt is so much better. The pattern is from Elizabeth Zimmerman's Almanac and is called Baby Sweater on Two Needles, also known as the February Baby Sweater. Fit-wise it works, despite my fears it would be too small. My version of the pattern is short in the arms, but that turns out to be quite practical for a busy wee girl intent on exploring every little thing in her world. The colour looks gorgeous on her.

(not-a-bit bored) walk

Not long to the winter solstice, but still these lovely mild days.

Collecting shell grit for the chooks was a good excuse for a coffee at the beach. So off to Mt Maunganui for the afternoon. The walk around Mauao is closed because slips took out the path last month.

Stash and ufos

Bringing my stash of knitting wools into the open is making me feel guilty, especially as I now need to buy some more of a particular nightshade coolour for the cardigan I'm working on.

I also came across an unfinished object - a scarf from several years ago which could be unpulled. It is too scratchy for a scarf.  Now what will I make from it?

Time to light the fire

May-be Jacket

I have started knitting up a cardigan pattern from the Simply Beautiful Sweaters book. I'm hoping it will be more of a jacket than a cardy. So far there are stripes in four different textures/colours, but I'm thinking about adding a feature stripe in a contrasting colour. Green? Hmmm. The hydrangeas get away with it, but I don't wear them.

Having my sister staying for a week was an opportunity to visit a few local places I hadn't been to before. It was great to find that there are two more local shops that stock gorgeous yarns including Touch Yarns, Rare Yarns and Noro. The Woollen Mill shop at the Agrodome is where I got the black and grape wools to match up with the hank of hand-dyed boucle that I had in my stash for a over a year. Then we visited the patchwork shop in Ngongotaha, Cottage Flair. Not a shop I'd ususally go to, but they have a lovely range of yarns. 

This on top of finding that Creative Yarns and Knits have opened a Rotorua branch of their Tauranga shop. Pretty exciting I thought. That is where the boucle came from.