Craftastrophies: A belated weekend post

I had a good weekend. Even though it feels like it was a million days ago, now. I went up to my folk's house and stayed the weekend, since it's my mum's birthday tomorrow. They had to pick my sister up from a music marathon they had at her school on friday night, so they swung by to pick me up on saturday morning. This had two advantages. The first was morning tea. I made yarnstorm's lemon curd cake.

My mum loves lemon curd, and I must say that I agree. There was enough left over for a jar to gift her for her birthday. (I also got her a lamp, so that she can see when she crafts at night) The cake turned out brilliantly, although there was way too much butter in it – I actually blotted the cake! I’m pretty sure I didn’t read the recipe wrong or anything. (I always go to spell recipe as ‘recipie’, which I actually think is quite apt) Next time I would use 100g of almond meal instead of 50g.

The other bonus was my sister’s hilarious behaviour. She had had about a half an hours sleep that night, and about another hour in the car. So she was extremely non compos mentis. When we were leaving my place, she woke up enough to put on her seatbelt. Or so we thought. We look in the back, there she is, still sprawled over the back seat, seatbelt-less. We tell her ‘M, put your seatbelt on’. She grumbles (expected), reaches over, and unzips her schoolbag (unexpected). My mother repeats the instruction to put on her seatbelt. This is met by the grumble that usually means ‘I am!!!!’. We ask why she is looking in her bag. The reply? ‘for something to attach it too!’ said in the best teenager ‘duh’ voice. She then takes out her school jumper, wraps it around her torso as if it were a restraining belt, and goes back to sleep.

Hilarious. We did eventually convince her to buckle up, but it took some extremely specific instructions.

We made it home all in one piece, and then my mother and I set out for the Onkaparinga Quilt Fair. It was quite impressive. This was my favourite quilt.

It’s not the fanciest, or the most technical and impressive, or even the most beautiful. And there were many there that were much, much pinker (Gah! Gives my eyes a rash!). But this was the only one with sheeps. (I showed the photo to my sister, and she said ‘sheeps!’ which made my mother laugh because that was my exact reaction.)

And this was my favourite thing there.

A sampler snake. No name or anything attached.

I had put aside some money in case there were any good fabrics or handmade items to purchase. Which there weren’t. So the next day, we headed out to the Heart of the Hills market, which runs in the old Onkaparinga Woollen Mills every weekend and public holiday.

Most people in Australia know the name ‘Onkaparinga’. Most people my age or older will have slept under a blanket made there. It sits at one end of the town that I grew up in, and provided much of the towns income, back in the day. It was a working mill up until I was in high school, and the sound of the whistle calling people to work, and the smell of wet wool from our school excursions (not to mention the noise!), is an integral part of my childhood. Even more so, it was integral to the town. During the war, when 'Lobethal' sounded too German (It means 'valley of praise, but I'm informed by a German friend that it's terribly grammatically inaccurate) the town's name was changed to 'tweedville'. Anyone else get a kick out of that?

The mill is closed now, and it has served various functions in the past decade or so. It now houses a microbrewery, a gallery, and the Markets. There has recently been another mill, the Creswick mill, which deals in alpaca, set up there. I believe that they are actually working there, and not just using it as an outlet, but I may be mistaken.

Anyway, I bought a few things there. I bought these poppies

Two bunches for two dollars each. And they are gorgeous. (roses in the foreground from the rosebush I planted at my folks' place)

I bought this yarn

From the Gumeracha Spinners and Weavers Guild stall. I’d tell you who spin it, except that the two ladies who served me cut it off. I tell you, they have some lovely lovely handspun, but it was a painful five minutes handing over the monay and waiting until they got organised enough to exchange it for yarn.

And I bought this in the gallery

For seven dollars. You might remember me talking about this picturebefore. I love it. Even though the colours are completely wrong. I need a frame for it.

I alsomade progress on my sock. In fact, I finished it, but I have yet to take a picture. I cast on for the next one right away, and am finished the cuff.