Southward Car Museum

A couple of months ago one of the "Daily Deal" websites here was offering half price entry for a family pass to Southward Car Museum.  This is only about a 45 min drive from our place but even though we have a car mad boy we had never made the trip up the coast to visit.  So what better excuse than cheap entry :-)
When we had a burst of early spring a couple of weekends ago we packed the kids into the car and made a wee day trip of it and I must say a great time was had by all.  I really had no idea what to expect but the place is immense and even someone as clueless on cars and all things vehicles as me found plenty to keep myself entertained.
We were very lucky that when we got there it was pretty quiet and the staff were really helpful.  When we mentioned that Mr A liked fire engines one of the staff took us downstairs and let him sit in a couple of the old fire engines and 'drive' them.  A certain way to make a small boy's day.
Here's our visit in pictures.

Arriving

In front of the oldest car in NZ

A happy boy driving a fire engine

Peeking through the wheel

Check out the race cars

A Ferrari, red of course.

Not just cars but all things with wheels.  We found lots of old bikes as well.

Part motorbike, part car.

Early model electric car

A small boy in his element

Check out the copper car

Loving rampaging around.

Overall I would thoroughly recommend stopping by at Southward Car Museum if you are ever in the area, especially if you have any car lovers in the family.

It's Done!

Okay so I missed yesterday but that's completely related to the fact that I also spent most of today in bed sick :-(  Thankfully DP was home to look after the munchkins for me and I had a chance to catch up on sleep.
In amongst feeling sorry for myself though I have managed to cast off my long awaited cardigan tonight - woohoo.  I will try and block it tomorrow and get some pics.  For now though I'm going to crawl back into bed and hopefully get some sleep and wake up feeling a whole lot better tomorrow.

Knitting, Knitting, Just Keep Knitting....

Sung in my very best Dory voice from Nemo ;-)  This is how it has been here over the last couple of days.  I am desperately close to finishing off a cardigan for me!  Yes actually something for me!  Even more exciting is that I started this over 2 years ago and it hibernated for most of that time, not because I lost the love but because I got sidetracked by other projects and then kind of forgot about it.

Does anyone else find that when you are nearing the end of something like this it can take forever to actually get there?  I mean I have made the foolish (but necessary) decision to make this garment longer in the body than the pattern and now every time I try it on it seems that I need to do just "two more rows".  Of course those two more rows make no difference whatsoever.  I must have knitted about 1.5 inches of "two more rows" tonight and it is still not quite long enough.  Oh well tomorrow is another day :-)

So no more details for now but here is a sneak peak and I WILL be blogging about this FO very soon :-)

Anyone else digging out a long hibernating project to work on?

FO Ultimate Longies

To continue from yesterday the second part of Miss M's birthday outfit is some longies to match the babydoll top.  The pattern I settled on after much indecision was Ultimate Longies by Shannon Passmore.  This is a lovely 10 ply (worsted weight) longs pattern that has plenty of options for variation in waistband, leg length and cuff.  The shaping in the body, although requires a bit of concentration, gives a really nice finish and these fit perfectly over Miss M's cloth bum.  I should mention now that the worksheet at the back of the pattern for all the body shaping is fantastic and saved me from what would have otherwise been a bit of a disaster trying to keep track of everything I am sure.
The yarn for these is again 100Purewool, this time in Happy Rose which is a semi-solid colourway that ties in beautifully with the dark pink in the Quebracho I used.  Going by the pattern measurements I knitted a size large for Miss M but made them a lot shorter in the leg than the pattern stated and used just over 1 skein in total.

You can see here the nice shaping of the short rows in the back and I chose to do simple moss stitch cuffs.

The outfit together

And on the girl herself.

FO: Paige Babydoll

I am way behind again in my updating here and have a few FO to catch up on, with a couple more just off the needles.  I thought I would start with the outfit that I made for Miss M for her birthday.  Yes somehow a whole year has gone past and my baby is one (but that's a whole other blog post, esp during Blogtober ;-) ).

So Part one of Miss M's birthday outfit is this very cute (if I do say so myself) baby doll top/dress.  I absolutely adore this and will DEFINITELY be making more for Miss M in the future.

The pattern is the Paige Babydoll by Rachel Evans.  There are variations in the pattern for a full skirt or A-lined skirt with cables, which of course I had to do with my current addiction to all things cabled.

This is a lovely simple knit, a very well written and clear pattern to follow, not to mention just adorable.  The yarn I chose for this project is 100Purewool in colourway Quebracho and I had green trim to match.  When I ordered the yarn I think I had the paler green in mind for the trim because I'm really not a green person and I wasn't too sure of the bright green to be honest.  Now that it is all together thought I think the bright green breaks it nicely and is a bit of a change for us.  This yarn is lovely and soft and knitted up really nicely.  I got this 12m size baby doll out of one 100g skein of colourway and just knitted until I ran out of yarn, which coincidently was pretty much bang on the pattern length.
Here are a couple of modeled pics :-)

The Birthday Girl

Even though I have now had some time to get used to the idea I still find it hard to believe that my baby girl is now one.  I guess it makes me a little sad to think the year has gone so fast and that she isn't a 'baby' anymore, but it is also fantastic seeing her learn so much each day.  At this age they really are just wee sponges and with a big brother to teach her she seems to be learning new things daily.
So twelve months ago she looked like this:

And now we have this wee munchkin girl in the family:

Mind you maybe this should have given me a clue to that early on?

So here are a few pics of her enjoying her birthday and then her wee party.

What's in here?

Buzzzzz

Loving my new Wheely bug, and my new clothes from Granny and Papa.

Balloons are great.

Finishing the day with bubbles.

The cake.

My party.

Being patriotic with Daddy

Reading :-)

Starting daycare

Just before Miss M turned one I had to return to work.  I did actually have 13 months maternity leave but finished before my EDD and a certain someone decided to keep us waiting 11 days past that day as well.
My return to work meant my baby girl joined her big brother at daycare so here they are snapped as we were about to head out the door on that very first day.

Yes Miss M was ready and rearing to go and spend the day with her big brother.  And yes I do need to make the poor child a red hat so she doesn't have to clash so badly ;-)