Mayan CAL square finished!

My Mayan CAL square is finished! Isn't it gorgeous?



Five months ago I didn't know how to crochet and now I can make this - I am quite proud of myself :-)



I only planned to make one square, as I want to make a cushion with it, but now I'm thinking a second square for the back of the cushion might be a good idea. I will have to order more yarn if I want to do that, so will wait until after the move.



My son made a drawing of one of the squares in my Sea Colours blanket:



 I like it!

Moving on

Life is a bit hectic here at the moment, with only four weeks to go until we move out of our house in Sydney (December 29th), plus all the usual end of (school) year things going on. We've just found a house on the Gold Coast (phew!) and will move in on January 8th. In between we are going on holiday - first to Canberra, Australia's capital city, for a couple of days, then we'll slowly make our way up north inland to the Gold Coast, camping along the way.

In addition to organising the move, finding new schools for the boys and temporarily homeschooling my middle son, I've also found time to do the Mayan Crochet-A-Long. The photo above was taken last week after finishing Part 4, and the photo below today, after finishing Part 5. Very much enjoying this CAL!



My youngest son recently quit gymnastics (his older brother is still doing it) and started ballroom dancing. On Saturday he had his first Dancesport Event at Sydney Olympic Park. It was great fun!



He was a semifinalist in the English Waltz and he loved the whole experience, so definitely wants to keep doing this once we move to the Gold Coast. I used to do ballroom dancing as a teenager and loved it as well, so I'm really happy that one of my sons is doing it now! The best part of the evening for me was the Parent Dance, when I got to dance the salsa with my baby!



;-)

Camera strap cover

On my birthday in September I got a new DSLR camera (I love taking photos - on my photo blog you can see some of them). The camera is great, much better than my old one, but I found the strap very uncomfortable. So I grabbed some scrap yarn and whipped up a cover.



I wanted it to be finished quickly, so used large stitches (UK double treble /US triple crochet).





I sewed the long edges together and slipped the cover over the strap.



With that and the Pineapple Bag done it was time to catch up with the Mayan CAL. I showed you my Part 1 here. I did Part 2 on the day it was published:



Part 3 came out last week. I worked on it yesterday for quite a few hours (had to frog a whole round, boohoo) and finished it this morning - just in time, as Part 4 was released today.



Working on Part 4 now, so to be continued. Really enjoying this Crochet-A-Long - I'm learning so much!

A new project and a new project bag

This week the Mayan CAL (Crochet-A-Long) hosted by Shelley Husband started on the Spincushions blog. I decided to join this CAL and very much enjoyed doing the first eight rounds. They included some stitches that were new to me, like puff stitches and front post stitches, but Shelley explained them all very clearly so I had no problems completing part 1. Can't wait for part 2 to be released next week!

When I had finished I realised I didn't have a bag to put this project in. I bought a project bag that I love at Morris & Sons in Melbourne earlier this year:



... but there's another project in it at the moment. So I had a good look at it and whipped up this bag, with some fabric that was left over from the Lone Star table topper I made for my father-in-law and his wife last year:



I'm pretty happy with this bag, but there are a few small things that could be improved, so I am going to make another one. I will take some photos and make notes, and add a tutorial here when it's finished. Stay tuned!