Melbourne

Last weekend I was in Melbourne, where my youngest son and his partner competed at the Australian Dancesport Championship. They did very well and came home with two trophies and lots of medals. A great end of their first year of dancing together!



On my way to parkrun in Albert Park on Saturday morning I spotted some brilliant street art in Yarra Place (more pics on the photo blog):



At the park the view over the lake with the city in the background was beautiful:



I brought the Happy Whirl project with me to Melbourne and even managed to crochet a few rows. The purple is starting to appear now:



Back at home I've also been working on the Sea Breeze Cover Up:



School holidays have started here in Queensland, and on Wednesday we are flying to New Zealand for a holiday on the North Island. Very exciting! There will be one more post on the blog before the end of the year, so stay tuned...

Let's dance!

She's finished! My third amiguruME doll: my yougest son's dance partner.



Her hair is supposed to be in a bun, but as a mum of three boys I have no idea how to make a bun ;-)



So I just tied her hair back...



Next up is my middle son... and his guitar!

Weekend in Sydney

Last weekend youngest son and I travelled to Sydney, where he and his partner competed in the Luna Park Ballroom Dancing Championships. They did very well and took home two silver medals and one bronze!



You can watch them dance the waltz and the quickstep here:



We stayed with our Dutch friends in Sydney. They have two Cocker Spaniel puppies, so I crocheted a bone for each of them:



Happy to say that they loved their presents!



On Sunday morning we visited the Organic Markets in Marrickville where I bought this hemp twine:



Perfect for another market bag!

Look who's here!

My second amiguruME doll - my youngest son Robert, the ballroom dancer!



He loves it! Here we are together:



Now I have to make his dance partner too, of course...

Textured cushion

This cushion was a 12th birthday present for my youngest son's dance partner.



Her mum chose the pattern (the Textured Pillow Cover by Leelee Knits) and bought the yarn (Spotlight Value Balls).



I enjoyed making it and the birthday girl loved it, that was nice :-)



These two have now been dancing together for six months and it's amazing to see how much they have improved in that time.



They have danced three competitions together so far. Here you can watch them dance the Merrilyn, a New Vogue dance:



The next competition is in September at the Luna Park in Sydney. Very exciting!

New project

After finishing the Market Bag I didn't feel ready to get back to the Lone Star blanket, so have started another new project. This is Falbala, a shawl designed by Eclat Du Soleil. It's fun to crochet and I love the art deco-ish pattern!



I'm using Drops Cotton Viscose for this shawl, which is a beautiful yarn, but rather splitty. The reason to make a purple shawl is because I wanted one to go with my glasses! After wearing contact lenses for more than 30 years I am now back to wearing glasses full-time. The purple frame used to be for my reading glasses and I really liked it, so decided to have my prescription lenses put in. Loving my new look!



We have been living on the Gold Coast for four months now and it's starting to feel like home. My eldest son has once again been selected to represent Queensland at the Australian Gymnastics Championships in Melbourne later this month. This time I am flying down with his youngest brother, who is keen to visit Melbourne for the first time. Looking forward to that trip very much!



As planned my youngest son has taken up ballroom dancing again and last weekend he had his first competition with his new partner. It went very well (a third place, two fifth places and a seventh place) and they both enjoyed it very much. And they looked so handsome together!



Meanwhile my middle son is playing his guitar, helping to run a children's drama class and taking horse riding lessons. He doesn't like being photographed but I think he won't mind if I share this photo here!

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!



;-)