Down Memory Lane

I have been going through the bag of baby clothes that I kept from when the boys were little. There is a reason for it today, and without going into a long and probably boring explanation, there is a family joke about me crying over baby bootees when my kids leave home.  (I deny that this will happen, while knowing it probably will!!).
Anyway, my eldest is on work experience this week and is making a big trek into the city each day. He, of course, has been quite excited and I have been quietly worrying more grey hairs out onto my head.  Day one yesterday went without a hitch, as I expect the rest of the week will.
Anyway, thinking about the family joke over bootees when he goes out into the big wide world, i dragged out the baby clothes today in search of some bootees. I really thought I had kept heaps of their baby clothes but now that they are all but grown up I do wish I had more!
Anyway, I found these which I thought might be fun to look at. When the kids were toddlers we had a lot of family weddings and events and so I would make them little suits.  So this is a progression of the vests they have worn over the years.  The one at the top is a more recent one; my youngest son looks oh so smart in a vest and suit pants.

There are more floating around in wardrobes i think.  The two at the bottom were done in fabric picked by the kids; the stars glow in the dark. The frogs were what the youngest boy wanted so I made it, much to my husband's horror! 

And just to show you, I DID find some bootees in all that tripping down memory lane:

Australian wool and sheep show

this weekend Bendigo hosts the Australian Sheep and Wool show, an annual event.  We closed the shop for the day and took a mini bus up yesterday.  It was a lovely day.
It was cold when we got there so my first purchase was a pair of fingerless gloves made from the softest alpaca.  So nice!  (I forgot to take my nice long rainbow ones).  We then spent an hour wandering around before going into the ladies lunch hosted by Deborah Hutton with guest speakers Quentin Bryce (Governor-General) and comedienne Rachel Burger. 
After a nice lunch with lots of laughs courtesy of Rachel, we wandered around for a bit longer and then got back on the bus to come home.  There was lots of lovely wools to look at, and hold.  I did manage to buy wool, not sure why as i do happn to work in a WOOL SHOP!!!  but I found some lovely sock wool, a blend of bamboo, merino and nylon. It is so soft I am thinking of making a shawl. My head is full of shawls at the minute and I am dying to make one.  Actually, if I were being honest here, I am dying to wear one but am not sure I will stick at knitting a whole shawl!!!

Anyway, this is what i came home with:

two skeins of wool, fingerless gloves, two scarf/shawl pins, a set of stitch markers and three little badges.  The stitch markers are so very cute; again, I do work in a wool shop, and do have plenty of plastic ones, but these are soooo sweet i had to have them.
The only disappointing thing about the day was there was no-one selling knitting needles, row counters, circular needles; any of the tools actually required to knit with. So you could buy plenty of lovely wools, but nothing to use them with.  Such a shame.  I only saw two stands with shawl pins; I really was on the look out for something quite special. These are very nice and I am happy with them but they were really the only ones.  I believe it is a relatively new sho, and is growing bigger by the year so hopefully nect year there will be a stand with tools for knitters, and crocheters, on it.
Anyway, it was a lovely day and I had such fun. I have promised myself I will finish the little baby singlet I am halfway through before I pick up any stitches to start a shawl. (it isn't the only thing I have on the go, it is just the smallest and at least i will have finished something before starting something else!!)

In the garden

We are in the middle of a cold cold winter that has been wet and miserable and not much fun, so there is not much to see in the garden except this solitary plant I have.  i love these when they come up every year, they are so pretty.

The good news is that I planted some daffodils earlier in the year as mine seem to have mostly disappeared as garden beds have been moved around.  I can now see my new daffodil bulbs pushing up through the gardens so I wait to see what they will all look like. I am a little excited, i love spring bulbs. 
The kids are on school holidays currently. They have not had much fun, with me working through the holidays and the weather not nice outside.  Today we went to the movies; eldest son went with a group of friends and the younger son and I went to see Brave. Such a sweet movie, and I did have more than one giggle to see the mother in the movie trying in vain to get her teenage daughter to listen to her.  I doubt my son found it funny in the same way I did! i did love listening to the sound of Billy Connoly's voice as the father; such an awesome accent!!
This is what the kids got up to the other day; wrestling on our lounge; naughty boys!

It looks like cuddles; but is actually wrestling. Fun and games on a wintery day!!