020 A finish to show you - crochet blanket!

So it's done!  I showed you the ongoing crochet a few days ago, and it's done now.  Done and dusted, ends sewn in, all good to go.  Even got a border on it!

It's very difficult to show a nice photo of crochet, I've decided.  I look quite enviously on other crochet blogs and wish I could style my photos a little better, but it is what it is.  As a craft blogger, I make a very good housewife.

I do love it.  It's warm and squishy and big enough and heavy enough to be comfortable in deep winter.  It's far too warm for it now though, being the height of summer that it is.

So another finish off the list.  Excellent!

019 Lucy Boston Update

Back to quilting for a while.  I have finished another Lucy Boston block.  I've lost count now, I really should keep a tally of where I'm up to.  

I apologise for the lack of cropped photo.  Keeping it real though, you can see all the messy threads on the quilting wall.

Talk soon!

018 Show And Tell - Mini Amish

Geez Louise, I've made some crap in my lifetime.

This is another example.  Made to fit in a laundry.  I made two, hung them both and yeah, they looked okay at the time (we're talking years ago) but I'm seriously wondering what to do with them now.  I could chuck them, to be honest I'd be too embarrassed to give them away.

These small wallhangings are useless to me now.  But what to do with them?  Dilemma, dilemma.

See you soon!

017 Luna Park Melbourne

On one of our spare days in Melbourne, we took the girls to Luna Park, in St Kilda, Melbourne.

Luna Park is a very old, historic fun park based in very old, very historic St Kilda.  I assume back in 'the olden days' one would catch a train to the seaside, and visit the fun park.  Now it was a $20 Uber ride but fun none the less.

It's obviously been given a paint job because everything seemed to be sparkling new and bright.

Don't be fooled by the lovely sunny skies.  It was bitterly, bitterly cold.  The girls had free run of the park, with no lines, because it was back to school in Victoria.  But also - very cold. 

I think they had a wonderful time.  Their parents had a wonderful time once they got back to their hotel room and warmed up.  It was Very Cold.

That's all for now!  See you soon!

016 - Melbourne - Old Gaol

We don't really make grand plans when we visit somewhere.  We try to stay in a place near to where lots of tourists attractions are and then we wander.  You never know what you'll find when you wander, especially in Melbourne.

We had wandered for breakfast, and a burst water main meant we changed the direction of our travels.  As we walked home, we found the Old Melbourne Gaol which is found on a corner where lots of Melbourne history has happened, and it was relatively empty so we went in!  

It's a shared site now with the RMIT (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology) so there are students and student facilities around everywhere, hence all the chairs.  This was originally the exercise yards.

I love that this is a Jail.  It's not meant to be pretty, or fun to visit and yet the way that they designed things back then (the 1800's) meant that those places still look amazing today.  It was almost cathedral like.

All the cells are filled with a different story of a different prisoner, including many death masks that they have displayed.

This was a death mask for John Weachurch, and his story is written above.  If you can manage it, I urge you to read the letter above that he wrote to his parents.  I found it really an interesting read - he seemed to blame the system for EVERYTHING that happened to him.... 'I had to beat up that person because that would prove that I didn't beat up the other person.....'

Frederick Deeming was a gentleman whose name I knew from reading many murder mystery stories (which I do like very much)

*spoiler - not really Ned's armour, that's kept elsewhere.

This is however, Ned's death mask.  He was hanged at the Gaol in 1880.  The one thing I can tell from this is that Ned must have been an enormous man.  Look at the size of his neck!  And goodlooking too, from what you can see.  Most photos show him with a full beard, but they must have shaven him before he was executed.  A good looking young man.  

I don't know how I feel about the whole "Ned Kelly was a hero" thing that has grown in Australia.  I'm really in the camp that Ned Kelly was a criminal, but perhaps forced into that life by a political system that didn't care for the Irish who were coming to Australia.  Like all of life, it isn't black or white but various shades of grey.

A small list of those unfortunates who were hanged at the Gaol.  The gallows are there onsite.  I didn't take a photo for some reason, but given how small the Gaol is inside, I can say with confidence that every prisoner would have heard them happening.  

My daughters are museum mad, and we spent a very long time in here.  Thoroughly enjoyed it, and would thoroughly recommend a visit.

Hope you're enjoying a quilty day!

015 Melbourne - Harry Potter

The main part of our big surprise trip to Melbourne was a trip to the Princess Theatre.   It's just around the block from where we stayed.

A bit of backstory.  My first daughter was a Harry Potter freak.  She would read the whole series, then started again and read the whole series.  Rinse and repeat.  Has watched the movies a million times, every time there's a new Harry book, she's into it.  In a BIG way.

The other daughter has held no interest at all in Harry Potter despite everyone telling her she'd love it.  She refused to read the series, almost out of spite (wonder where she gets that from).  

Then one day, her best friend who she has a healthy competitive rivalry with challenged her to read the first Harry book the quickest - well, that was a red rag to a bull.

She's now as big a freak as the first daughter.  Perhaps more.  So needless to say, my husband and I know an awful lot about Harry and Hermoine and Ron.

So fast forward to the start of last year.  It was announced that Melbourne would be hosting the Harry Potter play, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.  We brought tickets for it, and for six months we kept it very, very, very quiet from everyone.

We flew them to Melbourne as a surprise, but still didn't tell them we were going to this.  And so one day, on our walk around Melbourne, we just happened to walk past this.  Both girls were sooooo disappointed that we couldn't go....

But then we let the secret out of the bag, and needless to say, we are now the Best Parents Ever.

I am duty bound to not reveal any spoilers to anyone who hasn't seen the play. 

But it was AWESOME.  The whole Princess Theatre has been renovated in Harry Style, and it looks amazing.

And we remain the best parents ever.