Wedding Guest Dress

I had the honour of attending the lovely wedding of Liz a few weeks ago, and as I am a fan neither of pink concoctions nor their prices, decided to create B's frock myself. (I am a fan of party frocks!)



This is based on the Itty Bitty Baby Dress (free pattern!) from Made By Rae, somewhat enlarged and with different straps. All of the dress materials came from our lovely local shop Darn It & Stitch, including these fantastic vintage glass buttons.



The shoes were one pattern combined with another pattern's idea. I used the Pleated Ballerina Shoe [pdf] pattern from Homespun Threads but added lacing loops like the ones at Me Sew Crazy, resulting in something that looks a bit like a highland dancing shoe!



Little minx unlaced them. :D

I think I must like these colours. Before B was born I knit a 1-year size baby cardigan. Here it is, it still needs a zip though!



It's a basic round yoke cardigan, knit in Lana Grossa Meilenweit Mega Boots Stretch and some other random red sock yarn. No real pattern, just made it up to suit the measurements. :)

While I'm waiting...

My version of nesting seems to consist solely of a) cooking and b) crafting. The freezer is chock full of yummy eats (the fridge is particularly empty however. Oops.) and I am sewing to fill the time when I'm not too tired.

I knitted this hat-and-bootie set while at my antenatal classes. (Seemed appropriate!)



That's a modified-for-DK Sweet Norwegian Baby Cap and some Oh Baby Booties. (Picture taken before I realised that the tops of the booties fold down. :) )

And some sewing:



In the background: A simple swaddle blanket from My Longest Year. Behold the power of variegated thread!

Then a little crinkle square (that's the one with bees on), crinkle provided by Oreo packaging; a tiny taggie blanket, idea shamelessly gacked from OxfordKitchenYarns; and two soft fabric balls (in medium and small), pattern by Grand Revival Designs.

I should really be making more useful things, like reuseable baby wipes, but that's much boring-er! :)

Also, the quilt is finished, so a seperate post about that if it stays sunny and I get a nice photo of it....

Clapotis (from handspun)

About a year ago, I spun up some gorgeous fibre that my friend Felix gave to me, and then in a last-minute snap-decision, decided to knit it into a Clapotis scarf. (Ostensibly for the Clap-o-tea at Knit Camp, but let's not talk about that...)



I knit two repeats of the increase rows, which was just enough to get me a decent-width scarf. I used 110g of my 115g ball, which was originally around 225 metres. The dropped stitches both allowed the yarn to shine really well, and forced me to have a good look at my uneven spinning. Oops.



But I still like it, and it'll be nice to have another scarf around; I generally hate knitting them, but this one only took four days!

Where I've Been

OK, I know I haven't been around a whole lot. What I can say? There's been a lot going on!

This Frog Princess is expecting her own little Froglet, come October. I was pretty much too tired to do anything for the first four months, and then my camera was broken, so it's been a while since I thought about blogging!

I've knitted the Froglet a baby blanket, of pretty much my own design, but incorporating leaf motifs. It's knitted in Contanini by Mirasol. I might overdye it, but other people seem to like the colour a lot. Hmmmm. Undecided. :)



(And displayed on my favourite bush in the garden.)

Just keep going...

I'm still knitting like crazy, trying to get ahead in my half-term week off. I estimated that I have to knit about 50 grams worth of yarn every day (about 110 yards, or half a skein of Cascade 220) and for the past two days I've come out well above that - 64 and 70 grams respectively. I've also estimated that I can knit 16 grams in an (uninterrupted) hour, so if I'm able to keep that pace for the duration of the sweater, it will take me approximately 44 hours in total.

Enough geekery, here it is in progress:



I'm looking forward to knitting more while I watch real, actual (on telly yes, but I mean not in a film) curling for the first time in my life! Hooray!

So, over Christmas I went to visit my family in the States. I had lots of time to knit, when I wasn't chasing my niece around, or getting her tangled in my knitting.



I finished my Knotty Gloves while I was there, but I didn't get the chance to photograph them until last night when my husband and I went out to enjoy UK Snowpocalypse 2010.



We particularly enjoyed these snow-coated telephone lines reaching up into the darkness.



Of course, I am still recovering from (and continually re-injuring) a sprained ankle, so I didn't go out today. (Day off of work- best for everyone, I think!) I completed a whole sewing project, so I'll try to post about that tomorrow, when I have another day off!

I'll leave you with our obligatory garden shot from about noon today - about 7 inches at this point. (We had a bit more later too.)

Happy Christmas!

My Christmas knitting this year consisted of one thing: my niece's stocking. It took hours of charting, days of poring over tiny swatches on the internet, and weeks of knitting. Happily, I finished it well before Christmas, and now it is blocked and beautiful and ready to hang.



The charts and colours are my own design. The foot of the stocking was a combination of the Falling Snow Stocking and the Royal Christmas Stocking. The wool is all Jamieson and Smith Shetland Jumper Weight, in a variety of pretty colours. It took less than a ball of all the colours save the light blue and the green.



This very pretty type is a free alphabet for knitting from Little Cotton Rabbits.

I am quite pleased with the dogs and the horses too. Check out this fuzzy little Jack Russell.



The horses are duplicated stitched on. Handy, since I had the flu and not much else to do.



And the hanging loop? I wanted it to match the latvian braid so I did some fingerloop braiding, which I learned at summer camp years ago. I used this lovely tutorial and video to remind me how to do it.

It's lined with a pretty robin-and-holly print, but I don't have a photo of that. I just didn't want little fingers getting caught in all that stranding!

I wish everyone a happy Christmas. May you eat and drink well, be warm and cosy, and enjoy yourself!

I had the 'flu this week, and it really did a number on me! I was pretty ok when I was resting, however, so I got lots of work done on the Christmas stocking. (Duplicate stitch takes forever!)

Winter Woollies

November in the UK is blustery and cruel, the nights drawing in, the storms off the Atlantic battering us down. My brain cries out for warm things! I've been working on my Knotty Gloves, which are all finished save the fingers of one hand.

Here's the completely-finished one:



I've also been chugging away at designing my niece's Christmas stocking, an assignment passed to me from my mother, who had originally planned on doing it. I wanted a nice fair-isle-y challenge, so I've been working very hard on charting dogs and horses.

Here's the whole colour plan:


The bottom of the foot is based on the Royal Christmas pattern. (Ravelry link.)

Here's the chart:



And the stocking in progress:



Stranded knitting is fun! I've been using a strickfingerhut (knitting thimble, but isn't strickfingerhut just so much fun to say??), and I'm having a good time with it this time around, it seems to strand just enough and I don't need to worry about tension except on long sections.

And that bit with the horses? You'll notice it's not there. After thinking through all the intarsia in the round options, I decided to just duplicate stitch it!

More cards

I swear I'm knitting, and spinning, but it's just not very interesting at this juncture, and all my pictures cam out blurry. What, you wanna see anyways? OK, here you go:



Tempest & Joy (cardi); Knotty Gloves; Monkeys

I think all these cards have been received now, so I'm going to post them. They're the next round in my birthday card project. Wahoo!

First, another magpie card for my friend Catherine.



This may be the last magpie for a while!

I then bought a bottle of liquid frisket, oh what fun!
A roller derby card for Julie:



And a Snakeshead Fritiallary (flower of Oxfordshire) for Sarah the plant addict:



Finally, my first sewn card, which I've been meaning to do for ages. This was so much fun, and much easier than I expected. It also features my Favourite Fabric Evar, the bright yellow with red and black printing.



There may be more of those in the future...

Next batch in a month or so!

spinning

After many months of deliberation, I chose a spinning wheel to buy. After many more months, it actually came back into stock again, and I became the proud owner of a Majacraft Susie Pro.



My first project was to spin up this gorgeous Bluefaced Leicester from Krafty Koala, which I've had for almost a year and a half.



I did it in a worsted style short-draw, and it's about worsted weight. I tried for long colour repeats by splitting the top into half lengthwise. I did pretty well keeping the repeats for most of the length.



Almost as soon as it was finished, I knit it up into Headigan. I'm not certain about the buttons, but I've had them forever, and they do match the hat wonderfully.



And a better shot of the short rows and colour repeats.

Deja Vu

What, this old thing? Yeah, I totally finished it.





The vital stats, for those who missed them:

This project is a reknit of the Salina sweater which I knit a few years ago.

I ripped out the whole sweater reknit it - not only at a smaller size, but also with major modifications.

Shaping: I am using the gauge and body shaping of Tangled Yoke.

Styling: I am using Salina’s styling at the collar, hem, and sleeves with some modifications.

Collar modifications:

*Moss st 26 stitches on either side of the neck placket. (To balance out being a larger size and a smaller gauge.)

*Three-needle bind off at shoulders. (Left all the stitches live save the middle/neck set.)

*Six short-rows at the back neck to help the collar roll over.

Sleeve modifications:

*Sleeves are knit from the top down, as per instructions in Wendy Bernard’s Custom Knits

*Sleeves are knit to full length

*Cuffs are knit as part of sleeve and not done separately. Cuffs do not fold over.

Salina Take Two

I've been working on SalinaTwo for what seems forever now. It was going really well, however, and seemed like it was going to be the Best Sweater yet. And then I noticed that I had a lot less yarn than I thought I did. Sure, I was knitting a smaller size, but I was also using a tighter gauge. Sure, I had leftover yarn, but when I weighed it, it was only 20 grams. Oh dear!

I got to this point.



Which is about where they want you to end the sleeves on Salina, but I couldn't do it - because I work in a primary school, I'm in a variety of temperature zones all day long and when it's cold I need those full length sleeves!

I was down to working off the swatch.



My colourway of Rowan Felted Tweed (Whisper, shade 141) is discontinued so I didn't have the option of popping down to the shops and comparing balls to my jumper. There was still an online shop selling my colourway, however, so I took the plunge.

And, it didn't really go.



A bit more green, I thought!



Which was then a bit bright. Harrumph!

I am giving up, striping as much as I can with the remaining bit from the swatch, and the cuffs will just have to be bright, and blue.

Crumpets and Clotted Cream

I saw Crumpets not long after it was published in 2004, and I always knew I wanted to knit it. Oh, but that skirt, and the miles of stockinette I'd have to endure... not for me.



No beads or ribbons, either, nothing that could bother my one year-old niece. The skirt is eyelet cotton with a cotton organza layer so that she doesn't have to show her nappies to the world. :)



If we're lucky, perhaps Grandma will get a picture of her in it sometime!

Half a Jumper

My frankensteinian combination of Tangled Yoke's gauge and shaping plus Salina's styling has resulted in a very nice torso hugger. (Of course it still needs the sleeves.)



For once the magic combination of gauge and size seems to have yielded the proper results. It's even long enough!

Some of my normal crafting tome has been taken up with the C+ program at school, where teaching assistants such as myself team up to teach on various topics. I chose to do textiles and dying and so ended up with scenes like this, a bathtub full of tie-dye in my lovely faux-pink-marble bath.



Half of those are being dyed for the second time, hence the green. The results of this one were faboo, and the children were pleased, which is the best bit.

Little Things

I've got lots of little crafts from the past while that don't deserve their own posts, so I've saved them up for y'all.

My first felting project! I got a bag full of rainbow-coloured merino, and a bunch of white Cheviot ('cuz it's cheaper!) and did my best to turn them into felt sheets. They weren't really holding together, so I threw them in the drier for 20 minutes, and oh boy presto-change-o, beautiful thick felt... a bit thicker than I'd planned, but oh well! I sewed them together different than originally intended and got a great needle book anyways.

Outside:



and Inside:



A pair of Jaywalkers, using the same shaping as my last pair, yet somehow coming out slightly bigger. (Oh well.)



New buttons for Forecast, making it actually wearable:



And a great charity-shop find!