Love is in the air

It is quickly approaching Valentines Day.  Hubby and I have a date night... wahhoooo!  Date nights are few and far between and therefore highly cherished.  Naomi will be celebrating with her friends at school; they are having a Valentines party.  At any mention of Valentines, Naomi tells me she is going to be a princess.  With a beauuuuutiful dress.  Apparently I can be a princess too.  And Daddy?  Well she tells me he is the Queen.  :)



This last weekend we worked on some little party favours for the Valentines party.  Pinspiration strikes again:  I found this great idea for Valentines bubbles on the Simply Modern Mom blog while searching for children's Valentine gifts.  This was perfect because it wasn't a food item (there can be quite a few restrictions about what can/can't be brought into school and what other parents do/don't want their kiddos eating).  I get it, and therefore steering clear of food items always seems to be a good way to go.



Plus, the project is super easy.  There are complete instructions and free printables on the Simply Modern Mom blog.  You just need to pick up some bubbles (I got mine from Target, but I'm told craft stores also have them in the wedding section), some paper, ribbon and glue.
 


Naomi was super excited about helping me and came armed with her glue stick and a bucket full of enthusiasm.  That is until she saw the bubbles and then decided it would be much more fun for us to play with those instead :)  So all in all a great project to work on together and then to have fun catching bubbles afterwards. (Dear sweet girl has inherited her mother's under eye bags when she hasnt had enough sleep... and this particular morning she'd had us both up at 4am)




On the theme of Love, I was also able to finish a couple of charity/Project Love hats with the leftover yarn from the Polka dot cardigan.  Neither follow a pattern as such - I just made it up as I went along.  They were looking a little 'meh' until I added thee crochet rosettes, with the button centers.  Hats with flair! :))) 



I also like that a little girl has a matching mini hat for her favourite doll or teddy.



Sending you lots of love,
Sam xxx

Ballerina Bunny

We had a lovely Easter weekend and the highlight for me was attending our first Easter egg hunt. It was organized by the local recreation center, and Naomi thought it was THE BEST THING EVER!



She got to fill her Easter bucket with these plastic eggs, each of which were filled with cute toys: there's her new bunny necklace, a little camera, jumping bunnies...



She also got to meet the Easter bunny. Naomi was very excited about the whole deal while we were stood in line. But of course when it came to picture time she obviously changed her mind - check out that expression! She cracks me up. :)



Her favourite bunny though is the amigurimi toy that I'd made for her. She was fascinated watching the progress. I'd finished the head and body and she told me 'Mummy fix them' because each time she'd balance the head on the body it would just fall off again. Then I'd complete an arm and she'd instruct me 'another one Mummy, another one'. Same for the legs...



She helped with the embroidery of the eyes, which are on their 3rd iteration - first time they looked a little too sassy, second time like a sourpuss... I think I have it now with this 3rd attempt (shown in the night night picture at the bottom of this post)! Who knew eye placement could affect the whole look of the bunny's face!



This was my first attempt at amigurumi. I'd received an amigurumi book from my sister last year, and have had my eye on the ballerina bunny pattern. What better time than Easter to put this together :) I used Rowan 4 ply cotton. I love this yarn and used it in 2 of my very favourite baby blankets. It wears well, the colours are perfect... oh Rowan why oh why did you discontinue it?

I was surprisingly pleased with how easy it was to grasp for a novice crocheter like me. And how quick the little bunny came together. But most pleasing of all is how much Naomi looooves her new toy. It has been to daycare, and of course is a favourite for snuggling with at bed time.

Wishing you a great weekend ahead.
Happy Spring!
Sam xxx

Bits and pieces

I've been working on a few smaller projects recently. There's something satisfying about finishing a couple of items that have been hanging around the WIP pile for a good long while.

I had been working on some embroidered summer sandals and the needlepoint is now complete. I need to either send these to be finished professionally, or try my hand at it myself. I'm tempted to do the latter... once I figure out how!



Then some wristwarmers that I started in 2008. (I know, I have no idea why it took me soo long to pick these back up) I couldn't remember how I did the first one, or the needle size I used so they have a 'little miss matched' vibe to them. Which I kind of like! These were knit in 2 colourways of Noro sock yarn, alternating every couple of rows. And because I can't resist adding crochet borders to my projects, I did the same here.



Ooh yes, we have a new puppy - Bruno. He's also been keeping me busy! In addition to his basic training, I'm also trying to train him to be one of my knitwear models! If successful you should see it a bit more of him here.



But my favourite knitwear model is Naomi! Baby girl is going to 1 year old this week! Wild! Anyhoo, her hair is getting really long and she's started pulling her hair clips out. Plus last time I had her fringe cut she looked like Mo from the 3 stooges!

I wanted to try making a hairband to keep her hair out of her eyes. This seems to have done the trick and she kept it on all morning. I simply crocheted a chain with some sock yarn and then measured it around her head. Once the chain was just the right size to go round - not too loose, not too tight - I joined to make a circle and then single crochet around until it was the desired thickness.

It looks cute on its own, but I'd also made some felt flowers last night (from a Martha Stewart kit) and added one of these as a little bit of flair!



And finally I just started another baby blanket - a version of Olive's Afghan from the Knitalong book (except I'm using rowan cotton 4ply instead of the thicker alpaca yarn that's called for). It's for a baby that's due to arrive in May so that gives me a little time to crank this out. And the cotton will be nice for the warmer summer months.



Wishing you a good rest of your weekend,
Sam xxx

Barn Raising

Whew! This took some knitting. (And some seaming.) But it was well worth the effort. Barn raising is complete!



Aside from loving how it turned out, I know I'll always treasure this project because it kept me good company throughout my pregnancy and the first few months of my baby girl's life. And on top of this it also includes squares from some of my knitty friends.



Hmm what else to say? It's a really straight forward pattern and the perfect take along project to have stashed in your handbag at all times.



I thoroughly enjoyed laying out the squares - arranging and rearranging until I found a layout that I loved. As you can probably tell I worked diaginally from one corner to the other, moving through the colours of the rainbow.





I also spent some time toying with how to seam it up and decided to make the ridges visible on the right side, as the pattern suggests. I love how this looks. Adds to the rustic feel.




Coincidentally EZ has a very similar blanket in one of her books where she does not cast off each square - choosing to put it on scrap yarn until the end when she kitchener stitches/grafts all the squares together. Can you imagine? I have a hard time kitchenering (!) the toe of a sock... a whole blanket? You'd certainly be an expert by the time you are done!



But enough of my waffle! Last note - I added a border (of course I did - I can't seem to help myself when it comes to blankets). It's a simple crochet border. Nothing fancy. But I do think it ties it altogether nicely.

And that my friends is it. Hope you have a happy Halloween tomorrow. I can't wait to dress the little miss up and parade her round a couple of lovely neighbours before cosying up inside with bowls full of candy to see what trick or treaters swing by.

More handcrafted goodies

Naomi is 6 weeks old now! I can hardly believe it. She's been keeping me quite busy (hence the absence from the blog world). 6 weeks on, and still the gifts are coming in. She's one lucky little lady! Here's a few handcrafted gifties that she received recently.

First is a selection of gorgeous sewn items that Terri had gifted her. These are from Etsy seller Francesca Baby. Aren't they pretty. I love the 'ducks in a row' pattern. There's belt covers (that we'll be using in her stroller), a wet bag with antimicrobial inside (for when we get caught outdoors with nowhere to put dirty/wet clothes), a burp cloth and a couple of bibs (we call Naomi the milk bandit when she's wearing the triangular one - soo cute!). Terri also made Naomi the very cute crocheted hat. Love the yarn - looks like ice cream colours to me. And this will be perfect for keeping the sun off in the summer; it's made from a lovely soft organic cotton.


My parents were over for a good 10 days or so (sooo much help, and lovely to have them here). They brought a bunch of gifties from friends and family back home. My sis sent with them a whole host of handcrafted goodies. First off there is the sock monster - how cool is this! (Hint, hint sis - I could fill up a whole shelf with a family of these ;o) And look how happy Naomi is with her sock monster! Thanks Jac xoxo


My sis also made a mobile for the nursery. What cracks me up is that Jac made a fuss about the yellow bird looking a bit pyscho. In fact I believe she almost wasn't going to gift this to Naomi, thinking that it wasn't good enough... are you kidding? It is AWESOME!!! I took a few pics of the felted birds on the mobile and also of Naomi looking at the mobile. This particular shot made me laugh because it looks like Naomi is shielding herself from said pyscho bird! LOL! Love the mobile. And Naomi loves it too -- she watches those little birds as they float over her in the crib.


Thanks for all the lovely gifts.

Next up, some actual knitting content!

Alphabet blanket

I'm still here. Or maybe I should say that BOB is still safely tucked indoors all cosy and warm. Joe's told me (read 'ordered' ;0) that I sit back and take it easy now. So that means lots of crafty time for me, and consequently a finished alphabet baby blanket for the nursery!



The inspiration for this baby blanket is Debbie Bliss' Alphabet Blanket from The Baby Knits book. I used her lacy alphabet charts to create the intarsia alphabet squares with Rowan 4 ply cotton, and needle size US 4.

When the blocks were completed and sewn together it looked a tad small. And a little unpolished. So I pulled out some Rowan Cotton Breeze in a lovely bright pink to add a crochet border around the entire blanket - 4 rows of double chain and then one row of scallops using a 2.5 hook (I'm a self-taught crocheter - don't inspect too closely!)



So far, so good. Except I was thinking of little baby fingers plucking at the back of the intarsia squares: it could really do with a backing. Which is all well and good except 1) I have no clue how to do that and 2) there isn't a functioning sewing machine in our house. So I trolled the Internet for adding a backing to knit fabrics, by hand. I came across various different techniques, and am thinking I might have employed them all (and a couple I'd made up too!). Whatever works I say - and it seems to.



In case you are interested in the backing details:
I washed both the knit blanket and the flannel first, to make sure that any shrinkage happened before the 2 were permanently attached. Once dry, I laid the knit fabric out, taking care not to stretch. And then measured the dimensions of the blanket minus border. I then cut and hand tacked a piece of the cotton flannel to match this size.

Next I added a blanket stitch border to the cotton flannel, using the same pink cotton yarn that I'd crocheted around the entire border - I used this as an 'anchor' to crochet the flannel and the existing border together. But before crocheting, everything was pinned in place, including the intersection of every block to the backing (later I hand tied some of the pink yarn at each intersection). After all of that was done, all that was left exposed was some of the blanket stitch border on the flannel and so I added another couple of rows double crochet to cover that up and backstitched the edge of it to the flannel backing.



It was quite the labour of love you could say! And any experienced sewer/crocheter may be shaking their head in disbelief! But it all worked out, and at this point I have nothing but time on my hands as I play the waiting game! Oooh I'm happy to have this done before the wee one makes her arrival.

Scrappy Cotton Ripples

Hi, sorry... been on a blogcation I guess. Maybe it's the summer weather but there's not been much knitting going on. And not much blog posting, or browsing for that matter.

I have been dabbling in some crochet occasionally. Inspired by all the lovely crochet goodness I've seen out in blogland this last year or so. I had a bowl full of scrap cotton yarn and figured it would be fun to try my hand at a ripple pattern blanket. Mixing the different cotton yarns and colours, and adding a white in between to help tie it all together. I used one of the patterns in Erika Knight's Simple Crochet book to get me started.


Truth be told, I didn't have high hopes for this project - it was just relaxing to work on, and made me happy to know that random scrappy bits of yarn were being put to good use. But I'm quite pleased with the end result. Not quite gift quality though, which is a shame as a few friends are having babies this year. But I'm sure I'll find a use for it...


Hope you are having a good summer,
Sam