It lasted just a day...

This is an unhappy tale - misadventures into wholly unsuitable school uniform making. It started out very promising, the knitting went well and the lad liked it ...



I got the wool and pattern as a Christmas present and I really enjoyed knitting this one up. A lovely chunky aran wool and a nice and simple but effective fisherman's rib pattern. When the weather warmed up he proudly donned the said tank top, he looked like a total cutie. Nice and retro, Mama was proud of her home made efforts.

It came home 6 hours later a total wreck. He'd got hot and tried to take it off, the wool got caught on the buttons on his polo shirt and it got pulled to bits. He arrived home with it on inside out with about three 3ft loops of wool hanging off him. I could have cried!

Toodle pip
J
x

Ooh-arrr me hearties!

My two knitted pirate dolls are finally finished ...



These were darn fiddly things to make but I'm pleased with the result, they sort of look like they should - never a guaranteed outcome with my knitting! Making up is my least favourite part of the process so these blighters about drove me mad - so many bits to sew together, especially doing two simultaneously so both peapods can have one :)

The boys are pleased with them and in an unsurprising bout of 'anything my brother does I do too' both have been christened 'Captain Jack Sparrow'. You can guess the current obsession at our house. oooh arr!

Toodle pip
J
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Pumpkin and (cutie) pie

There have been some autumnal activities going on round here recently. I've knitted a new hat for R's winter wardrobe after realising all the ones we used last year no longer fit...



The pattern is a vintage racing helmet from Sirdar Sublime made using odd balls of stuff from my wool box. I love making hats, one for me is casting on soon!

And in preparation for moving house we've been harvesting what we can of the garden produce, including our pumpkins...



A tad early for Halloween but I've been told they store well so, fingers and toes crossed they should last until the end of October.
Toodle pip
J
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Sock it to 'em!

Just a quickie to record the fact that I have completed knitting a pair of socks...



The lovely self striping wool was a birthday present this year and I have really enjoyed making these. Portable, pretty and very wearable!



Toodle pip
J
x

Party time

Normality returns after a hectic week at the patch. Visitors have departed, the cards have been put into the memory box, the balloons have been deflated, the bunting has been taken down and packed away, and the last crumbs of birthday cake have been snaffled with a cup of tea.

Yep, the birthday party of the year is done and dusted ... and I can finally get round to blogging about some of the things I've been up to over the last few months. I can't quite believe how much planning went into one little tea party!

We had the hand knitted birthday tank top...



The hand knitted present...



Just in case you can't tell these are wonky cast of animal characters from his favourite book 'Monkey Puzzle'. Here they are lined up ready to be popped into their jungle print bag...



We had the crazy idea last minute bunting I sewed from my scrap bag ... not pictured how did I manage to miss snapping that?

And finally the (very badly) hand crafted birthday cake...



This highly engineered structure was meant to represent the little man's favourite toys - stacking cups - but it turned out to be just one giant pile of highly coloured sticky icing :) It slid all over the place during construction yet the icing was like working with glue. Well at least it holds memories!!

As you can tell we gave him a hand made birthday - the best kind if you ask me.
Toodle pip
J
x

WIPe out!

I've had a run on finishing up some WIPs over the bank holiday weekend. I love how there are little stories behind each and every one...

After much pondering we booked our first family summer holiday a couple of weeks back. We are staying fairly local and heading down the coast to explore Pembrokeshire for a few days. So many places I've never been to and all virtually on our doorstep - tut tut! Anyhoo, we've booked a totally cool place to stay The Tin Bungalow and we are off exploring. In readiness I've bought plum a bucket and spade set and run him up a beach bag ...



Working with plastic covered fabric was ... interesting. Much use of masking tape to stop it sticking on the machine, then much cursing as several fingernails were lost in the process of peeling off the masking tape which has stuck tight!

Then today I have put the last touches to Reuben's hand made cot quilt ...





This is another one of my signature scrappy squares quilts, based around the same colour scheme as a tiny quilt I did for his moses basket while I was pregnant. I keep swearing I'll do something more adventurous with my quilting but I keep coming back to these, I think I just love squares (not to mention spots and stripes)! I'm still very much a learner when it comes to quilting but I tackled doing proper binding for the first time on this one, just don't look closely at my supposedly mitred corners. They went terribly wrong but I couldn't face unpicking anything - so I just fudged them :)

My final work in progress story is less positive. I've ended up ripping out half a jumper I was knitting for myself from a batch of charity shop wool. With no ball bands to determine fibre composition I thought I'd risk making something wearable with my find, a few evenings in and my skin was shouting for mercy! There was no way I was ever going to be able to wear the darn thing so I had to give up. I'll hopefully use the wool up for something that will have less contact with my skin. I've been meaning for some time to turn my attention to crochet and I've a tinkle of an idea running round my head based on a granny squares blanket design I saw at the WonderWool exhibition last month, must get practicing.

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J
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Knitted graffiti!

I've yet to see this on the streets of Aberystwyth - underground graffiti artists who 'tag' through the medium of knitting. Very odd indeed. I'm not sure what to think about this, although I think I'll stick to making bubba clothes myself rather than making a leg warmer for a local lamp post.

Check out Keep Cardiff Cosy!

And read the original article here Too cool for school huh?

Wonderwool

Today I've been to the Wonder Wool Wales exhibition.



Fun was had pottering round lots of inspirational stalls - plenty of colourful stuff going on, lots of spinning and feltmaking, classes, a sheepwalk fashion show, and hundreds of crazy ladies wearing bonkers home made creations :)

Wool was not purchased. There was some beautiful but way too expensive yarn which I really would have liked to buy, but I couldn't justify the money for what I had in mind (a crocheted blanket since you ask ... not that I've learnt how to properly crochet yet!). And lots of the yarns on offer were too itchy scratchy for me - most natural fibre/real wools drive me nuts and send my skin crazy. I did get some back copies of a magazine at bargain price and some edible treats though, they had a parallel local food festival going on at the same time and the stalls were all mixed together. Now those little foody purchases I could justify :)

Toodle pip
J
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Flower power

Well, where did that time go? It feels like ages since I've found the time to sit down and blog what we've been up to. It has been a mad couple of weeks - what with house viewings (lots of housework required!), writing killer job applications, visiting family and getting back into the swing of things at work. Phew!

Last weekend we went for a long weekend up in Yorkshire visiting with my Mum - Reu was a little charmer and was very well behaved for his Nana. We were going to get her to babysit and head out for our first few hours 'baby free' time but I was feeling grotty with a cold so I chose a decent lie in instead ... in a house with gas central heating. Bliss!

Reu enjoyed the chance to play with his cousins ...



He heard one of Aunty Nettie's piano recitals (complete with yodelling provided by Nana) ...



And of course we all got to go out for lunch ...



While we were there I delivered my latest two commissions. Miss K had requested a big knitted flower for a hat she found too plain. Well, no longer my friend - here is the resulting jazzed up hat modelled by little Reu (too cute!) and his lucky Aunty...



R found modelling the hat hilarious, or maybe that was just us and he felt obliged to join in all the giggling...



The second commission will have to wait till another post as I forgot to gather the crucial photographic evidence.

Toodle pip
J
x

Rose and Trellis

Time to log another recent craft project.

Shortly before Christmas my friend Steph posted me a big bag of yarn that she'd seen going for a song in her local charity shop, it was branded and lovely quality, mostly baby weight stuff in pretty pastel colours. I was chuffed to bits and I'm planning on practicing my crochet skills with some of it in the near future. It was so lovely to receive an unexpected boost to my yarn stash so as a big thankyou I wanted to make Steph a little something ... hmmm what to choose.

Through indulging in my recently developed blogging habit I had found a pattern for some cool wrist warmers over on the Protect the Cookie blog. I love Marie's blog - so inspirational! This is the pattern for the wrist warmers and here are my finished version - I've dubbed the pattern rose and trellis as I think the bobbles look like flowers peeping through the cables.



I had some nice black Aran wool hanging about in my stash and I ran these up in literally a couple of evenings. The bobbles were surprisingly easy to make - another new skill acquired. Steph loved them and I will be making myself a pair pronto!

Sack Boy Sack Girl

A few weeks back my brother-in-law asked me if I'd be up to knitting one of these little critters for my nephew Jacob. Sack Boy is the character from LittleBIGPlanet (TM) computer game..... apparently. All a bit of a mystery to me since I haven't touched a computer gaming console since the 80's when it was all Pac Man and Space Invaders :)

Turned out I had actually bought the issue of Simply Knitting Magazine which contained the pattern so I thought I'd give it a whirl. The pattern for Sack Boy is also available here . Well, my effort is now completed, sewn up and posted off to his new owner so here he is ....

I managed to source the required Click Chunky yarn locally and it only took me a few days to knit up the various pieces. Finding a zip and the buttons for the eyes proved to be surprisingly hard. Living where we do is so frustrating sometimes as the craft shops are a bit thin on stock and never have quite what you are looking for. I eventually got a metal zip that was too long but I fudged a solution by folding up the excess inside the body. Buttons proved impossible. I found some perfect ones online at 6p each but it would have cost me £3 in postage to get them - for two 6p buttons I won't pay that on principle! So, my Sack Boy ended up with embroidered eyes. A slight compromise but here's hoping a 5 year old won't mind!

He's only the second teddy thingy I've ever knitted and I found it quite fun to do - nice and quick. I actually preferred him before I added the contrast stitching to make him look like he'd been made out of sacks. The instructions said 'make sure you do your whipping stiches nice and uneven to get the right look'. Now call me weird but I don't actually do messy stitching - I've spent years practicing doing tidy ones - so I compensated by trying too hard and in the end I think I made it a bit too messy :)

The original commission was for a green one please but also could he have a zebra tail,a pirates outfit and a hard hat. Bonkers :) I'll have to leave the customisations for another day as I've got too many other makes on the go at the moment.

Toodle pip.
J