i feel knitty

New stuff

2008-03-18T20:00:00.000-07:00

Where did February go??? I have been busy with an overseas holiday and a trip to sleep school. Happy to report that both were successful and we are home relaxed and sleeping through the night :D

Here are a few things I have managed to get done.

I have almost finished a pair of ribbed longies for chubbaroo. They are a labour of love but I will be very proud when they are finished. The wool is luscious, soft merino from the secret supplier of a friend.

This is a skein of wool that I hand dyed for an Easter wool swap. I love how the colours came out. I know it isn't wound all beautifully in the pic but it was the best I could do with a toddler trying to sabotage.

I should have taken this one without the flash as it doesn't quite show accurate colour representation.

Here is another sock dog I made for a friend's oy for little boy to celebrate his first birthday. I used felt for the eyes and nose as I didn't want him to swallow buttons.

Gee, I am doing well with the photos today. Will come back and fix the orientation.

Cake

2008-01-24T19:49:00.000-08:00

Here is my second homemade gift for the year. It is an apron I made out of some pillowcases using this tutorial: http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=123434.0

I also made a little cake book with a few of my favourite recipes to go with it.

The gift is for my oldest and dearest girlfriend's birthday and I hope she likes it :)

Not so knitty

2008-01-23T01:40:00.000-08:00

Hmmmm I haven't done much knitting lately :( but I have been playing with the sewing machine some more.

Today I made a bag for myself and I love it!!!

The top stitching is neater than the last one and I figured out how to hand stitch an invisible seam in the lining where I had to turn it inside out.

The outer fabric was quite flimsy so I used iron on interfacing to give it a bit more structure.

Excuse the photo of me in the bathroom mirror but it was the best way to show off the bag lol.

I added another photo because apparently the photo of me wearing the bag looked like a shirt lol

Sock Friends & more

2008-01-16T19:05:00.000-08:00

I was browsing in Angus and Robertson the other day and found the cutest book about making sock toys. So I bought it and came home and made a little sock lamb. He was quickly joined by a dog and elephant friend lol

Here are the sock toys I have made so far.

Project 2 on the machine sewing front is a crayon roll for cheekychops to take on the plane for our upcoming holiday - YAY!

Thank goodness for blog tutorials. I used this one :http://skiptomylou.wordpress.com/2007/04/25/on-a-roll/

Here is the finished product. It was a huge hit and he wanted to use it straight away :)

First sewing project

2008-01-16T18:29:00.000-08:00

O.K having decided to throw myself headfirst into this domestic crafty thing I have challenged myself to handmake everyones birthday presents this year. I hope I am not crazy.

It was very lucky for me that the first birthday of the year was Mums. Who better to appreciate a handmade gift than Mummy. I am sure she still has every maccaroini necklace and crepe paper decoration I made as a child.

I decided to make her a bag to use on our upcoming holiday using this tutorial http://tinyhappy.typepad.com/tiny_happy/2006/06/shoulder_bag_tu.html

Here is my version:

Whoops, should have edited the photo first.

Branching out

2008-01-14T21:49:00.001-08:00

I have always wanted to learn to sew but have never had the patience. After looking at all the great things my online buddies were making on their machine I decided to give it a try myself.

I dug out my Nana's old machine that was hiding in out shed. It is a Husqvarna made in the 1960's.

I made this apron to see if I could work out how to use the machine. It is for my cheeky chops who likes to help mummy in the kitchen.

xxx

A New Year

2008-01-05T21:19:00.000-08:00

Now that the silly season is over I have a chance to post. I didn't get much knitting done during the break as we spent lots of time together as a family. They boys loved having Daddy home every day and we were sorry when work started again.

I did manage to make a felted journal cover for my sister as a Christmas present. It went done to the wire and I just managed to finish and wrap it before we left for our family Christmas Eve dinner. I didn't even have time to take a photo so I will have to ask my sister to and post it later lol.

My very exciting news is that I got a set of Knit Picks Interchangeable Needles for Christmas :)

I have just cast on my next project. This bag:
http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEwinter03/PATTfrenchmarket.html

and this time it is for myself :)

Henry the octopus

2007-12-12T05:04:00.000-08:00

I have just finished these bell bottoms for a friends new baby boy.

I dyed this wool with food dye again and really love the result.

This was the first time I cast off at the waistband and I had to frog 4 times before I got the cast off stretchy enough. Nearly drove me insane.

I wanted to add a little embelishment and first attempted duplicate stitch but it looked terrible so I pulled it all out. I definately need more practise with that before I give it as a gift.

So instead I did this little octopus with chain stitch. Simple , but I think it looks o.k.

I also put his name on the back.

Progress

2007-12-03T22:17:00.000-08:00

Here is the spider bag finished. I really like this one even though I don't like spiders-at all!

I couldn't wait to start knitting up my secret santa wool. Here is a progress pic

Thankyou wooly santa !!!!!!

2007-11-29T22:53:00.000-08:00

More goodies for me. The parcel man arrived today with goodies from my wooly secret santa.

This gorgeous wool hand dyed by the talented Tara :) The photo doesn't do it justice, the colours are beautiful.

I think I will use it to knit some longies/shorties for chubba. I see an indigenous theme with a gekko and ants. Can't wait!

And as if I wasn't spoilt enough I was also suprised to find this lovely needle roll included in the parcel.

What a clever girl and just what I needed.

I can't wait to organise my needle stash.

Just need to make room so I have to eat the bar of chocolate that Tara included first!!!

incy wincy spider

2007-11-29T19:57:00.000-08:00

This is my second felted bag using the same pattern. I wanted a Gothic theme so decided on a spider embelishment. I wanted it subtle but I put the red on the spiders back so that you could see it against the black web. I spent all night googling trying to find a pattern for the spider and web and in the end just did it free hand.

I hope it looks good after I do the final felting of the bag.

A treat !

2007-11-26T19:50:00.000-08:00

A little gift arrived in the mail today . Some cotton from Bendigo Wollen Mills with some lovely handmade stitch markers :)

Thanks Mamasue xxx

I am going to use the cotton to make a sleeveless top for chubba from the Filati summer edition for kids.

Ahoy there me hearties

2007-11-24T19:33:00.000-08:00

Another non knitting post but this is what has been keeping me away from the needles :)

We had a pirate party to celebrate our cheeky chops 3rd birthday. Here he is blowing out the candles on his pirate ship cake.

Meet 'Mick' the pirate pinata. I named him Mick after the big mouth that my husband made for him. He was filled with lollies and tissue paper. He took 2 days to make and a couple of seconds to be destroyed . Next time I will re-enforce with wire the top where the string is attached .

More paper mache. These are treasure chests that I made for party favours. They were filled with 'jewels' and 'pirate gold' and were a hit with the kids.

Happy 3rd Birthday

2007-11-20T20:38:00.000-08:00

Not knitting related but today is my big boy's 3rd birthday.

We are having a party on Saturday but this is the cake I made to celebrate today. He looked through the Womans Weekly birthday book and chose this cake himself.

I really hate spiders so making it creeped me out a little. My little boy loved it and it tasted pretty good too :)

Girls best friend

2007-11-16T00:15:00.000-08:00

Here is the finished bag. I am really happy with how it turned out. So much so that I have started another one today :)

I am doing it for another gift. It is going to be gothic inspired in black and greys. I am planning to embelish with a spiders web.

First Felting of Bag

2007-11-14T18:13:00.000-08:00

After it was somewhat dry I stitched this design onto it. It is kind of rough and rustic but that is what I was going for as I have a picture in mind once it has shrunken down.

I will finish felting it today. I am really excited to see how it turns out.

My Nana popped over this morning and was quite impressed when she saw it.

Here is the bag after its first felting.

Felting?

2007-11-14T05:16:00.000-08:00

This is my current project. I needed a new challenge so am trying my hand at felting. I decided on a felted bag to make as a gift for my girlfriend.

I found this pattern http://www.straw.com/cpy/patterns/bags/bag-musiq-ditty_bag.html

I knitted it on 7mm needles out of double stranded patons Jet. I combined the grey and pink yarns for the main colour and contrasted with the double stranded grey. I managed to knit this in one day. Gotta love large needles.

Secret Santa

2007-11-14T05:06:00.000-08:00

My little online knitting group decided to do a secret santa wool swap for Xmas. I decided to do another dye up. Food colouring again but this time I used black, red and yellow. It am really happy with how it turned out. I hope my SS buddy likes it too.

I made some stitch markers out of black and red beads to go with it.

The thing that took the longest time out of the whole thing was winding up the wool. I will NEVER attempt to do that on my own again. In fact a wool winder might go on my Xmas list.

The slowest jumper in the world

2007-11-14T04:59:00.000-08:00

My big boy was feeling a little left out so I decided to knit something for him. As he has been out of nappies for almost a year I didn't really want to do longies so I started a jumper. This is a pattern called 'quaker ridge' and is out of 8ply cotton although it seems to be thinner than true 8ply.

It is quite tedious and so far I have only finished one sleeve. I keep going back to it though.

Tannenbaum

2007-11-14T04:51:00.000-08:00

I was now gaining confidence and decided it was time to purchase some yummy hand dyed wool. I picked out this colourway from Monster Knits, called 'Tannenbaum'. The whole time I was knitting it I thought of choc-mint icecream.

I decided on shorties this time as we were heading toward spring. I wanted an enclosed waistband but also added a drawstring in contrasting chocolate brown.

This pattern was pretty much made up by me, combining different things I liked about a few different patterns. They are a great fit on my chubba and I plan to make some more.

Blue Lagoon

2007-11-14T04:46:00.000-08:00

Here are the longies that I made with the dyed 'Dashing" wool. I used a modifed version of the same pattern as last time.

I also dyed some wool to do a contrasting waistband and seed stitch cuffs.

I was really pleased with how they turned out. Not bad for my first attempt at dying something myself.

To dye for

2007-11-14T02:59:00.000-08:00

This time I wanted to have a go at dying some wool myself. I really liked the nice, soft 'Dashing' wool from Spotlight , so I used different shades of blue food colouring and dyed some white 'Dashing' in the microwave.

This is the method I used.http://www.withawareness.com.au/new-page.htm

Beanies

2007-11-14T02:53:00.000-08:00

I wanted to do a couple of beanies for the boys for winter. This was the first one done with 2x2 rib on circular needles. The rib nearly drove me crazy but it was great practice.

I made one for my little one to match his big brother. It is cleckheaton country silk.

The rainbow connection

2007-11-14T02:24:00.000-08:00

After my first effort I was very excited to have another go. This time I used a pattern written by a member of a parenting forum I frequent. I loved the look of all the hand dyed yarns but I wasn't ready to spend up big on something I could stuff up and I couldn't wait for the mailman. So off to spotlight I go and found this multicoloured bambino merino in 4ply, which I double stranded. I LOVE how these turned out. They are a great fit with extra short rows in the back to accommodate his cloth nappies. Hardly any mistakes this time. My baby boy wears these all the time and we get lots of comments.

In the beginning

2007-11-14T01:22:00.000-08:00

I know its a few months down the track but I want to start at the beginning and as you will soon find out, I am not technologically savvy enough to change the dates.

This is my very first project. A pair of longies made with this pattern.http://alison.knitsmiths.us/pattern_baby_bell_bottoms.html It is knit out of 8ply light green 'Dashing' from spotlight. I was extremely proud of my efforts but if you look closely there are a few errors.