Sunday, 1 November 2009

It's been a while........

Where is the time going?
Lots of little and not so little illnesses flying around this home at the moment so crafting has taken a backstage. Which means blogging about crafting is impossible! But baby and big boys still sleeping, mama's awake and photo's are waiting to be shared. So lets go before the snuffling little bodies start to stir.

So first of all, a very special hat made for a very special little girl, by a very special big girl. Oh yes, Helen has definitely caught the knitting bug. Now bored with the neverending scarves she has moved on to knitting and purling in the same row, and a little shaping too. She made a beautiful moss stitch border for this little hat but then pulled it back as she was actually trying to create a single rib border. I thought the moss stitch was fine but she wanted it ribbed. So she started again and this time around mostly remembered to knit the purl an purl the knit. A few little blips and forgetful moments but we don't need to talk about those do we? It looks and wears just fine. And what about the flower? Nice finishing touch don't you think? Well Helen knitted that as well. This little hat looks so lovely on Heather, the colours and the style suit her perfectly. Almost tempted to pop it on her head to show you but not sure she is ready to awaken just yet.


And another hat, this time made by myself. Yes we've done pumpkin hats before but slightly too large for Heather and so offered to other mamas on the GP forum. One to a little girl in Wales and another went to this little one.


And what do you think of this scarf?

It is so warm and cuddly. And the colours are wonderful aren't they? Now I really don't like knitting scarves. So long, so monotonous, so......boring! But this one was different. Knitted in a gorgeous Twilleys freedom chunky pure wool on 10mm stitches, even though it is in a single rib it still knitted up super fast. I'm sure it took not much more than an hour of actual knitting. The only problem was that I could only offer it five minutes of work at a time whilst between nursing snuffly baby, cleaning after sicky children, coughing and wheezing myself, and trying to look after everyone. So in all it took several quick bursts over a three day period, mst of which involved actually getting into knitting mode, unwrapping the scarf and wool from its bag, and settling down to knit two or three rows before stashing it back away to run to one poorly person or another. But it was still an enjoyable knit and one especially for me. In fact I enjoyed making it so much that I went out and added this little lot to the stash, ready to make a couple more scarves:


Oh by the way, the red wool isn't for scarf knitting. Shhhh! It's for a secret christmas gift for one of my girls.

And talking of "the stash" how many of you have a mini stash like this? All the odd bits left over from other projects? Too big to throw away yet too small to really make much with? Well nows the time to start using it. Christmas decorations, stripey scarves, bags and gloves, baby bibs, dishcloths, knitted dolls, flower trims, all kinds of mini quick knits to be created at this time of year.


And finally, look at these two little books. John found them at the local car boot sale and brought them home for me. He wasn't sure if I would be interested but at 50p each he thought he would take the chance. And I'm so pleased he did. The cross stitch book has some lovely designs that I will use one day, maybe not in blue and white but definitely in the two colour theme. The other book is very pretty and a useful read for picking up new techniques.

So with those good buys I'll give my goodbye.
Take care all and happy crafting till I catch up with you again.
xx


5 comments:

lilac73 said...

Hope all are well on the road to recovery now. Well done to your special big girl, glad she's discovered the joy of knitting. I'm enjoying planning Christmas gifts, including plastic canvas Father Christmas decorations for the tree. Having fun with the pattern you sent me, thanks. Any recommendations for an easy sock pattern?

Pippa said...

Hope you are all starting to feel better again! I love the hats! I have lots of bits and bobs of leftover wool and I'd love to start making gloves for my little brood, but I keep getting put off by the need for DPNs. I need a pattern that uses two needles as that's all my poor brain can cope with at the moment!

lucy said...

Hope you are all starting to feel better x that scarf is absolutly beautiful what amazing colours .

blessings
xx

spicyapplepie said...

Oh the hats are wonderful, and the colours on the scarf are simply lovley.

I hope you feel better soon, you must be exhausted nursing all your little ones!

Dawn said...

Lovely hats.
I have a "mini stash" of all the bits left over too, and similarly they get made into toys, scarves and gloves (there are patterns without DPN's Pippa - I'm not a fan of DPN's either). The odd bits came in useful recently when I knitted Elmer.