I have such aspirations to do things like unpack boxes (Gasp! Can you believe I still have boxes hidden away from when we moved in May of last year?), tidy up the house, maybe look at that growing pile of mending/alterations/to-dos that seems to get bigger every week...

... but no. Instead, I make ridiculously lovely things that fill my heart with glee and make me chuckle whenever I see them. Chick Easter Tea Cosy? Oh yes. I need that. Work can wait, surely.

I rather like this knitting pattern. It's quick and easy and very satisfying. The feather pattern knits up quickly and I got to use lots of leftover yarn from the Carousel CAL (which I must admit still needs a border but it is draped so nicely over a chair that I daren't disturb it, really.).

The pattern is from Simply Knitting, issue 157. I didn't fold under the ribbing as instructed because I have a very tall (but very lovely) tea pot and this didn't quite stretch to keep it all cosy.

I maybe might have sort of possibly caught the Easter Craft bug and am zipping through bunny cut outs with Isla and delving into pom pom stashes everywhere to add fluffy tails. That's just how we roll hop.

In other news, the plasterer has been working hard on our front room and it promises to be done tomorrow (tomorrow!!) and I'm so overly smitten with delight that I have to stop myself from skipping around the house. We've been staring at stripped bare, glue-covered walls for too long!

This is Window Cat. LOVE. She's a teeny tiny itty bitty knitty kitty made up from the smallest amount of pink/purple variegated yarn and this pattern for Tiny Window Cat by Sara Elizabeth Kellner. I made her as a gift for a very good friend of mine who loves pink almost as much as she loves cats. Raveled here.

I've been worrying in anticipation of The Boy Baby arriving in about 10 weeks. 10 weeks. That's practically tomorrow. Minor panic. What will he wear? Gasp, I haven't made him a special toy/blanket/other hand-made item that I seem to think is of the highest importance. What kind of a maker mommy am I? (Yes, these concerns are filled with rational reasoning. Can you tell?)

And so.

Here's my latest knit, a mini Milo Vest (ravelled here), knitted in newborn size in Elle Baby yarn.


I really like the solid pale grey-blue colour and chunky cable. There's something very "proper" about this miniature vest - like a little waistcoat, I'm sure it ought to be paired with a tiny flatcap and a bowtie.


While I love this pattern (it is so quick and easy to knit), I really, really don't like this yarn. It is incredibly unforgiving and shows up every bump, tension change and irregular stitch that happens when you're a real person knitting and not a machine. #justsaying

I steam blocked the vest, which seemed to iron out a lot of the niggles. If you look at the top left strap, you can see where two DPNs joined for knitting in the round, and again above the left-hand-side of the cable pattern. No amount of steam blocking will remove that! I'm going to claim "handmade" as my excuse.

It is, however, lovely and soft and I'm sure will be just like wearing a soft snuggly blanket.

Another stash-busting project done! This time, a rainbow Olivia Cardigan from the pattern by Nikki Van De Car. I'm making good progress on my yarn stash, one by one picking out the yarns that have been saved for a rainy day and turning them into something else more practical.


This yarn was another find from Thimbles on my last holiday to Cape Town. It lost its yarn label on the way home but I suspect it has a high acrylic content so I steam-blocked the bejeebers out of it and that worked brilliantly. It took 100 grams for the entire cardigan (with a tiny amount left to spare). I love it that baby and toddler garments take so little, and that they finish so quickly. Such a great sense of triumph at the end.


So. This pattern. I think the yoke/sleeve construction is sheer genius (although why you don't pick up the stitches for the underarm as you knit I have no idea - definitely going to do that next time instead of sewing up afterwards!). Easy, quick, simple. Stands up to baby antics as she clambers over toys and under tables to test the cardigan's mettle.


The lace, well that's another story entirely. I've knit a lot of lace and used a lot of charts. I've done lace scarves, cardigans, jumpers, and blankets. So why oh why couldn't I get Van Der Car's lace pattern to work?! Each time I progressed to the next row, my stitch count was out. I counted and recounted my stitches before and after each row. I marked off each lace repeat with stitch markers. Maybe I'm just a visual person and I need a chart. Maybe it just wasn't meant to be. Either way, after my third (third!) attempt at the lace pattern, I ripped it right back, chucked it out, and replaced the entire body with the lace repeat from the Hey, Teach! cardigan which I love. Done, and done.


With this size (18-24m), I had to do a band of five plain stitches on either side of the button band to get the lace repeat to fit neatly. I quite like the way it looks.

The Olivia Cardigan pattern comes from the book What to Knit: The Toddler Years which I got out of the library. Of course, as luck would have it, someone requested the book so I had to get the whole cardigan done and cast off before returning it in two weeks. I knit the 18-24 month size so it worked up really quickly and I made it just in time, casting off the night before the book was due back.


This cardigan's neckline is much too big for Isla, but that's not surprising as it is the next size up for her. I didn't want to knit her actual size in case I didn't get it finished in time; there's nothing more disappointing than making something that ends up taking longer than expected and being far too small to be any good. I speak from experience.


She likes the buttons. Priorities.

It's freezing here. Like, right down into your bones kind of cold. In the mornings, the windows are frosted up and there is a thick sheet of ice on the cars outside. Even the grass is frozen.

It's days like these that make me want to hibernate indoors, drinking mugs of hot tea and knit-knit-knitting along to make socks, mittens and other warm things. It's so tempting to just ignore responsibilities like work and cleaning in favour of things like the clickety-clack of your needles. Still, an hour of knitting in the evenings is such a lovely thing to look forward to.


I've finished Isla's Milo Vest which is a marvellous thing (ravelled here). It is snugly warm, easy to make, and uses up a surprisingly little amount of yarn. This was a stash-busting project and I used up some leftover yarn from this project. I had 100g of yarn to get through and now have about 40g leftover which I was really surprised about (I was convinced it would use all of it), so will need to use this up somewhere else.


I like that the vest is easy and comfortable, and doesn't restrict a toddler's movements at all because the arms are free. I also like that it is warm and cosy, and moves easily through daily movements: climbing on furniture, crawling into small spaces, swinging in the park and snuggling on the couch.


I chose to do the heart cable on the front, but I'm sorry I didn't do a chunkier cable or a stranded knitted pattern. It's far too delicate for this vest in the tweed-like yarn I've chosen... although I think it would look lovely in a contrasting colour or with some kind of felt applique.

It has started to warm up today... but I think we are all going to need an army of vests to make it through the next few months!

Happy New Year! Did you have a magical farewell to 2015, and a cheerful wave hello to 2016? Oh I do hope so.
Here's Isla, waving at Granny on skype while wearing her festive headgear and pyjamas. As you do. "Christmas" was a wonderful week in our house: we were off work, all together. We stayed in bed late every day, we ate breakfast in pyjamas, we indulged in mince pies and went on walks to the park. We ignored the email alerts on our phones and didn't think about work. We ventured out to family and friends and ate many, many helpings of roast potatoes.

This is the first year we didn't go away to a country cottage or an escape from the city. Because this year, we also had other things happening.

Time has sped since we returned from our trip to South Africa. We've had visitors, we've all been sick with some 'flu or virus or another, and the days are rolling by into shorter and shorter burst of sunshine. Lots of scarves, slippers, pots of cosied-tea.

For a time, we were all sick, and spent our nights huddled under a blanket on the sofa. All three of us, sniffling and snuffling with the healing powers of Olbas oil wedged under our noses. Sometimes waking, sometimes taking turns to sleep. That hazy week (two weeks? more?) had no definite beginning nor end, although we seem to have unbundled and made our way out into the world a bit. Isla started nursery, we're back at work.

And, I've knitted. Just a bit. You know, to remind my fingers how they work when not emailing / designing / other work-y action. I have tiny moments of reflection late at night after baby has had a bath and gone to bed, after supper has been prepared, eaten, plates packed away. Sometimes these tiny moments are filled with tea, or with plans. And sometimes, they're filled with yarn.

Socks, not for me. He chose the yarn for himself, and is a happy recipient of warm woolly toes at winter time. This is a self-striping hand-painted yarn which is quite cheerful, and lovely to knit with. I did one at a time, on two circular needles.

Cutest Booties Ever.


And more pom poms.

Just sayin'.

These are the Pom Pom Booties pattern from Hadley Fierlinger's Vintage Knits for Modern Babies (pattern online here). Seriously cutie booties. They're easy to knit and could easily be the most-used knit item in Isla's wardrobe. I'd imagine that they'd be a great way to use up yarn scraps...

Because....

... everyone needs a giant pom pom hat
... I needed an excuse to make a giant pom pom with my * new * pom pom makers
... I am trying to clear out all the stuff in the house, which includes a very healthy selection of beautiful yarns and this oh-so-wonderful soft merino


... and mostly because this cute baby head needed a cute baby hat to match. Aww.


We wrap up warmly and layer up the blankets before heading out for walkies. We walk here, we walk there, and everywhere we walk we get lots of compliments about the giantness of the fluffy pom pom and the cuteness of the baby. I'm a little biased about that, of course.

This is the pattern for the Classic Cuffed Hat from the Purl Bee blog, knitted in baby size. I added a little more length to the cuffed ribbing, and used the largest size Clover Pom Pom maker for an oversized addition to the top.

Everything is better with added sparkles. We went to an evening party and baby Isla needed something glam. It was a good excuse to dig around in my yarn stash, especially as Graeme has been threatening to throw out all of my yarn unless some of it disappears.

I found some teal sparkly yarn in my stash (I bought this to knit up a bolero in my size but never got around to it) and chose one of my favourite baby-sized knits: The Whirligig Shrug. It's a fun and quick knit which takes about two nights of knitting while watching NCIS (or other TV drama of your preference). The TV bit is essential, obviously.

Raveled here, pattern by Stefanie Japel.

I spun these without any particular project in mind, and I have about 100 grams of each which should be plenty for a shawlette or a pair of socks -- or to add to another project that requires lots of soft yarn loveliness. Stashed for a future project!