The whole of blogland is awash with talk of Geraniums -- the dressy kind from blogger Rae of Made By Rae Fame. Geranium is a super-cute and beautifully-fitting pattern for a little girl's dress.

I couldn't not make one. Or at least try. I have made Rae's patterns before and they are so easy to follow and offer a beautiful fit - and this one is only $10, covering sizes 0 to 5T. It's a basic dress bodice and skirt with sleeve variations that you can mix and match to create a zillion dresses for your (*ahem* your daughter's) wardrobe. Isla's already wearing the next size up so I made the  6-12m version.

This little girl is very impressed.
LOOK AT THAT FACE. Aw. There is porridge everywhere, even after I cleaned her all up.

I made a sleeveless View A dress (there are two views, with multiple options to accessorise. Love!).  I made the bodice out of Fabric Freedom Petit Fleur FF27-02 (grey background with pink, mustard and white ferns), and I made the bodice lining and skirt out of a contrasting solid lavender. Both fabrics are from Stitch.

Happy Mother's Day! We're very lucky, our family gets to celebrate two different "Mother's Days" each year. One for the UK tradition (today) and one for the South African tradition (in May). Because really, there should be a mother's day every month shouldn't there?

To celebrate, we made pom pom flowers. You know, as you do. Especially when your house is more-or-less overrun by pom poms aplenty. Ooh, poofy.


Once your pom pom is ready,  you'll need to thread a piece of wire through the middle of the pom pom and bring both ends down, ready to wrap around the stick as well.


Push one end of the stick into the middle of the pom pom and secure in place by wrapping the wire down the top bit of the stick. This doesn't have to be neat because you'll cover it up later. Position the leaf about a third of the way down the stick and secure in place by wrapping the wire around again.


Then wrap wrap wrap with florist tape, starting at the top and making your way down to the bottom. Adding this kind of leaf is easy: you'll need to bend the leaf back to get right down to where the wire joins the felt, and then bend it back up and fold it around the stem and start wrapping again.

That's all. Easy peasy. Now, go make some more.


Warning: you may be tempted to use up ALL of your other scraps of yarn and create a huge bunch of long-lasting oofy-poofy flowers.

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.