The March Sisters - Meg

This is my first Meg Pinafore from Kelly Brooker's range of gorgeous pinafores, published in The March Sisters eBook. I have done an Amy previously and am currently doing another one, and I love these patterns! I'm really looking forward to doing the other two in this series, but for now here is my Meg, knitted in a size 4-5 using Bendigo Woollen Mills Luxury yarn. The photos really don't do this lovely pinafore justice.

New additions to our family!

Meet Jasper (or maybe Jethro)

and Eddie (or maybe Van)!!

On Wednesday we were very fortunate to welcome into our family two little feline babies. The SPCA was running a promotion on Friday to help clear their backlog of cats and kittens. Instead of the usual fee to adopt a cat/kitten they were giving them away for free on Friday and the kittens are desexed, vaccinated, wormed, defleaed and microchipped (the usual fee for a kitten is $210).

I decided to go in on Wednesday and see what they had there, so that if any of the wee darlings appealed I could be there first thing Friday. Well, Tessa and I went in and the only kittens that were quite young (which is what we were looking for) were two wee ginger tabbies that were about 9 weeks old (brothers) - the rest were about 4/5 months old. The wee ginger ones (well, one is cameo - a slightly paler ginger) were very cute and active, so I picked up Fin and Ollie from school (Izzy was at a friend's) and we went back so they could see if they liked them.

I was told that if we wanted them we could take them that day and they would not charge us (as I'd mentioned about the Free Feline Friday). The boys were very keen (as in, begging!), so I told the assistant that we would like to adopt them both, but could we collect them on Thursday morning as we had no transport cages with us. She instantly produced two transport boxes and said we could take them in those, so we did! Each box also contained a hand knitted blanket for us to keep - how awesome is that?!

I certainly was not expecting to come home with two kittens when I'd gone in that day and we feel very lucky, as some friends went in on Friday but missed out because all the kittens had been adopted already.

Our babies were even tv stars for a day! They featured on Close Up when they did a segment about the SPCA promotion. It was quite weird watching them on TV while they played at our feet in our living room! They are very cute and ultra energetic and playful - heaps of fun. The kids adore them already and they've been so good - no accidents (touch wood).

Little Hoodlum

I have recently been lucky enough to test knit a fantastic new pattern from my friend and 'partner' Julia Stanfield. I tested Little Hoodlum for her, but Julia will be releasing a series of patterns in an eBook very soon. This one is for a customer, but I modelled it on Tessa and I love it! I think I need to knit another in similar colours for Tess as it suited her so much!

The pattern is fun and quick to knit, has a multitude of options and looks awesome knitted using solid colours, semi-solid colours, stripes, with or without the hood, with or without sleeves, etc. I'll be knitting many of these in its various forms I can tell!

Milo Mitts

I have just completed (and super fast!) a pair of Milo Mitts for a customer, whose little girl requested pink ones - so pink they are! I knitted most of these up while at work (naughty, naughty!) and I made the cable an owl cable. They're a size 4, but fit my 8 year old, so obviously can last for some time. These are modelled on my 2 year old, so look a little big on her.

I am running a bit of a special deal on these at the moment - they'll be $15 per pair, including postage for a limited time. Contact me to order these cute wee mitts.

Some recent orders

I've been fairly busy recently with custom knitting orders, and here are the results:

This is a Diane Soucy Easy Baby Cardigan for a workmate's little grand daughter. I'm really pleased with this one, but I forgot to take a picture of the final item, with a very cute little button sewed into the middle of the crochet flower. I used 8 ply  Bendigo Woollen Mills Luxury yarn for this one:

This is an Eden's Adam knitted as a custom order. It's knitted in Bendigo Woollen Mills cotton and I've added a kangaroo pocket, as requested by my customer. I made a couple of small errors with this one, and I'm not too thrilled with it, but I'm happy with the overall look - just need to spend some time perfecting some techniques.

And from a fellow TNNer's (and Raveller) new pattern - a very cute pattern for fingerless mittons for littlies. I entered Sam's Snippets Competition for her Easy Kids Hand Warmers and here is the result. Tessa wanted blue ones and she chose the flowers as an embellishment. She loves these - and has been wearing them constantly since I finished them!

Before embellishment:

 

After embellishment:

I've also recently completed a really cute hoodie as a test knit for Julia, but pictures of that won't be posted until after release of the pattern. I will say, though, that it is very cute and such a cool pattern! Watch this space ...

My first Looking Glass Longies

On the crafty weekend away I started my first ever pair of Looking Glass Longies - using the lovely soft Possum Merino yarn provided by my customer. I'd just like to say that this pattern is sheer genius! Being in a large room surrounded by many other crafty women all chatting and crafting away and trying to cast on and grapple with the first part of these longies was a bit of a mission I must say, but with the help and advice of the other lovely knitters who have knitted these before, I managed to do it - error free!

The construction of these longies is amazing - if you haven't knitted them before it's quite mystifying how they're going to work, but wow! Very, very cool. I was a tad worried that these might be a bit small for the recipient, but they fit really well, with enough room for growth.

I'm looking forward to knittting many more of these, using different yarns and colourways - they're perfect for winter for day wear and also fabulous at night over cloth nappies. Feel free to contact me for information about pricing and sizing of these very cool longies.

Crafty weekend of fun!

 

Another recent event (although it seems long ago now) was a crafty weekend away with some lovely friends to a wonderful retreat just out of Otaki. We arrived on a Friday evening and spent the weekend being well fed, and inspired by all the crafty wonderfulness! I haven't posted any pics of people's faces (in case they don't want to be shown) - and this will probably be picture overload, but here goes:

The venue was lovely and very comfortable, with a cosy fire burning in the very roomy living room in the evenings. We had so much fun and there was much laughter and crafty goodness happening - and very little sleep! The food was awesome, thanks to one of our number who, even though she had a very small baby with her and two at home, managed to plan and shop for all our meal requirements!

We had organised to do a yarn swap while on the weekend, so here are some pics of the swaps.

This is the one I did, using 200gms of 8 ply merino hand dyed and the gift was a craft bag on a swivel base:

This is the one I received - some gorgeous 8 ply BWM Luxury hand dyed in a beautiful red. For my gift I received some groovy fabric, a ball of green bamboo/cotton and two very cool pictures:

And here are some pics of some of the other fabulous swaps:

This weekend saw some fabulous items being created by everyone - there was (of course) much knitting done, but also yarn dyeing:

The first two pictures are of Kate dyeing her yarn, and the following two show all the yarn drying and then mine all hanked up (thanks Kate for doing that!). I will be adding a quick tutorial on my blog for how I dye my yarn, so watch for that in the next few weeks - it's loads of fun!

And, finally, some sewing for and from the weekend. I owed someone a little something for a swap for some yarn, so I made her a wip (work in progress) bag and added some cotton (forgot to take a pic of the cotton):

And, finally, I made a skirt, thanks to the wonderful Jo (Crazy Crafter NZ):

All up we covered many crafts between us. There was knitting, sewing, crocheting, spinning, and I'm sure others, but I've forgotten!

Phew! That's it I think :)

Bloggy slackness

Well, I've been very slack at updating this blog recently. It's amazing how busy life can get at times, which can fully get in the way of interesting blog updates - and then the further behind you get, the harder it is to take the time to update. But here I am, finally.

First up is a test knit I did recently for a friend - a singlet in 4 ply. It's going to last Tessa for quite a long time, as the sizing is fairly generous. I'm happy I did this (and Tess really needed some more woollen singlets for this year) but I think I will steer clear of 4 ply rib knitting for a while!!