Green monkeys from Ikea

Thanks to an extra long Easter/Anzac Day public holiday (5 days, woohoo!), I was able to get down to some serious making :)

So I finally finished the tiny baby quilt that I've been working 'off and on again' for the last few months now ... it's a really simple 'cheats' quilt, purely because I couldn't bring myself to cut up the super cute Ikea fabric :D (I love those crazy green monkeys, lol)

It is just Ikea animal fabric on the top, and Ikea red/orange striped fabric on the bottom, with all of the animal designs outlined with 3 strands of embroidery thread :)

I also made a whole heap of baby and toddler hats (most of them have already been gifted, but I'll try to get photos of them soon).

These are two hats that I made from the Ann Budd Handy Book of Patterns that I borrowed from the library ... I love the accessories in this book, knitted from a clever little gauge/size grid. Looking forward to trying the mitts and socks :)

I was intrigued by the sweater pattern, but after getting about half way through knitting one for myself, I decided that the pattern was just a bit too much 80's ... you know, big armholes shapeless body, so decided to frog it and make this Super Birthday Sweater instead. Easy top down knitting and hopefully a nicely fitted shape :) I will try another Ann Budd one soon, because I do like the pattern format, but next time I'll probably stick to a toddler one :)

Girly things

.... so here is the reason that I've been a slack blogger of late ... a brand new grandbaby :) ... pretty good reason don't you think ;D

It's been good to make some girly things, there are so many awesome things to make (notice her cool 'itty bitty baby dress' from this post) ... I love it!

I would have liked to be making tiny knitted cardies and hats, but unfortunately, long sleeved woolens are not of much use for an aussie summer baby, but I did love this Confection Shrug pattern. It's a bit big, but totally cute (and practical :))

And thanks to Kate Atherley for this super-easy training sock pattern. The socks were my first venture into cuff-down, heel-flapped socks. It was so easy to follow, and came out so good, that I'm looking forward to making some adult sized ones ... thanks Kate :)

... and then some sewing :) .... on an op shopping trip a while back I bought some upholstery fabric samples for $5 with the thought of making a quilt ... I loved the colours and designs but decided that the furnishing fabric might feel a bit rough, so instead, we now have a very sturdy, reversible play mat for the new little miss :)

Quilty bits

Finally, my Rocket Man quilt has made lift-off :)

I had quite a hard time quilting it ... as requested by my daughter, it has a double layer (yep double layer!) of polyester wadding (cold Adelaide nights bbbrrrrr!!). She only wanted the applique shapes to be quilted so that made the job a bit easier ... but even so, I had a few sore fingers for a while :D

So, here is Rocket Man 2010 and I'm happy to say, it is much loved by our little rocket man and his mummy :D

I also finished Fay's quilt ... Fay is my friend's mum, who lives in a nursing home. I made her a lap quilt (about a metre square), just big enough to comfortably tuck in around her legs. I wanted it to be bright and cheery, but not over the top (so I hope that I've got the mix right) ... I also wanted it to be instantly recognisable as her own ... hope she likes it :)

Rocket Man

I started making this cot quilt for the Little Star Man of our family :)

It fits in great with my stashbusting because I wanted it to have a really scrappy look ... plenty of tiny little pieces to use up on all of those free-pieced stars!

The pattern is from a book that I received as a pressy some time back, called Material Obsession.

The pattern is written for a pre printed panel to go in the centre, but I decided to go with applique for mine instead ... so far I've got up to cutting the applique shapes out of paper, and getting the placement right ... the next step is to decide on which fabrics to use :) The main inspiration for the rocket ship came from this awesome free applique from Kellie at Don't Look Now (thanks Kellie, it was just what I needed :))

...and ... I think that I've just found a great soft toy to accompany this quilt ... (that is so me, planning my next project before I'm even close to finishing this one!!) :D

Warm ears and cosy sleeps ...

Finding a hat pattern to perfectly fit a baby's head is not that easy ... finding an online hat generator however, to design a hat in your own yarn, and to your own measurements, is as easy as clicking here :-D ... how cool are those ear flaps?! I thought that I'd made some sort of mistake whilst I was knitting it... having never made (or worn) ear flaps before, I imagined the flaps to be exactly opposite each other, but (very cleverly) they're not, they are positioned a lot nearer to the back than the front. The result is a hat that fits so well, that it doesn't move about, or need adjusting every few minutes ... love it! ... my only change to the pattern was to do a few less rounds in the main body of the hat ... other than that, I followed the pattern (surprised eh?! ... yep, me too!)
I finally finished a baby quilt that seems to have been waiting around forever. The top is all machine pieced, so that really didn't take too long ... the waiting was just for the quilting to get started (but as soon as it was, it only took a few days to complete). I placed the quilt top directly onto the backing, and hand quilted it, using 3 strands of embroidery thread. I'm not sure what the backing fabric is called ... it's got a really soft fleecy/furry kind of feel (it's the same fabric that heaps of this seasons dressing gowns are made out of) ... I'm sure it's got a name, but I just didn't think to look when I bought it from Spotlight ... maybe I'll remember to check next time I'm there :-D (but, whatever it's called, it's soft, warm, and very snuggly ... and perfect for this Adelaide winter)

I *heart* this yarn

I bought another bag of green Wangaretta Mill yarn for $5 from Lincraft, not really knowing what I was going to do with it (as per usual!). When I got it home, it matched great with some white Lang Arte that I bought a few years back (also from Lincraft). I was thinking of making a blanket with hearts, similar to Millie's Blanket, but wasn't too keen on how EZ's heart looked in the variegated yarn. The block I went with in the end, was this intarsia heart from Jan Eaton's 200 Knitted Blocks...I love the look and feel of this textured yarn :-)

Taueret, I'm not sure of the content of some of these packs of yarn from Lincraft, but reading the forums over on Ravelry, some people have had some awesome finds, including Zhivago, Patonyle, Zoomy, Cleckheaton Country, Cleckheaton Angora, Gusto, Country 8 ply, and heaps more. It's certainly worth while taking time to 'dig' through the pile...the selection seems to vary a lot between different stores though...(the selection at the Marion SA store is really good :-))

....Some new crafty books for my birthday last week, to add to my library...(thanks guys!)
(the Love to Knit book was a pressy from my daughter, on the condition that I make her the socks on the front cover!!!) :-D