Last One For The Year

Quickie post to finish off 2011.

Kids Christmas outfits, consisting of:

Ottobre 2/2005 #32 Safari Shorts in size 122 & 140. Fantastically easy unisex pattern.

Ottobre 2/2005 #31 Girl's Top in size 122 - but lengthened to 146 - this top is ridiculously short! Even lengthened to the biggest size it is only just long enough to cover DD's tummy. But it is a nice shape, so I will forgive it.

Ottobre 3/2010 #35 Beat T-shirt in size 140. Love this top! Looks fantastic on my DS too.

Monsters from The Big Book of Knitted Monsters. There is Cecil (for DH), Dot (for DD) and Tony (for DS).

Some Pimpicuffs for my nieces. Really must make one for myself now.

And some Monster Chunks for my 2 SIL's :)

Also an 18m size Milo as a birthday present. I used the ladder and daisy stitch instead of a cable.

I think that is about it. What a great learning year 2011 was!

Cheers!

Project Round-up To Finish Up The Year

Just about anyways. All that I am making now is pretty much Christmas presents, so I won't be able to share them for a few more weeks yet.

My knitting needles were in the KnitPicks binder when I got them, but I found it fiddly and rather bulky to store everything in there. Plus I also needed somewhere to store my collection of sock sized fixed circulars. So one day I decided to sit down and design my own, exactly how I wanted it. I used some nice sturdy denim from the op-shop, I think it was the same stuff I used for my bag, and some cute mushroom fabric for the inside. I only had 1m of the inner fabric, and I tried to use it as wisely as I could, but I also wanted to sew the inner, with as few seams as possible. So the pockets were created by folding the fabric in a sort of flat concertina style.

There is a velcro pocket up the top for my end caps and keys, and an open pocket for my needle sizer. The top folds down to protect the tips of the sock circs, and to keep the cables falling out, and there is a flap over the interchangeable tips to protect them.

In making things for myself, I finally ordered the Farbenmix LangeneB pattern from Crafty Mamas. I had some beautiful hemp denim (also from CM's) sitting around waiting for the perfect project, and this was it. Just gorgeous to sew, and a lovely pattern with a nice fit. Plus check out my invisible zipper!

In the making of things for others there has been some poncho style things for DD's teacher - quite literally a square of fabric with a neck hole in the middle, that her class use for simple dress-ups. I think I made about 11 all up. These are just the first 3, I didn't photograph the rest.

There was some baby gifts for some friends - the blanket took me ages, but looks pretty good. And the vest is a Milo, in a size 9 months so bub will fit it for next winter.

For the kids - I knitted some washcloths - mainly for practice and to whittle the stash down a little. A flower and a star.

Some more dyeing - the blue-y colour is an op-shop lot of wool, that was originally a piney blue-green and is planned for a cardigan for my DD. The purple, red-black, and purple-red-blue, are all BWM 4ply, originally Frost. They are all planned for socks.

And lastly, some soap (we are nearly finished this batch), some doll dresses for my little niece for her birthday and a shawl, that I used the wrong yarn for so it isn't very good. But it was good practice.

Cheers!

Wowsers!

I just had a quick look through my photos and there are quite a few projects I haven't shared yet!

So I am going to post the boring (aka ones that don't need much describing) now, and hopefully get back to updating ones that I want to write a bit more about over the next few weeks. As I would really like to get them all blogged before another year disappears (and it is traveling pretty fast!)

Birthday present for a 7 year old boy, back in July I think. Ottobre pattern - not sure which one, Stella and Hilco (I think) fabric from Crafty Mama's.

2 Ottobre tops for me - my standard, slight v-neck pattern. Both in Stella. I don't wear the white one much, because apart from the fabric being a lot thinner than the black, I feel like a giant dirt magnet (me + white = grub!) The black one ended up being 3/4 sleeves as I ran out of fabric.

Book week costumes - yes it was ageeeeeeeeees ago. Charlie and Lola. Easy. Farbenmix Olivia dress with improvised collar and button placket for Lola, complete with her butterfly hair clips.

Charlie is Ottobre again, teemed with a pair of jeans. Simple! I just printed out Charlie in the closest font I could find, ironed some double sided web onto the back of some felt and cut out the letters and stuck them on the top. When DS decides he doesn't want to be Charlie anymore, I will just pull the letters off.

Okay, I think that is enough for today :)

Cheers!

Remembering

This weekend just gone, my darling dog made the journey to Rainbow Bridge. She was very old (she would've been 16 in December) and she had finally exhausted the puppy spirit that she had always possessed. Every visit, except for the last one, I could encourage her to bark and jump around and wag her tail. Unfortunately on the last one, she just didn't have it left in her.

She lived a lovely life on the farm with my parents and various cats and dogs, and even though she never lived with me in the city (I could never have done that to her - she loved the farm life too much), she never, ever, forgot that I belonged to her.

I remember my Mum commenting on her weird behaviour on the days I was due to come home from Perth when she was only a few years old. She would run around barking and being a total peanut. Until I got home. Even when she was older and would happily obey my Dad, when I was there, his word meant very little :)

I can still remember the day that I brought her home. Dad had taken me to look at a litter of puppies, of which there were two left. His words were along the lines of "now don't go falling for the first one you see". Needless to say he went all gooey the minute she climbed on him. She climbed all over him in the car on the way home too. And I have never known a puppy since, to be able to escape from a tall washing machine box without tipping it over. That was her bed for the first few nights and we never did work out how she escaped.

So goodbye my beautiful Darcy. I will never, ever forget you and all the memories you helped to create.

xx