Fantastic timing too, as I seem to have lost my gloves!  I received a lovely ball of alpaca yarn and a pattern as part of a Christmas gift which I’ve started knitting, its my first attempt at cabling which turned out to be a lot easier than anticipated and I’ve finished one glove which is waiting to be sewn up.

This what they should look like when Im finished.

And the state of mine currently…

Someone I know gave birth to a baby girl and it gave me the opportunity to try and knit a sweet little dress, as much as Joe loves pink Im quite sure he wouldnt let me put him in a dress!  Anyway, after endless searching on the internet and Ravelry (there are thousands of patterns out there!), I stumbled across this one from Knitty.

It’s my first attempt at fairisle so as you can see, its a little too tight along that section but overall Im quite impressed with myself.  Other than the patterning part, the dress knitted up really quickly.  I used aran for both colours on size 5.5 needles.  The pink is James C Brett baby aran and its so very soft and snuggly.  I will definately use it again for something.

I hope my friend likes it and that it fits, but what I love about it is that not only is it a dress but its a nice little top too!

More Christmas gifts made by me…

Peppermint Lip Balm & Lavender with Tea Tree Oil Hand Salve. I will post the recipe another day.

Toddler Ribbed Scarf

Double Seed Neck Warmer

Now that Christmas part 1 is over, I can post a few of the things that I have been making which is fantastic because I have been dying to put them on the blog!

Firstly, we had a gift giving type thing at work where we had to spend £1.50 on something for each person in the office – we did it with £1 last year and it was lots of fun.  This year, I stumbled across a bargain on eBay, where I got 6 or 7 fat quarters of fabric for £4 including postage so took my gifts from that.  Being the utter novice seamstress that I am, I needed to make easy stuff!

I work with a bunch of beading addicts, and two of them in particular often bring in their work in little plastic bags and boxes so I wanted to make them something to transport their makes in.  I did a bit of research and found bead mats, which hold the tiny beads without them rolling around everywhere but they are pretty big so I thought maybe I could make a smaller version with a carry handle and Velcro or buttons and after more Google searching I saw a few things that I thought would suit.  I would love to link them but I cant for the life of me find them again so if you have already made something like I have made here, please feel free to tell me so I can link you!

Anyway, what a nightmare!  I set up the machine, prepared my practice, sewed it to perfection – tension and everything was all set, put the real thing in and the bleeding tension went to pot!  The fabric was exactly the same thickness, same thread, same everything! Bah!  So I got my scraps out again and got it all sorted, put the real thing back in (after unpicking the crap attempt) and off I went.  Half way through one side, the bloody needle snapped!  Changed the needle, sorted the tensions again ( I wasn’t sure if the needles were the same or not as Ive lost the cover and the accessory bag!) got halfway through again and the needle snapped again.  So in a fit of anger I gave up on the machine and used good old craft glue and hand stitched it, so it looks a bit cack and not at all as fantastic as I had imagined.

I also made 2 of the ladies fabric brooches, I’ve seen them in our local craft market on sale for almost £14!

Scary Fat Cat

Fudge, made with condensed milk.

A neck warmer – knitted in Herringbone stitch with Manos Del Uruguay Wool Classica on 8mm needles.

It looks a lot brighter than it actually is.

The neck warmer pattern came from Loop Knits.

And finally (for now!) some Jerk Sauce in nice jars.. trust me, its a nice gift!

I’ve not been posting recently because I’m trying to get through my huge list of Christmas gifts to be made so I have to say that the only updates up until Christmas are likely to be completed projects, fabulous finds and anything that is just so exciting that I cant wait to post it.

One knitting project I have been working on is a Monkey Moo for Chris’s workfriend, nicknamed Monkey!  It was his birthday last week and as well as package of goodies, I made this for him….

I do love Monkey Moo and I might just have to knit myself one.  And as you can see, it looks like I had more fun posing him and taking photos.

Monkey Moo was taken from this website.

A friend of mine had a baby a few weeks ago, I rather foolishly thought I could knit up a nice gift quickly for the newborn.  2 weeks later, I’ve finally finished it along with a little something for the new big sister (a little knitted duck).

The idea came from here. It was really nice to practice certain stitches that I hadn’t done before especially knitting with two colours. Im really happy with the outcome but feel its a little on the large side – each panel measures 3″x3″ but feels alot bigger because of the stuffing, I used regular toy stuffing so its nice and squishy. Its fab for using up odd bits of wool though and makes such a lovely, unusual gift for a newborn!

I used size 3 (UK) pins and cast on until the stitches measured 3″, the amount of stitches differed depending on the wool and style I was knitting, the rib, for example was only 20 stitches because of the stretch rib gives.

Once I had my 6 panels, I stitched them together until there was one side left, stuffed it and sewed it up.  Easy peasy!

A friend of mine gave birth to a little girl a few days ago and I wanted to make a little gift, something that will differ from the clothes, bibs and flowers that usually come with a new baby – not that they aren’t great gifts!  It was a toss up between a knitted toy and felted toy, I figured the knitted would suit a smaller baby better.

Alan Dart has some fantastic patterns, including Sackboy (I’ll post my version of Sackboy at some point).  What was I saying?  Oh yes, Alan Dart made a set called Farmyard Frolics and I thought that the duck might be a nice gift for a baby, its quite small so will fit nicely into her hand as she grows, but for now I will suspend it on ribbon so that her Mummy can hang it in her pram or somewhere.

Here’s my first attempt – this took me maybe an hour and a half from start to finish.