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!

After watching Kirsty Allsop the other night, I finally ordered all the ingredients to make some lip & hand balm and I’m so excited, I fit to burst!  I also ordered some lovely tins to put them in and will have to start thinking about designing some labels.

I have been scouring the web for recipes for hand and lip balm and have narrowed it down to a 3 or 4 which are pretty much the same but are giving me some inspiration.

I’ve never made my own beauty products before so it will be an adventure and I really hope it turns out well, especially as I use so much lip balm during the winter months so it will save me a fortune!

Also, I’ve just discovered Folksy – have you seen it?  Its as nice as Etsy but all English so the postage is much better.  I’m going to make a special attempt to pull my finger out and make some stuff to put up on sale there.  Anyway, if you are stuck for a Christmas gift and want something different, go take a look!

I’m also waiting for 2 lots of wool to be sent to me, I won them on eBay at the start of last week and they still haven’t arrived – I’m chewing at the bit as I want to start knitting gifts with them!

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!

Yesterday Joe woke up at twenty to six IN THE MORNING!  Its been a long time since he woke that early, although he does wake usually at 6am but those precious 20 minutes made a huge difference.  Anyway, by 8.30am he was ready to play and the chant was, “Mummy, make things, make things!”.  Not having a clue what to make, I consulted my very trusty book, “The Toddler’s Busy Book” by Trish Kuffner and skimmed through.  Joe wanted to paint but it was way too early for me to handle hand prints all over the place or a multi-coloured patio so we turned to the play dough page.  My boy loves play dough, he loves to make people and cars and tractors and trains, well when I say he loves to make them, what I mean is he loves ME to make them but he is very sweet and gets incredibly excited at my very feeble attempts of transport and dumpy snowmen people made out of  play dough.

Nursery always go on about how easy play dough is to make, I’ve never done it before.  It’s the thought of food colouring everywhere that put me off, don’t get me wrong I’m not a clean freak by any means (who can be with a toddler and a white long-haired dog in the house?) but food colouring stains!  The thing is, at 8.30am in the morning when you’ve already been up for almost 3 hours, you will do anything for a quiet life – trust me.  Then I knocked over the bottle of oil and now some of the pages of my most trusty rainy day book are oily!

My little book has many recipes for play dough, 6 in fact, some you cook, some you don’t.  I went with the sort that had Cream of Tartar in so it lasts – I mean I dont want to be up making playough at 8am for a few months yet!

Coloured Playough

1 cup water
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1/2 cup salt
1 tbsp cream of tartar
Food colouring
1 cup flour (I used plain, I dont suppose it matters)

Combine the water, oil, salt, tartar and food colouring in a pan and heat until warm.
Remove from heat and add flour, stir then knead until smooth.
Store in an airtight container or a ziploc bag.
Will keep up to 6 months – if you dont have cream of tartar, then dont add it but your dough will not last that long as this is what keeps it for up to 6 months.