Friday, April 2, 2010

March blocks


Some blocks I finished for March.

Happy Hooker

I am busy with two projects at the moment - one is for the pink swap
and one is for me.

Will give you more details when I've finished - which *has* to be soon.

A little Cardi - finished!

I made Little Miss this cardigan (you need to be a member to get the pattern, but it's free and worth it).
It was quick and easy and if I'd paid attention it would have taken me only 2 nights.
The yarn is an acrylic, but Little Miss doesn't like anything scratchy.
I lengthened the body and made the 6-7 size.

I'm going to make more - they are quick and easy and Little Miss often complains of being a little bit cold, so they are just like little hugs for her shoulders and back.
She likes the big flowers on it, but on the next one I might try something a little more exciting.

Look what my partner found for me in her hunt!

This is the scavenger hunt parcel I received from Layla.
Full to the brim of lovely stuff.
A cup that she painted my name on and a ball of yarn. (Clever idea, I might have to use that one too!)


Some lovely Bendigo yarn. It's Luxury, in Ruby.
Some gorgeous yellow buttons and some soak. (I love buttons, I am going to have to learn some button craft)
A metal knitting needle bracelet. Very nice, I hope I get some comments on it, I think it's really funky.
Some yummmmmmy peppermint tea (which we've both sampled and it is truly delicious) + the gorgeous spoon, which gives you a perfect cup of tea.
A project bag. I love the colour, but I really like how she put the knitted part on the front.
It's full of my current project and an easy little bag to use.
I think I'm going to have to try one or two with these knitted pockets.

She also sent a fairy book + a little felt guinea pig broach for Little Miss (which she adored, as the book has her name in the title) and for Little Master a Peppa Pig + Thomas the Tank Engine book, which he went wild over.

A great big thank you to Layla, we were all very happy.

In the dye pot

Mum sent me up some yarn to dye for her.
She asked for red, so I chose my favourite red.
I also decided to 'kettle dye' it. Well pot dye really.
The pink yarn is "Soft Haze" and I think I may have mentioned that I never get typical results from dyeing it.
I love the end results.
Can't wait to see what she's going to make with it.


An orange skirt for Harmony Day

Harmony Day - a day for celebrating diversity is adorned in the colour orange.
We don't have a lot of orange in our wardrobes, and with the little Miss being part of the Student Representative Council who get to organise Harmony Day, she most definitely had to wear orange.

I thought I'd be clever and go and get some material and make a skirt.
There is not a lot of orange material at the shops (well not at Spotlight anyway), but I did manage to find some.

Little Miss's request was orange ribbons for her hair. This was the easiest part of the outfit!


And here's the skirt. I started with a simple free pattern from the Internet, it involved a casing for the elastic in contrasting fabric and a band round the bottom in contrasting fabric. But when I finished it it looked like a sack on her. There was waaaay too much material for the skinny thing she is, so I took the waistband off and started again.
When I remade the skirt I gathered it onto a yoke. The yoke still gathers with the elastic, but it's not as full as before.
The most important thing is that the skirt twirls!
I took a trip to the local shops to see if I could find an orange tshirt in the remnants of summer clothes. Luckily I did - although it's not the colour I would have chosen, it picks up on a couple of the colours on the skirt, it's actually the hat that doesn't go.
She was happy.
I won't be making this pattern again - learnt my lesson.
She's still wearing the skirt, even though we're past Harmony Day so she must like it.






Thursday, April 1, 2010

Pretty in Pink

A stack of pink dyeing.
From left - sock yarn, wool, wool crepe, wool.
Dyes - landscape and gaywool












I'm in a pink swap, but some of these will be crocheted up to little squares.

The scavenger hunt!

we had 7 categories
The Categories to be Hunted :
1) Something local = purse with apples on it
2) Something hard = yarn jar
3) Something recycled = the dyed yarn
4) Something related to the letter ‘H’ = handmade project bag with some goodies hidden inside
5) Something round = stitch markers
6) Something red or green (NOT red AND green – check your partners preference) = some green malabrigo
7) Sender’s choice (make up a category for your item!) = knit an elephant kit



The story behind the little purse - something local. I struggled. Ikea is local to me but I couldn't really make it fit, then I thought of the biggest thing in the area. Just up the road is the original home of the Granny Smith apple. Yep Granny Smith was once a local of here, hence the green apple purse.
Well I thought it was a good idea.
My partner's favourite colour is purple and she wanted to make an Ishbel so I hope she can with this yarn.


An overload of purple yarn

I wanted to dye some purple.
I am not a purple fan so I had some trouble picking purples I liked.

My favourite is the one on the left here (not the pinky one, that's soft haze, which does not have a huge wool content so you never know what it will dye like), why? it is a wool/acrylic blend and I love that you get this softness from the acrylic. It knits beautifully too.
The one next to it is very similar in dyed colours, but is 100% pure wool.