Yarn yarns pt3

but wait, there's more!

An ombre Potae -

A Pink Orchard cardi for Lexi -

A Fierce Little Dragon for a little boy's birthday -

A pair of Zigging hats -

A Kaipara shawlette for the ravellenic games -

and a Zagging skirt -

and there's still a couple of things that I haven't got finished photos of yet!!

Yarn yarns pt2

MORE forgotten knitting..

A Kaia Babydoll for Lexi - 

A pair of Doodlepants longies that I was meant to make while pregnant with Eli..

Yttrium for the knitted periodic table project - 

(Y? Because I could, lol!! *groan*)

A Pinny for a playgroup Dolly -

(plus new denim pants & shirt)

Mini hotshots -

Chunky beanies for sale -

A Dolce Beret for Lexi -

A Spring Butterfly & Poppy hat set for a friends baby -

A Little Winifred tunic -

still to be continued!!

Nuts for Knits

I confess, I'm scared of knit fabrics.

But I got "Growing Up Sew Liberated" from our library, and it had some cute, simple patterns in there, which I thought I should have a go at!

I've got a wee bit of precious merino fabric to use for the kids this winter, but I thought I had better test the patterns, and my skills, on something a little less important.

Enter the $1 remnant bin PJs!!

 I got the pink cotton knit fabric in a remnant bin years ago for $1, and was given the white cotton rib by a friend, also years ago, both have been sitting in my stash with me too scared to touch them! Despite it not being a tragic investment if it all went disastrously wrong, go figure. Add in a free pattern = cheap, happy girl PJs!!

I think I need to stretch the ribbing a bit more when I'm sewing it, so that it doesn't waver as much, using a twin-needle made it quite easy to actually attach too..... 

but hey, they're functional & don't look terrible!!! That's all I ask lol..

Bath-tub Abuse

Wow, just uncovered an ancient draft in blogger!! I can't believe how different my kids hair is lol...

So when paul directed his school production involving costuming over 360 kids, whose foolish idea was it to dye plain t-shirts?

oh. right. oops.

80 or so shirts were dyed by the 9-10 year olds who would be wearing them, but the rest..?? Well, our poor bathtub...

60+ orange low-water immersion shirts...

There were 30ish red ones & 8 brown ones too..

15m of calico LWI'ed brown-

(and an assistant)

which we cut & sewed into (custom!!) skirts & loincloths-

and the school kids made headbands and salt-dough necklaces to match-

and this lovely mess..?

purple tie-dyed shirts for all the new entrants!

the big kids used templates made from laminated card to create whatever design they liked, then sprayed with dye-

and another 40ish kids had "Tree Keeper" tees like this-

which paul sprayed with 2 interlocking stencils, this one was for the green-

and then a second for the brown.

And conveniently enough, I don't have any photos on my computer of them actually in use! Doh... But they looked pretty cool, and it was a very cost effective way to create cohesive costumes for so many kids!

The techniques we used are all explained in this post (which also shows the vintage of this project!!)

Pink

 It seems to come with having little girls somehow, even if you don't make a big deal out of it, they still tend towards preferring pink. So a twirly, flowery skirt trimmed with pink is sure to go down well!!

 This one is a crochet pattern called Floreala, and this snuggly skirt will definitely last her for a couple of winters at least with it's elasticated waist & good length :)

And something that makes my big girl happy is the path down to our house -

The top half has been carpeted in pink flowers for at least a couple of months now & shows no sign of stopping, and just yesterday the little shrub at the bottom on the right has burst out with the first of hundreds of pink flowers too!!

*shrug*

another test knit i've just done was a puffy sleeved shrug for lexi!

it's a brand new design & very easy to knit

i used some yarn that i had spun myself from purple & white hand-dyed merino fleece that i was gifted!

i'm very pleased with how it came out, it's very snuggly & soft, and fits lexi well! It used just under 100g of yarn for a size 6 shrug too..

and it has very cute princessy puff sleeves!

(my poor sweet baby was having a particularly bad outbreak of psoriasis, or eczema - as yet undetermined - at the time, hence the slightly obtuse pics!)

Somewhere....

i get accused around here of everything being a song cue, but really, who can help it with this one?!

this is a "Little Sister's Dress" (seemed appropriate!) that i made for maia!

i used the embroidery charts from the very cool Watermellish website-

since i had a great big blank canvas & a yarn colour called Sky...

it was kind of asking for it really!

unfortunately because i'm not as smart as i think i am, instead of following the pattern & using 4ply (ugh!), i decided to use 8ply + the 3 month size pattern, with the hopes of getting a 6-12 month size....

umm...

oops.

it's more like an 18 month size as a dress, but on the upside i've got a headstart on next winter's knitting, and i know it will work as a tunic top until she's almost 3!!

Let it snow, let it snow..

or maybe, no...

i'm rather enjoying the last dregs of summery weather we're having, but since i have a deep-seated dislike of being even the slightest bit chilly, i've already got my knitting plans sorted for winter, and my yarn all ordered!!

my yarn stash for projects this winter.

that is 2.5kg of yarn, or roughly 4.7 kilometres that will pass through my hands over coming months!!!

and that isn't including anything that comes out of my existing stash as well... AND that doesn't include any particularly large projects either! crazy when you think about it...

but the first one off the needles was this-

another babydoll, this time in 6 month size, modified to use 12ply for the skirt part

it has a cute lace detail at the hem, which i really like, but must get around to blocking to stop it curling! oops...

it only took me about 3 days, which is the kind of knitting i like best!!

going ape.

aaaaages ago one of my friends managed to score us a bunch of merino thermal tops for $10nz, from a factory store, which is fantastic!!

the downside to this particular bargain was that mine was evidently IN the factory store because not enough orangutans were buying thermals from glassons.

no really, look- the neckline is clearly for someone who needs a much lower neckline than the average human, and the sleeves are perfectly suited for "knuckling" across the floor (as Terry Pratchett puts it) -
anyway, inspired by one of my friends who has recently been embarking on all sorts of upcycling adventures, i unpicked the neckline ribbing, chopped the sleeves off, chopped 4-5cm off the shoulders, recut the armpits & back neckline, chopped 8cm off the sleeves & rehemmed them, and attempted to put it back together again!!

ta da!!
thus taking it from faintly ridiculous and decidedly ape-like to actually wearable!!

so if you've got the sewing equipment handy, don't be afraid to attack disastrously fitting clothes & try to make them better!!

home alone

i had some time home alone, and the house was in reasonable order, so naturally i made a mess all over the lounge floor!

i sorted & re-folded my fabric stash-
that's it in it's entirety, the stuff still in the white basket is all nappy fabrics, so relatively speaking i do not have a big stash!

and whilst sorting the stash, i found that i had some left over black knit from making a baby-wearing wrap years ago, so decided to try out making a couple of skirts using this 'yoga' skirt tutorial!

i call them my fat skirts lol, cos i'm 26-27w pregnant in these photos, but you can't really tell, i just look bigger than i am!

first attempt using the full width of 55" denim-
('scuse the un-prewashed, un-ironed fabric!)
and what actually shows under my mummy-uniform jumper-
and 2nd attempt using some fabric left over from making lexi some pants & a knitting needle case, only used approx 48-50" width + cut it slightly A-line, so it's a lot less puffy-
they're not the world's most flattering garments lol, but since they took under 30 minutes each, including cutting out, it's a great pattern anyway!!