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!!

Yarn yarns pt1

I haven't done any knitting in a couple of months, at least! Just lost the mojo entirely, but I'm sure it'll come back soon enough.. luckily it turns out I have over a years worth of projects unblogged.. oops.

Like....

A Hotshot for Eli -

A Puffy Sleeved Shrug for Maia - 

A Sprout hat, which I sold (was a test knit for a designer who had already published, but needed feedback)

( that kid is 2 now!)

An Andalucia crochetted skirt -

A Daisy Sue babydoll - 

A Gail shawl for our playgroup fundraiser (sold for $100!) -

to be continued lol...

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!!

Crochet Caps

as cool as that sounds, crochet is (allegedly) having a massive renaissance!

and, well, i think it can be pretty cute when used properly!!

the one is a "Shabby Hat" for maia, using Wool Company "sky" and scraps from my stash

i crocheted a little flower to decorate it too-

paul thinks it looks like a '20s baby hat!

and another for eli-

this time a brimmed beanie, using the same yarn as the babydoll dress i just made maia :-)

see? it isn't all bad is it??!

Off the needles...

I'm still playing catch-up since bub was born!

a few things from the toy department-

a pocket elephant for one of eli's playgroup friends, who just turned 3 years old-

a Spring Butterfly cardi for one of lexi's babies, for lexi's birthday-

and a green "rainbow dress" for another of lexi's babies, as a little present when maia was born!

i'm going through a really busy knitting/crochet phase at the mo, so there will be lots more over the next few days!!

*bubble* hoooo....!!

After his run-in with our washing machine - lightly felted, slightly fuzzier, and half an inch smaller!

Just the right size to be a handful of hoot for a 5 year old..

(though the whole household is fighting over guardianship!)

Ollie

Ollie is a very cute owl that I agreed to crochet as a pattern tester, and he's turned out so sweet!

I'm going to try felting him later on, so fingers crossed he's ok!

not known for my punctuality...

Christmas!!!

yeah, i know, it's march... minor detail.

anyway, in a yarn sampler box i got ages ago there was 12 grams of 2ply alpaca. what are you supposed to do with 12g of anything?! what are you supposed to do with 2ply?!

turns out the answer is bookmarks.

crocheted butterfly bookmarks even.

cos we all know that reading is the ultimate in cool, especially reading books long enough to require bookmarking, and crochet has always been known for it's total chic, so the two together is pretty much a flawless combo.

so i ended up making 5 of these wee knick-knacks as gifts for various people! (i think they're pretty cute actually- but hey, i like long books & crochet)

still had some yarn left over too.. who would have thought that 12g of 2ply could go so far?!

(gold star to anyone who can name the book in that photo without googling!)

on a less successful front, the (compulsory) advent fair biscuit debacle.

stained glass window biscuits = fail.

they overflowed & stuck to the baking paper... and tasted pretty blah too.

i bet martha's snow cap cookies never turned out like this either-

note for future- bake sales are NOT my forte. At. All.

and on an equally successful front- how to make an actually quite cool bag look meh in one simple photographic step-

i made it for my 12 year old step-daughter for xmas - it's a Pleated Purse from this tutorial - and she loved it!! managing to please a 12 year old girl is quite a challenge sometimes, so yay ;-)

and cos i'm a total sucker, when i saw gingerbread house kits in the supermarket i HAD to have one for lexi-

needless to say she had a fantastic time decorating it with her daddy on xmas eve :-)

and with me she made simple paper decorations for our tree!

fun times :-)

i wonder if i can get the jump on easter....

confusing the issue

so it looks like our little one is of the pink persuasion.

but i like blue.

and since i had treated myself to 100g of lovely, silky 80% bamboo, 20% wool yarn to make something for the bubba, this is what resulted!one of my friends is the very clever designer of this gorgeous pattern, and she gifted me a copy when i shared that we are (most likely) having a girl! thank you Rachel!!

and then i had a teeny tiny crap of yarn left (16g!) so i whipped up a pair of cute crochet booties (also by a NZ designer!) to match-
there are so many cute little girl's knitting patterns out there, i'd love to know anyone's favourites!!

Smaug Jnr.

he's a Baby Snow Dragon, except with adapted Golden Snitch wings...
and a hoard, of course.
one more xmas pressie done!

Xmas swaps!

a wee group of friends of mine sometimes organise little craft swaps, and, being xmas time, we decided to do two - a secret santa swap, and an ornament swap!

i've already been outed for both, even though it's not even xmas yet, but that means i can finally share what i've been up to!!

first up for the secret santa, my recipient was the 9 year old son, of an incredibly (scarily) creative woman, who is really into reading, harry potter, science experiments & constructing things...

sooo.... i decided to make him a harry potter scarf-
but there are fifty gazillion plain old gryffindor scarf patterns out there, but i wanted something a bit more *magic*... and then i came across the Gryffindor Illusion Scarf!

It looks like a normal stripy scarf from the front, but if you look at it from a different angle-
the two gryffindor lions heads appear! cool huh?
(shame about the grubby camera lens! doh..)

then i added the all important enrollment letter from Hogwarts, including equipment list-
and a cool new NZ book called "How to eat a Huhu Grub; Plus a truckload of other mad, cool & dangerous ideas for kiwis who like doing stuff" and hopefully you've got a pretty happy boy!

and for our ornament swap i made 10 little crocheted snowflakes!
they're nowhere near as fine as many out there on the internet, but it was my first time trying something like this, and it was fun!
(i flatly refuse to take the next step in this ladder however - crocheted doilies!!)

this was the original pattern design-
but i wanted them to be a little less snowflakey (yay for antipodean xmases), so adapted it to more of a star shape-
they're stiffened with a 2 parts sugar to 1 part water syrup, which is rather sticky but does work quite well! i would take a lot more care in blocking them in future though...

i tried to take a pic to show how translucent & crystalline they are... but don't think i really captured it..
but they were very fun to make, and if i have some spare time next year (ha!) i might even do some for us!!