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!!

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...

three....

(well actually, what i gathered from years of watching sound techs do sound checks is that "three" in "testing, testing, one, two, three" is really redundant, so they don't do it. in reality sound checks often sound more like "one. one. one. one two. two. teeeooo. teeeooo. yeah. yeah. yuh. teeooo. puh. puh. one teeooo..." ad infinitum. no three.)

annnnnyway....

another test knit, this time thankfully an item that i had been intending to knit this winter!

though i was intending to knit it for ME.

it's a Lizette Beret, part of a beanie/beret pattern just released by my friend Sheryl!

it's got a very nice cable & lace combo, but is surprisingly easy to knit!

i'm not normally a hat kind of person, so i'm being a wee bit adventurous! i'm really enjoying wearing it though, so it's well worth it!

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??!

challenge!

so. i have this pile of yarn you see... yes, this pile see-
that i have no idea what to do with!
much of it is very nice, very usable stuff, some of it not so much, but essentially i don't have anything in mind for it or any idea what to do with it!!

however, i am a member of what is, in my opinion, the best & greatest resource for knitters -
Ravelry!!
and one of rav's greatest features is the pattern search! with it you can put in what weight yarn you have, how much, what kind of yarn it is, whether you only want free patterns, whether you'd like something for babies, or socks, or whatever!

And so out of that my Nova's Surprise Stash Knit Down project was born!! (NoSurStaKniDo or NSSKD for short, in homage to all those various Na-Kni/Blo/Wri-Mo/Do type things going on)

soooo.. the plan is every time i’m not doing busy with a ‘have to do’ project to pick a hunk of yarn (largely) at random and use the Rav advanced search (that’s the surprise part) to find something, anything, that hopefully appeals and fits the weight/yardage criteria, then knit it as fast as possible! any left over scraps of yarn will immediately be used up by turning them into balls/gnomes/whatever else uses tiny bits of yarn!

Starting with 60g-ish of some 12ply cleckheaton yarn that i had dyed to make into a felted crown, only to discover that duh... it's machine washable wool, thus doesn't felt. So i frogged it & turned it into a Wool Noggin-
and a small and somewhat ugly orange ball. but that will come later as part of the scrappy randoms collection of end-of-ball projects ;-)

then i moved onto some mysterious pinky 10ply cotton that i was given yonks ago, which i had redyed into a semi-solid plum colour, and finally knit it into a mitred hanging tea towel-
and a couple of wavy dishcloths-
so i'm off to a decent start :-)

i've now started on a little bamboo/cotton bodice that will become part of a summer dress for lexi, so watch this space!

the breeders

not us, my friends!

it started with needing to make the 2nd pair of booties for a friend who had just had twin girls-
then another had a gorgeous baby boy-
and paul's sister was having a baby girl, so for the baby shower i made a couple of pocket nappies-
and some bamboo & baby pink hemp inserts-
but then she came *before* the baby shower, 7 weeks early, so i had to whip up something fast!
thus, the tiny pink hat-
see, just for scale, here it is on top of the size small nappies!!
and another friend of mine had once mentioned that with prem babies it can be nice to have a pretty sign of their name for their incubator/bassinet, so lexi did a little watercolour painting and punched & glued some butterflies onto a picture for her-and then yet another friend, a passionate knitter, had a baby boy, so i knit him a fun little woven ball-

now i've just got a tiny bit of down time before i need to make something for four more babies on their way!

lord of the skies..

my step-son's birthday crown!
when he saw lexi's birthday crown, he immediately asked if he would get one for his birthday, and sure enough he will be..

i was trying for a lunar phases sort of idea, but i'm not entirely happy with how it turned out, because i didn't have quite enough space to comfortably fit the gibbous moons (love that word), but it looks slightly empty without them too.. that & the crescents look rather weird in this photo for some reason?!

This crown is created from a piece of wet-felted.. umm.. felt, obviously ;-) (in the two swirly blue colours), which i then needle-felted decorations onto, and added hand-coloured wooden ribbons & silver ribbons for the closure.

The knitted then felted crown definitely makes a sturdier crown shape, but when the time factor is taken into account, plus the versitility of wet-felting with fibre, then i think this is a good option too!

I'm not 100% happy with it, but i'm sure the recipient will be!

how could i resist?

a really good friend just found out that she is having twin girls!!
i have been hoarding this bamboo velour for ages, waiting for something extra special to use it for, and this definitely qualifies!! i had to whip something up as soon as i heard, and a tiny pair of silky soft beanies was just the thing :-)

because 7 just wasn't enough..

i've knit another ear flap hat!
this time for eli winter 09..
it's a bit roomy for the wee poppet (it's 1-2yr size) but still very usable & cute in it's oversizedness! the dark stripe is actually deep purple from the ball of ashford tekapo that just keeps on giving! lol...