Mittens

Knitted for C.

I made three because I had (just) enough yarn, and you never know when one is going to get lost. They do have a seam, but so quick and fun to make. (on Ravelry). He seems to quite enjoy wearing them, especially with the chilly, foggy, foggy (forest) mornings we've been having in the last week.



Sewn for R.

Hopefully she won't check my blog this week, because they're for her birthday. Her kitchen has just been renovated and she didn't have any potholders when I last visited, so I hope these will look pretty and come in handy. A bit more miss-matchy than my usual style, but R's style embraces much more exciting colour and pattern combinations than I'm prone to. That said, I really like them. Hope she does too.
(If you want to make your own slack arse oven mitts there's a link over there in the How To section of the side bar)

Easily distracted

I find my mind yet again stumbling over itself with things it wants to do, instead of settling down on one thing at once, starting and finishing it, before drifting off onto the next idea. There's just way too much inspiration out there, far more than I can handle with internet bookmarks and a Ravelry queue.... My mental want-to-do pile currently includes:

Make a teepee for C's birthday, originally inspired by Martha's, and then there's these instructions, or these instructions.

Knit myself a shadow box. And a Paper Crane. And a seamless cabled sweater.

Enhance the fabric stash in a beautiful shop with beautiful fabrics (and then ideally sew and sew and sew)

Learn more about pattern making. About fit, and ease and all the millions of little rules of thumb that people who really know what they're doing know (without having to re-do the waistband 3 times). Like, have you heard of the seam method? (more fitting articles here on the incredibly informative Threads website) Or maybe a new book would fill me with confidence (Actually I don't have any pattern drafting books. Someone once asked me for a recommnedation and I couldn't give one. Can anyone give me one?)

Drink in inspiration for my wardrobe from here and there.

Search for inspiration for C's wardrobe in on-line kids style mags like Small and LMNOP (watch out for the music on that one- always gives me a start when websites have automatic music), and on-line shops like Tiny People, or Baobab, or Ele-ahbaant, or Makie, or Mini Boden, or Ferd. (Although sometimes I wonder why I do this, because boys clothes have such a limited palette compared to girls)

Try making another sock monkey, with stuffing beads this time.

Be inspired by other people's (unpretentious) gardens.

Playing in the dirt

The sewing machine and I aren't getting along right now. I'm up to my third attempt on the waistband of the pants I started on craft weekend, and had to get the seam picker out while making a simple pillowcase.

So this weekend I opted to spend my creative/making time in the garden, tempting my black thumb to show itself. The seedlings have been struggling to produce leaves (poor chaps). They're now planted the old dirt garden bed, which is really low on organic matter to the point of almost being water repellent, but offers them the best spot for sunlight as winter progresses. I watered and dug (several times) and added worm compost, and planted the seedlings in a little trench- fingers crossed. I should have started some broccoli seedlings months ago, but being as I hadn't I thought I'd just directly sow some just and we'll see what happens.

I interspersed the broccoli and cabbage with garlic, on account of having had some success back in 2004 (pre blog) when I did the same- the garlic seemed to scare off most of the cabbage moths, and bonus garlic crop to go with it. To finish off I spread out a bale of pea straw mulch (kind of like tucking them all in with a nice quilt. Only messier). The remaining seedlings (lettuce and spring onions) were stuck in pots so I can stick them in the sun amongst the front yard (aka the weedery).

On a positive note, at least the broad beans, sugar snap and snow peas seem to be coming along well, so we should get something to eat at some stage (dirty fingers crossed)

Mental note: when on better terms with sewing machine make a pair of Quick Gardening Gloves.

The Library

I know we're not alone in this, but boy, home making can sure take some time to achieve.



This week we finally hung our lounge shelves and moved the books that were piled up on the floor in our bedroom into the lounge. Now they're accessible and, as a bonus, make our living space feel so much more lived in- so much more like a home we have settled into. We still need to hang pictures, but that can take a while too...

The shelves, in case you are wondering, were an exceptionally cheap and neat solution to our shelving needs. We wanted something wall hung, with a bit of flexibility and good shelf depth, at low cost. After considering many options, we ended up buying a fairly heavy duty strip and bracket system from Bunnings, which we cut to the lenghts we needed. Scott had a mate with the necessary workshop (and a few favours to pay back) who cut and folded the metal shelves to our specs. Just over $100 worth of satin black powdercoating later and we are pretty pleased with the results.

The sound of one hand clapping *

Yesterday I finished a mitten (Medium size, this pattern).

Very quick and easy, though I wish I'd used a stretchier cast on, and drawn an outline of his hand before I started. These things notwithstanding it seemed to go down well with the recipient when I offered it to C to try on for size. It sort of fits- I really need to make the finger section a bit longer- and I'd say it's a success, given that he immediately asked where the other one was, and didn't want to take that one off for quite a while.

* with apologies to Richard Flanagan

taking a few moments

Today we took a few moments in our busy day to play with the leaves in our driveway, accompanied by the camera. The leaves of the two Liquid Ambers have almost all fallen and I realised that although we've played a few times I didn't have any photos to record the pleasure and delight of this Autumn, running and kicking and tossing leaves, giggling and smothering mummy with them as she tries to take photos. It's worth taking a few moments every now and then.

Admiring the greenery

Beautiful yarn plus fantastic pattern = very satisfying project.

The yarn: an aran weight pure wool hand-dyed by Marta, had been sitting in the stash for a few years. Originally intended for a felted something or other, I love the way this knitted up. Apple and grass and pine and minty greens, all mingled together, not a pool or flash in sight. I had just enough yarn (after tinkering with the length of the sleeves and the body).

The pattern: Sooz's top down raglan baby wrap around cardigan. My first time trying out a totally seamless top down pattern and I'm already a huge fan. No seams at all, just a few ends to sew in. And some fastenings to find so that I can send it on it's way to it's future wearer.

Mr Ted Baker, the 1st

I would like to introduce you to Mr Ted Baker (the 1st). Ted likes to read vintage craft books and always seems to have a smile on his face.

I would also like to ignore my non-napping toddler who is currently calling to me from his cot, having had 30 minutes of so-called "nap" time. We'll see if we can stretch it out a little longer, shall we?

Ted was born here a couple of weeks ago, and has already flown the coup. He's now residing with a brand new infant and his hard to impress mum, a friend and lady of impeccable taste and sewing skills. It was a big relief to me that he was received with much glee and pleasure (from the mum, not the three week old sleepy infant) and I'm sure he is settling in well.

She particularly liked the way the colour blocks worked- as did I. The original socks (the back pair here) were unusually styled with sections of colour. I know from my sock knitting experience that intarsia colour blocks don't really work when knitting in the round, so I had wondered how they had been made. I forgot to photograph them, but on the inside of the socks there are little fringes along the section edges, where they have somehow joined the colours, but neglected to sew the ends in (what lazy machines she says, rolling her eyes...).

I'm looking forward to making some more Mr Ted Bakers with the rest of my sock stash. Great fun and quick project although there were a few tricks to learn along the way- this is one project where you definitely do need to use the stretch stitch on your sewing machine, and the stuffing process can make or break the shape and look of the monkey. Like all softies, the face is key to the final look and character, so needs a bit of time and patience to complete.

I read a few tutorials (like this one, and this one- the pinning seemed like a good idea to me- although there are heaps more tutorials and info out there) and opted for what I understand is a more traditional style, with narrower arms and the tail the full length of the original sock. In truth the overall proportion would be better with a longer legged sock (or shorter footed), but overall I was pretty pleased.



Hmmmm. Someone has gone quiet for a few minutes now... could it be true?....

More than you can poke a stick at

Blogging time feels thin on the ground at the moment.
Life continues to be crammed full- limited time for surfing the Internet and catching up on blog reading.
Perhaps that's a good thing though.
Inspiration that always seems to be lurking out there in immense piles and uncovering time to act upon it all is impossible.
I have a few posts to come with actual projects (some are already on Flickr), but in the meantime here's a ramble about other stuff....
(just to share some more inspiration about)

We've been out and about.
We spent our Mother's Day weekend out at a friend's country shack, surrounded by dairy farms, near Colac.
A lovely relaxed- well, aside from a moment or two (actually a fair bit longer than that in the car on the way back when C couldn't bring himself to sleep...)- weekend.
Walks, chasing cows, spotting piggies, inspecting pumpkins, swinging on the tyre swing, making pizzas, gobbling pancakes, huddling by the fireside, catching up with good friends, swapping ideas, exchanging views.
A good weekend.
One thing though about being somewhere different for the night is that I didn't sleep very well.
It may have been the strange bed, sounds, and light in the room.
It may have been the chocolate and red wine.
Either way it meant I remembered more dreams than usual.
More vividly than usual too.
Like the one where I was in a strange shop and they had these fantastic kids mittens- lovely soft yarns in beautiful warm colours, and an intriguing collection of "animal" based mittens- crocodiles and other critters with knitted tongues and teeth in the palms, and one with a strange side on cat face that poked up off the index finger.
I remember thinking how impractical that was.
And then I woke up thinking I really should knit C some mittens.
So I've been hunting Ravelry, where I came across Spilly Jane's piggy mittens (Ravelry), which gave me dreamscape flashbacks, and this pattern, which appealed because of the variety of sizes, and which I'm going to try out.
Quite possibly as a quick break from my sock knitting exploits.
Which is not to suggest that these socks aren't going well.
They are.
I got a rave review from the recipient at his most recent sock fitting, but with the recent cold snap C's been tucking his hands into his jacket pockets on morning walks, and I think he'd quite possibly wear some mittens.
I can knit then while listening to my increasing list and expanse of podcasts- I've just added a selection of RRR's podcasts (LOVE that Melbourne has the perfect landscape for community radio, with a wide variety of informative, non-commercial programming).
It was like a light bulb moment, realising that they might have some of the shows that I love, but never have time (at the right time) to listen to, available as podcasts.
And they do.
Look here.
You too can get the scoop on the Melbourne Architecture scene, gardening info, and expand your health knowledge amongst other things...
Enjoy.

Collection

I've been collecting a draft post full of links for a while now.
Some are old, some are new:

I found myself drooling on some beautiful books as spotted by Tielsk (Yes please, indeed) a while ago, and have since been wrestling with the urge to buy dozens of kids books, aided and abetted by Reader's Feast and Red Door Books in Lancefield. Online bookshops are fine, but nothing beats whiling away an hour or so, browsing the shelves, getting drawn in by the images and stories.

I got inspired for some sweater recycling (love the strip sweater idea for creating a chunky knit scarf from a cardigan that's seen much better days) by Betz White, author of Sewing Green, guest blogging at Knotions (there's another site to go back to and explore at length). (So much inspiration, too many things to do..)

I dreamt of potential grand projects, browsing the Twist Collective. To my mind, the quality of projects here is far higher than many other on-line pattern sources (admittedly the Twist patterns aren't free, but you get what you pay for I suppose). Twist is, to the knitting side of me now, what Vogue Designer patterns were to the sewing side of me 15 years ago. Highly designed, exquisitely detailed, and handmade, although a little bit tricky.

I read up on sock monkeys here and here, in preparation for cutting into the socks above. Funnily enough I read nothing about using the stretch stitch on the sewing machine, which I discovered is a vital necessity while making one for a friend's new baby (fortunately before I handed the gift over to her). More to come on sock monkeys when I have one finished.

I have expanded my podcast listening repertoire- not just confining myself to the likes of Cast on, Sticks and String, and Knit Picks (amongst others, but these ones are pleasantly regular 'casters)- I'm trying out other soundtracks for my work commute, as a substitute for my absence of opportunities to read or listen to the radio. I'm exploring Meditation Oasis, Zencast, Radio National, and Dig It (nice to find a local Melbourne gardening podcast- just wish it was more frequent). Need to explore some parenting and cooking podcasts too.