Waiting expectantly …

The time since Christmas has flown by. Being housebound due to snow and family instructions not to step outside in case I slip over as my pregnant belly has knocked my balance a bit wasn’t fun. Finger’s crossed the snow has gone now – though it tried to snow again last night.

I’m now 3 weeks off my due date and the nesting instinct has kicked in big time. With my 5 year old I didn’t knit anything but this time I have finished a pair of booties and 2 hats, I’m halfway through a pram blanket and I have crocheted lots of bunny snugglies – so much so that I’ve added one to my etsy shop.

I’m still wondering how I can convince my husband to name our son/daughter after yarn – Rowan is perfect isn’t it?

 

My Adventures in Felting

Back in January I took part in a Ravelry swap based on new techniques – I chose felting. I only got around to trying it out a few weeks ago but it took off from there.

The brown and pink bag is made from the Althea bag pattern and wool that I was sent as part of the swap. The turquoise and purple bag is crocheted from lopi (which I wasn’t sure would felt but did beautifully) and the odd shaped object was supposed to be a felted tie – a work in progress as my husband won’t wear anything knitted (his mum used to run a yarn shop) so I tried to fool him. Unfortunately it felted to well and is now too small and too thick to be a tie – it may transform into a snake like draught excluder!

  

 

Lurgi

I’ve been feeling rough for the last few days. Yesterday I lost my voice – well not totally I discovered that if I went for a very deep and slow voice I could speak at almost normal sound level. the trouble was it scared the cats and sent my son into convulsions of laughter. If I try to speak normally it comes out as a squeak!

Today I had to venture out as my son had a birthday party to attend at one of those soft play centres. With my squeaky voice I didn’t want to try and make small talk with the other mum’s from nursery whilst our children whacked each other with plastic balls and PVC covered foam shapes.

I couldn’t take my latest editing project as i did need to leap in every now and again and separate fighting children. So I took my crochet hook and some yarn. Unfortunately that sparked interest and lots of people wanted to talk to me about it. I’m not sure what it’s going to be yet – theough there were a few suggestions.

The best question was from 4 year old Jenson who said quite demandingly – ‘who taught you how to knit?’ He was unconvinced when I said ‘my grandma’. There must be a very highly regarded knitter in his life as he seemed most affronted that ‘someone’ else knew how to do it!

 

Daisy

I’ve just finished this cute little top for my etsy shop. it’s for a 2-3 year old girl so my resident model isn’t in the pictures. It combines both knitting and crocheting (something which I’m still only just trying out) and is in a lovely summery colour – despite the drizzle outside.

and I’ve even made some little hair slides to match.

I really enjoyed designing the pattern for it and can’t wait to find some suitable wool to make another.  Hopefully someone else will like it enough to buy it! There will be more iems added to my shop over the next few days.

 

So excited!

My postie just delivered a parcel containing a book order I made with some of my birthday money.

In it was this and this.

I can’t wait to start on the amigurumi as I must have one of these little doggies! (I found the picture on Flickr!)

amigurumi doggie

Originally uploaded by =Monika=

 

 

Look out for one of these appearing on my blog soon I can’t wait. As for the knit for me (yes I’m the ‘plus-size’ one) that may take some time.

 

My Final Wedding Dilemma

What do you do when you have to give a reading at your brother-in-law’s wedding, you have a 4 year old to entertain in the run up to the wedding, you are the greeter at the groom’s house when all the people and paraphernalia arrive and you need to keep the best man sober? Well one thing you don’t do is join your mother-in-law and sister-in-law for a morning at the hairdressers.

I am cursed blessed with naturally curly hair which frizzes at the first sign of moisture – did I mention the torrential rain on the day? Fortunately I remembered that some time ago my sister had made some beautiful slides (she has the same curse blessing as me) but I could only find one, and it was the wrong colour.

So after several failed attempts I managed to copy her design and make my own:

slide

The picture’s not good quality but it was the closest I could get to show the detail – there is a gem in the middle with pearl effect beads at the tip of each petal. I was up at 6am for a wedding at 2pm and washing my hair and clipping it back to let it dry naturally worked and meant I was able to fulfil my duties throughout the day instead of spending the morning in a salon with hairspray and hot rollers.

Oh and the ‘practice’ flowers came in useful to put on the Wedding Tote that I posted about yesterday.

 

Another Wedding Dilemma

In the preparations for my brother-in-law’s wedding it dawned on me that my little black handbag just wouldn’t do. With lots of ‘distractions’ to take along to keep our 4 year old busy I needed to come up with something else or lug his Thomas the Tank Engine roller case up the aisle.

So the Wedding Tote was born:

Wedding tote bag

 

it’s not perfect – I kind of worked out how to do the corners as I went – but there was plenty of room to put all of my son’s colouring books and magazines in, his game machine and earphones and all of the ‘bits’ we acquired throughout the day. The straps were long enough to carry easily over my shoulder (along with the video camera and the still camera – I am a unglorified cart horse).

I crocheted the flowers to match the flowers on my dress so the bag didn’t stand out in the wedding crowd – well not as much as a Thomas the Tank Engine trolley case would.

 

My knitting history

I learnt to knit at my grandmother’s knee. Being left-handed I have an unusual style – I knit right handed but hook the needle under my right arm and my left does most of the work – this has ended in many bent needles. My mother taught me to crochet but I never took to it.

I was defeated at 18 by a huge aran cardigan with cables – something went wrong at the shoulder and though I finished it I was disappointed with the result. It was about that time that I met the boy who would later become my husband – up until a few years previously his mother had been the manager of a wool shop and he abhorred everything to do with knitting.  there is one picture of me at uni knitting squares so I must have kept on for a while but I don’t remember when I put my needles away. I always thought that I would knit again when I had children but I was so busy during my pregnancy that I didn’t even think about it. My mother in law and my aunt gave me some beautiful cardigans for my son and that’s when my fingers began to twitch. I found that a lot of the clothes I put him in were knitted and I kept thinking ‘I could do that’. However it wasn’t until he was 18 months that I sat my husband down and gently told him that I’d been secretly buying knitting magazines and I’d ordered some wool and it was going to happen whether he liked it or not. He was a bit hostile at first but 2 years later he’s resigned to the ever growing stash that is hidden behind a chair in our living room. He has even held his tongue whilst that pile has been added to with my ever growing fabric stash with my new stitching craze. I think the fact that I solved a lot of Christmas present dilemmas with Debbie Stoller’s scarves last year helped his tolerance! Over the next few posts I’m hoping to share my reaquaintance with knitting and my new stitching craze (this year’s Christmas presents will be bags). Feel free to comment and offer advice as we go.