Christmas Booty

So that's Christmas pretty much done and with the New Year on the way it's time for me to sit down and think about my crafty resolutions for the year ahead. I've achieved a lot of things in the past year that I'd been meaning to get on with for a long time so it's going to be a bit more difficult to come up with a list next year. For today though I'm just going to have a quick look back over the last week at all of the knitting related goodies that I was lucky enough to receive this Christmas.

My SIL and my brother/SIL to be both gave me Millamia pattern books which I am really pleased with. Bright Young Things is my favourite at the moment with the Lotta Striped Bolero being an absolute must knit for Cassie. Wonderland is also packed full of eye candy but I haven't picked out a project from it yet. There is a super cute babygro which I would have loved to knit if I'd had the book earlier, but with baby due any day now I really don't have the time to start it.

The same goes, unfortunately for my favourite pattern from Knitting Gifts for Baby which was very thoughtfully bought for me by my BIL. The Papoose sleeping bag is possibly the cutest thing ever and I'm very sad that there is just no time at all to knit it. Hopefully someone else close to me will get pregnant before too long and I'll be able to knit it for them instead, it's just too cute not to.

But for the time being I will just make do with knitting on my Star Illusion Blanket. I've decided to just get on with it and see how much progress I can make before the little lady arrives. So far I estimate that I am about 3/5 of the way through it although I will stop when the proportions look about right regardless of where I am in the pattern. I'm still really pleased with it, it's cool huh?

 

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Merry Christmas!

I've been very busy just recently, unfortunately not with knitting and also not with having the baby or anything dramatic like that so I've been a bit quiet for a few days. I did, however want to pop in and say Happy Christmas, have a lovely time however you are celebrating or if you are not celebrating at all. We are spending the day with my parents today. Cassie is quite excited but not really sure what all the fuss is about, she is making us all laugh though, especially stomping around in her fancy new shoes.

My knitted gifts seem to have gone over well, both SILs received hats and they fit them just right and they both loved them. My brother's fiancée in particular was super excited when she opened hers and I was really pleased to be right, it looks way better on her than it did on me, I hope she'll let me take a picture of her in it soon.

Anyway, I'll be back soon with hopefully something more interesting to say. Have a lovely time one and all!

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FO: Barry

So Barry is done, blocked and dried and is now my absolute favourite thing. Seriously, I love this hat. This is great because the pattern is so versatile and I can see myself making several more and they will all be completely different. Genius! I thought the colours might be a little bright for my head, but I think they work really well and although my button choice really surprised me I'm glad I went for it it, they are so cute. Can you tell I love this pattern?

I think my next one will be in a bulky yarn, perhaps with a little less height/slouch. I can't wait. Again the pattern is Barry by Leethalknits and the yarn is Drops Nepal leftover from baby's coffee bean cardigan. I still have some left and although I considered making baby a matching hat to go with the cardi I've decided that she already has a lot of hats and so I'm going to cast on for a hat for Cassie instead. I think I'll put it in her Christmas stocking.

And as Christmas draws nearer, so does baby's due date, eek. In fact if this little lady is in a bit of a hurry like her big sister was then we are looking at less than 2 weeks now. I'm kind of hoping she hangs on a bit longer than that though. I may change my mind on that one though as I get bigger and bigger, Cassie can already hide from me just by standing directly in front of me and I am developing my own gravitational field!

 

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Stashdown for November

My Barry hat is almost done, just the crown left and then I can add the buttons and see how it all comes together, but as I finished off a ball of yarn yesterday and added it to my graph it reminded me it was about time I posted it again.

Stash | Create infographics

As you can see things are starting to look good and I actually used a record number of balls in November. I have recently added a ball but that was the handspun I posted about a few days ago. Let's see if I can keep it up.

 

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WIP: Barry

Despite Christmas looming and baby's due date getting ever closer I decided that quickly knitting something for me was what I wanted to do next. Using some if the leftovers from baby's coffee bean cardi I went ahead and cast on for Leethalknits Barry hat. I got the pattern a while back when she was having a giveaway and I have been itching to knit it ever since. I am completely in love with the idea that it can be knit in any yarn without swatching, just perfect for handspun.

So far I have just finished the first section which goes around the head and I'll be starting the second section using the contrast colour as the main colour which I think will look pretty cool. I can't wait for this one to be done and then I can no doubt choose another project which will get me no closer to finishing up my Christmas or baby knitting!

 

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Things that are not knitting

Yesterday I somehow completely forgot that as well as knitting I have actually found a little bit of time for some spinning and dyeing. I think this is because I am now home in the evenings and cooking dinner for us all again and it is very easy for me to sneak in to the dining room and spin for a few minutes while I'm waiting for this to cook or that to boil. It's not much but I'm really pleased that I have finally finished the skein of yarn which has been sitting on the wheel for months now.

It's only half of the fibre, I have this left to spin.

There was 150g there to begin with, so a little too much to pack on a bobbin so I split the whole lot into 25g sections to make two skein of 3ply. This first skein still needs to be washed so it's not quite done and I haven't bothered weighing or measuring it yet but I really like it. It's soft and squishy and I love the cheerful glimpses of shiny yellow peeping through the other colours.

After a long dyeing hiatus I started simple, dyeing half a skein of sock yarn pink for my ill fated mittens. There's not much to say about this except that it is PINK pink and that makes me very happy. So happy in fact that I decided to dye a little bit of fibre the same colour.

I had a 200g bag of South American fibre which I split into 3. I left one third undyed, dyed one third in the lovely bright pink and then split the last third in two again and dyed one part purple and the other orange. The idea is to spin two solid plies, one white and one pink and then spin the third ply randomly in pink and orange to hopefully give a really subtle variation to the finished yarn. I can't wait to see how it turns out.

 

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Quiet

I've been a bit quiet for a few days, mainly because I've been a bit disordered, flitting about a bit and every time I thought about writing a post I couldn't quite work out where I was going to start. So today I'm going to see if I can get myself together and fill in any gaps over the next few days.

So what have I been up to. Well firstly, after my first attempt to make my SILs Christmas hat didn't work out I thought I'd get right on that and make her a different one. This one turned out much better but it took me a good few days to get round to taking any photographs so I'm only now getting around to revealing it. Thanks to my sister for modelling for me.

The pattern is Candy: Stripes and Sprinkles by Tori Gurbisz which I have had my eye on for ages. It was included in the Giftalong on Ravelry so I got a discount on the pattern and I was very excited to finally make it. I also treated myself to Themisto by the same designer and look forward to making that soon too. The pattern was really easy and it was fun to see it come together in the end. The yarn is my own handspun and I'm really pleased with the way it knitted up. I had no idea it would stripe so well and I love how sparkly it is. It's a BFL and sparkle blend I got from FeltStudio a while back.

After that I decided that I desperately needed some mittens. It's got quite cold here and while I usually make do with my Evangeline armwarmers, a trip out with the buggy meant there was no hiding my fingers from the cold. I cast on for a pair of stranded mittens with sock yarn and knit for a couple of days but after a couple of days I started to doubt whether they were big enough and whether I was actually likely to finish them any time soon. Then I spotted a mistake I couldn't live with so I ripped them back and went out and bought a pair of flip top mittens instead. I completely forgot to take any photos of them but I will start them again in a few projects time so I'll add the details then.

Since then I've been at a bit of a loss as to what to start next so I've been working on baby's blanket. I've now completed the chart once, all 164 rows of it. The pattern suggests 2 1/2 repeats so I feel like I'm getting somewhere now. I have now settled on my next project so hopefully I'll get going on that later and introduce it tomorrow.

And finally, can I get a massive hooray? Due to saving up nearly all of my annual holiday entitlement I am now officially on maternity leave until at least September! I like my job a lot, but I love being home for dinner and baby bedtime every night even more and I'm glad I can make the most of these last few weeks with just Cassie.

 

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