What's in Progress?

Like pretty much the rest of the planet, as far as I can tell, I've been feeling basically terrible for the last few weeks. When I last posted I thought I was beginning to shake it off but I was very, very wrong! A couple of days later I had the shivers and a fever and it's really only the last few days this I've been confident enough to say that I'm on the mend. If anyone else has been suffering you very much have my sympathy because UGH. So mostly I've just been pottering around doing a bit of one project here and a bit of another there when I've been feeling up for it.

In knitting I've been slowly beavering away on the Tauriel pattern by Josiah Bain. I was hoping they'd scratch the cable itch I've been suffering with but I've found they've been requiring a little more concentration than I've had to give recently. Now I'm feeling better they are going a bit faster so hopefully I'll finish them in a week or two. The yarn is Knit Picks Stroll Glimmer which unsurprisingly is a little glittery and is doing a lovely job of cheering the magpie in me right up.

In sewing I'm whipping up (in the very slowest sense of the phrase) another pair of jeans. They're a sort of stone colour, which is a bit boring for me so I decided to jazz them up a bit with some pink top stitching. I'm not regretting it so far. I'm just about to stick the zip fly in so there's not too much to do now.

I've also been spinning, finishing the spinning on a project that has seen me get married, become a homeowner, buy a spinning wheel and have 2 children! This has been spun from 2 batts from Shunklies in a colourway called Monsters Inc. I still need to ply so there's plenty of opportunity yet for more procrastination but I'm hopeful it'll be done this year.

Speaking of procrastination, I did immediately start spinning up these lovely batts while the other singles chill for a day or two. The plan is to spin the first one then ply the Monsters Inc and then I'll spin the second batt and ply them both. I'm really hoping that I can make the finished yarn as pretty as the batts are (Snow Glow by Nunoco), it was almost tempting to just never spin them and keep them to look at.

And today I'll leave you with this pair of Easter bunnies who have been having loads of fun doing Easter crafts this week. I'm loving that they're getting big enough for making little projects like these masks and I'm having great fun planning more things for them to do.

 

FO: Simplicity 1174

While I have a trio of Briar/Mini Briar's I should be sharing today I haven't managed to get them all photographed yet so I'm skipping ahead a bit to a very special little project.

Today is the day that my precious firstborn turns 4.  This is a massive shock to my system, surely she was only just born!!!!  However, birthday girls need birthday dresses and Cassie is now old enough to choose for herself what she wants so I let her loose in the 'kids' section of my pattern filing cabinet and she very firmly chose Simplicity 1174.  Specifically the version with sleeves and it was very very important that I did not leave off the bows.

Unfortunately we've all been suffering from colds over the last couple of weeks with mine turning into some kind of horrible sinus thing so I kind of left it until the last minute.  Luckily this pattern turned out to be very simple so I managed to put it together in a couple of days even though I felt like an alien was going to come bursting out of my face any second.

Towards the end I was kind of hoping that she'd change her mind about the bows because I am far too lazy for that kind of nonsense but she insisted, of course, and actually they were not that much effort.  I really like the way they look now and I'm glad she insisted.  I'm also completely in love with the fabric.  It's a cotton from Doughty's which I purchased on a whim when I was ordering some denim.  I've got a bit over a metre left so be prepared to see it again!

Projects like this are the kind that really keep me going.  Cassie loves her new dress so much that she wore it for her little family party yesterday and then demanded that she wore it again today to go to preschool.  Making my little girl happy on her birthday is just the best feeling and I hope that she'll continue to ask me to make things for her and be proud to wear them as she gets older.

 

FO: Briar

We've had a busy couple of weeks here. Aside from the usual comings and goings, work and family stuff, we've had kids parties to attend, presents to buy for said kids, trips out and a baby niece to snuggle. Oh, and we finally bought a PS4, so my fingers have been kept pretty busy there! I'm steadily knitting away on a sock but I don't have too much to show there but I have completed a very simple sewing project.

Briar by Megan Nielsen looks very much like quite a few tops that I have bought over the years so is very much my style. I do love a bit of a mullet hem! I also bought the Mini Briar pattern at the same time so I could make little versions for the girls.

I decided to make the long version with long sleeves, I'm not ruling out a cropped version in the future but it's still pretty cold here so I'll be sticking with a bit more coverage for the moment. I used a really lightweight jersey so this is really only for layering, but that's generally how I wear my tops anyway.

There's not much else to say here, I made a white t-shirt and I quite like it. I'll probably make another one soon. Oh yes and excuse the state of our house in these photos, the hallway is usually a quiet spot to snap a few pics but Stu recently stripped all the wallpaper with no real plan as to what he was going to do next....