Tubey Hat

Another custom knit available for this winter!

The Tubey is a great little woollen hat, easy to pop on and looks stylish

Oh how we love raisins when trying to get a photo!

This is just 1 in a series of 8 beautifully designed hats by Woolly Wormhead that I am able to knit for little ones.

These hats are available in 4 sizes:
XS - Premmie (12"/30.5 cm)
S - Newborn to 3 months (14"/35.5cm)
M - 3-6 months (16"/41cm)
L - 6-12 months (18"/46cm)

In saying that, I found the Tubey was quite a relaxed fit, the largest size fitted both my 12 month old and my little almost 3 year old.

I am planning on knitting all the other ones in the series to pop on here, but if you are interested in seeing the others then email me and I'll show you the designers pictures. There is a wide range of styles, including some that tie under the chin like earflap hats - they're all fabulous, of course!

Contact me via email if you are interested in finding out more information or would like to place in order. Prices are around the $20 mark (depending upon on the type/quality of yarn and size)

Selfish Knitting

Phew for a moment of peace - the kids are off at a birthday party with their Dad and I am home alone! What a feeling (and how guilty do I feel that I am sitting at the computer instead of folding washing or mopping floors)!

But, after a week of really sick and miserable (and cooped up) kids, a moment to breathe is just what the doctor ordered.

Speaking of me - a selfish knit came off the needles about a week ago - my Woodland Jewels Scarf. It was knit in Brooklynne's custom dyed yarn that I won about a month ago using the Woodland Shawl pattern. It took 9 days to knit and the transformation that came about after being blocked was amazing! I thought the leaf pattern looked neat as I was knitting it, but it opened up beautifully on blocking.

And it's for me.

I'm trying to think of the last thing I actually knit for myself...hmmmm. Can't.

I love the colour, and I know it'll get a lot of wear this winter with all the black I wear.

On a completely different note, don't forget the little snakes competition I have going. The prizes listed are just SOME of the prize that will be included - hey, you gotta be in to win.

Ok, I'll even beg - oh please won't someone have a go knitting some? My wee pattern/project is lonely.

Oh how I love a good K.A.L

I love knit-a-longs (well, if it's something I want to KAL with, but sometimes it can encourage me to have a go knitting something that I otherwise wouldn't cast on)

Over on Rav in the Budding Designers Downunder group there is a monthly KAL. Last month it was for a little leafy shrug designed by Katherine

Originally I was simply watching this knit a long, I had a lot of little birthday presents to make and some custom knits to complete and so wasn't sure if participating was something I could do. But with merely days to go until the end of January I decided that I really wanted to knit this for Penny.

I cast on in some lovely soft undyed silver merino that has been neglected in my stash and within a couple of days I had cast off and blocked this wee beauty.

This months KAL is for a little vanilla soaker designed by Kelly. I've yet to cast it on as I've something cute on the needles already, but I've got my yarn picked out and a recipient and embellishment in mind.

Snakes & Adders - Competition Time

So, I've posted my little Snakes and Adders pattern - now I'd love to see what other people come up with (I'm a pretty standard just follow a pattern kind of knitter)

So, the competition is simply to get knitting!


Try making some snakes and enter them with some pics on Ravelry (let me know here if you can) and you'll go into the draw. I'll be picking 2 winners - 1 will be the best snake/collection of snakes, and the other will be a completely random snake (so that those who are not necessarily the best knitters and are pretty new to it all still have a chance to win)

We'll be drawing the winners on the Saturday the 13th of March, so final entries need to be in by the end of the evening of the 12th of March.

The prizes...


As well as some still undecided goodies, as a winner you could choose from any of the 3 prizes below

1) 2 sock blockers made to your choice of sizes

OR

2) Your choice of something knit from my custom knitting selection to the maximum value of $25 (I've got more not pictured yet too so if you like this option we can talk about the more extensive list I actually have permission to knit)

OR

3) A 'Coco Kids' voucher (specifying me as the knitter) to the value of $25. You can use this yourself on anything I can make or sell (a nice discount off a swift) or this could be gifted to someone else if you don't like either of the options above for yourself.

This competition is open to anyone anywhere - I'd be prepared to post to where-ever the winners are from :)

I also notice that 6 people commented that they liked Blair's name and that was the name we ran with in the end - so I've still got my thinking hat on for what to do about the comp that had no official winner. I haven't forgotten

Snakes & Adders

Snakes and Adders it is! Thanks for all the name ideas and feedback! There's a new competition coming and details about the last one.

This pattern came about when I needed some little extras to pop into some birthday pressies. We've got lot of birthdays on at the moment and all the presents I've purchased felt like they needed something a little more personal.

These are easy and quick to make as well as a good way to use lovely remnants that you just don't know what to do with - variegated look great with little stripes as do semi solid and plain colours. I actually haven't checked their useage, but I'd say about 5gms? (I'd be interested in any feedback including that)

(click to enlarge)

Requirements
Approx 3.25mm needle to magic loop with (DPN’s the same size would be handy later on if you have them) – gauge isn’t particularly important
DK or worsted weight yarn (4 ply can be used double stranded)
Pipecleaner
Darning needle
Buttons, felt, embroidery thread – whatever you’d like to use to decorate and embellish

Method

• Cast on 8 stitches, split 4 onto each end of the needle and join to knit in the round – no need to worry about stitch markers

• Knit approximately 5 rounds.

This is when I add my eyes so I can hide the ends in the inside of my snake. I have been using duplicate stitch in either yarn or embroidery thread – though buttons or googly eyes would also be great if you could ensure they were safe for the recipient.

If you used a long tail cast-on, you could pull your cast on tail through the little circle/hole from the initial cast on row using a crochet hook. This will be used to sew up the little hole later.

•  You are now going to reduce the 8 stitches to 6 for the snakes body, so on the next round knit 2, k2tog, k2, k2tog

• Then knit your 6 stitches in the round for the length of your pipecleaner (mine were 15cms long)

If you have DPN’s the right size, you could do this as an i-cord

Bend up a teeny bit of both ends of the pipecleaner so that no sharp edges poke out. This makes it easier to feed into your snake, as well as safer for the recipient.

• Feed pipecleaner into the centre tube of your snake

• You have 6 stitches that you've been working - you're going to reduce them so that you get a tapered snake tail by k1, k2tog, k1, k2tog

• Next round K2tog, k2tog

• Cast off
  

Finishing off
Add a little tongue – you could insert a little felt one into the circular hole at the head
Or
Using some embroidery thread on a needle, sew in and out of the snake at a position where the mouth would be and then knot together a couple of times, cut to the right length for a forked tongue. Sew up the little circular hole at the head with the cast on tail

Sew in the tail end

(click to enlarge)

~ Whoosh ~

It's birthday season in my antenatal group at the moment and so I've been trying to make something to add to each present.

Today we celebrated Nathan's party at the Silverstream Railway - going up and down the track in a steam train carriage all to ourselves (well, all those that were at the party)

I knit Nate a Little Rocket designed by Megan Kelly.

Penny had great fun selecting what colour would be good for which part of it - and I was really impressed that at the end it actually stood up (I can never be entirely sure that things will turn out as I intend them to, and not due to the pattern designer, more due to the combination of yarns and needle sizes...ok, and the knitter)

It passed Tim's taste test

And Penny's 'whoosh' test (so hard to take action pics)

And overall gets the big tick from me! Well done Megan on your great little pattern!

And well done to the Hamiltons on your lovely relaxed party today - we had a wonderful time, now, who took any photos from that?

Competition Time!

Ok, so here's a sneak peak of a really easy little pattern that I'll post on here shortly, that is - as soon as I think of a suitable name for the pattern

At the moment I've been calling it 'Little Viper', and Blair's suggestion has been 'Snakes and Adders' but I'm not sold yet. We've bandied about a number of others - 'Snake in the Grass' 'Little Snake' - hmmm.

Here's where the competition comes in.

Post and tell me what you think would be a good name for this teeny bendy snake made of scraps and if I pick it to name the pattern then you'll be able to choose from one of these prizes:

1) 2 sock blockers made to your choice of sizes

OR

2) Your choice of something knit from my custom knitting selection to the maximum value of $25 (I've got more not pictured yet too so if you like this option we can talk about the more extensive list I actually have permission to knit)

OR

3) A 'Coco Kids' voucher (specifying me as the knitter) to the value of $25. This can be gifted to someone else if you don't like either of the options above for yourself.

The competition closes once we've decided - so just post if you think of something, you can always post more names if you think of them after!

Hey, and if you like one of the names we've already come up with then let me know that too!

Another One Bites The Dust

That's another FO this year - an Oriental Lily (designed by the Georgie Hallam who is constantly coming out with new must-knit patterns) in a soon to be released 3T size. Georgie has worked out the 3-10 sizes also and so they are in the testing phase at the moment.  This is knit in The Wool Company's 'Watermelon' with 'Avocado' as the contrast waistband.

I did take rather a lot of photos of Penny in it this evening.I was surprised she actually had no problems with wearing it as it's been very hot, but luckily it has pink and is girly so she overlooked that it was a long sleeved kimono!

'Another One Bites The Dust' may also seem like a bit of an odd blog title for this, but this project is #3 of 10 challenges I am aiming to knit this year. It's all part of the TNN 10 in 2010 group on Rav, and more specifically the '1 of each' challenge. They include:

Baby/Toddler knit
Dishcloth - DONE Ugly Dishcloths
MCN Knitting
Older child - DONE Oriental Lily
Shawl or scarf
Socks
Toy - DONE Dinosaur! Roarrrrr!
Adult knit
Bag
Dolls Clothing

This is going towards my 'Older Child' and while it doesn't exactly fit the criteria of being for a 5+ child, I just don't have a 5+ child to knit for. Plus, with the long sleeves and fullness of it - it'll do (hose TNN chooks are good sorts, no one's going to tell me off)

There are also 2 other 10 in 2010 challenges I've joined up for on there too, 10 baby and toddler knits and 10 new techniques so I'm sure to waffle on about those at some stage this year too.

As well as signing up for the TNN challenges, I'm also down to 'Shop my Stash' - so I'm not buying yarn this year (though I can win it, swap for it or be gifted it - phew!) but I'm aiming to knit only from my stash this year unless I have a specific item I need to cast on that I don't have the right yarn for.

This was the 7th STS project this year, can't wait to see how many I get by the end of the year!

Did I Tell You I Won A Comp?

Well, I did - and this one was a goodie!

It was Brooklynne's Grrrl Shaped Yarns blog competition, just to blog about GSY. And I won!

The prize is a lovely skein of her lovely superwash merino, dyed especially for me and called Jewels (or is it Julia's Jewels? I'm not sure but in a conceited way I love either name because lots of my friends know me as Jules - 'Jewels' sounds the same)

I also received 3 knitpicks fixed circular needles AND Brooklynne's sock pattern

And because I just CAN'T photograph the colour right, I'm going to steal her photo ;) (which it's ok - I've checked with her about)

It's even better IRL

I'm going to use it for a selfish knit to enter her latest comp too - I don't know realistically how much of a chance I have of winning 2 of her comps but hey, I want to knit it up anyway and now seems like a great time.

Dinosaur! Roarrrrr!

That's the name of the lastest pattern I've purchased on Ravelry.

I'm on a self-enforced yarn buying ban this year and so am trying to knit from my 'stash'. I saw this little pattern recently released by it's author Luciana Jorge and thought the budget could probably cope with it's $4 purchase seeing as it would pay for itself, what with all the cute gifts I could make from stash with it (I should also add too that I've had a couple of emails from the designer and she's just lovely - I love supporting people that are so nice...though most knitters and designers I've been in contact with are all fabulous).

The reason I really 'needed' to purchase it though was we'd bought a pressie for James, (one of our antenatal kids who was holding his birthday party today) but it needed something else

Anywho - to cut a long story short, I bought the pattern Wednesday and by Friday night the Mumma and Bubba Steg were completed, after being knit, washed, blocked, stuffed and sewn. I could get addicted to toy making - so quick, and Penny was besotted.

'Now, Tim you can be the baby stegosaurus, and I'll be the mummy stegosaurus...

(click to enlarge)