Stitched Together Crafting Library KAL & Other "Stuff"

I am sorry that I have been missing from the blog and podcast over the last few weeks. I have been trying to keep up with the KAL over on the Ravelry Board but I have been away from pretty much everything else.

After my microphone gave up the ghost I had an evil cold and just as I was getting ready to start blogging and podcasting again I got hit by some family "stuff". I won't go into any details, but suffice to say this is probably going to take up some energy that would normally be used for blogging and podcasting for a while. As you know, I only have very limited reserves of energy! I am going to try and podcast later this week, but I can't guarantee it.

I just thought I'd let people know that I'm not more ill than normal it's just my energy is being used elsewhere at the moment. I am still listening to, and watching, podcasts and reading blogs and commenting, I'm just not generating anything myself.

Like I said, I am still keeping on top of the stuff going on with the Stitched Together Crafting Library KAL, I just haven't been working on my own project because it requires too much thought. The KAL is still going on, and there are still a few weeks to get your three posts into the Progress Thread. There are several people that have reached their target of three posts AND posted into the FO Thread, to get a bonus entry. I'd like to remind you that only posting in the FO Thread is NOT going to get you an entry into the KAL draw, you have to post three times in the Progress Thread first, before you are eligible to enter for an additional time into the FO Thread.

I am so impressed with the projects people have been working on.  Everyone has been so supportive of each other which has made me very happy, as that is what I wanted this KAL to do, was to get people talking to each other while it went on.  That is the reason why the requirements are not just "post an FO", I wanted people to communicate with each other whilst they were working on things.  I hope you agree that part of the KAL has been a roaring success!

Baby Gift Reveal

Several months ago I finished making gifts for my new nephew, who was due on 31st May.  He was born 10 weeks early and spent several weeks in the Special Care Baby Unit.  While he was there I was not allowed to see him.  It was a tough few weeks being the only immediate family member who wasn't allowed into the Unit, but they have to draw the line somewhere and aunts are on the other side of the line.  I was really sad about this, but it gave me a little longer to finish off some baby gifts.

As you might remember from last year, I made my niece a crocheted bear, when she was born.  I decided that her brother should have a similar stuffed toy, but slightly different.  I chose a pattern from my book, Crocheted Softies: 18 Adorable Animals from Around the World .  As Stacey Trock (the author) designed my niece's bear, the toy I chose for nephew matches in style.  I chose to make La La The Panda.

He is a little boss-eyed, but this is the nature of sewing yarn onto crocheted fabric.  I couldn't use safety eyes because this was for a baby, and babies can chew the eyes free of the fabric.  I used Cascade 220 Superwash which is great for baby things as it is wool, but it can be slung in the washing machine without fear of felting.

His arms are curved, which wasn't as easy to do as I anticipated.  This panda is crocheted at a fairly small gauge and crocheting black yarn in a poorly lit room (which mine was) is not fun.  However, the result is.  When my niece "helped" by unwrapping her brother's gifts she grabbed hold of the curved arm straight away.  It is a perfect child handle!  The panda had to be smuggled away whilst she was distracted by her birthday gift.  This panda is pretty small, but as it's owner is only wee, I thought it an appropriate match.

As well as the panda, I, of course, decided to make a blanket.  All new babies need blankets.  It's the law, or something.  As I was on a crochet kick I decided to make a crocheted blanket.  I wanted to make squares for the blanket, but I wanted to make them fairly solid.  After some trial and error and searching I found this free pattern.  It was the perfect square for what I had in mind.  I bought lots of different bright shades of Sirdar Snuggly DK and some dark blue in the same yarn, as contrast, and crocheted each bright square before crocheting them all together with a dark blue border round each one.

I decided to single crochet the blocks together with the wrong sides facing to make ridges on the right side of the blanket, to create texture for little fingers to play with.  I edged the whole blanket in the more of the blue.

The first round of the edging was only crocheted into the back loop of the stitches.  After finishing the edging I then slip stitched into the front loop of that first round to create a matching ridge to create a frame that matched the inner squares.  I think it worked quite well.

As I had some brightly coloured yarn left over from the blanket I decided to make a short sleeved Beyond Puerperium, by Kelly Brooker.  I made a long sleeve version for my niece and I think it has had lots of wear.  As we are supposedly in the warmer months, I thought a short sleeved version would be appropriate.  The good thing about short sleeves, is that the cardigan should last longer, as most babies get longer before they get wider.

I love the bright stripes, but there were an awful lot of ends to deal with.  I wove in as I went, but the ends still needed a bit of tidying up.

I made the 3 month version of this pattern, again in the hopes that it could be worn for longer.  Having short sleeves means it should be ok to be worn straight away, and last well past the 3 month mark.  Full details of the cardigan are on my Ravelry Project Page.  I love this pattern and I think my niece and nephew will be getting several more versions of this design as they get bigger (unless my SIL and brother tell me to stop!)

So, at last, now I've met my little nephew, A, I can share his presents with you.  I think they were well received.

As it is Friday, and these are finished objects, I'm going to hook up with Tami.  Click the button to get more crafty inspiration.

A Gift for Me and a Gift for You

I have had rather an interesting week.  It's been a bit of a roller-coaster ride but I think everything is going to be ok.  Basically my new nephew, who was due at the end of May, was delivered rather unexpectedly on Wednesday morning in the very early hours.  As you probably know, I live about a hundred miles away from my family and it was very hard sitting on my own, a long way from my brother and his wife while they were going through scary things, especially as my other half was on another Continent with work.

However, my nephew, though tiny, seems to be doing well and his mother also seems to be recovering well too.  As you can imagine, the gift of my post title is a new nephew who is small but determined.  With a much earlier arrival comes the requirement for much smaller baby gifts.  I have, of course, been knitting like fury on teeny hats, that can be either used by my nephew or for other babies in NICU, if they don't fit him.

You may be wondering how this all ties into a gift for you?  Well, the nice people at The Aurum Publishing Group have offered up a chance for a reader of my blog to win a copy of one of their latest book releases; The Knitted Home: Creative and Contemporary Projects for Interiors, by Ruth Cross.

I haven't been given a copy for review, so I can only tell you what the blurb, I received, says about this book, which is:

Ruth Cross draws on her experience of designing organic and freeform collections to guide you through the process of making and creating your own items. Taking an experimental approach, Ruth combines traditional stitches with new stitches she has devised herself. She creates desirable fabrics that can adorn many different items around the home, from easy chairs to footstools, a doorstop to a table runner, vase covers to wall hangings. 

Throughout the book there are complete patterns for you to create these beautiful projects. But Ruth also encourages and gives advice on how to experiment for yourself to produce your own designs. Starting with the very basics – simple knitting and purling – and progressing to add further texture and embellishment she guides you through a range of different stitch patterns and techniques. As she goes through she shows how you can adapt these patterns to different sizes, scales and shapes so that they can be widely applied around the home to create completely personal pieces.

I am afraid that this competition is only open to UK Residents, as the prize will be sent directly from the publisher, rather than by me.  However, the publisher has arranged a discount on this hardback book, which normally retails at £20.

To order The Knitted Home (9781906417727) for £16.00 including p&p*, telephone 01903 828503 and quote offer code JS188. Or send a cheque made payable to: Littlehampton Book Services Mail Order Department, Littlehampton Book Services, PO Box 4264, Worthing, West Sussex BN13 3TG. Please quote the offer code JS188 and include your name and address details. *UK ONLY - Please add £2.50 if ordering from overseas.

In order to win a copy of this book, click on the +1 button on the Rafflecopter box and enter a suggestion for making a baby gift for either the baby or the parents, after logging in to Rafflecopter.  Quick projects are the ones I'm searching for!  The winner will be drawn randomly from the eligible entries.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The competition closes at midnight on Tuesday night, UK time, so that I can do the draw on Wednesday morning and announce the winner in my regular Wednesday post.  Plus I want to get cracking on any suggestions you can make.  I am sorry that not all my readers can join in with this contest, but I didn't set the rules this time.

I'm hoping that next week will be a little more normal as my other half will be back home and everything starts to settle into a new routine up North.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend and that the snow due to hit the UK this weekend, doesn't inconvenience too many people.

Beyond Cute

One of the things I knitted for Christmas, was a gift for my niece.  My SIL had commented on how quickly little E was growing out of things, especially the cardigan given to her when she was born.  So of course I decided another cardigan was in order, in time for Christmas.

I had favourited on Ravelry a gorgeous cardigan pattern.  It was a free one, but sadly it was for newborns.  Looking at this pattern led me to discover a re-visited version that ranged from newborn to 2 years old.  It was a paid pattern but it was an incredible bargain in my view.  Beyond Puerperium by Kelly Brooker is $5/£3.19 and for that price you get 7 sizes in 3 different weights of yarn.  In my mind, that is a complete bargain, and it will probably get made over and over again, especially when you consider how cute it is!

Isn't she adorable?  Yes, she is even cuter in person.  I know I'm biased, but apparently complete strangers come up to my brother and SIL in the street and tell them she is cute too, so I think it must be true.

I made the 6-12 month size of cardigan.  She is just over 6 months old now and it seems to fit her well, but has plenty of room to grow into.  Apparently, more cardigans in bright colours are just what my niece's wardrobe requires, so I think I'm going to get plenty of use out of this pattern.

Here's a picture of the cardigan lying flat so you can see how it works.

I used Sirdar Snuggly DK in colour 197 for the main body of the cardigan.  The lighter purple stripes are made using Rico Design Baby Classic DK in colour 9715 (Elieder) which was left over from the Wee Hat I made in November.  I learnt how to do intarsia, set into a row like this, whilst doing the Spectra scarf, and it works really well.  In this case, it means the change in colour isn't on the open edge of the cardigan, but set inside the main body of the knitted fabric.  I think it makes things neater.

I love the little details in this pattern.  It's deceptively simple, but the garter stitch edges on the cuffs, neck and hem add contrast.  The neck is nice and wide, so it doesn't pull or rub against the baby no matter how active she is.  The buttons fasten nearly on the side seam, which means the buttons don't dig in when the baby is on her stomach.  Because I knew the buttons were going to be tucked away, I chose some fun ones.

I'm so pleased with this project.  I think it is pretty and very wearable for an active baby and whoever dresses her in it!

Thank you to my dear SIL, Emma, who let me use the photo of my niece in her cardigan.  It's a wonderful photo which not only shows off her wardrobe, but also how engaging my niece is too.  I am going to have so much fun knitting for my niece over the coming years.  I'm so lucky to have family who enjoy and use my handcrafted gifts.

WPC 2011 - Week 12 - Past

I've not been very good about keeping up with the WPC 2011 Challenge on this blog.  I've posted photos every week on Flickr, and some are better than others, but on the whole I think my photography is improving.  If nothing else, I have to make fewer adjustments in Picasa, to my photos!

Week 12 ended yesterday and I actually managed to get a photo in on the deadline, for once.  It was an idea I had the whole week, but only shot the photos on the day they were due - typical of me!

The subject last week was PAST.  This is a very open ended subject but I knew instantly what I wanted to do.  I have a couple of old photo albums that belong to my family.  They have photos dating back to the 1880s which I love.  I enjoy looking at the photos and seeking out glimpses of myself in my ancestors' faces.

The book is bound in leather and has a clasp made out of brass (I think).

The album is falling to bits, but I love it.

Just opening it makes me feel connected to the past.

There are lots of loose photographs that threaten to fall out, but I am scared to put them in the slots as I might break the pages.

I have no idea what the pages are made of, I think it is just very thick cardboard made to look like wood veneer.

Most of the photos are in sepia, with the odd black and white from later family member's, such as my grandparents.  I really wanted to capture this essence of how this photo album makes me feel so I decided to do a self portrait. 

Doing a self portrait was not as simple as I first thought as I only have a 10 second timer on my point and click camera.  The only tripod I have is a GorillaPod which is great, but not very tall!  I decided to incorporate two coffee tables, stacked on top of each other - I wish I had thought to take a photo of my makeshift tripod, it worked brilliantly.

I took about 30 photos of myself with the photo album and it wasn't until I got them on the computer that I discovered I had a great shot.  I was a bit worried that I would have to go and take another batch, after I'd recovered - timer shots are NOT fun when you are disabled.  Oh how I long for a camera with a remote!

I love how this photo came out, especially in the sepia tones, to match the photographs.  Since starting this challenge I've learnt so much about exposure and creating shadows and light.  Sepia and black and white photos really emphasise this shading and I really love playing with them.

This may not be the most flattering photo of myself I've ever taken, but it's probably the best photograph I've taken with myself in it - if you see what I mean?  I am pretty proud of this result, each week I feel like I am getting better.

I love doing this weekly challenge, especially as next week is a bit more simple - PURPLE.  If you are interested in seeing more of the photographs produced in the challenge, click on the tab marked Weekly Photograph Challenge 2011 and you will see lots of information about it.