That Dress

I'm a sucker when it comes to handmade. I mean really, does my 5 year old need another piece of garment, apart from a school uniform maybe? No, clearly not. But can I resist beautiful fabric made into beautiful swirly dresses? Rhethorical question. Knowing my dress loving 5 year old, I also knew that she would have to have an input into the choice of fabric.

You know, I tried my best.
There were the cutest fabrics to choose from.
And what did she go for?
Who would have guessed.
PINK.

I mean, it's a niceish pink. I do love the fabric. But it's pink flipping pink again. Sigh. She will grow out of this right?

Check out Anna's, aka Tiny Viking's facebook page to admire her wonderful creations and dream of your own perfect dress/babygrow/hat - she's go photos of all available fabrics up so it's literally pick and choose. You can also find her ware at Merry Go Round Glasgow in Nithsdale Road. I won't take any responsibility for your bank balance.

As for Cubling: She luuuurves her dress and would wear it to bed if I let her. However she decided that her hat isn't so cool after all and has gifted it to Snowflake. The benefit of having two children...

Disclaimer: this post is not sponsored. I paid full price and probably will again.

and when it gets really bad - keep calm and knit

When the nerves are raw, the mind full of worry, there's one thing that is forever soothing and grounding.

Cubling needed a new hat for the winter. Urgently as she's back at the forest kindergarten. I knew it had to be an ear flap hat, I wanted to do some fair isle just because I hadn't done it in a while. So I found myself the Norwegian Star Ear Flap hat. But as I prefer to knit from top to bottom, I merged it with with the Thorpe pattern. I guessed the length of the hat, which meant it's a bit generous but other than that... I like. So I guess it's a Norwegian Thorpe.

Little Miss Cheekychops of course refused to get her picture taken, or to even wear it. This is the only photo I got, which neither shows the earflaps nor my pride, the crocheted border particularly well. Yes, I crocheted this and it doesn't even look as if I don't actually know how to crochet.

The yarn hails from a Föhr sheep - it's hand spun and hand dyed, and I love the colour scheme, which I often get wrong, but I think this one works. There's still a good bit of yarn left, definitely enough for another hat, maybe even two.

Small steps towards finished objects

Thanks to the baby who will not settle in the evenings, I've not been doing too much knitting and the focus was on getting that puppet theatre done. I'm really pleased with the puppet theatre, and so is Cubling, she went straight into playing out her favourite fairy tales (and is running about the house with snow white and the prince kissing each other).

Still, some tiny weeny objects did get done. I'd been wondering for a while what the best project for some lovely 100g skein of Shetland bulky wool (Jamieson's Marl - a grey/blue mix of lovely thick and warm wool). I'd unravelled the TV remote holder because it just looked wrong - this yarn was meant for something warm. So it became this (short) scarf for a very special Grampa to keep him warm on the golf course. I know it's the wrong season, but nevermind. I was rather pleased that I managed to make it as long as possible with the one skein I had. I didn't use a pattern, just made it up as I went along.

My friend J has come up with a great fundraising idea for Cosgrove Care - the idea is to knit 100 objects and auction them in aid of the local charity. There is a regular knitting evening in the Cosgrove Care charity shop on Skirving Street in Shawlands where knitters can also chat and those who would like to knit but don't know how can learn it from the more experienced knitters. I knew that any ambitious project would stand the chance of not being completed, so I went for some more bulky yarn. I found this super soft  and super pink yarn in a charity shop and initially thought this is ideal for my pink fairy princess, but hoping that maybe it would go to the fundraising initiative. I found a Rowan booklet with a quick hat pattern - meant for adult size but with even bigger yarn and bigger needles, so I chanced it and cast on with size 7.5 mm instead and my slightly thinner yarn and hurray, it all came together beautifully.

Just that Cubling was just about to be persuaded to try it on for me to take a photo (much persuasion needed) but did not want to keep it. Apparently she just wants the light pink and no two pinks in her hat. Fine then, it'll be auctioned then! So the hat fits a 3-4 year old head (the yarn is stretchy, so it may fit from 2-5), is super soft and pink and has cute earflaps. It's really quite lovely. Any offers? All to go to Cosgrove Care of course.

Knits for calming nerves

Knitting does many things for me, and while we were in hospital it calmed my nerves. There were two projects on my needles: Soulemama's hat of choice, which for once was something just for me. I'm a strange one, in winter, I hardly wear hats, scarves or gloves, for various reasons. As to hats, I hardly find one that I like on me, so knitting this hat for me, even with my favourite yarn (Noro) was definitely a statement.

The pattern is easy, it knits quickly because of the thickness of the yarn, and when it was done, it was, well, far too small. So I unravelled and changed things here and there, I'd cast on an additional 7 stitches anyway because the swatch was already on the small side. I added two extra rows of pattern and 3 extra rows when decreasing.

It may have something to do with getting needle sizes wrong between US and UK sizes, because when I wrote my alterations up on Ravelry, I realised that the pattern there asked for 5.5mm size needles, while I thought it was 4.5mm. That may explain a thing or two. Nevermind, it all came out in the end and I left the hospital wearing a hat I love, which suits my strange head and keeps me warm in this rather unusually cold winter.

Photos taken by Cubling with my favourite toy, which, you know, makes it rather attractive to small hands.

The other project was a remote control holder. Much needed. We have like 4 remote controls and it's doing my head in, they are forever hiding in the toy box. So I picked a thick Shetland grown and spun lambswool yarn and a contrast colour from Alpaca wool and got going. Rather far. It's now sitting in front of me and all I can say is that I don't like it one bit.
The yarn is lovely, but the two yarns don't go together, one knits much thicker than the other.
And the woollen yarn just doesn't speak remote control holder to me. It says more like warm hat for Mr Cartside, or slipper socks. It looks plain wrong in this project.
I haven't yet brought myself to unravelling the whole thing, because I spent many hours knitting it in the hospital, but it's not going anywhere. It's a rubbish remote control holder. It did a rather good job as nerve calmer and tear catcher though. Sometimes something becomes much more important than getting a project finished. So, here's the remote control holder that was my best friend in the lonely hours and has done a good, if unexpected job and is now no longer needed.

So unravelling it will be, if another day when I feel more like letting go.