Making playdough

TWO has had some form of bought playdough in the house now for a year or so. But as is the way with all the playdough in the world, it was getting dry and sad recently.

We were getting towards the end of the holidays from dagis and I was still pretty immobile, so playing in the park and adventures outside were out of the question. 

So we made some of our own and as is my wont, it was dyed with bright colours. 

I used a recipe I found on the playgroups Australia website and it worked really well. I added a few drops of peppermint essence to the dough too. 

Here's the recipe if you don't fancy following the link:

1 cup salt
2 cups plain flour
1 tablespoon of oil
1 tablespoon cream of tartar
2 cups water
food colouring

Combine all ingredients in a saucepan. Heat, stirring continuously until the dough becomes thick and pulls away from the side of the saucepan. Take out and knead. Split into small balls for dying and mix through dye in each. I made 6 because I had six pots leftover from the store bought stuff. Store in airtight container.



We had a great time making different cakes and shapes. So my objective was achieved, entertain madam in a manner that allowed me to sit down and rest my knee. The colours got all mixed up and it's not necessarily the prettiest looking dough anymore. But It's still good for making things and when it's done its job I can just make some more. Cheap and cheerful. Huzzah.

My cousin is having a baby, so I got to sew and knit

TWO is very specific about the clothes she likes to wear now. She is particularly enamoured with stripes, blue and black. Which is great in one way because it means that our shopping trip yesterday to pick her up a few things for this autumn went well. There are a lot of stripes at the moment and she found some new bright blue pants that will see her through most of the autumn. 

The downside is that all my patterned fabric that I love is not considered worthy and she outright rejects so much of the cute stuff I have to offer her. 

Here comes the benefit, my cousin is about to have her second baby in a few weeks and I was able to use some of my new favourite elephant print fabric to make a pair of big butt baby pants. But I decided to change things up a bit and added a waistband and cuffs in ribbing. I'm really happy with how they turned out and hopefully they will look fantastic on the small person in the upcoming Australian summer. 

And due to my somewhat immobile status of late I've had a lot of time to knit. I bought some cotton/lyocell mix yarn in France and thought it would be perfect to make a facewasher. I found a gorgeous fish pattern on ravelry and sat and watched some Stephen Fry documentaries on youtube while knitting it up. It took almost no time at all and I'm really happy with how it came out. 

ravelled here

Newest knitting project -Alberni cowl and a challenge

photo source

We spent last weekend in southern France. We went to visit a friend of mine, Kristin,  and her family who had just moved to France recently and with two small kids for TWO to play with, it seemed like a silly idea not to spend a long weekend enjoying all things French.

Kristin has just started a photography business specialising in maternity and newborn photography, that link goes to her site, check it out. So we also had a bit of a photo shoot with TWO and her elder son who is just a month older than TWO. If you happen to find yourself around Toulouse, I can highly recommend her skills. 

We had a wonderful time eating lots of duck, drinking lots of beer and wine and Kristin and I got our knit on while the kids rested in the middle of the day. 

Saturday saw us take a day out without the kids, on the metro into the centre of Toulouse. We ate crepes, wandered around, bought some yarn for a joint remembrance cowl knitting experience (pattern here), drank coffee on the central square and watched the police chase a Palestinian protest. We got home just in time for dinner. 

We plan on having a knit a long of the Alberni cowl using the same yarn in different colours. I've got the raspberry and she has the purple. An easy way to remember our lovely afternoon wandering around the streets of Toulouse and the whole weekend of visiting fun. 

I cast on today and set myself a challenge. I have wanted to learn to knit like a Swede (ie continental knitting) for a while now. It is supposed to be faster than English knitting and better for colour work, which I have intentions of getting into. But every time I have started a new project, I have been too impatient to slow down my knitting speed to learn it properly. But as I'm knitting along with Kristin, and I know she won't have a chance to cast on for a while, it seems appropriate now to attempt to learn. Wish me luck and patience, I think I will need them both. If you fancy following my progress it will be over at ravelry : here. 

photo source

OWL hat

If you know Kate, you know she loves an owl. I think it stems back to the time that I was pregnant with TWO and it was all the rage to have owls on everything. For me it appealed no end and I made good use of the trend. Lots of onsies and wall decals and things with an owl motif. I even sewed a swaddling cloth by hand in an owl print flanellette. This is a demonstration of my enthusiasm for owls, evidence of the boredom I felt at being told to rest from 30 weeks due to premature contractions and an indication that I should have bought a sewing machine in Sweden much earlier than I did.

In any case, owls, love em. 

A dancing friend of mine, who possibly gives the best hugs known to man, was diagnosed with breast cancer last year and was on the search for hats to keep her head warm during winter while undergoing chemotherapy. We both love the 20s in terms of style and I searched until I found this. It is almost cloche like (okay not really) and has owls on it! I started it almost immediately in a very soft DROPS 100% alpaca yarn. And would have finished it sooner were it not so difficult to find eyes that I liked. 

Here you can see it without eyes, and it really doesn't pop in quite the same way.



And with a close up of the unworn hat, you can see just how lovely it is. My friend helped me pick the beads to make the eyes after a lovely sushi train lunch in town. After which I was able to hand over the hat, finally, at the beginning of spring. The colour ended up very closely matching her lawn and she sent me a photo of the two together. But I'm not sure if she wants me sharing that photo here. But she wasn't wrong, they matched almost perfectly. 

Even better news than the matching grass to hat situation was that the chemo and radiation have finished. She has an excellent prognosis and her hair is growing back. But I hope that the owl hat gets another go next winter anyway. 

Raveled here

Lotta Lotties. Well, two.

One of my oldest friends is the mother to two gorgeous girls and lives in Tasmania. She's always been really good at remembering birthdays and occasions and tells amazing stories. I am less good at the remembering birthdays and sometimes get far behind in the gift giving. So early last Autumn as it started to cool down here in Gothenburg, I thought of her girls and what I might be able to make for them for their upcoming winter, some eight months away. 

A friend put me onto the Lottie set and I was immediately delighted. I used a DROPS yarn called Nepal which was so soft  to work with at 65% wool and 35% alpaca. Perfect for kids clothes and extra warm for those freezing Tasmania winters. I have a bit of a thing for DROPS actually. I'm not a fan of their patterns, but their yarns are delightful.

In any case, I finished them up in what felt like record time and sent them off to the girls. They were well received and worn almost immediately on arrival. 

For the smaller of the two, a redhead, I picked a natural colour and used purple buttons as an accent. 



And for the bigger of the two, a blondie, I picked a red with wooden buttons.



Apologies for the lighting in these photos, didn't end up taking them on a particularly light day. And I was under time pressure to try and get them done and sent to Australia before it got too warm. 

Such a fun knit with a chunky yarn. I so often work with sports weight and sock yarn that it's nice to get something that knits up quickly. 

Crayon rolling

My newest go to gift for the toddler set has to be crayon/pencil rolls. I enjoy the process of choosing which of my scraps of fabric are going to be used. It's a bit like the principle I apply with the burp cloths I make for newborn babies. You don't need much fabric and end up with something functional and pretty. 

I made a whole bunch of them as gifts for three year olds on our trip back to Australia. But the one I wanted to show you today was for a friend's daughter, living in Seattle.

I bought the fabric initially as a remnant to make a wheat bag for my running buddy. I used what was left from that to make a knitting roll as part of a craft swap with my friend. There was just enough to make the matching crayon roll for her daughter. 



I really enjoyed this one because I added a layer of fleece in the middle and quilted it together with some turquoise thread. 



I am reliably informed that it gets a lot of use, especially when they are travelling. 

Grateful three

When I was in the midst of post natal depression after the birth of the wee one, I used to try and get a list of three things I was grateful for together every day. It was a way to help remind myself that there were positive things in the world and that everything wasn't as bad as I imagined.

I'm not depressed anymore, huzzah!, but I am currently suffering from a cold that includes much snot and a sore throat. So I've decided to bring back the grateful three here.

1. The boy is back from four days away in Korea for work and I am no longer solo parenting.

2. My strawberry plants have flowers.

3. I finished a pair of socks that are made from leftover sock yarn that wasn't enough to make a whole pair of socks on their own. They are the kind of socks that just make you happy to look at. 

When clearing out your crap from your parents, you find the darndest things

When we left Australia in 2009, it was only intended to be a 2 year trip. Some five years later, we are still in Sweden. We have even been granted permanent residency and are allowed to stay indefinitely. 

So what do you do when you are only going to be away for two years? You leave some useful stuff behind that doesn't fit in a suitcase. Right? 

Exactly.


So amongst the pots, pans, crockery, cutlery and linen left in boxes in the shed, I found a lot of my old sewn items and sewing supplies. Including a little pin book I made and the pinking shears I used to make it. Score! Both items fit in my luggage on the way back and will get some good use in the coming months I'm sure. 

Here is the pin book:



It features an applique dog made from fabric I used to make a 1939 dress. And inside it uses the same fabric I used to make PJ pants from and then subsequently dribble cloths for TWO when the PJs got a huge hole in them. That fabric has done some amazing things in the last 9 years.


 

It even had needles and pins still inside and they were still sharp and useful. Winner, winner, chicken dinner! 

Roads and robots

Last summer we went to Munich for a week to visit my exchange partner and her family. I went on exchange to Germany when I was fifteen and we are still in contact now, some 18 years later. 

She had just given birth to her second child, a little boy. I wanted to make something for him that was appropriate for summertime. So I made a couple of pairs of newborn sized big butt baby pants, which have become a staple of TWO's wardrobe.

I like them because of the wide leg as well as the ample bum space for our once cloth nappied child. 

I had leftover fabric from a pair I had already made for TWO, a brown corduroy with cars and roads on it. I also had enough leftover from my first Geranium dress that I had made for TWO. 

I think they're cute, yeah?

A knitted carrot and potato - a knitting commission

The back story:

Two friends of mine were in New Orleans around the time of the girl's birthday. The boy was buying lots and lots of music and the girl said "At this rate, you'll only be able to afford a carrot and potato for my birthday."

Lo and behold, on her birthday she was presented with a delightfully wrapped gift box, containing a carrot and potato.

Since then that gift theme has been reproduced at various time points. 

The commission: 

The boy cornered me at a PhD dissertation party in late November and asked if I could knit a carrot and potato for the girl for Christmas. I was enthusiastic about the project and went about getting it sorted. 

The execution: 

I found a tutorial for both the potato and the carrot. I also found some orange yarn in a shop, and brown and green yarn in my stash to knit them up. 

They were fun to make and very quick. I am most pleased with the outcome. Moreso with the carrot than the potato, but the potato did its job in looking vaguely potato like.

I was reliably informed that they were well received and I am really glad to have been able to bring a bit of fun to them at Christmas. 

Here you can see the finished products. I can see myself getting involved in making more fruit and veg in the future. Maybe some apples and pears, seeing as I can't eat them anymore.  

Ravelled here

Back when it was sunny

So back when it was sunny, I finished making my wee one a pair of socks in some leftover sock wool. She has an enthusiasm for blue of late and fortunately this was a featured colour in this yarn. 

Can I just say that I love knitting socks for kids? Great, I love knitting socks for kids. So incredibly quick to knit up. Quite a contrast to making socks for adults with enormous feet. 

Here are the kid socks, in the sun. The sun that has been conspicuously absent from our lives of late. 



There are another blue pair that TWO chose the wool for herself floating about. But I am yet to photograph them. Perhaps an action shot, if she stands still long enough. 

Under the sea puerperium

What week is complete without another puerperium? I think I posted about this one previously. It was knitted up from hand dyed wool and was intended for a friend who is actually due this week. 

This is what it looked like back then, when I was knitting up from the green wool that had been dyed twice, once in yellow and then again in blue. 



It was a little too busy, colour wise,  for my personal preferences, so I overdyed it blue. Just to make it more green and not so yellow was what I told myself. I may have been a little too enthusiastic with the blue dye as this is the result:



Whoops!

So rather than send this now blue cardi to my friend, I decided it would become a cardi for a different friend, who is also expecting a baby in the winter time. I wanted to use the right colour buttons to bring out what I felt was the oceanic quality of this cardi. So I headed to Knapp Karlsson, button shop of the gods and got some lovely pearlescent buttons to complete the project. I'm very happy with how it turned out. 




And closer up:




Thank goodness my friends near and far are of the age that I can make a mistake with a newborn knit and still have someone to give it to. 

Progress!

Yesterday I started knitting mittens for TWO and in and of itself, this is not really a big deal. But the big deal is, I'm following a pattern written in Swedish. Wheeee! Integration comes in all kinds of shapes and for me, following a knitting pattern in my third language is worthy of note. Huzzah!

More puerperium love, with a twist

I have made the puerperium cardigan many times. It is my go to newborn cardi. I can't help myself. I'm a sucker for a raglan sleeve and a quick knit. And any opportunity to have cute buttons is always a plus. 

But I like to play with things I'm familiar with. I usually use a recipe once or twice and follow it exactly as written. Then I can get a bit more creative with it. 

What I did in this instance was to change the sleeve on the cardigan to a short, ribbed sleeve. 



Here's how I did it, should you wish to do the same. 

When you pick up the stitches underneath the armhole to do the arms, pick up 5 stitches to make it 36 stitches in the round.

Then knit in rib, k2,p2. Do so in the round until the cuff measures about 2-3 cm. Cast off in pattern.

TA-DA! Ribbed short sleeved cuff. I think it looks cute and means that I was able to knit this cardi with just one ball of the yarn. The lovely alpaca yarn from Drops. 

Enjoy!





Raveled here.

Knitted cloths, functional and playful

I love knitting. It's something that keeps my ever busy hands busy with something functional. If I didn't knit, I think I would spend a lot of time just tapping or fiddling with things like pens and I would annoy the crap out of everyone in my vicinity. 

So one thing that I find as a quick and easy gift for new babies and kids alike is the knitted facecloth. Knitted in cotton, they work well as face washers in the bath or as blankets for toys. 

When TWO was small, these small projects kept me busy, but weren't so involved that my overtired brain couldn't cope. 

Here I present to you the birthday gift for Imogen. Her name in cloths. I found the pattern for them here.

What's on my needles, or what was on them last week

I recently purchased a set of knit pro interchangeable circular needles. With needles ranging in size from 3.5mm to 8mm and different cord lengths, it's a really useful little kit and the needles are beautiful. I particularly like working with knit pro needles because they feel so good when you are knitting, smooth and warm.

I've been working on my favourite pattern for newborns for a friend expected her second child at the end of this year, a puerperium cardigan. I've shown previous versions I have made here and here. 

This time I dyed some wool with yellow and then blue to make a variegated yarn. It hasn't ended up quite how I wanted, so I overdyed it this weekend with blue, as I found the yellow flecks made it too busy. I will post a photo of the completed cardi soon. But here's the work in progress.


I took the photo of the cardi while waiting for my students to turn up for my balboa class last Thursday night. I'm teaching a beginners class with the delightful Gašper and will have to write a post about the joys involved sometime soon. I'm really enjoying teaching beginners again, and as a follow too. But more on that another day. I hope you enjoy the almost completed, hand dyed, green puerperium.

Crocadippo

My sister in law loves the colour purple. So when it was time to work out what to make my niece, her first daughter, something for her first birthday, I knew it had to be purple. 

I found this pattern for a crocodile at a fabric shop here in G-town. It is my go to place for new fabric and very lovely accessories like this, more on those beauties later. 

I also found some lovely corduroy, or what the Swedes refer to as Manchester, in a deep purple colour and set about making my first softy. 

I now need to explain, the instructions were in Swedish, and relatively brief. The tail construction was particularly difficult to follow. As a result, the crocodile didn't quite end up looking as much like a crocodile as it might otherwise have done. It was more of a crocodile/hippo cross breed. Hence the name crocadippo. 

The wee one loved it and was loath to give it away to her cousin. I had intended to make her one, but I haven't quite got onto it yet. One day. I'll add it to my ever extending list of projects. 

Hand dyed puerperium cardigan for Shell and Con's baby

So probably my closest friend here in G'town is Shell. We hang out pretty regularly and shoot the shit. As a fellow scientist type, Shell has a similar perspective on the world and we enjoy talking about science, life and food. 

She and her Swedish boyfriend, who I call Con, are expecting their first baby in February. I'm rather excited for them and had planned to make them something for the baby. My favourite baby cardigan has to be the puerperium cardigan. It is adorable and practical. 

So I started with the premise that I would knit up a cardi in red yarn that I dyed myself. However, once I did the first round of dyeing with the red food colouring as per this post, I really didn't like the red. It was too coral and not bright enough. I made the decision then to put some yellow in it and make an orange instead. The result was awesome. I was incredibly happy with it.


As you may be able to note from this picture, I ran out of yarn just before I reached the bottom of the cardi. So I had to dye more yarn. But I'm very happy with it anyway. 

Shell is a huge fan of squirrels and so finding these squirrel buttons was just the icing on the cake.  Finishing up what has ended up being a rather autumnal garment. Hopefully it will brighten the dark Swedish winter and keep her wee one warm and snug come Feb. 





Raveled here. 

Scrap happy baby gifts

I love making gifts for people. It satisfies my creative self and stops my house being filled with things I've made that I can't use. I'm also a big fan of reusing/recycling or using up the last scraps of fabric from other projects. So when I saw that Dana had a tutorial for burp cloths I had a solution to a couple of problems. I have lots of scraps and babies to make gifts for. 

For example, from left to right in the picture below I have some remnant fabric I used to make a wheat bag for my running buddy, lining fabric for a dress I made for a friend, and spotty stuff from a dress I made for a friend's daughter. 
All made up into burp cloths and tied with that ribbon that you get on some ladies garments for hanging. I often cut those off to use for this kind of purpose because they make the cloths stay together and also because they look cute bundled up. 



At the end of last year, some more scraps helped me make a gift for my yet to be born niece in Queensland. My sister in law was expecting her second around Christmas last year so I sent a parcel for her older daughter and the yet to be born baby. My sister in law loves the colour purple, so I used a fair bit in the gifts for the girls. Here you can see the mooshy bunny (with tutorial) that I made from leftovers from other projects, including a bell inserted in that squishy belly.



And here are the cloths themselves with my knitted facewasher that I found the pattern for here. 

From left to right we have, floral fabric that I loved but had no specific project for, leftover dress fabric from a 2nd birthday dress for a friend's daughter, lining fabric as above, another love fabric without specific project and finally the green with the floral is a pair of my PJs that I had worn out the bum on and pulled apart to reuse in projects like these. 



I'm guessing you've worked out the niece's name started with a 'H' right?

I love that I can reuse old clothes and leftovers from other projects to make colourful gifts for friends and babies and friends' babies. I'm feeling the desire to get the rabbit pattern out again and make some more. They are easy to make and super cute.  

Fluffy pants for Bean

As I mentioned in a previous post, I made a number of things for my new niece, who I have referred to here as Bean, when my brother visited in the middle of this year.

Here is another of those things. I made her a pair of velour pants with striped waistband and cuffs. 

I bought the green velour a year or so ago at a craft fair, with the idea of using it for TWO in some capacity. But then never found exactly the right project for it. 

Then when we were looking for fabric for Bean's pants it suddenly seemed appropriate. I love fuzzy pants on babies. When TWO was in cloth nappies my favourites were the fuzzy ones. The fuzz feels fabulous when you spend a lot of time holding onto a small bottom and TWO had many pairs of fuzzy dacks.

I used an Ottobre pattern for these ones, #4, Summer Sea from the 3/2013 edition. My Ottobre enthusiasm is well known. TWO's birthday dress from this year was a mash up of two different Ottobre patterns. But more on that later. The shower calls, I've just finished my first run in a couple of weeks.