Cascade by Petite Purls

Ta da! Here is the cardigan blocked and with buttons…sadly the weather is terrible so the pictures aren’t great as there’s very little light in the house.

It uses a free pattern called Cascade by Raya Budrevich from Petite Purls (which seems to be some sort of knitting collective for little people patterns). It’s a seamless raglan style cardigan knitted on circular needles. Wow what a quick little knit this was! I should make everything out of worsted weight yarn.

The yarn is Art by Colinette in the Magenta colourway. I’m not normally a fan of varigated yarn as I think they look a big mental (check out the cardigan on the model for the Art yarn on the Colinette website and you’ll see what I mean) but I think you can get away with it for a baby/young child.

I knew it would look great as my Mum had kntted a wrap baby cardigan using the same yarn in a different colourway which was lovely. (My not so subtle admiration of the cardigan my Mum knitted worked as she also made one for Beatrix for Christmas – yay!).

Lovely yarn to work with, pattern was OK although I tried to use mods by Court and I have no idea if I actually managed to make them work or not. I think it looks better than if I’d followed the pattern. To be honest I think this cardigan looks better in the bigger sizes and in a none varigated yarn but I do like my finished item.

If you want to try this pattern then be aware that it comes up a little small…although this isn’t a problem when your baby./child is a little small too!

In other news I made a reindeer stew yesterday (it was half price at the supermarket). I can’t tell you what it tastes like because it’s in the freezer but I’m pretty sure it’ll be similar to venison. Leave me a comment if you’ve tried reindeer.

Read Full Post »

Hello…

…I’m back again. The basic problem with this blog is that I don’t really have time to make anything to show you…which is something of an issue for a craft blog.
Anyway that to one side I do actually have a couple of things that have been finished for a while. I made this version of a taggie blanket in the week before Beatrix was born. I didn’t even know what a taggie was until I saw a little person with one at a playdate.

The aforementioned little person seemed to like it so I thought I’d buy one for my future baby. I looked online and was gobsmacked to find that they were about £13. Err it’s just a couple of pieces of material sewn together with some ribbon on the edge….I can make that for about 50p, I thought.

(Seriously the number of companies making money out of babies because people don’t have basic sewing skills is unbelievable….although obviously I also get that a lot of people don’t have the time/inclination to make this sort of stuff once the bambino arrives).

My version uses a cut down fat quarter from a print that Liberty did for the V&A quilting exhibition. This particular design is ‘Hearts’ in green, taken from a patchwork coverlet from the 1780s and 90s.

I’m sure many of you think that making a taggie blanket from such a nice piece of material is stupid but as I thought there was a chance it might be adopted and totted around for years I wanted something that I didn’t hate the look of.

(My sister had a beautiful handmade…and I mean handmade i.e. all sewn by hand not with a machine…cot quilt that she carried around with her, it’s now completely destroyed but I’m sure it looked super cute and incredibly tastful when she was tiny. I expect my Aunt hoped it would become a family heirloom, you should see it now it’s just little threads of material hanging together like a spider web. I adopted an unattractive stripy pillow case as my comfort blanket, my sister has always had considerably better taste than me).

It’s backed with a piece of soft flannel and the ribbons around the edge are just what I happened to have in my ribbon box that ‘went’ with the quilting fabric.
So as I didn’t buy anything specifically for this project I’m going to consider it free! Babies seem to love chewing and pulling at tags on anything and everything so this would make a great baby shower gift.

The most time consuming part is pinning all the ribbon on. I found the best method was to cut all the ribbon to the same length, fold them in half and then pin them approximately one cm apart from one another. It definetly looks more professional if all the ribbons are around the same length.

I’ve used a variety of ribbons including some grosgrain ones. If I’d had some velvet ones in an appropriate colour I’d have added them as I think the different textures make it more interesting for a little person.

Hope to be back soon, even if it’s just with some work in progress photos. I’ve also started my Christmas presents which is a bit of a nightmare as how do you blog about those when the people you’re making stuff for read your blog? Mmm this is a long post, I need to become more succinct, thanks for reading to the end if you’re still here.

Read Full Post »

Citronille Baby Dress

I really wanted to make a couple of sewn outfits for Beatrix. So before she was born I bought a couple of patterns from a French publisher called Citronille. This company has been all over blogland but I’m pretty sure that I saw it first on Posie Gets Cosy.

I’m not a dressmaker, so choosing a pattern written in French as the second piece of clothing I’ve ever made (the other being a very easy to follow Amy Butler apron pattern, although it was a little on the technical side as it had pleats and such like) was possibly a little ambitious. The pattern is called Lilette and you can make it with either ties (which is what I did) or buttons. It also has a pattern for a cute pair of pants that were incredibly easy and could be made to match any dress.

Modeled by Little Miss Ruffles

In the picture on the Citronille website the dress is worn the other way round to this, but I prefer to keep the ties at the front so that Beatrix isn’t lying on them when she’s on her back (which is where she spends a large amount of her time).

I confess that this outfit was made before Bea was born and although it was pretty straightforward I did struggle with the French (thank goodness for Google Translate). It’s been given a difficulty level of 1, and I think if it was written in English I’d have found it very straight forward. I actually did the main bulk of the sewing on the pants when I was in the early stages of labour!

I think the sizing comes up pretty small. Bea is an average size for her age and although this is a three to six month pattern I really can’t see it lasting very long. I’d like to make this pattern in bigger sizes, although I have to say I’m not sure how I’ll find the time at the moment.

The view from behind (although really this is just an excuse to show you a picture of Beatrix looking cute while she's asleep)

The fabric is 100% cotton and I bought it at my local fabric store in London for £1.99 a metre – I know, how amazingly cheap is that! I have a blue flower print that I’d like to use to make one in a different size.

I have another pattern called Saskia which is long sleeved that I’d like to make for winter, does anyone know if you can line things in fannel or something else similar for extra warmth?

Read Full Post »

Baby printing project

There aren’t many crafts which involve a newborn, but I have found time to make some baby footprints to go in Beatrix’s baby book. My lil sis came to visit so I thought I’d get her to use her artistic skills and help.

While we were doing the footprints for the baby book, we also took some additional prints to mount and make into thank you cards.

I’m very pleased with how the footprints turned out. The handprints didn’t work quite so well…so we abandoned them (if anyone knows how you stop a small baby from making their hand into a fist then please let me know).
These photos were taken when Bea was 22 days old, she’s now six weeks and I can’t believe how much she’s grown!

Read Full Post »

Baby towel

Way back in the summer when we went to France with Kimberly and Simon I bought a couple of bibs with cross stitch panels, which I showed you here, and a towel with a cross stitch panel on the hood. They were purchased from the market in Selles-sur-Chere, I remember thinking that the towel was quite dear so it was probably around eight euros.

After much searching for a suitable pattern I found that I already had one in my cupboard. I don’t remember buying this pattern so if I borrowed it from you then please let me know so that I can return it.

I think it looks very cute on Little Miss Bea, and you’ll be pleased to hear that it stands up to being machine washed, and tumble dried.

Read Full Post »

Baby Bea

So I have a confession to make, my hat post was scheduled – so I wasn’t actually blogging from my hospital bed!

Baby Beatrix Elinor Ruffles arrived bang on time (Mark and I are both impressed that she has already adapted to Swiss time keeping). So I’m not going to bore you with details of the labour etc. but I was pretty convinced that I wasn’t actually in labour right up until I was admitted to hospital at about 6pm. And it all happened in less than 17 hours (from my first contraction).

We are now home from hospital and I imagine that I’m going to be slowing the number of blog posts that I write. For those who like stats she was born at 11.43pm, 31st Jan, 3.42kg and she was 50cm long.

Hope you like the pictures.

Read Full Post »

Storage Solutions

So apparently boxes, and baskets and such like are useful when you have a baby – well according to the ‘Gifts for Baby’ book anyway.

So I bought a couple of baskets from Ikea and I’ve used the leftover fabric from the baby’s room curtains to line the baskets. I used some instructions from the ‘Gifts for Baby’ book, which were pretty good, although I’m not entirely sure that my execution was of them was so great, particularly in the corners.

I’ve also made one of the Purl Bee’s ‘Molly’s sewn stash baskets’. The fabric from Ikea is pretty stiff so I didn’t use the mid-weight stabiliser that they recommended. This is a pretty large basket, I don’t think it would be difficult to make a smaller one though.

I love this fabric, it’s such a great colour combination and I’m thinking if we have any other children it would suit boys as well as girls. Ikea fabric is such great value for money.

Read Full Post »

Flower Mobile From ‘Gifts for Baby’s’

Hi all, my lack of blogging is not because the baby has arrived, it’s because I’ve been busy preparing for the baby to arrive…and doing lots of craft projects.

I am very pleased with this project, it looks brilliant even if I do say so myself. At the moment we have stumbled across a slight problem with actually getting this to hang above the cot, which is why I’ve photographed it outside.

It’s made from lovely 100% wool felt (I know I didn’t really need to use this as it’s not going to be handled but look how lovely the colours are). The felt came from Myriad Toys, which is a LOVELY website (how cute are the puzzles, and the dolls houses, and basically everything they have on the site).

I used a pattern to make this from the book ‘Gifts for Babies’. I didn’t love how it looked in the book, because let’s be honest pink on pink is a little overly girly, and not exactly eye catching. So I made it in six different colours, and I’ve used an old embroidery hoop to hang them from.

This was pretty easy, although the zigzag stitch around the edge of the flowers was a little on the tricky side. Pretty chuffed with how it’s turned out.

(Although I see that I’ve managed to take a close-up of a bit that’s less than neat – annoying).

Read Full Post »

Patchwork seat cover

I’ve never done any patchwork but I wanted to make a padded seat to go on the rocking chair for the babies room (there’s a fair chance that I’m not going to end up using this chair, but hey at the moment it sure does look pretty!).

I didn’t really want to go out and buy new fabric to make the seat cover, partially because I didn’t want the expense, but also because I wanted it to match the bunting I made. So I decided to ‘have a go’ at making a patchwork seat cover.

This side is made from the ABC, and 123, strips that could be found between the various patterns on the Happy Campers Moda fabric I used for the baby bunting.

And this side is made up of the leftover patterned pieces of fabric that I had. The ties are made out of folded over bias binding. And if you want to know more about the cushion then you’ll have to pester Kimberly as she made it.

I prefer the side with the diagonal stripes. I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out, this is all machine pieced and I have to say it was considerably harder to get it looking good than I thought it would.

(The curtains are made from Ikea fabric – thank you Mum!).

Read Full Post »

Winter baby gift

One of the annoying things about blogging is that you feel like you’re letting the side down if you blog about the same thing more than once. So you’ve already seen one of these baby vests but I loved the pattern so much that I decided to make another for a new baby from Mark’s work.

The pattern is Milo and this one features an aran braid. I just love the simplicity of this pattern and the speed with which it knits up. I’d say this took me six hours all in (and that includes sewing in the ends etc).

So if you’re looking for an easy and satisfying project to knit for a baby shower than I can thoroughly recommend this pattern. Also it’s really good value as it comes in sizes from newborn to age 6 – definetly worth the five aussie dollars it cost me. I hope to make more of these in the new year but I feel like I’m really running out of time before the baby is due so we’ll have to wait and see!

Read Full Post »