Octofriends

My kids are completely obsessed with the show The Octonauts (even Miriam has started calling out "no-nauts" when the show starts!). My friend Jacqui has a little boy who is possibly even more obsessed than Xander (which takes some doing) and she asked me to make him some Octonaut toys so she could swap them for his dummy. I had a great time making them - it's been ages since I made any proper woolly projects and working on something cute is always great! They're finally done - let's hope they do the trick and little E transitions to the world of no dummies without any hassles!

Busy busy

I've been super busy with some really fun knitting / crocheting over the last month or so. Thought I'd quickly put up some pics before I forget because I've given / posted most of them away already. The pants above are made from my super gorgeously soft organic merino. They were such fun to make and I think I'll be doing a similar pair next winter for a special new member of our family :)

I did these cute under the sea pants for another custom order. They're made from super thick Cascade Ecological Wool - should be great for winter and nights :) I made felt for the fish and stitched them on. Always fun to do something new!

This little kimono was for a special new baby at church. I haven't made this style of top before and it was super easy. I had plenty of knitting time up at the hospital - the bright spot in an otherwise pretty stressful day!

Here's a quick pic of some tiny newborn longies for a recently born baby - they seemed to take forever to make even though they're so small. I think I'm not used to 8ply anymore!

Last but not least, here's the first garment I've knitted for T3 (ie the new baby)... I had boy yarn and girl yarn dyed so I could cast on straight after our scan. I suppose you can guess what the result of the scan was! This nappy cover turned out HUGE! I don't think she'll be wearing it for awhile! Loved the pattern though (Vanilla soaker) - totally my fault that my gauge was off! Better too big than too small though I always say!

Cherry blossoms etc

I'm making a pair of longies for someone who wants a cherry blossom theme... woo hoo, how fun! The longies are turning out a little larger than I had planned (how did that happen?) but I'm hoping it will work out (I do have a plan!) and I'll be able to move onto the embellishments soon (the fun part!). I'm planning to blanket stitch on blossoms made from felted merino wool and probably make crotcheted stems / sticks for them to sit on. Have to *ahem* learn to blanket stitch first - can't be that hard right? Lol I'll be back here whining about it in a day or two!

Anway I need a place to dump some links to good photos of cherry blossoms, having never met one in person, so this will have to do.

Close up with pink centre

Cute hats!

Here's a couple of hats I made the other week for a photographer friend who wants them for her newborn shoots. Many thanks to the (disturbingly naked) Baby Zan for modelling so patiently.

Crafting...

I realised I haven't posted anything I've made for ages... here's a selection of my recent crocheting efforts. I've been enjoying making things for my family and people I know more than the shop lately, but I'm getting a few Spring-related ideas for the shop too... better get busy!

My little helper that actually helps!

Woo Hoo... look at my new homemade revoltingly ugly skeiner! Got the instructions (not that you really need instructions!) here and bought the chair today at the op shop. The trick is to get a chair with removable wheels because your prongy bits have to go in the wheel holes. It also needs to spin really easily.

I'm pretty happy with the result. It's really easy to wind the wool into skeins, but not so great to wind the wool off. It doesn't spin freely enough for the ball winder to pull the wool off, which makes the whole process a bit more time consuming. It's still much faster than doing the whole lot by hand though! The wool in the pic is for a custom newborn jacket - a bit of a departure from my usual bright colour schemes, but I think it will be very cute when it's all crocheted up!

Update 21/6... I've used it again today and found that the problem with winding from the swift was that I was trying to wind the wool while it was still damp (to reskein it). Today I waited until it was dry and it worked beautifully!

Things I've been working on....

Here's a couple of things I've been making lately. There's a pair of pants for an online friend's little bloke, a hat for my cousin's boy's birthday, and a cute little custom hat. I'm working on a stack more hats for my Ozebaby shop ... just finishing them off over the next few days.

I sewed JoJo a couple more pairs of pants the other night. When she woke up the next morning I told her I'd made her some new pants and her response was "Oh thankyou mummy, I love the things you make for me"! She's such a sweetie!

JoJo makes me laugh....

We've had a busy week and Jeremy has been a bit late home most nights. On Wednesday I'd made a huge effort to be organised and I had the kids bathed and fed before he got home, so we went into the loungeroom to wait for him. The kids were playing some game or other together and I just pretty much collapsed in exhaustion on the couch. After a couple of minutes JJ looked at me and in a concerned voice asked "Mummy, why aren't you knitting??" and then handed me a crochet hook and a ball of wool. She obviously calls crocheting "knitting" (and won't be corrected, no matter how many times I tell her!). Funny girl :)

Puppet cat and more

I managed to get some fun pictures of JoJo and her precious "Puppet cat" this morning. She's always saying "Puppet cat is such a precious toy isn't she?".

The other pics.. an orchid that JJ chose for me for mothers day, and my first (deliberate!) felting effort - some shoes for Xander. I think they fit pretty well, but I'll wait until he wakes up to try them on him properly (yes that does mean I tried them on him while he was asleep!). I used Nundle Woollen Mills 20ply undyed wool, and my own pattern... fun!

I had a nice mothers day yesterday, even though the kids and I were sick. It was a nice quiet day with some lovely presents (my fave was the loaf of bread Jeremy carefully wrapped for me!) and I started to feel much better as the day went on, and I'm pretty much over my cold now. The kids are both pretty sick still - had a trip to the Dr this morning and now I've got to get antibiotics into Xander somehow. Hopefully they'll be better really soon.

Here's X modelling his new pair of funky pants. They protected his knees from a nasty graze in the swing incident on Sunday (pity I hadn't crocheted him a balaclava as well) and the wool is unscathed, surprisingly (although dirty!). Gotta love that BFL.

I had to put in the pic of X cuddling the sheet - awwww! He loves to cuddle everything!

I really need to take more pics of JoJo - it looks like I never photograph her! She's sick and not very photogenic at the moment though... is that a bad thing to say?!

The bottom pic is some wool I dyed for some longies for a friend's little boy - should be cute!

I'm really worried about my wrist though - it's quite sore and just feels 'fragile'. I'm trying to convince myself it's not the crocheting, but how can it not be, really? I bought a brace for it yesterday and I'm not sure if it's making it better or worse. I really really really hope I don't have to stop the crocheting :( :( :( Something else to pray about hey?

Oh. My. Goodness. My morning this morning was unbelievable. I'll try to type up the condensed version (because I think the computer may actually be the source of my wrist issues... wishful thinking?? Ha ha!).

Ok, we went to a toy shop to attempt to buy a Bilibo for the kids as a treat for being sick, being cute, me being bored, whatever. I wander around the shop for awhile, only to give up and ask for help, and then find that the woman AT THE COUNTER has just bought the last one. ARgghhhhhh!!!! They then ring around and find some more, at I'm SURE they said ***** shop. Ok, we drive to ***** (I get lost on the way of course). We wander around the shop for awhile and then say we want the bilibo that's put aside. The sales girl assumes a blank look and assures me that the other store never rang them... meaning that I was actually meant to drive to a completely different shop approx a million miles away. The sales girl assures me that it's only 10 mins to the other shop and draws me a map. Deep breaths.

Interlude... trip to scary toilets, buy lunch (grrr) at cafe, get in car to find that sandwich was made on Turkish bread which I can't eat (#@$*&^&) so I eat the delicious filling that cost me $6.50.

Attempt to drive to shop.... get somewhat lost, miss exit on inner city bypass, end up in completely wrong suburb, turn around, miss exit again, give up on that shop. Attempt different shop only to be forced to interact with snooty sales staff, who of course have never heard of the toy in question.

Oh, I forgot to mention that X fell asleep on the way to shop 2 and of course refused to sleep when we got home.

One of those days. The kids were surprisingly cheerful which I'm so grateful for, but my oh my it was an ordeal!

A monkey for Mr X

I finally made a special toy for X's birthday present (only 4 months late - not too bad for me!). It's from this pattern : http://quesera.ojaru.jp/osaru-pattern.html and was soooo fiddly, but I'm happy with the end result. JJ seems to like it more than him though! Oh well.