Being Mrs C

Rusty needles

Not literally, but that's how my knitting needles feel right now. There's hardly been a chance to do any since Master C came along nearly 8 months ago. I've still been going along to my weekly knitting group, but more time has been spent bouncing the baby than actually knitting. The refreshments and company do make the whole trip very worthwhile though!

I've been making a real effort these last few weeks to turn this around though and make some "me time" to actually do some of the crafts that I love. Unfortunately not all my efforts have been in the right direction though and my pattern reading skills  - in particular understanding a pattern full of US terminology - needed a fair amount of help. And that's where my wonderful knitting group came along. A couple of weeks with them (and help bouncing the baby!) and I'm now back on track. This afternoon I even managed a spot of knitting in the garden whilst the kids played. 

I'm hoping there's going to be a lot more of this when we really get summer - assuming we do.

Little Miss C's taking a keen interest in what I'm making, especially as it will hopefully be for her when it's complete. It may be over a year since I started this jacket, but I think at last she can see that it might really be wearable - even if she did manage to try it on inside out!

So the plan now is that I make sure I spend a bit of time every day as "me time" - especially since my parenting course is making me realise that I'll be a far better parent if I'm looking after myself as well as the children. It may only be that I manage a row a day, but that's still a million times more than what I was managing before.

Now, time to get off my laptop and get my needles out again.

Still waiting

The moses basket has sat in our bedroom waiting for someone to sleep in it for nearly three weeks now. The hospital bags are all packed and one of them's even ready in the boot of the car. The baby car seat is all fastened in on the back seat too and the double buggy is assembled ready.

My wonderful knitting group have even had time to knit some extra booties.

Both sets of booties from Holly and her magical knitting machine.

But, we're still here waiting for member number four of the C family to join us.

My impatience is really showing - not helped by the fact that we've already had two false starts and trips to the maternity unit at the local hospital. At the first they tried keeping me in on the ward as they thought I might not make it back to the delivery unit in time. Thank goodness I opted to go home to my own bed or else I might still be stuck on a ward waiting. At least the second time the midwife did say that it could be days yet. Truthful, but hard to hear when less than 12 hours later you've had a midwife trying to get you to stay in hospital as the dash up the A1 might not be fast enough.

I'm four days past my due date which is when Little Miss C decided to arrive. Technically there could be another week though before they induce me - I'm pretty sure waiting that long won't be easy at all. Fingers crossed that I don't have to.

Knitted gifts for the new baby

I've written before about the talent and generosity of the knitting group that I go to every week, but even the excited looks they exchanged when I told them I was pregnant didn't prepare me for the knitted baby shower that they threw for me at our meeting last week.

My photos aren't exactly amazing, but I'm still lacking a model to wear most of the items I've been given - one thing's for sure, I'm going to have a very well dressed baby who is going to be kept lovely and warm!

Mary has made this lovely ball for Baby C to play with - complete with a little bell inside it. She also made a beautiful white 4-ply hat which is packed away in my hospital bag for when the baby is born. Being amazingly well known for all the toys that she makes Mary also made a beautiful knitted teddy bear for Little Miss C to make sure that she didn't feel left out with all these gifts. Teddy has been taken to bed with LMC every night since she was given him and I've not yet been able to sneak him away for a photo session - I will though!

Penny (or Purple Penny as she is known to differentiate her from the other four Pennys in the group) made these adorable couple of hats. With the autumn weather having really arrived here overnight I think (s)he will be really needing these!

Holly has been busy on her knitting machine and has come up with this fantastic pair of funky knitted yellow trousers. The tie round the waist means they co-ordinate with some of the jackets that others have knitted below. The bottoms and waist also both fold out to accommodate a growing baby. Knitters are asked to pay particular attention to the gusset and the shaping to fit around a nappy. As these were made from an old pattern they were designed for when babies all wore terry square nappies which are obviously much bulkier than modern day disposables. I'm hoping to use re-usables with this new baby (something I never quite managed with LMC) so it will be interesting to see how they fit and Holly's asked for feedback so that she can adjust the pattern accordingly.

As she's a bit of a whirlwind on her knitting machine Holly also knocked up a fantastic poncho for LMC to wear. With yellow, green and pink stripes complete with a yellow trim it's great fun and ideally designed for a toddler to be able to put on and take off without help. The only problem I have is that LMC wont keep it on long enough for me to take a photograph - the excitement of putting it on and taking it off again is so much that she's yet to wear it for any length of time!

LizAnn made a wonderful colourful version of the Elizabeth Zimmerman Baby Surprise Jacket and as one with an eye for detail she's included button holes on both sides so that I can sew the buttons on the "right" side once we know what flavour baby is! The colours also work perfectly with the yellow trousers that Holly made.

LMC wasn't forgotten by LizAnn though and she made her a cute little purse that she can wear over her shoulder - just a perfect size for carrying around some of her smaller toys, in particular her Schleich animals. Once again, squirrelled away long before I could get any photographs.

Charlotte also went for a Baby Surprise Jacket, but this time with coordinated booties - incredibly cute!

A third jacket from Geraldine, with all the stripes beautifully matched up. This one has lovely little ties on the front of it - so ideal for popping over something else when it's a bit cooler.

Lillian made a gorgeous yellow chick from one of Charlotte's crochet patterns. Adorably cute and already sat in a moses basket waiting for a baby to join it!

Thinking practically Ellen made this lovely blanket that can be used for when baby is on the floor rolling around of just absorbing what's going on around them. Purposefully made in acrylic it can easily be thrown in the washing machine when it gets dirty. The colours haven't come out very well in the photograph, but the bottle green edge works really well with the tweedy-green bit in the middle. It's incredibly soft and makes me just want to snuggle up with it!

This crochet ripple blanket from Rosemary is so tactile - when I laid it out to photograph it I found myself just sat there absentmindedly stroking it for ages whilst watching LMC play. Once the baby's a bit older this will be great for them to experience some lovely textures, as well as keeping them lovely and warm.

There's no chance of baby catching a chill at all as Yvonne also presented me with a lovely crochet blanket in white, beige and lilac. Again very tactile.

As I'm sure you'll agree some stunningly beautiful things made by a talented bunch of women - thank you all so much!

All I need know is a baby to wrap up in all these lovely knits...

Good enough to eat?

Sadly I can take no claim at all for this tin full of goodies. Instead it was one of my knitting group, the very talentend Mary, who passed these round at this week's meeting. They all look fantastic, but the details on the donuts deserves special attention - the beaded bits apparently took an age to sew on individually, but the end result is definitely worthwhile.

My knitting progress is at a crawling pace at the moment, but with people around me sharing completed items like this there's constantly more and more inspiration for things I want to knit just as soon as I have the time!

Cables, of the knitted variety

Here's a sneak preview of my next knitting project. This is the cable yoke of the Top-down Baby and Child's Cable Yoke Jacket designed by the wonderful Cotton & Cloud. As recommended I'm knitting it in Jamieson's Shetland Heather in shade 517 Mantilla.

The pattern starts with the cable yoke that you can see above. Not easy to kit, especially when you start it, but once you're in the rhythm it's not too bad at all. You then pick up stitches from the two edges of the yoke to do the hood and then the body and sleeves. As the rest of the knitting is relatively plain I'm hoping that it will speed up then too.

The plan is that it should be finished by next winter so LMC can wear it to keep warm them. Surely that should leave enough time, even for me!

Lace scarf

It's quite shocking that it was way back in September when I started this scarf and when I first wrote about it here. There was an update in December, but in the end it took until February to finally finish my first chart based piece of knitting.

Whilst I really enjoyed the challenge of this complex piece I have to admit to being relieved that it's over. Trying to keep track of where I was all the time (there's a 60 row pattern in which doesn't have any repeats within those 60 rows!) meant that I ended up using a lot of stitch markers and had to refer to the chart every couple of rows, even when I'd been working on it for nearly six months.

I'm pleased with how it looks now it's finished. It does still need the ends weaving in and to be blocked, but for now I'm just having a little rest from it. There is also an almight mistake in the middle of it where I somehow managed to repeat a block of ten rows within the 60 row pattern, but seeing as that happens roughly in the middle of the scarf I decided to make a bit of a "feature" of it. There was certainly no way that I was going to try taking it back once I did discover it!

The yarn is Rowan Pure Wool 4 Ply and if I could find the ball band I'd even tell you what colour it is! The chart I am following is one for a Lace Scarf by Sarah Hatton that came with the Rowan International members gift a couple of years ago.

Another stripy hat

There's a new baby in St Albans (local bloggers Claire and Alex's third child, an adorable little boy, to be exact) and as everyone knows every new baby deserves something handknitted when they were born and I was delighted to oblige here.

The pattern is the same Sublime one that I followed for the first hat that I made for LMC nearly two years ago. This time I was just using up some ball ends from my stash - possibly James C Brett's pure merino - and at first I wasn't too sure about the colours, but once the stripes came together they really worked very well and I think make a lovely difference to the usual "baby blue" that most baby clothes seem to be.

I was caught out a bit on the timing of this gift though as the little lad wasn't actually due for another week, but some tweets from Alex on new year's eve suggested that his arrival may be far approaching and I therefore saw in the new year with a pair of fast moving knitting needles in my hands!

A sneak preview

This is one of those projects that I can't say much about yet as the recipient will probably come on here and read this blog before Christmas. There will be more details, but all I can say at the moment is that I'm using Debbie Bliss Donegal Luxary Tweed Aran in colourway 360029 and I'm following a free download pattern that I found on Ravelry.

Once I can reveal all I promise that I will link to the patter and provide a more detailed photograph that shows exactly what it is that I'm knitting. I'm loving the pattern though as there's a relatively simple repeat that gives a great finished effect. The yarn is 85% wool 15% angora and has quite a "manly" feel to it - if that makes sense! It knits up really well and I'm also loving the main body colour and the additional multicoloured flecks.

For now I'm going to have to leave you with justthese nuggets of information and crack on with the knitting, or else I won't be finished in time!

Still on the needles

Today's crafty insight isn't something new and isn't anything festive, but is instead an update on the intrictae scarf that I started knitting several months ago now. It's grown in length considerably and following some help from the lovely members of my knitting group I'm now doing quite well actually following the pattern and not getting to the end of a row and suddenly discovered that I have lost or gained stitches!

It's not all been plain sailing though and if you look carefully you might spot an error that's crept in there that I'd decided to leave as is.

Introducing Mr Owl

There's not been much blogging here lately as I've been desperately trying to get on top of the stupid number of craft projects that are in progress at the moment. I'm far from breaking the back of the problem, but I have at least managed to get one particular Christmas present for a very special little girl finished. Meet Mr Owl.

This lovely chap came from a pattern in Knitted Toys by Zoe Mellor and I completed him using some 100% acrylic yarn from my stash and a large assortment of felt in coordinating colours. The knitting didn't take too long (despite an annoying chart in the book), but cutting the felt and then sewing it on did take a while. He's ended up quite large - more cushion than soft toy - but I do just love the expression on his face. Little Miss C adores owls and spots them all over the place. She was particularly excited to see some real owls at the zoo the other day and up until now she doesn't actually have an owl of her own. Christmas should change that though.