Knitting Box – Page 19 – I knit, I sew, I blog

Busy busy

Sewing up some book bags / totes for a stall at Kirribilli markets this Saturday (28 July). If you happen to be in the area, come and say hi! Belinda and Jade will be minding the stall in the morning, while Corrie and I will be there in the afternoon.

The photos above were taken sometime last week, so I’ve made some progress since then. However progress has slowed somewhat since the arrival of the new Harry Potter book. I haven’t finished yet, so no spoilers here!

Knitting hasn’t been abandoned completely, because I still need my knitting. One Jaywalker sock is done, and another is on its way.

24 July 2007

Giving and receiving

Back in May, I won a copy of the Silly Bunny pattern by Melly & Me, just by commenting on their blog. I was gobsmacked, as I had never won anything before. So thank you, Melly and Rosie! I thought the bunnies look cute, and I love how you can use small amounts of various fabrics (great way to use scraps!), as with many of Melly & Me’s other patterns. And now I have my own silly bunny 🙂

Then I won some yarn and DPNs from Yarn magazine‘s Winter Warm-up Competition! Thanks, Barbara! I feel very lucky indeed. The yarn is Rare Yarns ‘Rare Fire’ yarn (alpaca/mohair/merino combo). I’ll probably make these bed socks with them.

And earlier this month I had another meetup with Belinda and Corrie, and I also got to meet Danni from Pyglet Whispers. As usual we had a lucky dip, and I was the recipient of Belinda’s package, which contained a skein of sock yarn and the lovely birdie fabric. And Danni gave us some of her lovely handmade cards. Thanks, girls!

For the lucky dip I made this tote bag, which went to Corrie. I think she likes it 🙂

I love that skipping girl print from Sprout Designs, and the Mollybirds print by Kristen Doran. Close up of the detail here.

Also, I made these coasters for a friend’s housewarming.

It’s nothing original though, I’ve seen quite a few of these lovely patchwork coasters around the blogs and I just love the little patchwork. (There’s also a tutorial here.)

16 July 2007

Squeak!

Uh oh. I blame this book. Those cute amigurumi!! I just can’t resist. Especially when reinforced by cuteness like these. The book is not actually an amigurumi book, but it has some amigurumi patterns and step by step pictures of the crochet stitches. I actually tried to learn crochet a long time ago, I borrowed a how to crochet book from the library but I just couldn’t get it. But now it suddenly just clicked. Must be the motivation factor! Oh, and crochet tutorials online are a great help too! Like the learn to crochet series at Crafty Daisies and the crochet basics at Purl Bee.

Anyway, this mouse amigurumi pattern is not from that book, it’s from here (scroll down a bit for the little mouse pattern).

11 July 2007

Bagsket

If you remember the workbasket that I made a while back, Suzanne from foofanagle had made a tutorial describing how she made hers. I was cracking my brain about how to write the tutorial when Suzanne contacted me saying that she’d like to make a tutorial for the basket. It’s no easy task, so thank you, Suzanne! And check out the gorgeous bagskets that she made!

10 July 2007

Baby Knits

My next door neighbour just had a baby, and upon learning that it’s a girl I knew I had to whip this up.

Pattern: Saartje‘s Bootees (pdf), small size
Yarn: Filatura Di Crosa Zara in off-white, about half a ball for this pair
Needles: 3mm straights

Very, very quick knit, this one. Even including weaving in the ends. In fact it took longer to wait for them to dry after blocking than to knit them up. (I ‘blocked’ it on one of the rainy days last week. Wasn’t exactly blocking, really, just a little wash.)

You might notice that I use this Zara yarn quite a bit here. It’s the same yarn that I used for the here and there cables scarf. I bought a sweater’s worth of this yarn, but then I realised that I don’t want a white sweater. But as it turns out, this yarn makes great baby items because it’s low maintenance (washing machine friendly).

And then I thought the baby would need a warm hat to fend off the winter chill, so I also made this.

I made up the pattern myself, inspired by the cables on this cabled sweater. When I got my copy of the latest Interweave Knits I was struck by those pretty cables on the cover that I thought I should try to incorporate the stitch pattern somewhere.

The rib and cables pattern makes the hat very stretchy, I’d imagine the baby can get a lot of use out of it as she grows. I made the hat for a newborn, but it can also (barely) fit Annette, although it’s a bit too snug for her.

Pattern: Made it up myself
Yarn: Filatura Di Crosa Zara in off-white, 1 ball
Needles: 3mm circulars, magic looping

2 July 2007