Baby Gift

Congratulations (again!) to Emma and Family on the birth of little Miles, seeing as we had the privilege of knowing that bubs was going to be a boy I was prepared before he was born and had his gift already made and ready to give on the day he was born! I made a small cot size baby quilt with a panel I had ordered from a fabric shop in America, the panel itself was flannelet so nice and warm for the coming winter months! I backed it with a 100% cotton rather than using a flannelet again as I didn't want it to be too warm though! Apparently the colours and Owl theme match perfect to his nursery which was a bonus! Here is the finished product:

Excuse the shadowing, wasn't the greatest day for taking photos!

All folded up and ready to be wrapped

x Sharelle

And then there were 6

Hello all, and update to let you know that our precious bundle has arrived. Little master Miles arrived in the early hours of Thursday the 24th of May. We are all completely smitten with him and are now settling into the life of a family of 6.

Brand new and adorable!

But while we were patiently (or not so!) waiting for his arrival I spent a bit of time behind my new sewing machine that my dear husband had bought me for my birthday, and the results; a t-shirt dress for Miss Halle. The shirt was purchased and I found some cotton to match, whipped up this gathered skirt without a pattern in sight, in an afternoon. Admittedly, there are things I would do different if I were to make another, but I have one very pleased little recipient, so that's all that matters for now! I am really keen to get into a bit more sewing, but the crochet WIPs are backing up, and there is a newborn in the house too, so my crafting must take the back burner for just a little while me thinks. Oh but you know what? I can breastfeed and crochet at the same time.... how convenient!!!!

xx Emma

All we need now is the baby..

So with just days to go before our new little family addition is due, Im finally getting the last little bits sorted. So by the end of this post Im sure you all will have no questions as to what we are expecting gender-wise! Lets hope the sonographer was right!!! Ha  ha!!

Firstly I have my very own home made baby blanket, washed, blocked and ready to go. This is basketweave stitch (in crochet of course!) and the pattern I followed- more so in colour than directions, is found here. Can you believe there is almost 1000g (yes! 1kg) worth of yarn in this.. definitely a yarn eater project! But will be sure to keep a little one warm through the winter months ahead!

I am oh-so very close to finishing the baby's going home outfit too, which I will share with you now too. The vest is my own improvised pattern, using simply a sc,dc pattern to make the effect. (Ps, see you can make ribbing in crochet too!!) The hat is my age old newsboy cap pattern. And then the boots are a pattern that I simply could not resist from purchasing any longer, from Lovely Crow. Leanne had such success with this pattern too, and Im really impressed with how well it was written and illustrated. A great buy, and the results.. squee! Picture perfect!!! Just to finish the 2nd bootie before he arrives now!

I will attempt to get better close ups when there's a little baby wearing it!! :D

Thats all for now!!

x Emma

Baby blanket

Hello strangers!!! Im back for an update. The hooks have still been going madly but the projects somehow fail to get to that completed stage! A huge thanks to Bec who made me a gorgeous notepad cover for my birthday, Im am going to be putting it to real good use and noting down all these UFO's that I need to complete, and then get stuck right into them! But here is one that I CAN share with you, before I wrap it up and send it off as a very belated newborn gift (the baby is 12 weeks old already!!)

My camera never fails to disappoint me when it comes to capturing the true colour, especially the green which is very strong IRL. But still, it gives you an idea of how it turned out anyway. The square pattern was actually from my CAL project that I am working on for this year. This was one of March's squares (I havent even started Aprils!) Here is a link to the pattern.

So hopefully seeing that winter is fast approaching, this lil bubba can get some use out of her new blanket.

xx

Em

Rainbow Stitching...

Wow, it has been a long time between posts for me!

I have started to get back into the sewing swing this year, but so far most of my projects have been part of my challenge that I set for myself this year - a year of handmade gifts. It's going well so far, if you would like to see what I have been up to click here!

Recently we got together for a craft night again - with a rainbow theme this time! We hope to use our projects from the night as part of a new header for our blog so keep an eye out for a few changes.

My project from the night was a rainbow butterfly stitched onto cotton using some nice bright embroidery threads and a simple back-stitch. At the time I wasn't sure what I would use the embroidery for but have since thought of a good idea for it's use - stay tuned!

A quick sewing update!

Hi Everyone :)
Its been awhile (well a long time actually!) with good reason though, the past few months haven't allowed for much craft business, hubby had holidays (Christmas), we sold and moved house and are now in the process of building again and we also found out we are expecting baby number 3 (due mid sept!)! So lots of excitement all round just not alot of productivity sewing wise. In the few months since I have posted I did complete a couple of projects, Ill share 2 of them with you now and the other I still need to go back and take photos of as it has been gifted on!
Firstly:

This was my first large sewing project that I've completed, its a single bed size patchwork quilt and will be going on my Miss 2yr olds bed, when she finally vacates the cot (no hurry here although I'd love to see it on a bed!) I purchased the pattern from our local patchwork shop along with the fabric, surprisingly it didn't take me long to complete either! I did 'cheat' by getting it professionally quilted as my basic machine isn't really all that capable of quilting such a large project, anyway here it is,

Not the greatest of photos, but you get the general idea :)



Close up of some of the fabric used

And last another project that was started end of last year with the aim of it being finished my beginning of Feb when our friend Henrietta's baby was due, sadly I didn't meet my deadline but gave it to her shortly after bubs arrived, better late than never! So I made what I call a Magic Pillow (another name Iv heard used is Quillow) No pattern was followed, I just bought a panel (or was it maybe 3!) from Spotlight and with my Mums help measured some that she had previously made, quilted it and then sewed the pillow on. Wow that made it sound simple but at the time it was a bit more complicated, although I do have plans to make another so It cant have been that bad! Here are the pics of it completed,

Again sorry for the poor photo quality, we were in the middle of moving when I gave it to her!

and folded up into a pillow :)


Till next time,
Sharelle x

Owly

Just a quick post tonight!
So my hands continue to keep busy, this time I thought I would build a friendly little guy whom my daughters have name Owly (original eh?) He stands at approx 20cm tall, all soft and squishy!

He is a mish-mash of all sorts of patterns, mixed in with a bit of my own design.

Emma

For a new little addition

Well I must start with a huge congratulations to Hen with the birth of her new little princess!! She is such a cute little one, and so glad she arrived safely! Ofcourse I couldnt resist making something for her..

I made this set out of 8 ply cotton, so it should feel nice and soft on that new baby skin! The patterns were from all over the place so I will share with you the links! The dress pattern is found here, I went with a bit of a 'watermelon' theme, so I changed the colour to beige for 2 rows before finishing off with a trim of green. I must admit I lost count of rows (7-14) so I do think 2 more were added, which would not have gone to waste as Hen's little miss is quite long! I worked this dress up with a 5mm hook, so a slightly finer outcome than the pattern shows.

The booties are a pattern I found years ago (I can say that now, its coming up 2 years since I took up this hobby of mine!) and its still the best pattern Ive come across for a simple bootie shape! So the link is here I worked with a 4mm hook, and stopped the pattern after row 11 and finished off by slip stitching all the way around to tighten it up. The straps are a simple chain which I started by slip stitching up the side and then making the length I needed (approx 26ch) and then slip stitching back down the side again to create a loop. The tiny flower button was my own little improvised pattern as follows:

(use a 3mm hook)

Start with a magic loop (or chain 4 and slip stitch back into 1st chain to make loop) then *ch 2, dc2 into loop, ch2 and slip stitch back into loop*. Repeat the instructions between the astericks 4 more times (5 petals in total) then finish off. Leave a tail to attatch to bootie.

And then lastly the large double layered flower that I used on the headband and dress is found here. Im quite surprised to discover that this pattern is now for sale, when Im quite sure it was not a couple of years ago when I downloaded it!

The headband is a simple chain length made with a 3mm hook, measuring total length of 36cm to go around little princess' head!

So that is all for now!

xx Em

Progress!

Hi again! Ive got one of my many blankets completed, YAY! It was only the realisation that the bub that will be wrapped in this, is due in under 5 weeks which prompted me to get out my darning needle and work on all those dreaded ends. So here it is!

And a bit of a close-up view of the edging..

My next little thing to show off is wrapped around my expanding waistline as I type. The pattern is for a necklace, but I needed a little something to fancy up these maternity dresses, so this is what I came up with:

And lastly for this post, some more squares for my CAL. Its February right? So there had to be a valentine flavoured one (not exactly what I voted for, but it still turned out pretty!)

Still blocking for this pic, but now completed.

And two more for February (Im on a roll, so will try make as many as I can before I slow down in May!) makes 6 in total.

And to give you and idea on size, each square Im making is made with 36 stitches per side (in the dark blue for easier joining later!) and is blocked to 21cm sq, thats a bit over 8 inches in the old measurements.

So that'll be all for now!!

xxEm

CAL Afghan 2012

Hello blog world! Its already the new year. I apologise for it being so quiet from this end over the past month, but that seems to be what happens around this season. Lots of lovely family time, and fun in the sun. But we're almost settling back down to normality now, big miss 5 year old starts preschool next week, and even hubby has returned to work this week after 4 weeks off. But my hooks have not been idle. Ive got soo many blankets on the go that I think I should share, another collection of photos of unfinished projects!!

These first pictures are of 2 blankets Im making from the same pattern. And that is one that Ive shared before in the post Vintage Baby Blanket. I love this pattern, can you tell? The first is for a little girl who will join the family this year, and the 2nd is a blanket I started, just for the fun of it, which Halle has claimed for herself.

with a close-up below



Then Im working on a gorgeous thick baby boy blanket, the stitch is called basket weave.. which is a pretty apt description!

Chewing into a lot more yarn than I expected, so will need another ball to finish this one off.

But Im sure you may be wondering what my title means.. what is a CAL? Well that is my New Years Resolution of sorts. CAL stands for Crochet-ALong. Basically its a group of crocheters all working on the same project so we can share tips, ideas and show off our finished work. This CAL that I have joined for 2012 will run for the whole year. Each month a pattern (or two) will be chosen by the group, so by the end of the year each person will have enough squares made up to build a whole blanket. I originally planned on making 24 squares (2 per month). But since then decided that 30 over the whole year would make for a better sized afghan. So some months I will be working on 3 squares. Here are my January squares:

blocking and almost ready to be packed away to await the completion on the other 27!

All the other details are over here on Ravelry

.

So thats it for now.

Emma

Update from Henrietta

Hello Again yes I am still here I just forget to take pics of my finished projects and when I think about it again I have already given it away! This one is special thou I really wanted to make my own baptism blanket for bubs number 3! I asked Emma to teach my so we came up with this pattern and she should me how to do the middle! I enjoyed it very much and did it almost every evening until the middle was big enough! Now for the border I went back to Emma and we were trying to figure out how do it becasue as you know she is left handed,, while I am right handed,, so for her to teach me would of been very difficult. So the friend that she is she offered to finish it off!! And what a beautiful job she did! I absolutely loved it and just had to share with you all! If the bubs is a boy we can put some blue ribbon in the border and a girl some pink ribbon! so happy that its done and thanx again so much Emma! I can't wait until my next project just waiting for my sis in Canada to have her bubs! then I can start on something for her! I am also sewing another blanket for my sister in canada and my friend Sharelle is helping me make some receiving blankets for bubs!!! So I have been very spoiled lately! Thanx Sharelle!!!!!!!! Until next time!!!! Henrietta

The border that Emma did to finish the blanket! Sorry I am not as organized as the other ladies and don't know where we got the pattern or the border from!!! sorry

The finished product!!!! Just love it!

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Emma here, just editing to add a link to the patterns for Jodi. The bulk was crocheted in V-stitch which you can find a pattern to here, then it was finished with the border from this pattern. So a bit of a mish mash of two patterns! Hope that helps.