Oh Dear

I had some little people come visit today with their mum.

After they'd gone home I noticed that my balls of yarn had been knocked off the coffee table where I'd left them and one was missing.

I wasn't too worried as I figured it would turn up.

It did.  It was sitting in the ashes of the open fire.

 
This is my second ball of the Mocha for BigMiss' tunic I'm making.  And I was planning on using it tonight.


I think I'll have to toddler-proof my knitting stuff a bit better next time!

Any suggestions for how to clean it??
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WIP's

I thought I should start taking wip (work in progress) photos more often and keep my project notes on Ravelry more up to date.  I find it's actually quite nice to look back and see how long (or short!) it's taken to knit something.  And I have a few things on the go that I've cast on lately that I need to keep a track of too!

So, at the same time I thought it might be nice for you (and keep me accountable to finishing things!) if I updated here also...

 
This is that gorgeous yarn from Olive & Emma I showed in my last post knit up.
I love the colours in it and think it's really going to suit my Little Man.
 
 
This is the Mocha and Peony yarn from Little Plum Yarn knit up.
It's a tunic/dress for the BigMiss.  I'm a little excited about this pattern as I think it's looking really cool and can't wait to show the finished product!
 

This is me being a little crazy.

There's a thing going on via Ravelry where you have to knit a sweater (adult sized, at least 50,000 stitches) in a month.  It's called NaKniSweMo (National Knit a Sweater Month) which is the knitter's alternative to National Write a Novel Month (write a 50,000+ word novel in November).  The 'National' part relates to USA, but it's open to everyone anyway (in case you haven't heard of either thing - I only found out via Rav last year)

I'm only joining in because I'd ordered this yarn (Brown Sheep Cotton Fine) to knit myself a Apres Surf Hoodie, then stumbled upon the NaKniSweMo Group again and realised I could.  It might actually motivate me to finish it too!

How many wip's do you have?
Do you keep your projects page updated regularly?
Or are you like me and only make the project page once something's finished?
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Freedom Knitting

I feel like I've been in a constant state of limbo most of the year with my knitting and pattern writing. 

Because of a serious lack of communication from a certain yarn company (that I'm not so fond of anymore), I always had to make sure I wasn't committing to or concentrating on much just in case  today I'd get the email to say it's all go and I have 8 weeks to write and knit two complicated patterns (if only they had let me know - way back in March - what yarn to design for!)

Little Plum Yarn Supertwist Sport in Mocha

But the freedom I'm feeling now it's all done and over makes me love knitting again!  (I'd started to loose the love for it, I suppose that's what happens when it's a have to.)

Little Plum Yarn Supertwist Sport in Peony

Even though I've been in Pattern-Writing Limbo, I've still been planning new designs to work on as soon as I could. 

And buying yarn to knit them with!

Olive & Emma 4ply Merino in Cade with Trim

So now I've just cast on to make a variation of this pattern:

That's my Little Man at just 6 days old - he turned 6 weeks old yesterday and not really fitting this cardy anymore!

I'm making a few changes to make it a little more quirky and funky.  I can't wait to show you the finished knit!  (I'm using the grey and brown yarn above which is a made-for-me colourway from Olive & Emma. It's looking gorgeous so far!)


Joining in with the other creative folk at My Creative Space.
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A Quick Knit

With my last deadline knit/design on it's way across the world, I needed a quick knit to celebrate the freedom of no pressure.  And as the Little Man is really not fitting any of his hats lately (he's growing so fast!) I thought that was the perfect thing.


He didn't think so.


Not even with cuddles from Mama.


More details to come about the design I sent off - I'm quite excited about this one!

(Though very nervous entrusting my sample knit to the postal system after my previous international post issues - which I since found out was entirely the yarn company's fault as they had my address wrong!)
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Like a Lead Balloon

I mentioned in my previous post about being super busy getting some patterns ready in order to meet a deadline.

Well, turns out I could have taken things a little slower as I've just found out that they've dropped me from being included in the collection!


And all because their yarn never arrived for me to knit the sample with.  And it's too late for them to get someone closer to knit it as their photoshoots have started.
(This is the third time their yarn hasn't arrived - I'm still waiting on an order I actually paid a lot of money for.)

I really feel like being annoyed at the yarn company.
(Besides the fact that they hadn't told me what yarn bases I was designing for until confirmation of the final deadline so couldn't even start working on the pattern, I'd had no contact from them since saying they were 'sending the yarn soon' which was only allowing 7 weeks to receive the yarn, knit the two samples and send it back to the US - they never even told me what size models I was knitting for!)

But really, I should just be annoyed with the unreliable postal system.


So I've spent the afternoon feeling pretty stink about the whole deal, especially as one of the patterns was a very tricky design to write up that cost me days of late dinners and grumpy children.  I'm not quite sure how to tell J as he was starting to get annoyed at me for taking it on when having a new baby and now I'm not even getting paid for it!  (The original contract deadline was May, when a new baby wasn't an issue, but was delayed so the closer to my due date I was without hearing final dates, the more nervous I was getting.)

But on the upside, I suppose I now have two patterns in the almost finished stages (they were going to be tech edited then were ready to go) that I can self-publish.
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Finally! (About a Baby and Some Winners)

I'm sure everyone's been wondering what happened to me for the last three weeks, though hopefully you've put it down to having a newborn in the house.

I must confess, though, that my absence is only partly because of a baby and mostly because of a pattern deadline.  And every night I've been going to bed thinking "I have to do that blog post and sort out winners tomorrow."

Finally, the right tomorrow is here and the two patterns I've been spending every spare minute working on have been sent off and I am writing my blog post!

So, it was three weeks ago yesterday, about this time, that I was heading home from hospital with a gorgeous little newborn baby.

Just four hours old

A little boy!  (But not so little, really.)

Born on 5 September 2012 at 6.45am and weighing in at 3960g (about 8lb 11oz) he was a bit of a shock - both that he was a boy and how big he was!

Cuddles with Papa

The baby socks and hat I made didn't fit.  The cardigan I made that I thought wouldn't fit for a bit, was perfect (in the picture above).  And all my worry about not having any baby clothes was made worse by the fact that he was already fitting well the few NB size clothes I'd bought and would outgrow them very quickly!  Fortunately I have generous family with little boys of their own that have lent me clothes for now.

Three weeks later, life has settled into a predictable routine.  The girls love him to bits and are really good about taking turns holding him.  And even though he keeps me rather busy and all the things I used to do take twice as long to get around to now, I'm sure I will be boring you all with lots of baby picutres and new little boy designs to knit soon enough!


And now, for the winners of my guessing competitions!

The closest guess for When is Cas who guessed 6th September.
The closest guess for How Big is Kelly who guessed 8lb 2oz.
And the random winner of those that guessed Boy is KiwiFi.

Congratulations everyone!
(I will contact the winners to arrange prizes later today, though if you don't hear from me, feel free to give me a hurry up!)


Thank you everyone for entering!  I'm pretty sure if I had put in my prediction for this Little Man I would've been so wrong!
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My Needles Seem to Fly...

I've been knitting like crazy lately.  Or so it seems with all the stuff I'm getting finished!

I think it helps that lots of it is small, so it's quick to make.

So here's a little run down on some of the stuff you saw blocking in a previous post:


I made this Paprika vest for MiddleMiss.


It was done as part of the Olive & Emma KAL on Ravelry.


The colourway is Baby Blue Eyes and is the perfect colour for MiddleMiss!


Though I was a little disappointed with the fit.  I chose the size according to her chest size (size 5yrs) but knit to her age length (size 7yrs) and pre-blocking it really didn't fit!  I managed to stretch it out a lot when blocking and it's ok now, but won't last long.


I do really like the cabling details on it though.




This is a little NB cardigan I made for a friend's new baby.


I had originally intended on using the apple chart from here, but the apples looked too big for such a little top so I sort of made up my own smaller version.


This was my third attempt at colourwork and I think I'm getting better, though it's still a little tighter than it should be!




This vest is one I've made before for my nephew.  This time, though, I changed the pockets and made the collar longer which I think looks much better.  Right now it's enroute to Canada to some friends who have just had their first baby (a boy) and with no appropriately aged babies around, I don't have any nice modelled photos.

The pattern is in-process - I just need a hurry up to do the little tweaks and send it off to testers!



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