A Joy of your 30’s

One of the joy’s of hitting your 30’s is that a majority of your friends are now all loved up, married, mortgaged and pregnant and seemingly all at once. The joy in this for me is there are lots of little ones making there way into the world that just need a NOTHING TOO FANCY creation or two. This is one such creation. Mumma and Pappa have decided not to find out the sex until bubba is born so it needed to be gender neutral. I decided to take leap outside the standard white/cream/pastel yellow combinations and go grey and yellow. LOVE IT. Something bold, different, hip, cheeky and all up pretty darn cute!

 

First up I got knitting away on a Puerperium cardigan. This free pattern by Kelly Brooker is an awesome quick knit. I did make a few changes and go with a short sleeve top version using these notes and loved how it turned out though the striped buttonhole bands were not wise in hindsight. They look great but were just time consuming and fiddley and frustrated me, even though it was my choice to do them! Ahhh hindsight lol. It is knitted on 4mm needles with Cleckheaton country 8ply for the grey and Panda feltable wool 8ply for the yellow (I liked the colour I had no intention of felting it). Not my go to yarn but I was away at the time and choices were limited, but I love it all the same!

 

Next I came across this gorgeous free harem sewing pattern and just knew I had to sew a pair. I got creative using my fabric sharpie pens adding some black triangles to boring old white knit fabric and topped it off with yellow ribbing. How darling are they? Totally recommend this pattern! I see many pairs of these in my future and I think they just became my go to baby gift.

 

Last but not least there was a pixie bonnet. This comes with exciting news – I got a knitting machine!!! I have wanted one for ages and ages and lucky me my awesome lady found me one in mint condition for Christmas. I was sooooooooooooooooooo excited and frustrated after like 10mins of trying to use it, but 6 hours later I had managed to start creating things. This pixie bonnet was the 1st thing I made and it certainly made the stocking stitch quick. Umm less than 10mins quick! I might do up a tutorial on this someday but I would need to work out a few kinks in the pattern first! For a first attempt though I am totally satisfied.

   

Mumma and Pappa were thrilled with the handmade goodies for their little one. Lucky for our friends and family I just love making stuff!

Christmas wrap up

A belated “Merry Christmas” to you all. Hope you all had a fantastic time with friends and family, ate great food and received some wonderful gifts. Christmas for us was small this year which was a little odd (we usually spend Christmas with all my partners family, we are talking 20+ people) but a wonderful day all the same, followed by Boxing day with good friends. In the lead up to Christmas we also hosted our first Christmas party for all our friends. It was a wonderful night and worth the 3am bed time and something we hope to do every year.

Christmas for me is all about giving wonderful gifts. I think long and hard about what to get each person and if I can make it, I will. This year I made personalised pillowcases, a cushion, babysitting vouchers, jute and yarn coasters, tablerunners (with help from my lovely lady), dishcloths (pattern here), Christmas pudding (recipe here) and reindeer noses. (Hence the lack of posts of late.) The presents were wrapped in twine with beautiful labels made by my partner on her typewriter.

 

     

         

And it wouldn’t be a Christmas wrap up without me sharing with you what I was grateful to receive……….pic below!!! I was one lucky girl and this is the first time I have turned the desktop on since before Christmas as I can now access the net from the convenience of the couch (my laptop died about 18months ago and we had not replaced it, till now!)

 

He needed a new shirt too?

So after making Master B some new shorts (blogged about here) I decided a new shirt was needed too. While I tossed around the idea of making one from scratch I remembered I had a size 00 white t-shirt buried in a box somewhere and decided to break out the very neglected fabric paints instead! The design was simple – STRIPES!!!! Why stripes? Well, the reason is two fold – 1) I LOOOOOOVVVVEEEE stripes, like almost all my t-shirts are striped (seriously ask the girl) and 2) they are easy as to design!!!! How awesome does it look?

 

Now Master B has 4 new outfits!!!!!!! The shirt looks awesome with all 4 pairs of shorts!!! Just look!!!!

     

     

This wasn’t going to be a tutorial but hey it’s so easy what the hell. Want to do it yourself???? You will need:

• A t-shirt
• Fabric paint
• Paint brush
• Masking tape
• Something to space the tape (I used 12mm elastic. Yep, strange, but it worked)
• Paper (or something else to put in the shirt so the paint doesn’t go through to the back)

1. Place the paper inside the shirt making sure it covers from side seam to side seam.

2. Making sure the shirt is flat and place your tape across the shirt starting at the bottom using the hem as a guide. (Look at the pic below you will get what I mean)

3. Once it is all taped get your fabric paint and using a dabbing motion paint your stripes! (My paint was very gluggy after years of neglect lol)

4. Allow to dry overnight and then remove the tape.

5. Last step I promise – MAKE SURE YOU HEAT SET THE PAINT WITH A QUICK HOT IRON! Annnnnnnddddddd you’re done!!!! Easy as!!!!!!