the scarf festival...

You may remember me alluding to the scarf festival in an earlier post, if you don't that's ok, you probably didn't miss much. But we are seemingly in the thick of festival season here.  On Sunday I convinced the little family to go along to the Scarf Festival with me (not that Toby took any convincing, he'll go anywhere mummy goes, my little acolyte :))  Lily was very excited and dressed in her black rainbow dress for the occasion, sweet little child that she is.  

I should preface here that the Scarf Festival isn't really a festival as such; there's workshops and a scarf exhibition, but no real other festivally stuff... I perhaps should have explained better to Lily what it was before arriving though.

Anyway, we arrived at the Wool Museum for the Scarf Exhibition, Lily rushed into the display and oohed and ahhed and then called me over, "Mum, I've found the one I want to wear."  

Not fun, is explaining to a four year old in the middle of an art exhibition that part of the Scarf Festival is not selecting one of the scarves to wear for the occasion. That no, the scarves are for looking at not for wearing.  Fair enough was her response, "oh, a Scarf Festival's not much fun! This is not what I wanted it to be like" :(

Somehow we managed to jolly her through the rest of the time there and she did enjoy it.  There were some awesome works on display.  And we loved the Transformation corner; a corner in the exhibition where you could sit and relax on a couple of couches and have a go at knitting, weaving, braiding and a few other yarnie crafts.  The irony of finding a few balls of acrylic and god forbid, feathers yarn, in the yarn basket in the Wool Museum was not lost on us!!!   

Lily's favourite part of the whole museum was the replica of the mill worker's cottage. She took it over as if it was her own house, sweeping the floor and pottering around in the kitchen and greeted anyone who came into it, offering them a cup of tea and introducing herself... I'm really not sure when she became such a forward little girl.  

The following day Lily decided to have her own Scarf Festival, as she thought it should be done.  Firstly, the guests (Andy and I) were welcomed and handed a little brochure with pictures of the festival's activities (dancing, singing and music ~ for those festival organisers who aren't sure what a festival entails)  and a map on it.

We were then shown the scarf exhibition and asked to select a scarf to wear (with a little bit of guidance from the festival director)

And then we all joined in the singing, dancing and music until lunchtime! So much fun!

the rainbow connection

having just typed that post title, I'm now sitting here singing,

 "some day we'll find it, 

the rainbow connection,

the lovers, the dreamers and me,

la de da da de ...."

and thinking about kermit the frog.  Does anyone else remember kermit singing that song on the muppets? or am I just, well, odd?

so I was  doing some blog surfing, looking at my cute little niece and realised I haven't blogged Lily's new rainbow dress.  This was the nearly the rainbow dress that wasn't.  I was stoked to score this awesome yarn from Jolly Jumbuck and excitedly showed Lily.  She did not share my excitement. In fact, she didn't like it at all.  Why?  It had black in it *sigh* and apparently she doesn't like black; well, that week anyway.  Her colour dislikes can be rather fickle.

So this beautiful yarn sat in my stash for a while, and try as I may I could not convince her that it would make an awesome dress.  

It was only when I made Miss Zoe a little rainbow dress that Lily's thinking shifted and she decided that yes, she would like a black rainbow dress. Silent squeals of delight from me.  I even showed her two choices of colour for the bodice; hot pink and black, and she chose black!  Yep, black!!!! It nearly bowled me over but I'm glad she did because I love love love it!!!

I've been busy on the rainbow dress knitting front,  all part of testing the pattern for re-release with loads of options and some improvements to the pattern.  Sage scored one and our other little niece Piper's is nearly finished too.  Lily's Aurora barbie got a new one too and there was one in the local love stocking. pics of those I haven't shared tomorrow.

or you can check out Sage and Zoe's here and here. 

Project specs

Pattern: Rainbow dress

Needles: 4mm

Yarn: Jolly Jumbuck Black Rainbow on 'Freya' dk, 200g.

WOOLganics 8 ply, Leura, 50g

mods: size 2 knit to size 4ish length, extra length in bodice, ruffled hem option 2 variation from pattern.  63cm in length 

must be love.. at last

it seems like megs and i have been talking about and working towards this stocking for about three years; in reality it's probably been nearly four months!!  goodness, it's taken us awhile.  i don't think i've really done a proper stocking since toby was born, so it's been awhile which does make me a little nervous.

this socking is the first with some of my knits too; all from my own patterns ... which I'm also a little nervous about having never sold my knitting before.

so this stocking is all about local love; with the inspiration coming from firstly from all those wonderful Australian fabric designers whose wares I would otherwise probably just hoard to look at and pat. so here's some pics of my part of the stocking, you can see the rest over at the store, all going live at 8:30pm tonight (just before the Bill starts ;))

Rainbow Dress, size 3 months in pear tree supersoft merino

Milo vest, size 6 months in pear tree yarn denim.

Denim skirt, size 2-4 with pockets in Pippijoe's Spot flower.

Black denim wide leg pants, size 2 with pockets in Kristen Doran's Molly birds.

Milo vest size 3 months in Jo Sharp Silkroad DK, treasure colourway.

Denim bootlegs, size 1 with pockets in Kristen Doran's Lily pads.

Black hemp wide leg pants, size 3 with pockets in Pippijoe's Leaftree.

Drill wide leg pants, size 2 with pockets in Tegan Rose's Antique Keys.

Denim bootlegs, size 0 with pockets in Hollabee's Sumar.

my creative space ... albeit a little late

but hey, better late than never! 

Yesterday, not much happening in my space, I went shopping with my mum and the kiddies. (Why do shopping centres have to have the heating so damn hot that you can barely enter the stores and you come home with a cracking headache and dehydrated.  Perfect breeding ground for swine flu, really.)

I've been hitting the machines today trying, oh so much, to get everything ready for our local love stocking. And yes, it has been coming, coming, coming for such a very very long time now. But the date is set and most of it is ready to go, just some last minute finishing to go now and I'll be ready.  Pssst, it's tomorrow night in case you're wondering.

Today Andy said he would look after the kiddies while I sewed. But it wasn't too long and I had the Rainbow girl at my feet attempting to hand sew a kit bag and the little one on my back.  It is more challenging to sew with him on there, particularly when he bounces up and down and pulls my hair, but doable ;)  

It's 6 pm now and I've missed the light today for photos so previews tomorrow.  The kidlets are both asleep *shock horror* which makes me sound like we're astoundingly organised parents but sadly not so. Toby went to sleep about half an hour ago after a couple of catnaps today and after putting him down I found Lily curled up in bed where she was pretending to be sick earlier. Luckily she scoffed a sandwich and a half about an hour ago. I'm sure there will be shenanigans from both of them in a hour or two, no doubt LOL. Man, it's quiet....  Ok going to sew a bit more while I can and the adventure boy battles it out in the kitchen creating a culinary delight as only he can; *cough cough* warming soup and making cheese on toast. 

more creative spaces over at kootoyoo

oh, and in case you're wondering, I did get the glue off the wall!!! Hooray!!! I ripped *eek* the pictures off and then used a spray water bottle to dampen the leftover paper and glue which I carefully scraped off with a rag and my fingernails. 

crap ...

anyone know how to get glued on pictures off painted walls?

We're having a festival here today apparently.  A Celtic festival in fact.  I wanted to go to the Scarf Festival at the Wool Museum but Lily decided that a Celtic festival at home was more her thing. I don't think she was keen on changing out of her rather odd outfit.

So she set about making the decorations for the festival, while I finished unpacking from our visit to the pint household (is it only me that it seems to take a week to unpack everything after I've been away?)  Lily's decoration creations were being supervised by her not so observant father. I realised something was going down when I heard him ask her not to draw on the walls. It seems she had got a little carried away with the decorating, "It was a little accident," I'm assured. Thank goodness for Crayola textas and their washability.

Later she tells me she had another little accident with the decorating after I find some random bits of paper glued to the TV cabinet.  It seems she ran out of blue tac and had to glue all her pictures and decorations to the wall.  *oops*   As Lily quite rightly points out, she didn't know she wasn't allowed to glue things on the wall. I mean, I've never actually said, "Don't glue things to the wall", have I?   

So does anyone have any ideas on how to remove these stunning artworks without too much hassle and without removing the paint? *sigh*

lily loves milo

After seeing Toby's milo vest Lily insisted upon one of her own, not one to miss out on anything is our Lil.  So off we went to visit one of our LYS. We conned the Daddio into a drive down to Torquay for lunch at Pear Tree cafe, a visit to the kiddie shop Melon Baby (to pick up a snow dome ~ seriously, the ladies there are awesome and go way out of their way to help) and of course, a stop off at Pear Tree yarn shop itself.  

I asked Lily to choose the yarn from the new colours they have in, all very very scrummy and oh soooo soft. Did you know they now have 10 ply?  Anyway, her choice was not what I expected at all.  Princesses usually choose pink, four year olds usually choose pink. But nooooo. Lily, for reasons known only to herself, said a no to the pink and chose the grass green instead.   Actually, I think sibling bond thing she's got going with Toby made her want the same colour as him.

So home we came with 2 skeins of grass green super soft merino. ahhh, bliss... 
The combination of addi turbo needles and this yarn really is just super pleasurable knitting. It's almost a shame to come to the end. But I did. And it only used one skein of the yarn so I still have the other to knit up.

And this is Lily's milo, which she does love. And which does look super cute on her.
I used the horseshoe cable option and finished it with the more feminine hem finishing; details in the pattern. ;)

eeep

I've just put up my first knitting pattern for sale, yep, to sell.

It's a tad exciting but I'm also a little nervous, you know, will people buy it?  Will they like it?

It's different from a free pattern , hell yeah.

so in case you're wondering what it is, it's the milo vest pattern.  

I've been knitting a few of these babies lately...
Pattern details:

milo is a quick and simple knit, so easy a beginner could tackle it.

Knit seamlessly in the round from the top down on circular needles, it eliminates that sticking point for many knitters; seaming!!! Yep, no seaming at all to be done here.  

milo is a great little vest for boys and girls alike, it comes in 9 sizings, from newborn (15 inch chest) to size 4 (23 inch chest).  The pattern includes options for five different cables, including the popular owl cable.  You can knit a different milo for every day of the working week.

 

Designed for 8 ply yarn, this is a great stash buster. The smaller sizes can be knit with just 50 grams of yarn.  It is easily knit on a pair of 4mm 40 cm circular needles. 

The 11 page pattern also comes with a photo tutorial which helps you create neat underarm cast offs.

  

So where can you get it?

available at all good pattern pdf stores; ie. Rav or my ozebaby store.  (see links over there in the sidebar)

and big thanks to the six people who have already bought it today. Wooot!!!

it's longies time

The little boy is growing so very very fast and is outgrowing all his longies, so it is time for a bit of a longathon; a longie knitting marathon. Unfortunately, I don't really have the time to knit longies at the moment as I'm desperately trying to get the milo pattern ready for release this week.  

But I have managed to knit up this one pair of longies though, a quick knit in BFL Aran; colourway Tannenbaum.  

The pattern I used is a relatively new one in the world of longies pattern.  I have my favourite pattern which is a bit of a hybrid of all the different things I like in a longie pattern but I must admit to a little addiction in knitting different longies patterns; I don't know why I feel the need to try out so many different patterns but I do. 

Anyhoo, back to the pattern, which I must say I like. It's the Looking Glass Longies pattern by Kelly Brooker.  You might remember me raving about Kelly's Vanilla soaker pattern earlier in the piece, but then again maybe you don't.  

This pattern again challenges the conventional construction of longies and requires no grafting; which is great for people who don't like grafting. Just between you and me, I am pretty shit hot at grafting and gain great satisfaction creating the perfect graft line in the crotch; hell, you should see me do a ribbed crotch!! ... sublime.

So despite the lack of self gratifying back slapping, I do really really like this pattern and the shaping of these little duds and would definitely knit it again :D

LOVE the ribbing on the hips, 

love the shape of the gusset, 

love the width of the legs

love the colour of the yarn

love the softness of the yarn

but most of all, 

I love the little dude in them!  

he melts my heart about a million times a day with his grins.