making my heart sing..

my sweet little two and their love of wearing knitteds.

Toby will always ask me if I am knitting him a jumper if he sees me knitting something. He also gets very excited when I grab a milo out of the cupboard to put on him. He puts his hands straight up and says excitedly, "A milo!"

I am grateful that Lily still loves wearing knitted garments. Secretly, I think it's because I knit predominantly in dk weight yarn. I think kids find thicker yarn a little more unwieldy and unyielding to wear, which possible turns them off wool. I know anything I've knit her that's thicker generally doesn't get worn by choice.

And my favourite part about their outfits on this lazy Queen's birthday Monday, two cute little pairs of feet:

AND because it's a birthday kind of day, which is always good for presents; how about a little game!
I've played this before on my facebook page and it was fun!

In these photos there are six knitted garments.
Can you name the patterns they come from?

First person to name all six wins their choice of two of my patterns in pdf form.

ETA: links to patterns (as we have winners)

milo by me
I love milo heart cable by me
Ziggy beanie by me (not yet released but in testing)
Epicene by Sheryl Greenfield
Dolce socks by Sheryl Greenfield
Giving Pixie Hat by Theresa Belville

Sunday Spotlight: evoke yarn and fabric

A interesting discussion Ravelry over the last few days got me thinking about the state of the Australian indie yarn dyers' industry. It also got me thinking about how I, myself, had strayed from my original intention of promoting local indie dyers.  Time to rectify matters. And so I introduce to you a very semi-regular blog feature; Spotlight Sunday.  A little time and place to shine the spotlight on some of my favourite Aussie indie dyers.

Where else to start but with one of my all time favourites; evoke! (formerly known as the yarn cafe)

I really love Elissa's style of dyeing. She creates a great mix of yarns and colourways; from stunning vareigateds to perfect semi- solids.  She has a wonderful eye for colour, and her colourways are always beautifully saturated.

The piece de resistant in Elissa's range would have to be her gradients. My personal favourite is the rainbow gradient which is THE yarn that inspired the Rainbow Dress. Seriously, look at that colour! 

Rainbow Dress knit in Evoke Rainbow Gradient on a 4 Bags Full base.

I thought I'd share with you a few photos of some of my favourite items I've knit with Evoke yarns to show you how beautifully it knits up.

Oriental Lily knit in  Evoke 4 Bags Full Merino, colourway 'Maia Jade'.

Little Hoodlum knit in Evoke hand-dyed WOOLganics, colourway 'Earthsky'

Ziggy knit in Evoke hand-dyed Treliske Merino, colourway Brassica.

You can check out more of the evoke colourways over on Elissa's website evoke yarn and fabric or her group on Ravelry

a skirt pattern

that has no name.

Well, it does sort of.

It's more of a working title though, until something more suitable pops into my head.
Ziggidy doo is the working title. yep, that's a joint effort from Lily and me!

This little skirt will be part of a little pattern series, together with a beanie and a jumper and maybe a few other things. I really love this skirt, and I can honestly say the photos don't do it justice. It really is hard to photograph a skirt.  You want to get the skirt in but you don't want to lose the personality.  But in doing that you often lose some of the detail of the skirt. Alternatively, if you photograph just the skirt

you lose the personality and that attraction of the cute model.
Tell me I'm overthinking this, please!!!

Regardless, I really do love this little skirt!
I'll tell you what I really like about it. It's not too little girly, it's a little bit more grown up without being too tweeny or too old, if you know what I mean.  It's light and not too bulky and it just seems to skim the body and hips. I guess it being on a 6 year old lean little things does help the appeal. And I just love the texture of the zigzag stitch pattern. Perhaps it could even be slimming on an adult, do you think?  I am planning to knit myself this skirt, and even write the pattern up in adult sizes...but don't hold your breathe. My track record with adult knits ain't that great at the moment!

Anyway, I've spent the afternoon grading this pattern and now it just needs a little prettying up and playing around with and it's off to the testers.

Any ideas for a pattern name will be greatly appreciated.