Cocoon

On Monday Angela sent me a message asking if I could knit her a cocoon for an up coming photo shoot. After a discussion about colours and threads, I jumped into my yarn stores to see what I could come up with. I had a few balls of yarn left over from the jumper I made Mum earlier, nice earthy tones, and so I quickly knitted up a swatch to see if it was what Angela wanted.

So that was the yarn sorted out. Now the design.

I thought I would try using circular knitting needles first off, that didn't work out so well, so I switched to double pointed needles. They would have worked except they were too short. I have longer ones on order, but that would not help me finish this project for Angela by the weekend. In the end I gave up and used straight knitting needles. It took no time at all to knit it to the length needed, and I was able to join it using an invisible seem, which took almost as long to do as it knit it! Once I had figured out the 'pattern' I was able to knit up another one in 2 hours. Not bad for a days work. I then posted the cocoons off on Tuesday, and Angela had them in her hand on Wednesday morning.

I this photo will have to do until Angela can take a 'real' picture.

I am blessed to have such a talented family, both my sister and sister-in-law being amazing baby/maternity/family photographer's.

If are in Brisbane, you need to go to

http://angelahammondphotography.com

and for Melbourne, you have to go to

http://www.felicitythomsonphotography.com

The Knit Wit

My Beautiful SIL Angela has been asking when I shall continue with the Blog. Yes I know, I have been very bad at not updating in so long.

I have given up crochet for a little while, and tried knitting for a change! I vividly remember the first time I learnt to knit. My Mother was in hospital, just having given birth to my sister Felicity. I was visiting my Grandmother, and her Mother, my Great Grand mother was there. She was knitting a jumper, and she taught me know to knit. I was 3 and a half. I look at my friends daughter at the same age, and there is no way I would trust her with two sharp knitting needles! The next time I tried knitting was when I was 14. There was a sale on yarn, and Mum brought me 8 balls of this white yarn with 8mm pink knitting needles. I must of made 3 different tops, wearing them for a few days, then pulling the yarn apart and making something else. It was the making of the garment that was the best part, not the finished project. That yarn finished up as a crochet hat.

So after years of crochet, I thought I would try knitting again. I thought that some of the things that Felicity wants me to make will look better in a knitted stitch. For practice I found a pattern that didn't look too hard and quickly made up a very nice jumper. Believe it or not, I still had those 8mm pink knitting needles that Mum and brought for me over 20 years ago! It was so much fun making the jumper, and quickly made 2 more. I wear the pink one all the time, and sent the blue one down to Felicity, and made another brown one for Mum (sorry don't have a pic of that at the moment). I was amazed that a novice knitter like me was able to actually finish a project and to be happy enough with it to wear it outside! I am now playing around with circular knitting needles, and double pointed needles. I also found a wonderful site that has everything I needed. Its called 8Season knitting. You can find them on eBay or if you want to put in a larger order they also have a website. The quality of their products and the value for money is just outstanding. Just search for 8Season Knitting. They have the most amazing stitch markers! Absolutely beautiful.

As you can see Chubba Chup wanted to get in on the photo.

I have a few things I would like to make, thing is I can never decide on what to work on first. I really need to work on some things for Felicity. I have managed to make one thing for Felicity. It was a first attempt, and I know it will get better, because it could not get much worse!

This is a 'nest' that I knitted. One of the photo props for Felicity. I resisted putting the cat into it ... it was really hard.