More Baby Crochet

I am still crocheting away for foster baby M. I want to post off the parcel on Monday so it's crocheting every spare minute until then.

I used a vintage Listers pattern for this baby pinafore. There are several very similar patterns on Ravelry should you ever wish to make one. I used up an odd ball of James C Brett Marble DK left over from a crochet sweater that I made for myself last year. I had to eke it out with a few rows of a plain lilac DK but I think that it has merged in with the other colour very well.

You can see the slightly different colour near the bottom of the pinafore and also the tie at the waist. The pinafore fastens with tiny buttons at the shoulders. It can be worn over a babygro whilst she is small or over a T shirt and trousers as she grows.

 This jacket is adapted from a pattern that I bought from Ravelry called Candy Pink Baby Cardigan by Mon Petit Violin. It is a great pattern to follow as it has diagrams as well as the printed instructions. The pattern is made with ties and a small collar but as Sylvia is not fond of collars on a very small baby I left it as a round neck and just added a similar trim to the bottom edge. The only other alteration that I made was to narrow the sleeves as the very edge as they came out very wide.

The wool is some white baby quicker knit that was given to me. Close up of the round the post stitch that gives a corded effect in lines. This jacket is started from the neck down.

Vintage patterns that arrived yesterday. I bought them from Vintage crochet Lady . I buy a lot of patterns from her and keep re visiting her site as she adds to her patterns regularly The pink pattern in the bottom right hand corner is knitted but the other three are crocheted.

These are some more vintage patterns from Sue with the exception of the bottom right pattern. That is Four Little Cherubs that I bought through Ebay from www.angelknits.co.uk. It is 4 different designs for matinee jackets with hats and bootees that are in premature and newborn sizes.

Off to do some more crochet before my posting deadline of Monday.

Thunder, Lightning and Torrential Rain

This is more like the Manchester weather that I know so well. Those few brief days of sunshine are over and the weather is back to normal today. It rained so hard that it knocked out the signal on the TV.

I sewed the buttons on the second cardigan for foster baby M and have almost finished a pinafore dress for her,

 This is the 2nd cardigan that I have made with the 2 x 100 gram balls of James C Brett Marble baby DK. The pattern is one from Just Crochet and is pattern JC39A. It also has a matching beanie but I didn't have enough wool left to make that.

The pattern is a very easy 2 row repeat so the cardigan was finished very quickly.

My order from Abakhan came today. I bought 2 x 400 grams of the lemon and 4x 100 grams of lilac in James C Brett baby DK. The little bags contain bows in cream and peach.

I ordered the little buttons from Minerva through Amazon. They have a star shape embossed on them and come in little bags of 100 at £2.99 a bag. This works out far cheaper than paying for buttons a few at a time from a shop. These are the tiniest size so I have repeated the order for the slightly larger size that is suitable for DK buttonholes. This size is £3.99 a bag but when you see online the prices that are asked for 6 buttons it's worth spending to buy the bags. I probably won't have to buy any baby buttons for a while now unless I want a different colour or something different for a special baby cardigan.

I didn't go out today because of the awful weather. Tomorrow the gardener is coming. She was going to trim the hedge for me but I think that it will be too wet for doing that. Maybe the sun will come out and dry up all the rain.

Lily, the lodger cat, is fast asleep on the rocking chair. She came this morning for her breakfast and has been out all day until the rain came on heavy again and she appeared at the patio door.

I haven't done much crochet today as I am having a nodding off, cat napping, kind of a day. I crochet a few rows and then sleep for about 10 mins then I wake again. I think that I need the pressures changing on my sleep apnea machine. I am just dog tired most of the days. I hope to settle down to a bit of crochet tonight. Let's hope that there is something enthralling on the TV to keep my brain awake!

Back to the Rain again

I told you that the sun wouldn't last. The rain is back this afternoon. Luckily my hospital appointment was this morning when it was dry and still quite warm.Today it was a scan on my left knee. I don't know what the results are and my next appointment with the specialist isn't until January, unless they send for me earlier when they get the results of this scan. I am not holding my breath though. Unless they find something drastic in the knee I will probably have to wait until January as that is the speed that they work at Hope Hospital. I just hope that the weather stays warmer as it eases my old bones. I don't mind the no sun just as long as it is fairly warm.

This is the first matinee that I have made with the James C Brett baby Marble DK. As Sylvia had bought two balls I started a crochet cardigan and just have the buttons to stitch on that one. This pattern is Peter Pan P 1022 and if I remember rightly I bought it online from Purplelinda.

The matinee just took 100 grams as has the cardigan that I have just finished. Photos of that tomorrow. I have also just received 2 more baby patterns in the post that I ordered online and I will also show you those tomorrow.

I went to the Kings Arms Knit Club last night and a local magazine is doing an article for next months copy on the Kings Arms and came in to interview Rachael about all the things that she has been involved with for the Kings and also her other projects including the Islington Mill where if you remember we attached flowers and other things to lamp posts with instructions to pick a flower. As the reporter is a local man he had seen all the decorations pinned to the posts. I am going to look forward to seeing a copy of this magazine even though I don't actually live in Salford it is a mere mile or so away from where I live so I am interested in it's events. I am sure that Rachael will be reporting on the magazine ,when it comes out, on her blog Artyarn which always is an interesting read and tells of what things she is involved in at the moment.

My crochet for my store has stopped for the moment as I want to post off the things for the foster babies before the end of the week. I have received an order via Sylvia for a little matinee jacket like the ones I made for her last year. Someone saw the foster baby wearing hers and fell in love with it. I will start that as soon as I have finished off the things that I am making now. The baby that it is for will be a girl but she is not due for another couple of weeks so I can make it next week.

Time for a sit down and a coffee and hope that my headache fades away. Despite being given head phones the clanging and banging of the scanner gave me a dull headache which isn't being helped by this sultry weather. It feels like thunder in the air and I am not a huge fan of that (or the lightning)

A Summers Day

This is more like it. I awoke to beautiful sunshine. I was up at 6am and I am so glad otherwise I might have missed some of this glorious day. Never mind the housework I have been sitting out in the sunshine most of the day. Underneath my parasol of course as I didn't want to get sun burned. My skin hasn't got acclimatised to the sun so far this year. I have still caught the sun today. I only have to look at the sun for 5 minutes and I go brown. My niece finds it strange that even though I don't actively sunbathe just by being outside in it  my skin gets a tan. I usually wear shorts and a vest top when the weather is nice so any tiny amount of sun seems to catch me. My late Mother used to call this way of getting a tan as weathering. My knees love the warmth. They have had a really good day

I have had my feet up and have been crocheting most of the day. The sun has now gone off the back garden so it's time to sit in the front room and enjoy the rest of the sunshine albeit through glass. I have been making some more  cardigans for the new foster baby. I should have at least one more to show you by tomorrow. I am using some James C Brett baby Marble DK that Sylvia bought from Bury market a couple of years ago. It was to be for her then new foster baby which was supposed to be a girl but when it arrived it was a boy. She told me to keep the yarn as one day it would come in useful. Now it has with the arrival of baby M.

This is a cardigan that I finished off yesterday. I used some white baby quicker knit that my friend Sue gave to me. I used a double knit pattern by Kay Jones Number 166. The cardigan was coming out a bit smaller than the pattern as the yarn was finer so I made the 2nd size instead of the first.

It is the first time that I have used this pattern but it was so quick and easy that I have no doubt that I will be using it again in the near future.

Today I had another little visitor. Poppy, the little dog from next door. When I am in the garden she often comes to visit me. This caused a bit of a problem though as my little black cat visitor decided to hop over the fence to see me too. Luckily the cat spotted Poppy and leapt back over the fence again. I have now found out little black cat's name. Her Dad was mowing the lawn so I asked him. She is called Lily. If she comes back tomorrow I now can call her by her name.

I was trying to sort out the mess of papers on my desk today. I have a habit of putting things that need to be dealt with on my desk, I only usually file away once a bill is paid. It's lucky that I did as I was convinced that my left knee scan was in the middle of July when in fact it is on Tuesday. Whew I might have missed that if I hadn't tidied up my desk today.

It's on days like this that I wish that I still had the small barbecue. I am not cleaning the big barbecue just for one small piece of chicken for my dinner. It's a waste of charcoal. I will put it in the oven instead. It's a shame that no-one in the neighbourhood has a barbecue going as I could have asked if I could pop my bit of chicken on theirs. Nothing like being cheeky is there ;-)  I haven't bothered giving the big barbecue a good clean this year as there hasn't been the weather for it.  I don't have a posh one. Just an open brick one that my ex built at the bottom of the garden and being open to the elements it gets very dirty over the winter. I bought a tiny portable one but left it outside and it all went rusty. There just hasn't been the nice weather to tempt me into buying another one. I would have to ask someone to get me one from the hardware store as it is too far away for me to go on my scooter. Local shops have almost disappeared with the advent of all these out of town DIY superstores.

 Today it has been lovely and peaceful in the garden. The only noise was the young children playing in the paddling pool but I don't mind that kind of noise. Luckily I was up early this morning as the local small boys decided on a noisy game of football on the street about 8.30am which didn't please the neighbours who were trying to have a Sunday morning lie in!

Time to put the chicken in the oven and see what delights are in store for me on the TV tonight. Hopefully I will have another baby jacket to show you tomorrow.

I Lost A Morning

I have been sleeping very spasmodic of late. Going to bed and tossing and turning for hours or giving up on the sleep and getting back up again to make a milky drink. This, of course, means that I cat nap (against my will) during the day and evening. I have lost count of how many endings that I have missed after watching 90% of the programme. I have never been a good sleeper. Five or six hours sleep is what I call a good night's sleep.

However this morning I switched off the alarm, fell asleep again and woke up again just after 11am. Although I do feel slightly more refreshed than usual this afternoon I was like a zombie with a headache when I woke up. I am not used to lie ins. I cannot sleep for hours unless I am ill. I have this attitude that time spent sleeping is time wasted. It's my Mother's fault. She was always so busy that she makes me look positively idle in comparison. I was never allowed to lie in bed. I had to be up and if I wasn't doing my homework or reading something educational then I had to be occupied with knitting, sewing, crochet or housework. Even now I feel positively lazy if I just sit somewhere without my hands doing something, I can feel my late Mother's eyes watching me and know that she is tutting at me.  Even though I obviously needed the sleep this morning I am still annoyed at myself for wasting a whole morning!

Despite doing nothing craft wise today I did manage to finish off the Baby It's Cold Outside coat (or my version of it) last night. I used some cream brushed Patons Diana that I had in stash from a long time ago. I add more stitches to the sleeves as the pattern as it stand has more of a three quarter sleeve. I then added a shell border with some peach DK cotton and added some crocheted flowers. I made a little hat to match. I have fallen in love with this little coat and will make more like this in the future. I do love adapting patterns to suit my taste.

I think that the hat is maybe a bit large for the size of the jacket. My baby hats are a bit hit and miss as I never use a pattern. They either seem a bit on the small side or on the larger side I don't write down anything so even if one turns out the right size then I can't remember what I have done. I have even bought an exercise book to jot down my patterns but as yet there is nothing written in it.

I added little vintage pearl shirt buttons to the centre of each flower. The buttons came from my Mum's sewing box. I found them when I was sorting out my buttons. They are made of the old fashioned type of pearl which has that creamy look instead of white. the bow is cream although it does look rather white on the photo. The stems of the flowers are just about the limit of my embroidery skills these days. The jacket is for the new foster baby girl. I always think that these babies deserve something pretty after their poor start in life. I have no idea what this poor mite's circumstances are but there must be something amiss for her to finish up in the foster system straight after birth. At least with Sylvia they get well looked after and cared for as a baby deserves to be.

I am so pleased with the way that this jacket has turned out that I am going to try my own version, in a finer yarn, for my online store. This time I will write down what I am doing and try to make the hat the exact size of the jacket and write that down as well!

This afternoon I managed to peg  some washing on the line and do some food shopping for the weekend. I try not to shop on Saturdays or Sundays as my scooter does get in the way when the stores are crowded.  I arrived at Marks and Spencer just in time to see the ambulance people wheeling an old lady out on a stretcher. She must have had a fall as one shoe was on top of her blanket and she had a large piece of gauze taped to her chin. She looked cheerful enough on the way to the ambulance so hopefully it was nothing too serious. I have never had so many offers of help from the staff whilst I was shopping. Usually I struggle to reach things on the higher shelves. Perhaps they didn't want another fall on their records.

I have a lovely tea. I had some fish and a ready made salad which went down very well with a fresh bagel. Marks and Spencer food may be on the pricey side but it sure does taste good. I like to treat myself now and then.



Thankfully I have reached a point where I have most things that I need, yarn wise, button wise and trimming wise, for my baby things once this last yarn order arrives. Now perhaps I can concentrate on paying off what I have spent. I have got all the patterns that I need so it will just be a case of buying more yarn once this recent stash is used up.

Tonight I hope to resume some crochet. Hopefully after my long sleep I should stay awake whilst watching the TV this evening.

Just Enough Space For Me To Eat

I used to have a dining room with a round table and space for 4 chairs. Now I have 3 chairs (one got broken) and just enough space for me to put my plate. After I have moved the baby jacket of course.

When my table isn't being used to display or block my latest project that is. This will be my version of Baby It's Cold Outside, a free pattern from Ravelry, when it is finished off. Yes it's finally happened. My friend Sylvia, the foster mum, has got a newborn girl. I am so excited to have a girl to crochet for but I still have to fit in my work for my online store as well so I am going to be busy. The white box holds my filing system for baby patterns. Another box holds the partially finished baby crochet sets.  It's bad enough having one messy room but my front room was turning into a crochet jumble as well. I like to have one room where chaos doesn't reign although it can never be completely tidy as I crochet in there whilst I watch the TV in the evenings. One project and a basket in there looks OK to me.

My one bit of organization. My buttons are mostly sorted into the same colour in boxes making it easier to find a certain button.The boxes behind the blue double sided boxes contain my rosebuds, motifs, trimmings and bows

One of the knitting machines has got buried under the yarn. The good thing though is that now it is so easy to move the laundry bags around and also to see what is in there. This, of course, is not my full stash. This is just the new stash accumulated for my baby crochet. The rest is still in the stash bedroom. The calor gas fire is my emergency heating as I only have gas central heating and if anything goes wrong with my boiler then I have no heat. Fortunately I haven't had to use it this year.

The baby cardigans have now dried from blocking. I used a pattern by Heather from Just Crochet for this jacket but the hat, which has turned out a bit big, was adapted from another pattern.

After I had finished crocheting the back I realized that I had been reading the pattern wrong. It was that day when I wasn't concentrating as I kept falling asleep. I decided that even though it wasn't the stitch that Heather had designed I quite liked my version so I carried on until I had finished the jacket. I made this one for my neighbour Julie's sister's baby boy to be. I decided that the other jacket that I knitted would be far too small for a full term baby and another of the foster Mums has just got a brand new baby boy who weighs less than 5 lbs so it will fit him better,

I will send this for the baby girl although she will have to grow into it. I started it long before I knew it would be a girl and only finished it off once she was here. I think that the pattern is a Peter Pan one but I have filed it away now (bragging because I now have a labelled filing system for my most regularly used baby patterns!) so I will have to find it again to post the number on Ravelry later.

I haven't done much of anything so far today. I crocheted a matching hat to match the cream baby jacket but I still have to sew the buttons and trimmings onto the jacket so hopefully photos of that tomorrow. This jacket will also be too big for the foster baby yet but she will grow into it very soon.

Fingers Crossed For A Girl

I am still busy crocheting baby things. These two jackets are not for my store. The blue jacket is for my neighbour's sister's baby boy due in July. The yarn is James C Brett Marble Baby DK. The pattern is a  bit of a mix. It started off as one pattern and true to form it evolved into another as I didn't like crocheting the stitch that was on the pattern.

I started the pink random bolero a while ago but never finished it off. The yarn appears to be one of those pearlized yarns but as it had no label I cannot say for sure what it is. I finished it off as my friend Sylvia has heard that there maybe another foster baby on it's way to her and the rumour is that it is a little girl. Fingers crossed. Last time she was told that it was a girl she got a boy as per usual. Any way I finished off the bolero just in case. The trouble with foster babies is I never know what size they will be until they arrive. Sometimes they are very tiny and sometimes full term.

My little black cat visitor is acting like she lives here now. This morning because I was in the front room I didn't see her at the patio door. She came around the front jumped onto a really narrow windowsill and banged on the glass with her paw to be let in. She has had some dinner and is now fast asleep somewhere. She will emerge when she is fed up and wants to go home again.

Today I was going to call up the village for some bread and visit the bank but the nice weather has disappeared and it keeps raining on and off. Ah well I will find something from the freezer for my dinner tonight instead.

As promised more photos from the baby knitting book. I am not sure if they will all fit on but I will see how it goes.

Nice basic little cardigan.

This makes a little boy look all grown up.

I love this little dress although I don't think that I would fancy knitting those ruffles. Too many stitches for me !

Another of the lovely pram rugs in this book.

Sweet little hat with an elf style top.

A very useful hooded top. Sorry about the lousy photo.

A very grown up looking aran sweater.

Unusual style block pram rug.

Not sure about these colours but I do like the style and the striped sleeves.

Such a pretty detail on the baby slippers.

Jacket with a lace panel up the fronts.

Another version of the log cabin blanket.

This would be lovely for a family party or wedding. Comfier for a little one than a real suit.

A very usefully shaped jacket. Simple but effective.

Nice grown up jacket for a little one. I would not have chosen lime green for a boy but some how it works.

A very useful hat with ear flaps and ties to keep ears warm in the winter.

I adore these little shoes especially in the bright colours.

A cupcake hat. The last pattern in the book. 60 patterns and every one of them is very knittable. Looking forward to having the time the start something from the book very soon.

Coffee time, 60 minute makeover on the TV and some more baby crochet. That's my plans for the afternoon unless the weather brightens up and I can go out on my scooter to the shops. .