Urgent Christmas Knitting in progress

Well it is only 4 days away and I’m still knitting some of my presents.

Here is a quick update of the sock knitting

These are Granpa’s socks, very plain blue ones. They are wrapped and at my Mum’s house waiting for the big day.

Here is one of my Grandad’s socks complete and one still in progress. I ran out of brown self-striping yarn so they are being finished off in a plain cream wool with a bit of the self striping mixed in. Hopefully they don’t look too strange.

I have done another pair of socks but I didn’t get a picture of them so I’ll have to get a pic when they get opened.

I’ve been quite productive over the last few days, sewing, beading and knitting. I’ll try and get pictures of things when they get unwrapped.

Sewing: Jeans

I’ve made the little one some jeans. They are so gorgeous but too big. It will probably only take about 2 months for him to grow into them but I am impatient because I'm so happy with how good they look. I’ve cut out another pair of pants that I’ll size down a little so that he can wear them now.

I’ve just realised that I don’t have a photo of the finished front. Here is one in progress. I did faux pockets on the front, just stitched them on.

I'm loving making trousers for Ash, they are so quick and easy, especially when I just do an elastic waist to make it easy to get over the nappy butt.

TGIF

Even though I am not currently going to work I still really cherish the weekends. It is a time when I know there will be help and time off from my darling boy. Time to sleep in in the mornings (or nip across the road early on Saturday morning to check out the farmers market. Bacon and egg roll, fresh, hot chai, yummmm) I might even get some time to work on some craft projects.

My current obsession is playing with my knitting machine. I pulled it out recently to see if it still worked. It has been in storage for a few years now and I couldn't remember the state I left it in last time I used it. It needs a bit of a service but is still in good working order for something that is at least 25 years off age. I've been churning out bits but with not much success. I have a huge stash of machine knitting cones and quite a few old patterns from the 70s and 80s but the fit of these patterns is really not great for the modern silhouette. I need to spend some time working out gauge and design, rather than just designing on the fly. It's frustrating when you have a design in mind but can't translate them to the medium.

The other problem with the knitting machine is that my darling boy can't stand the noise it makes! Poor thing, he cries whenever I think that I might have a spare minute to run the carriage over the needles. I guess it is his equivalent of nails dragging down a blackboard.

I'll try and get pics of my ancient singer to put up and some samples of the cloth that I have been turning out. A lot of it has been frogged and rewound in frustration but some samples are still languishing on the table.

Bibs

Not so long ago I was reading a post about bibs that a mum was deciding over and I thought the idea of a pelican bib was kind of weird. (There is an example of a plastic moulded one here.) What would you need a pocket on a bib for? Now I know. My DS is trying out finger food and I can see now that a pocket would prevent so much of the food ending up in his lap. The high chair tray only covers so much then there is the gap between the bib and the tray where everything seems to end up. I have been draping him in a tea towel and then puttting a bib on in an effort to not have 3 changes of clothing a day.

So the next design project is going to be some bibs with pockets. I'll have to do some research. I have a great normal bib pattern that I have been using for the last 2 months. I hope to have a few in my Etsy store soon, for sale. Here are some WIPs they just need some velcro to finish them off.

Next time I'll get a shot of the bub in one. He is so cute I have thousands of pics of him so will have to introduce him to this blog as my chief model.