Simple circle skirt

Today was a time warp with a trip back to the fabric store where I spent countless hours against my will as a child. This placed must have been around for about a bazillion years. It was old when I was little and has not changed a bit, right down to the staff, accounting method (scribbling on cardboard), no eftpos or credit card sales and probably some of the stock.

Our mission today was to gather goodies to make some circular skirts. I bought some lovely cotton but decided to see if my abilities are up to par with some fun sparkly fabrics for dress ups. There are plenty of tutorials on the internet so making the pattern was actually quite easy. Both girls were happy and I feel that I am up to the challenge to make some actual clothes for them.

Again my photos are really dodgy, but in 2010 the year of compromise, near enough IS good enough. I will try to dig up some photos of last month's sewing, an Abaya for G to wear to book week.

Then and now

Four years ago we had a ballet obsessed little girl. Each day she would wear dress ups or at the very least a twirly dress. 

She spent hours reading her book Tina Ballerina's Ballet Class by Christian Posey and dancing along following the directions.

Now the twirly dresses are a thing of the past but she is now taking ballet class and looks very elegant in her uniform.

Legwarmers

A friend has asked me to make a pair of legwarmers for her little girl and here are the prototypes I have made while creating a pattern. 

I almost want a pair myself. 

Our woolies are ready for some lovin'

We are off to Melbourne in the morning, with a little prayer to St Christopher or whoever the saint who looks after travellers is as we are flying QANTAS. I never thought I would see the day when I was feeling uneasy about stepping on to one of their planes....

Anyway, back to nice things, here are some of the woolies I have been working on over the last few weeks all packed up and ready to go. The scarves are made following a simple yet effective looking stitch pattern that I found at Yarn Harlot. Also piggle and a variation of calorimetry from knitty can be found among our goodies.

I was enjoying knitting up these scarves so much that I made this one for a friend. His was made with a thicker yarn and I think that the pattern really popped in his. Here it is all bundled up with the care instructions from the ball band attached to one of my Moo cards.

Spring is Here!

Well, I just wrote a really long post about how wonderful things are going, how much I love our new place and feel so inspired here but lost it for some reason. So I went to my dashboard to spring clean my blog and had more trouble trying to amend my template. Both these things reminded me of exactly why I have not been around so much lately.....

Anyway, here is the Readers Digest version of what I was saying.

New house is great!

Have been knitting again. I made the doll sleeping bags and pillows for the girls and have a project on the go as a suprise for a friend who has a lot on right now as well as teaching G how to finger knit. Our young neighbour from Austria is quite the finger knitter too. One afternoon she made a skipping rope which the children have played with quite a few times since.

After our wonderful winter Dubai style spring is in full bloom and we are doing lots of spring craft activities. I now finally get the easter bunny thing too. Bunnys and eggs makes sense in Spring rather than Autumn.

Feeling Just Swell

Swell was another quick and simple project, though again the question can be asked why knit this when we are moving so soon. Long ago I promised G a flap hat so here it is.

Calorimetry- finally

So what do you knit just weeks from moving to the desert where temps are going above 40 degrees C everyday, Calorimetry of course. But I have been promising it to G for months now, it is quite cold here, and I still have plenty of this yarn which I also used for her leggings and Twinkletoes.

Oh and, as you do, she is sniffing her weetbix. Of course.

Twinkletoes

How cute are these? I love quick little project like this because not only is it a finished object in just a few hours, but often there is the chance to learn new skills. For this I learned provisional cast on (favourite method here) and decreasing cast off.

Yesterday I was also shown the stretchy cast off using a tapestry needle which I will use in an upcoming garment.

Leggings

Now a certain little lady will not freeze through winter, which at this point seems like it will never come. Today hot and humid with no sign of mild autumn days as yet. A couple of nudists I know are enjoying all the nuddie bum time they can get.

In light of this I am taking a break from knitting clothing and am back to knitting toy fruit and vegies for the girls.

WIP- leggings for G

G lives in twirly dresses. As if there is any other kind for a three year old. I figured why not take advantage of the current trend of leggings and knit her a pair for winter to wear under said twirly dress. She just tried them on (how I love circs) and told me that they would look better with another leg so I had better get bacck to work. :)

Sugar on Snow is Complete

Here it is. Watching the leaves grow was a lot of fun. They are such a great shape and we so quick and easy. I have decided for our autumn nature table to make a few in varying colours.

New project was started in the car last night; another soaker for Amber. I might make this one longies actually.

Sugar on Snow Update

I have finished the main hat / neck warmer part of Sugar on Snow I used a strand of beige and also some green. Unfortunately the green is too lime so I wasn't feel very motivated to finish it off, but G has been running around in the nud with just the hat on. No pic of that coming soon. :) Here is my work so far...

Piggle!

Piggle mark one is complete! G is ok with the small amount of purple in it and will probably actually wear it when the weather gets cold. I really enjoyed working with the lace pattern, which really pops when the hat is actually on. I will try to get one of both girls wearing them when the second one is finished.