What I made, by Sharon

We hosted my parents for Friday night dinner. Then on Saturday morning we ran an easy 90 minutes and went to the Melbourne Convention Centre (more often called Jeff's Shed) for the 2025 GABS festival. This usually happens at the end of Good Beer Week and at a rather more sunny venue. Anyway, we had a lot of friends come along, and it was a lovely time. Photos taken by my lovely friends who remember to take photos and are kind enough to share them! After that Leon and I went to see Jude Purl's comedy festival show. We were home by 7pm, out of energy and sitting on the couch. Sunday we got an extra hour of sleep, since daylight savings has started (or finished? I think started). It means it's light when I get up in the mornings, but dark earlier in the evening. Swings and roundabouts.  After cleaning the house we went to the Polly Woodside when Leon and Elise's choir was performing. They did sea shanties this season, and it was a whole lot of fun. I cast on a   French Mac...

 I have often admired knitters who have multiple projects on the go at the same time - something simple for when they are out and about, something more complicated for at home. I've tried it before, but it has always done my head in. Well, last week I cast on Astragal , a stranded hat and I thought it would be better not to try to knit a charted pattern on a busy weekend, so I also cast on a charity jumper. End result: at the end of the week i have a very attractive colourwork hat for Elise, and a stripy  jumper for a three year old, and 200 grams less 8 ply leftovers in the stash -box. Very satisfying all around.  

Last week, before I went back to work I knit the French Macaroon baby jumper. It was a chance to use up some old stash, and Australian's Knitting for War Affected Children (AKWAK) has asked for baby jumpers, so a win-win. I've had this cute free baby jumper in my queue for ages, and it is a really fun, simple, effective knit.  The second one took forever - being back at work has really slowed down my knitting! Speaking of being back at work, last Wednesday I wore my new cardigan to work, and realised that the shawl collar wasn't nearly shawlly enough. i ripped out the last couple of rows of the collar, and added a lot more short rows. now that it is (re)done, I realise that for a truly epic shawl collar it need to start lower, but this should be cosy and fun enough. I'm looking forward to seeing how it wears.  

I was about to cast on a Baby Surprise Jacket for charity, when someone pointed out Joji Locatelli's first published pattern, a free baby cardigan .    Not gonna lie, mine does not look great - in fact, I would say it's downright amateurish. It looks like I tried hard, and it's definitly a wearable garment, but the neckline is weird and pulls i, and I think the striping would have looked better on a BSJ. Still, it's done - now onwards to better things. 

My niece is having a baby boy in February, so when some light blue sparkle yarn showed us in the mail, I knew what it needed to be. This is the Oh Baby! Cardi pattern by Roberta Rich. A really cute, simple top down, seam free, all in one baby quite. I had enough yarn left over that I made a matching hat. And then I got carried away, and decided to knit another one for KOGO (Knit One Give One). I wasn't quite paying attention, so I ended up making the large instead of the medium, and the Stranded in Oz Yarn I was using had less yardage and I realised I was going to run out of yarn. I striped  in some mystery left-overs, and a bit of the sparkle yarn, and I think it came out really well.   

I recently stumbled across Elizabeth Zimmerman's Baby Surplice Jumper, and look how cute it is: Unfortunately, Schoolhouse Press doesn't actually sell the pattern - not even in an e-book with other patterns. So, I had to pretend it was 1990 (or 1970) and borrow it! Luckily Sonia had a copy of the very charming Knit One Knit All she could lend me. It's been a long time since I knit a pattern that is only available in a paper book! The cardigan is fairly simple. It would have only taken me three days, but I didn't read the instructions properly - for the Baby Surprise Jacket, Elizabeth has you put in two markers and increase on either side of them. for this you put in two markers and increase one each side of each marker. The pattern is clear, I just misread it. If (when) I make it again I'll make the sleeve extensions in ribbing, or on a smaller needle because they do flare a little. I'll also probably use I-Cord through the bottom eyelets, I wasn't sure whe...

This is my 13th Baby Surprise Jacket . it's a pattern written for 5-ply (sport weight), but I have always knit it in 4-ply (sock weight) because that's what I have around, and I usually knit jumpers to welcome my friends newborn babies'.   I mentioned earlier that I was going to knit 10 hats for charity and KOGO put out a call for baby jumpers, and specified that they should not be premie sized. So I decided to hold two strands together and use 4mm needles.  It's certainly not small. In fact, weighing in at 270 grams, and being quite large, I would really describe it as a toddler jacket.  The buttons are left over from my 2012 trip to Liberty of London . All in all I love knitting this little jumper, and it never fails to look good, no matter what yarn I use for it. This is my 4th of the promised 10 projects, so it's going to plan quite nicely.

You may remember what feels like months ago I dyed some lilac yarn , because I was worried that the mother of the baby I was knitting for might be weird about gendered colours? Well, she posted a picture of Noah in a lilac lace hat, so I guess it would have been fine! And, now that I'm writing this, I realise I should have knit something in black and white. "Dear old Collingwood forever". Maybe I'll do that for when he gets out of hospital in September.  I had trouble with wee Envelop e again. This time I could not pick up the stitches for the body nicely, and ended up doing them on the inside, which is fine, but not nearly as cute as doing them on the outside.  The hat is just a simple 80 stitch hat, starting with some garter to match the jumper, and ending with i-Cord, because I think that's cute. It's modelled here by my smaller bear model, and it's quite tight, which is good, since Noah is tiny - he was born at 6 months and 1 day. If ...

Laura, an ex-colleague of mine had a baby. I first met her while I was waiting to interview for the organisation I currently work for. When we both got jobs she walked me down to get my fingerprints done and pass issues. Eventually we drifted off - she joined the OH&S team and I went to a different site. Last time I saw her was in December, at a lunch for another colleague we had worked with for almost as long, who was off to have a baby. At that time Laura told me she was trying to have a solo IVF baby. She must have been actually pregnant, because last week her baby came - after 6 months and a day gestation. So, a little underbaked.  Little Noah is doing ok I think, and I decided to knit her a bit of a baby set. The obvious yarn I had was this: It's a bit lavender, and I would put a boy in it, but I'm not sure she would. I ran it through the dye-pot and now it's a much more manly purple! I'm going to knit a baby Envelope  and a hat - partly to keep the baby warm, ...

I started knitting Elizabeth Zimmerman's  February Baby Leggings for Tara's baby shower - also because they were the February Stranded in Oz club pattern and they looked like  a lot of fun.   Which they were - and super quick to knit. Three days, start to finish. I reduced the depth of the waist by a little bit, since they look really deep, and some people commented that they were designed to fit old fashioned cloth nappies. I don't know. I always figure if they fit this (my smaller bear) they will fit a newborn. But newborns probably have longer legs. Sometimes I think I should get a more human biologically accurate model. Anyway, they were such fun, I'm now planning a me size version - charmingly called " nether garments " by Mrs Zimmerman.  I called Tara to confirm that her baby shower was (obviously) cancelled and to have a catch up, she told be that she also has gestational diabetes .  I thought I might make a jumper wi...

And today I have three finished objects! Normally I like to write about these things as I go, but I didn't get these blocked until last night, and here they are, dry and ready to write about.   This Baby Surprise Jacket might be the cutest thing I have ever made. Every time I finish a BSJ I think it's the best ever. This is number 11 and I love it. It's such a precious knit. The main colour was dyed by a friend of mine, and I think it is perfectly offset by the browns.  Leon's Winter Set 2020 Hat: I'm really happy with how this came out. The crown shaping was worrying me, since I can never picture in my mind how it is going to look, but this worked out really well.  The mitts came out well too. I based them on a basic (and free) Drops pattern . By co-incidence, both the hat and the mitts came out with 3 repeats of the arrow pattern. I've just started the matching scarf, which will have between 33 and 50 repeats of the arrow pattern. Luckily it...

Last Friday I was getting my next project ready to start. I got out the yarn, which I had ordered 6 weeks before, and was joking with Leon about how weird it would be to knit on six millimetre needles, after a full month knitting socks on 2mm needles. "Hold up" says Leon, do you have 6mm needles". "Sure I replied, I bought the Chiaogoo set that goes up to 6mm". And then I got a bad feeling, and checked, and found out I have the Chiaogoo set that goes up to 5mm". Luckily we were meeting Kris that night, and she brought me, and lent me the 6mm needles. What a lifesaver. After that dramatic pre-start, the knitting was pretty straightforward and fun, and only took three days, although it was a glorious three days, including a trip to our local, a very rainy homebound Saturday and visit to a brewery on Sunday.  The jumper is quite large, but the baby this is for is going to be born in late November, so I figure it's for next winter.  Wondering w...

I finished the two Baby Surprise Jackets I was knitting and sewed the buttons on, washed and blocked them, bought a card and a mailing envelope.  Now Leon just needs to get an address, and these can go off the there recipients. I really like how the button choice came out on both of these. I'm very happy with both of them. Like I always say, it's pretty hard to mess up a Baby Surprise Jacket . Interestingly, despite both being knit on the exact same needle (3.25mm Chiagoo),  one came out noticeably larger than the other.  Really, one of my most favourite knitting things in the whole world is pairing a solid with a self striping, whether it is for baby jumpers or socks. One of my other favourite tings is taking photos of baby jumpers on my teddy bears:  As a bonus to this post, here's a pictures of the a previous baby jumper (not a BSJ) that I knit, with the actual baby in it.

I didn't mention it at the time, but on the train back from Ballarat I cast on a Baby Surprise Jacket. My colleague who sits next to me at work is having a baby (I've already made his present) and he showed me a picture of the Baby Surprise his step mother knitted and I realised I had to knit another of these darling jumpers.  I used LOSY, and went into it without a clear plan, just knitted away in complementary colours. And I love it. It's so simple to knit, and so pretty and such a fun way of using up left over sock yarn. This time it was quite small amounts, and I think it look nicer than if I'd just used a premade colourway. It really is a perfect little jumper, which might be why this is my seventh one! For someone who rarely repeats patterns, that's kind of epic. This one is going to my neice on Leon's side, who is having her second baby, but I really knit it because it is so fun, easy and cute.