Meet Buzzy (2014 FOs #9 & #10)

On this cold and chilly winter morning, I'd like to introduce the bright and cheery face of the newest member of my household: Buzzy the Bee!

A few months ago Sam and I drove down to Morning Peninsula for a seaside picnic and stopped at the Pure Peninsula Honey Farm on the way back. I do like honey but the real motivation for my visit was because I love going to the places that make this kind of thing. They have a room with a glass beehive in it where you could see the bees coming in from outside, depositing their pollen and then going back out again. There was a honey tasting station that I think put me into a brief sugar coma and lots of lovely ancillary honey products like beeswax candles and honey-based moisturisers and honey beer and icecream. Did you know there's a low GI honey that's suitable for many diabetics? Honey is a fabulous versatile product.

The farm also had a section of kids stuff - tiny clothes, blankets and toys. We picked up a bee toy as a present for a baby that is arriving shortly (literally very shortly - the mother went into labour yesterday morning). We brought him home and popped him on the kitchen bench so Sam wouldn't forget to take it with him when he left. But (and this is so ridiculous from two grown adults) he looked really cute there! He's such a happy bee and provides just the right amount of cheer for when you get up in the morning and the thermostat says that the temperature inside the house is three degrees. So I decided to keep him and make the baby a hat and booties set instead. 

The booties are the famous Christine's Stay-on Booties. They are designed so that the baby can't kick off their shoes, as they are apparently known to do. The pattern is really quick to knit and requires like 20m of yarn (I don't know if that is correct, but it felt like a teeny tiny amount. Next time I make a pair I'll weigh them).

The only modification I left out was knitting a row of YOs at the ankle for a ribbon or knitted icord to be threaded through. It seemed a bit fiddly plus I kind of thought they looked like space booties without it and I like the idea of kitting out little girls in outfits that look like they could be on astronauts. Better than giving them any of the myriad pink plastic crap that we force on young girls from birth that reinforce rigid gender stereotypes. DEATH TO ALL PINK PLASTIC REPLICAS OF CLEANING AND COOKING IMPLEMENTS GIVEN TO LITTLE GIRLS!! 

The hat was pretty easy - I cast on 88 stitches, knit till it was long enough, decreased at eight points until there were four stitches left and then knitted an icord until it was long enough to tie into a knot.

It was a little too big for Buzzy though! The poor little bee toppled over under the weight of the giant newborn baby hat.

The yarn I used was the Jo Sharp Alpaca Silk Georgette left over from my stepmother's birthday socks. The colour is more accurate in the outside shots. I didn't weigh them but I'd guesstimate the set used about one 50g ball. The yarn is super soft and deluxe and I hope this cute little set keeps the baby warm and toasty on these cold cold mornings.

Much better than a stuffed bee would, really!

Cinnamon non-sequitors

Ever since I broke my leg, I've been trying to be as healthy as I can with my diet. Mainly, I try to limit processed and sugary foods and make as much of the food I eat as I can. I also make sure I have lots of calcium (for healthy bones) and lots of veggies (for the nutrients and antioxidants). I've found the easiest way to do this is to make a smoothie every day, not only because it's so easy to do but because they are delicious, so it doesn't feel like any effort at all to eat well. This one contains four types of frozen berries, natural unsweetened yoghurt and milk and it is yum.

Since my accident I've also had a bit of minor joint pain - nothing serious, just a bit irritating. I read in the I quit sugar cookbook that cinnamon is a natural cure for joint pain, so I've been adding 1/2 a teaspoon of ground cinnamon to the mix over the last week. It might be the placebo effect but I swear it's making a difference (plus, I love the flavour of cinnamon so my smoothie is even more delicious!).

The colour of the smoothie reminded me of a project I started ages ago but then got frustrated with and shoved into a drawer. The pattern is the 126-29 DROPS gloves knitted using the leftover Alpaca Silk Georgette from the Rainy Day Socks II I made for my stepmother. The yarn is lovely but the wrist is too big and the thumb hole too small but the fingers took me such a long time that I didn't want to rip them out. 

Today, I bit the bullet...

..and voila, the glove became this...

..the start of a baby hat for Sam's horrible friends (may they never find this blog). 

Also, yes, Lucy has two climbing and scratching towers. I am aware she is completely spoiled, as I remember every night when I tip her expensive wet food into her hand-painted hand-wash only food bowl. I realise it is ridiculous for an adult woman to lavish so much love on her cat, but what can I say - I've got a soft spot for anything that purrs. I'm not sorry at all!!

2014 FOs #2 & #3: Snowflake hat and bootie set

Because I love making booties more than just about anything else in the entire world, as soon as it was clear I would have wool left over from the OpArt blanket, I cast on a pair of baby socks that have been in my Ravelry queue forever.

These socks were easy, cute and used very little yarn (only 34g in total!). 

They're a bit bigger than the booties I normally make (the pattern says they're for 6 to 12-month-old babies), but I figure new mums get heaps of newborn stuff but not a lot of stuff for when the kid is older. I can say for sure that they will fit the baby at some time (hopefully winter time - these socks are very very thick and warm).

I did a short row heel but when I make these again, I'll use an afterthought heel as recommended in the pattern because I think it will look a bit more finished.

I still had a little bit of yarn left over (the case of the never-ending Bendy balls strikes again!) and so I whipped up a matching hat. It was also quick and easy - cast on 66 stitches in yellow, knit 5 rows in 1x1 rib, changed to purple, knit 1 row, increased 6 stitches following row, then continued as shown. The hat took 23 grams of yarn.

For not a lot of extra time, these little extras add a whole lot of cuteness to the package.

I hope the new parents like these as much as I do.

2011 FO #1: No Blanket For You! Hat

Ta da! The hat for the baby who didn't get a blanket is all done.  It's super cute, and I hope the new parents like it.

A few notes on the pattern.  The pattern I used was Cabled Hat with Earflap from Adorable Knits for Tiny Tots by Zoe Mellor. I have another book of Mellor's, 50 Baby Booties to Knit, and I have the same criticism for both books.  Basically, the pattern are a lot more fiddly than they need to be.  This hat is knitted flat and then seamed up.  Some knitters prefer to knit flat, but it's just another unnecessary step that could have been avoided.  I modified it to knit in the round by casting on one stitch less, but that's my preference because if I had to seam it, there's a good chance it'd sit there until the baby was two years old waiting for me to get around to it!  The earflaps are gorgeous and the ties and pompom in a coordinating yarn are a great touch that I will use again, but there were heaps of ends to weave in, making the finishing a bit annoying.  The instructions on how to make a pompom were incredibly blacking.  The sizes of the hat, rather than being listed in approximate ages as you'd expect from a baby book, were Small Medium Large, meaning that while I was making the hat I had no idea if it was going to be the right size for a newborn or a two-year-old.  I love the finished product, but the whole process was, well fiddly and a bit annoying.

Pattern: Cabled Hat with Earflaps (Rav link)

Yarn: Less than one ball of Sirdar Double Crepe for the body of the hat, scraps of Bendigo Woollen Mills Classic 5ply in Royal Blue for the straps and the pompom.
Notes/Modifications: See above.

And before I go, have you ever seen anything cuter than this?

I thought not.