Welcome Little Peter

Here's my baby boy modelling a Peapod Soup original cardigan. He's nearly 8 weeks old now, getting more aware of his surroundings and starting to smile.

I'm slowly getting back into making things, but H is nearly 14 months old and almost walking, so I've kind of got my hands full!. We've converted our loft into a craft / office space, so I'm really excited about having some space to work and be creative once the littleys are in bed. 

Both my etsy shops are now open after a short break.  Holding a street party of the Royal Jubilee? Then you need to whip up a patriotic tea cosy, available from The Tree Bridge, my crochet pattern store! There's also a pattern for English cakes and biscuits, for your Jubilee cake stand. 

Happy Making!

I want to enjoy autumn for a bit before I start to get all festive. We've been going on lovely walks around here, and gradually finding pushchair-friendly routes. The best places are along the canal or in the woods. I know if this pregnancy is the same as the last one, then I'm going to be housebound for the next few months. Its very painful to walk while pushing a pushchair loaded with shopping, but gentle strolls with my husband are just about bearable and I'm not going to give in just yet!



On Wednesday I bumped into a friend in town and  I nearly burst into tears because I was in so much pain and didnt know how I was going to make it home. So I've given up walking into town, and I'm doing all my shopping online unless I go with my husband in the car (I don't drive).

The weather has been lovely for autumnal strolls, and we're really lucky to live in such a nice part of the country, even if the town where we live isn't that great. I love woodlands, especially oak woods. I think the colours and darkness and textures are my natural habitat, the way that some people 'seaside' people or 'mountain' people. All good walks should invovle a country pub and real ale, although I have to stick to a Dandelion & Burdock these days.


 

In the woods we stumbled across this baby owl! H loves looking up at the trees.



This is Caen Hill Locks, on the Kennet & Avon canal near Devizes. There are 29 locks in a row, once I went through them in my brother's narrowboat, it took us all afternoon.

I'm hoping this weekend will mainly involve vegan cupcake-eating, jerusalem artichoke-digging, compost-spreading, some more walking and christmas decoration-making.

Hurrah! Finished Socks.

I seem to have about a hundred crochet projects waiting to be started, mostly for other people, so I'm glad I finished my cosy autumn socks last night. Now I can start on something else...

They are made from 1 ball of King Cole Zig Zag yarn, (bought from ebay for less than a fiver) and I went up a hook size because my feet are bigger from being pregnant. I also added a few more rows to the main foot part. A really nice project to carry around because they're so small, I worked on them a lot during our 3 and a half hour car journey to see my grandmother, it was the first time she had seen her new great-grandson. The pattern is on Ravelry and Etsy.

Hurrah!

It's time to start thinking about making things for Christmas; the raspberry gin is getting nicely pink in the back of the cupboard, I've made my little H his first stocking, and today I baked the Christmas cake. I've used this Delia recipe for the past 5 years and it always comes out great, the only change I made was, after soaking the dried fruit in sloe gin (instead of brandy) overnight, the mixture still seemed quite dry so I so added half a cup of strong black tea and let it soak for a few more hours. This will be my first christmas at home with my husband and baby, (we got married in July), I usually go to my parents in Worcester, so I'm getting really into the idea of making it really special. After 4 and a half hours in the oven this is what came out:

Really moist and yummy looking. I will wrap it in foil, feed it every now and again, then decorate it with fruit and nuts.

Happy Hexagons Organic Cotton Baby Blanket

Happy October! We've having a heatwave, so it doesnt feel very autumnal at the moment. Yesterday I somehow a lot of work done, which isnt easy when you're looking after a 6 month old at the same time. I managed to get some patterns listed in my etsy shop, and this is one of them!

My brother & his girlfriend are expecting a baby in 2 weeks, so I decided to make them a blanket. They love bright colours and dont know whether they are having a boy or girl, so I raided my stash and found lots of different colours to make motifs with. I played around with squares, and stripes, and finally settled on hexagons. I wanted a plain kind of shape that wasnt too girly.

 

Later, I was making a cushion cover from some organic cotton, and when I had some left over I decided to make some more hexagons, as they are so nice to make! So I ended up with another blanket. It's made from lovely Twilley's Freedom Sincere Organic Cotton.

I enjoyed working with Sincere, it was a bit splitty, but all cotton yarns are. I often question the ethical and environmental sourcs of yarn. Acrylic yarn is essentially made from oil. When I was (mostly) vegan I hesitated about using Sheep's wool, also it makes me itch. There are soya and bamboo yarns available, but I guess there isnt really a truly sustainable yarn. 

   

Freedom Sincere is just like Rowan Organic Cotton, but about half the price. I stopped liking Rowan yarns so much when I worked in a wool shop. The colours and textures are gorgeous but when you come to work with it, it often has knots in, and it bobbles when you wash it, which isnt great when you've spent a lot of money. Modern yarns like Sirdar and Patons are so much nicer than they used to be, and are washable and dont bobble. When I'm making things for H, I tend to use budget acrylic yarns because they need to be washed so often, and he grows out of things so quickly.

Happy Hexagons Baby Blanket pattern is available from The Tree Bridge and Ravelry.