tiny happy

baby knits + winter comforts

Hello there! How has your week been? 
Mine has been a lovely one, even though we've had some proper wintry weather including hail and storms.

Something very exciting happened last week - a new baby was born into our family so I have a new niece. I knitted her a little set comprising of a pair of booties and a hat. They probably won't fit for long, but I wanted to make something that she could wear right away.

For the hat, I used this pattern and held a strand of alpaca/silk with some sock yarn - the effect is a very soft and light little hat. (Just like these ones I knitted for 2 of my other nieces recently.) And for the booties, I used the same cashmere sock yarn, and a free pattern on Ravelry called 'Greemy Baby Booties.' It's a great little pattern and I noticed baby M was wearing them pulled up (rather than folded over like in the photo above) so they work as little shoes or socks.

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Also this week, I made a couple of embroidered knitting project bags. Both have garden sampler-type designs on the front, and are quite similar but not the same. I've listed them in my etsy shop - poor old shop has been neglected for ages!

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The Auckland Writers Festival took place recently, and I was sad not to be able to attend, as I'd wanted to see one of my favourite writers there, Karl Ove Knausgård. But then I saw that the festival had uploaded a podcast of his talk! You can find it here, along with podcasts and videos of lots of other interesting talks, including those by Nigella Lawson, Witi Ihimaera, Shashi Tharoor, Robert Webb and others. A treat!

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In other news, I had some questions about my last post, and I thought I'd answer them here as my comments don't seem to be publishing properly at the moment. A few people wondered about making the Sapporo Coat I wrote about, and whether I had any more tips for sewing it.

I'm not really an expert in sewing, but I did make my coat three times over, and here are my tips. They mostly relate to being more careful/smarter than I was:

+ Wash your fabric first, then iron it carefully before cutting out the pieces (don't worry if you plan to dry-clean your coat) but it's important the fabrics are ironed to get an accurate pattern piece! 

+ It's probably best to trace the paper pattern pieces from the original pattern, rather than cut it out and fold over the edges for your size. The patterns are printed on stiff brown paper, and you'll get a more accurate result if you make tissue-paper copies of the pieces.

+ Pin and cut out the pieces really accurately. You might have to think about this process carefully (at least I did) because some pieces are to be cut on a single thickness and some aren't. No drinking wine at the same time, ok?

+ The pattern is sized quite large. I'm usually a size 'medium' but made the smallest size and it still feels quite roomy. I love that about this pattern, though.

+ I would try to choose a non-stretch, medium-weight outer fabric that has a bit of drape. I think a very thick coating fabric might not sit/drape as nicely for this design.

+ Take your time and don't rush with this project. Having a practice from some non-precious fabric first is always a good idea.

+ There's a video tutorial for making this on YouTube you might want to check out.

Having said all that, it's a great pattern and not at all difficult. Have fun!

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sapporo coat + embroidery

Over the last couple of weeks I've been working on making a winter coat. I've been wanting to try out a design by Papercut Patterns for a while. They're based in Nelson, my hometown! And I think their designs are fab. Anyway, I bought their Sapporo Coat pattern and made it up from some black cashmere woollen twill fabric that has been tucked away in a box under my bed for far too long. 

It's a really clever design, but I wasn't so clever when sewing it. The first version I made looked ok hanging up but the fit wasn't quite right when I put it on (here's a photo of it on Insta) and that was I think partly to do with drinking wine while sewing, and partly because I didn't take enough time and care when cutting the pieces out in the first place.

I'm always tempted to rush when sewing clothes, which is not a good habit. Do you do this too? I think because my sewing stuff takes over my workdesk while I'm making something, I feel like I need to get it done quickly before stacks of books and papers, scissors and pins completely overtake the room. And also because when compared to knitting, sewing is quite fast. But I am trying to learn that slow is good. No matter how many things I sew, I'm still very likely to make mistakes at every turn.

Anyway, I didn't want to waste the beautiful wool fabric I'd used for this coat so I carefully deconstructed it and started again, this time with a dusky pink rayon fabric for the lining. I'm really happy with the second version and I'm sure I'll wear it lots. It's very drapey and warm. I especially like the big pockets.

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I've been doing a bit of embroidery lately - in the last photo above you can see an all-over blossom pattern on a dark grey linen.

I'm also preparing for my classes at the upcoming Soul Craft Festival in Melbourne, and a shipment of my embroidered haberdashery pouches arrived at Loop in London last week - you can see some of them in the photo above. Susan from Loop sent me the linen to make project bags for her shop and these pouches used up the leftover strips - aren't the colours beautiful? 

Here's a song I think is quite beautiful: C'etait un loup by Palatine.
Have a lovely week!

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yellow gold

We have a concrete wall at one side of our house that we don't see much, although it is directly outside the bathroom window. A few weekends ago, Keira and I painted it white and then decided to paint a large-scale botanical design on it. The idea was to create a kind of 'outdoor wallpaper,' rather than a mural.

We had a lot of fun mixing the paints (we mostly used a combination of a yellow test pot from the local hardware store and some old house paint we found in the shed) to get the exact green and yellow we were after. I drew the design in pencil and Keira painted it mostly by herself - she's much better with a paintbrush than me, and we wanted the leaves to have quite fine lines.

I really like the finished wall, and smile whenever I open the bathroom to see it, and remember that autumnal Sunday afternoon painting together.

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The design echoes the tansy that is still going strong in the garden. I'm really loving having yellow around at the moment. I made (yet another) Jul hat, this time in a mustard-yellow cashmere yarn (Ravelry details) and now I think I've officially made enough hats for this coming winter. Although I think Tom still needs one so I'll probably cast that on soon. (I'm thinking about using this pattern from Purl Soho - what do you think?)

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This is a song I have playing my headphones quite often these days: Lost in the Light, by Bahamas.
Hope you're having a happy week!

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handmade fairy

A few years back I struck it lucky and found a few sets of cotton flannel sheets - definitely vintage but not yet opened from their packaging. Everyone in the family loves this time of year, when the soft and warm winter sheets come out from the depths of the linen cupboard and onto our beds. The one in the photo above is my favourite - I was lucky enough to find two of these in double size!

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One of my nieces had a birthday recently and I made her a doll. She's a garden fairy actually - made from a design by Hilary Lang (of Wee Wonderfuls fame) in the first issue of Making magazine. I didn't have quite the right fabric for this fairy's body, so I dyed some white linen with coffee to try to get a better shade, and that seemed to work ok.

It's a lovely pattern and I especially liked learning how to sew the hair on in layers, even though it was a bit fiddly. I used a ball of yellow sock yarn and a strand of natural alpaca yarn held together (I wanted the fairy to have blonde hair to match my niece's). 
The face is hand-embroidered and the eyes are made from small bits of wool felt, and the entire body is stuffed with wool roving. I hope this linen fairy will be a good companion for my niece, who won't notice I forgot to attach the lace tulle wings specified in the pattern.

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I really admire the designs of Anna Graham who writes a blog called Noodlehead. I've made the 'zip tote bag' from her book a few times now for gifts. Today I found this page of tutorials she's put together for free on her blog - you might like them too?

There's lots of new music I'm enjoying at the moment - in particular, this album from Joan as Police Women. Also, this clip of Bill Callahan playing a song in a community garden. Not new, but very good.

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soft green

Hello! Today's dispatch comes to you from my desk from where I can hear the glass recycling truck at work on the street and see a kingfisher perched on the powerline. I hope this finds you well.

Things have been quite busy in my day-job lately, and so I don't feel I have lots to share here. But I'll press on anyway, because that's not stopped me before, haha.

The hat knitting craze in my house continues, with Keira finishing her first hat knit in the round (it looks great, and she's really pleased with it, especially the blue pompom on top) and a new hat for me which I made from a beautiful leafy-green possum-merino yarn that is produced locally. More details, including pattern link, etc, are here.

My own copy of the latest Making magazine arrived in the post earlier this week. It's a beautiful publication and I feel so honoured to have a project in there. The other projects included are lovely and I'm very keen to get started on all of them immediately. 

There is a cardigan, in particular, that I love - it's called 'Sky Cardi', designed by Carrie Bostick Hoge. I think it would be very handy garment all year round, especially worn over dresses. You can see all the knitting projects from this issue, including the Sky Cardi, by clicking here. 

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Here's a song I love listening to at the moment: Sufjan Steven's Tonya Harding.

See you next week,
M

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