Deep Breath - and let go.....

I did it - I've put my Anahera pattern out in the big bad world on the Ravelry store.  I am so nervous - what if it's crap and nobody likes it and they ask me hard questions and complain?  Please don't!  Be nice to me!

I think it's a fabulous pattern and everyone should rush out and buy it now:

Anahera

 Check out my Ravelry page if you are signed up.

A proper kind of cat....

...has to be black and white!!!!!  I don't know why, but to me a cat's not really a cat unless it's black and white.  Perhaps because my first feline friend was my Grandma's black and white cat, and then there was my lovely Audrey (now helping to grow flowers - that's a pretty nice job for a cat), and briefly there was Simon (who was unfortunately fearless and now also growing flowers), and now.....

Here's Moon (otherwise known as Puku):

The centre of attention at our place.  He does make knitting difficult.

 But we forgive him.  "Do cat's have baby teeth?"  asked Mr 5?

A Sailor's Hat to Match

A full pattern for this hat can be downloaded for free from the Ravelry Store:

download now

Not wanting to waste an inch of Angie's beautifully dyed merino wool here's a hat to match Wendy Bernard's Sailor's Rib sweater (Interweave Knits Weekend 2009).  It took me three attempts to get a hat that fit out of the samll amount I had left - as you can see it is a snug fit - but used every last drop of wool.

If you want to do your own here's a rough guide, assuming you know how to knit a basic hat in the round.  If you don't, Google it ;-)

For the sailor's rib you need to cast on a mulitple of 5 sts.  I CO 75sts for this hat - with worsted weight yarn on 4mm circular needles I got a 4 repeats of the 5 st Sailor's Rib = 12cm/5".  I'd suggest 80-85sts for a larger child's hat, 90-95sts for an adult hat.  I did 2 purl rounds, then 3 full repeats of the rib, then rnds 1 & 2 of the rib followed by 2 purl rnds.  Knit desired depth (about 5" from CO for a child's hat), then form the crown by alternating knit rounds with decrease rounds k8, k2tg....; k7, k2tg.... etc.

Sailor's Rib in the round:
Rnds 1 & 2:  k1tbl, p1, k2, p1
Rnds 3 & 4:  k1tbl, p4

The miracle of sun, water and animal poo!

In the spring I cut down some shrubby trees, liberated a bunch of rocks from the wasteland over the fence, bought several bags of ZooDoo and built an extention to my pocket sized vege garden.  I planted corn, tomatoes, zucchini, carrots and potaotes.  After a month things looked like this (28/12/09):

Only five weeks later it looks like THIS! (6/2/09):

Corn, with cobs on!

Corn being arty:

Tomatoes:

The big little picture (with clothes line):

An indulgent check out my home town pic:

Beautiful scarlett runner beans.  This is the original mini-garden - the beans are several years old, they're perennial, plant these once and you're set for life.  Gee they're pretty.

Also in my original plot - more potatoes!  Like all good Kiwi kids I grew up with potatoes (and silverbeet) in the backyard, but this is my first go and growing potatoes myself on purpose (i.e., not by accident in the compost heap!)

I got impatient and dug one up today:

The rest were peanut sized.  Patience is a virtue.....  But look what I found lurking under the potato I dug up:

The only real flop has been the zucchini.  A wet, foggy summer does not make healthy zucchini.  The cool wet spring and summer has done wonders for everything else though, this plot is a real heat trap, and the weather has finally turned hot, so hopefully things will continue to ripen and thrive.  I haven't bought a lettuce or a bean or a tomato all year!

Still Waiting for Summer....

No one is allowed to touch the button on my thermometer - I want to leave the "high" bar on 31 for ever - just to prove it really did get hot once!  Saturday 30th Jan 2010 it was :-)

Even our week at the beach was a cooler experience than usual, a lot of books were read by my bookworms, the five year old discovered he could read chapter books.

But hey, the cooler weather meant Ry could model his new jersey!

This merino was dyed by a friend of mine. She called it "NZ Coastline", and I just wanted to show you how exactly perfectly the colours match a New Zealand beach. Wasn't she clever?

See - perfect!

More Beachy Goodness


Those coastal shades of blue and brown and grey again.


Now we're home, the children went back to school today and Parapara seems along way away and a long time ago.  I can feel that warm sand on my toes....

Broad Beans and the Easiest Ever Apron-from-a-Tea-Towel

It doesn't feel much like summer when it's 10.8C ("feels like 8" the Metservice helpfully told me on their website, yes, I know, I felt it!), but the masses of broad beans in my Broadbean Jungle suggest maybe better weather really is on it's way.  I love the green of them when they're young - very spring.  Also, I love blue and white china, so I'm showing off my plate.

I must have been stuck inside too long this week, because today I got out my Bernina and made an apron out of a tea towel.

Here's how to do it:
Find a funky tea towel.
Cut it to the size you want, perhaps 2/3 of a tea towel.
Use the cut off portion to make ties.

My tea towel came with built in trim and embroidered rooster, as soon as I saw it I knew it really wanted to be an apron.  As the towel had more trim along the top I cut a wide strip off the top and sewed it back on as a waistband, cunningly concealing where I sewed the ties on.

Truely sewing for dummies.  Even I managed to break only 1 needle and sew things together the wrong way no more than 2 or 3 times. 

I really should not be let near sewing machines!  To be honest, I've never broken a sewing machine needle in life before - but I always sew something the wrong way round.

Lulamae to Anahera

Some time ago I got it in my head to design a top for my big girl based on the idea of a 1930s girls tunic.  She likes to wear leggings, but often pairs them with just a t shirt, which to my eye just isn't "decent"!  So I wanted something long enough to look like she wasn't half dressed, but short enough for play, with pockets for treasures (and everything is better with pockets in my opinion), cap sleeves for sun protection, and for no reason other than I wanted to - pleats! 

I wanted to call her Lulamae (Holly Golightly's real name) as a reference to my dustbowl inspiration, but Miss Z chose the name Anahera, which is actually perfect.  This is my Ravelry blurb:

Anahera is a long top or short dress depending on your whim - short enough for cartwheels and tree climbing, but long enough to wear modestly over tights or leggings. Slightly puffed sleeves provide a girly touch and sun protection, and the neat little pockets are perfect for Thing Seekers to store their treasures.

A little bit dustbowl chic, a little bit Belles of St Trinians, Anahera was inspired by a 1930s pattern book and the tunics/gymslips school girls used to wear.

Knit in the round from the bottom up, concealed pockets have little pleat details, which are echoed in the slightly puffed sleeves.

I wanted this to fit an 8-10 year old, and it's just a tad big on my petite girl so I'm pretty happy with the sizing.  A lot of calculations went into this!  And a lot of figuring out how to do stuff - pleats, hidden pockets....  Not entirely happy with my increase pleats (kf&b&f&b x 2), so please tell me if you know a cleverer way to do it.  I found the pocket plan in my old Stitchcraft magazines, and the pleat method using a cable needle from Sweaterbabe's Vine Lace Top Down Cardigan.  Then I found Pleat by the fabulous Norah Gaughan and remembered it's impossible to be orginal ;-)

I'm hoping to get the pattern written up for sharing soon (all things take time!), and to get the calculator out for smaller sizes - 4 and 6 year olds need frocks too!  Oh, and the camera out for a proper modelled session.