Beanies

In January I blogged about spinning up yarn in "Manly Colours" (as in masculine) ... time I showed you what that yarn has become.

Beanies -
Here is one in close up - this colour-way I've named "Green Shoots" :-)
And this colourway is called "Sydney Harbour " - when you sit on a wharf and stare into the water of our gorgeous harbour - these are some of the colours of the water. A mix of deep blue / greens with pale, almost yellow, shafts of light a quiver through the water ...

"Deep and dissolving verticals of light
Ferry the falls of moonshine down. Five bells"
Only you have to think falls of sunlight instead - sorry Kenneth Slessor. I've knitted a child sized beanie in the Sydney Harbour colourway - so it is a Father & Son set.

All those yarns are handspun from Bendigo Woolen Mills roving (or sliver) the charcoal and dark navy are BWM dyed, the other colours I dyed.

This beanie is made of re-purposed yarn. I found a half knitted jumper and lots of unused yarn in an op-shop - un-ravelled the knitting and used my spinning wheel to ply two colours together for a tweed effect.












And finally - a Gumnut - I spun this yarn from undyed, naturally brown fleece and undyed alpaca - using the alpaca to make tufts. It really does look like a gumnut that has been on the ground for a while.

All these Beanies are currently for sale in a friend's hat studio in Newtown.

Lance a Lot has a Frilling Time

Lance -a Lot of Knitting is finished:

This is for our grandson - it'll be a bit too big but better too big than too small, he'll grow (gosh, I sound just like a grandmother!) Adapted from a vintage pattern circa 1930s or 40s - the lovely stitch pattern is just knit and purl stitches.
Usually when you adapt a vintage pattern the original calls for very fine yarn and the modern knitter opts for something thicker & quicker to knit up - not this time :-) the original pattern was for 8ply yarn (DK) and I used 5ply (sport weight in the US). I kept the vintage styling, making the armholes quite shaped and the Vneck quite high.

In other news - I'm currently sewing costumes full-time for a big musical that will open in Melbourne in a couple of months. At the moment we're doing lots of mends and alterations on existing costumes made for previous runs of the show overseas. Some crochet frill trimming needed replacement and I got to do it yesterday :-) simple shells in cotton yarn - very effective.

Pirate Oufit Aaarrh - and Pretty Birdies

Our grandson loves role-play and dressing up, his current favourite character is ... Pirate Aaarrrrhh!

Daughter found a cheap "Pirate Captain" bicorne hat for him and I've just finished a quick Pirate vest

Striped lining because Pirates wear stripes, a little triangle neck-kerchief and ... a birdie. Not really a parrot, more like a sparrow with pretensions.

Quite a few gift shops have been carrying these great little birdies of late - not sure what the bodies are made of but they are very light-weight, reasonably realistic and often covered in twinkle stuff. Usually instead of feet they have a clip which makes them very useful and they are quite cheap. With the addition of a few more feathers you can make these birdies rather fabulous. The chap above had a very stumpy little tail until last night when I glued in 3 nice long green ones. He has a spring instead of legs and bounces about nicely - here is another of these birds (also green - they do come in other colours but Grandson & I like green!) posing with Lillian before his new feathers ...









and after his make-over!

Angora Knitting

Spent the Easter week interstate with daughter and our grandchildren - now need a holiday to recover!

Thought I'd share my angora hand-knits with you. All are very vintage inspired - the 2 baby bonnets you've seen before, but here they are with the ribbons on.


The "gothic" one got grey velvet with a touch of palest pink - very Victorian. The "Petal" bonnet got just the palest pink ribbon but with visible stitches in the angora yarn as decoration.

I also made a bolero / shrug for granddaughter. I have lots of vintage patterns for pretty angora boleros - they were much 'the mode' in the 1950s. However, they were mostly for much older children ... angora is not so practical for a toddler! So I had to invent my own pattern and I'm pleased with the result.

The fronts tend to roll so it is more shrug than bolero - which is good, as it keeps the angora from getting dribbled on :-)