Joy, Barbara and Nancy - a knitted baby dress

A couple of posts ago I was talking about some yarn I had hand dyed to a soft aqua ... well I've started knitting it up.

A dress for granddaughter - it'll be a combination of 3 very old Vintage Patterns - “Joy” in Patons Knitting Book No.164, “Barbara” in Patons Knitting Book No. 175 and “Nancy” in Patons & Baldwins’ Specialty Knitting Book No. 116. No copyright dates - 116 might be 1930s - the others early 50s ? not sure.

The plan is to mix the bands of wave stitch and puff sleeves from “Joy” with the maths and sizing from “Barbara” which is for 4ply (as is my yarn) and the bodice styling from “Nancy” - not sure if I’ll make a collar or not.

The slight variegation in the yarn is knitting up quite pretty and it seems appropriate to knit wave stitch in an aqua colour.

Embrace the Lace

Lace is my current obsession - I'm determined to learn how to make bobbin lace this year and have joined on lovely on-line group of lace-makers. And now for a tale of "inspiration" or the torturous path of creativity ...

Last Saturday I was getting my hairs done again and one of the young hairdressers was wearing a lovely vintage crochet singlet top - it got me thinking. Then a member of the lace group posted a photo of a multi-coloured lace shawl and as I tried to work out how that shawl was made, I realised that I knew some methods to stitch together a miscellany of lace pieces. Now I've collected small bits of lace for several decades - left-overs from sewing projects, bits un-picked from vintage garments, pieces rescued from the scrape bins in costume workrooms ... the result is yet another of those stashes that sometimes threaten to over-whelm me.

SO - I got out an old pattern for a singlet / camisole top and poured out the bag a lace bits ... a bit of sorting out into colours ...
then a whole day spent pinning and sewing and Voila !

yeah well I feel it is a Voila moment. That's the front with a lot of Broiderie Anglaise and ribbon. It is not finished yet, the boring tidying up at the back is yet to happen and it needs straps but I am very pleased with the result of all that work. A pretty little top (hopefully sellable in my Etsy shop) from a pile of lace bits. Now to start on that pile of cream and ecru coloured pieces ...

Fun with Colours

I've been having fun with the dye-pot again.

This will (eventually) become a knitted dress for my granddaughter - Bendigo Woollen Mills' "Luxury 4ply" in a rather dilute mix of Sandolan "blue 3G Turquiose" and a little bit of Landscapes' "Kelp".
I was really happy with that aqua colour so I popped about 100g of roving / sliver in the pot (also from Bendigo Woollen Mills)

Now, what to make from that ... spin it lace-weight and make a shawl ??




Well, the rest of the Sliver was sitting there looking very white so I made a start on an idea I've had for a while - to spin yarn that looks like the water of Sydney Harbour. I was sitting on a wharf, eating my lunch on a bright sun-shiny day, looking into the water trying to see the fish and I kept thinking of these lovely lines in Kenneth Slessor's wonderful poem "Five Bells"

"Deep and dissolving verticals of light
Ferry the falls of Moonshine down. Five bells"

only, being the middle of the day it was sun-shine that was being ferried down ... "deep and dissolving verticals of light" ... Wonderful words.

Well, I'm envisaging the finished yarn as a tweedy variegated - mostly a dark blue green with this as the "light"


It is actually a little more intense than the photo shows - it is Landscapes "Kelp" with a sprinkle of Sandolan Brown.

Kissing Fish and Boots

Another letter done in the ongoing Alphabet Project for my grandchildren.

A Family of Fish for the Letter F. And as St Valentine’s Day is only a fortnight away, it is appropriate that they are Kissing Fish :-)

It is the ole’ love story - Boy fish (in self-striping sock yarn) and Glam Girl fish (cheap turquoise metallic yarn except for her lipstick) meet and fall in love … kiss kiss … … and along comes baby fish.

Both patterns are by Cheezombie "Knit Fish" and “Glubby Goldfish”. Cute huh!

And now for something completely different and I didn't make these ... some ultra cute boots for Lillian.

I will have to make her an outfit to go with them though!

Lillian's new clothes

Lillian is my Blythe doll - named for Lillian Gish. I made 3 of these little knitted dresses with hearts on - one went to my daughter's doll, one is put away for my granddaughter's doll (which she'll get when she's grown up) and this one with frills on for Lillian. Being a movie star, Lillian needs to be more theatrical! She asked for a hat and bag to match and thinks that the outfit looks quite Parisian.

Spinning with Manly Colours

No I don't follow the Sea Eagles - or any other form of Rugby actually - that's manly as in masculine. Because there are lots of hand-spun yarns in pretty feminine colours but very little in colours suitable for a bloke.

In the Christmas / New Year break (it seems so long ago now) I got out my lovely Majacraft Pioneer wheel and made...

charcoal with green about 65:35, plied and set
and
more charcoal about 80% with a little green and a very little yellow, plied and set.

Both are about 10ply (worsted weight). It was all Bendigo Woollen Mills sliver (it is not listed on their web site!) the charcoal is their colour, I dyed the green & yellow.

Wombat Battyness

Another letter of the Alphabet project is done - W simply HAD to be a Wombat. There is something so lovable about wombats.



This wombat is from an old Cleckheaton pattern booklet - one of Barbara Lennon's patterns for Australian Wildlife. He has turned out quite adorable :-)