Week 2 Craft Leave/Mat Leave

Hi all, I know i appear to have vanished, its surprisingly busy not working lol, so this is week 2 of mat leave/craft leave.

I had a unexpected trip to town on tuesday so popped to get some hospital pjs ready for my bag which is really need to pack. 

Ah i found my to do list, which is getting there, quite pleased with how it is looking. 

I finished a crochet blanket my friend asked me to make for her friend. Its not the biggest blanket but you know i have a very long list lol. 

I turned 34 weeks

My friend came round to see if its even slightly possible to make a garment while im this giant shape. 

i added a few more strips onto my floor cushion, must get a wriggle on!

I started a little something for baby girl. 

On thursday I went with Vic and Violet to Stockeld Park I've never been any other time than christmas, where it is then called Christmas Adventure land ( and yes I'm very excited to take baby girl this year)

So we had a lovely day there, it was a bit blooming hot but im stupid hot all the time now lol.

And this little pudding just gets cuter everytime i see her.  

there was loads of park things to play on, V was a bit small for most of it and i was a bit giant and we decided it would be odd if vic played on her own.

Yes this is us being a bit hot.

We went for what turned into quite a long walk through the enchanted woods and had a little sit half way round.

couldnt you just eat her??

We were all a bit pooped afterwards. 

I had a couple of lazy mornings in bed with my kindle. Must do a post on what i have been reading as i have been getting through a fair amount. 

I cast on a pumpkin hat and turns out i have made LOADS of these and feels good to finally cast on one for my bebe. 

I use this pattern I cast on 54 for newborn ish, then 64 for next size and you just go up by 8 stitches each time and I always use aran.  

Rob had a day off in the week, as he works weekends so we went out for lunch, we thought we would go in a booth, turns out i only had a inch to spare lol 

We went here for lunch, which had a great lunch time offer on, been meaning to go for ages. 

I had a yummy homemade burger and some awesome sweet potato fries, i love them. 

I got back to some pumpkin knitting when i got home

We had been doing jobs most of the morning so we then did a bit of baking coz my boy has the sweetest tooth ever. 

On saturday i went for a little hair cut, my hair has been growing pretty quick as its supposed to during pregnancy and i often debate with growing it then im like nah!

I had a massive sort in the living room ready for my baby shower the next day (thats another post)

I have a lot of stuff that is a fact. 

this is the wool i 'found' in just the living room, i know its been creeping up but even i was quite surprised with how much there was. 

I had a break from sorting and frogged a cowl i made a while ago that i completely messed up, i cannot do lace to save my life, this was fancy wool i got on our honeymoon and didnt just want to leave it all wrong and unhappy. This job took longer than planned. 

My little assistant was as helpful as ever. 

So next i tried to sort through the wool, a lot of my 'living room stash' is for certain projects so i divided it all up, i would say 98% of it is on ravelry, im pretty good at keeping my stash up to date coz its very easy to forget what you have when you cant see it. I binned some little scraps which is the end of the world for some people but when you have this much its just silly. 

olive got a bit fed up so stopped for a snooze amongst the wool. 

I eventually got it all sorted and have added another million patterns to the things i want to make baby.

Oh i also sorted my whole ravelry page into 'tags' so now they mostly have the year i made stuff, if its a hat/baby/adult/mitts/toys, you can see here should you wish, I have found it helpful and yes it did take ages. 

I got my pumpkin hat finished. Details are here  I always like to add a bit of length coz i hate seeing a hat that is a bit too small. I will probably make another one for baby as a 'back up' this is in cotton mainly because its hard to find a nice orange yarn in a aran weight but i have found another so will likely do her another. 

I worked on my 0-3 Vertebrae  4 ply is a long slog but its really nice. 

I made a little autumn cardi for bebe, again in the trust rico cotton i seem to make everything in lol 

I thought this would be a cute little set, i have another autumn garment plan that ive not started yet. 

Ah yes and this is how tidy it all looked by sunday morning before everyone arrived. 

This all feels so long ago already, I have been at my parents most of this week so will share those pics soon, I have babymoon pics, wedding, crafty, baby shower, loads of stuff to post yet. 

So keep checking back xx

Bottom of the basket

So last week or so I told you about a new 'feature' that i would be doing. 

Its called 'Bottom of the Basket' I have a rather large basket at the side of my sofa filled with WIPs

So i found a new podcast recently called Yarn on Tap

and they have a segment called Dreaded Knits, its about doing 30mins a week on something you have been putting off. I found once i started i got a bit on a roll with them.

So i picked up my Neon, this is a gorgeous pattern but i had put it down and whilst i had marked where i was i couldnt actually read my own directions. I started it on March 1st apparently.

So one sunday afternoon i sat and worked out where i was. And got going. 

I find if i have a goal i do more, i struggle with things that say knit for a million inches but if you have to do something every 5 rows and i mark it as i go i try and push myself to the next 5 for example.

So this pattern had a 4 row repeat and needed repeating 7 times by the looks of it so that was my goal, well actually i would try and do a 4 row repeat which was quite tricky because the rows were quite long and fiddly but once you get going on a pattern its fine.

So this became my new best friend, I knit on it while introducing baby bump to her first xmas film and one of my favourites Muppets Christmas Carol. 

I worked on it every second

I took it to work and did it on my lunch hour. 

and eventually i got my sleeves tied off with was the big goal and finally got rid of about 100sts. 

I now need to pick it back up and get some of the body done, its the same pattern and again i think its a 4 row repeat a certain amount of times, so if i try to do 4 rows here and there im sure i will get there.

I am aware that this will not fit for a while but i thought IF i finish this before baby comes and i think that is my goal then i will just wear it open. 

Isnt the stitch pattern cute??

So a easy knit i picked back up that hasnt really been around that long is an Owlet 

I started this and a couple of other things for xmas/ birthdays, i like making knitted presents but am aware my knitting time will be dramatically cut down in a few months. 

So i started this (runs to ravelry) May 4th, ah i think thats the weekend i cast on a million things.

This is for my godson who will be 3 in July, i have used chunky as the pattern goes from aran to chunky at age 3. So once you have done the rib you just knit for a while and again i seemed to stall, seriously knit on chunky in the round on a kids jumper not hard but i put it off. So last weekend i picked it back it. 

I took it to my friends BBQ and yes a blanket as it was a bit chilly. 

Then i got the body done i started on the sleeves, they have increased every 5 rounds so i was motivied to work on it, funny how my little head works, then it was only a few more inches till it was done so i got both sleeves knit last sunday i think. 

The other day i put it all together, i really like the colour but it is a bit of a pain to work on.

This is how it looked yesterday, and last night i cast off. 

I have the ends to do today and the arm holes to close up which is always a bit of a pain for some reason.

I did plan to give it to him for xmas but then what is the point in getting a winter jumper in the middle of winter? so i might give it to him for his birthday in July.

I have only just added this project on ravelry but i started these ages ago like maybe the start of the year.

It was stuck at the cuff for ages and ages and then the leg, for no real reason just more 'shiny' projects came along. 

So the other day i finally turned the heel, surely no one really likes this bit?

I dont knit socks very often at all but i know i can do them quick if i just focus on it. 

The other day it looked that this

and then the decreases are done so the foot bit just needs doing now. 

So that is what i have been working on. 

I am going to pick up my Neon again today and work on that a bit or at least do my 4 rows. 

My next couple of things i want to pick up from the bottom of the basket are my Wilma Shawl I started this not long after we lost our gorgeous bunny and Olives lovely sister Wilma and i feel bad that its not done, its a year next month since we lost her so i would really like to have it done for then.

Something long since neglected is my 4ply Clapotis  this is a really fun pattern and completely nothing wrong with it apart from there is loads of work to do on it but again something more shiny caught my attention. 

So i aim to have a little more done on both of them soon.

What have you got in the bottom of your basket??