A Smorgasbord of Booties

Ah, I've gotten myself behind on blogging again, what a massive surprise.  Some day I will get my head round the concept that if I say 'I'll wait till the weekend to write when I have more free time', then I actually should use that free time to write rather than just sitting on my bum in front of Netflix. Having said that, I was actually away on one of the weekends on a mini break to Dublin, where I met up with my travelling buddies in various pubs (yay!), did some tourist-peeping at the Book of Kells (yay!) and bought fabric (YAY!). I haven't been finishing massive amounts of stuff in the meantime, but since I was already behind before I went away I now have 6 unblogged finished projects, some of which go back to September...oops.

So, to start catching up, last week was my friend Hayley's baby shower, and I knitted her a selection box of Debbie Bliss baby booties.

Can you guess what she's having? While I was happy to find one baby gift box amongst all the Christmas ones I do find it a bit weird that instead of, say, 'It's a boy' or 'Baby boy' the box just blurts out 'BOY' like it has tourettes.  I think they're reasonably happy about having a fella, seeing as there were celebratory penis balloons all over the house.

These booties are all from Debbie Bliss Ultimate Book of Baby Knits, and have all been knit with different coloured soles as a cute design feature because I was using up leftover yarn.

Cuff Bootees

Booties with Blanket Stitch detail

Baby Boots

Sandals

These are all knit flat, which I guess is great for beginner knitters who are still nervous about double pointed needles, but it isn't my favourite method as I found the seaming a major faff and the soles are a bit of a funny shape.  Still, I do think they're all really cute.  I love baby knits - they're quick, they use hardly any yarn, and they satisfy my feminine urge to make something ovary-crushingly adorable without, you know, having a baby.

Happy to say there was much squealing and showing off at gift opening time - since Hayley's clearly such a knit-worthy recipient I think I may end up making more once the baby arrives! I can definitely see a baby viking hat in my future...

FO: Oliver Theo's Baby gifts

I have decided that I love making baby garments. I am going to start locking all the couples I know in cheesy lurve boudoirs until somebody else gets pregnant.

These are all knit in Rowan Extra fine Merino DK, which I think is discontinued now. Dang. I'm sure they have something similar though. The cardigan is based on Daisy, done in 2 row stripes (which I LOVE, no more ends to weave in!), with a moss stitch border added at the end.


The leftovers went into Seamless baby booties...

...and an improvised top down hat. I did initially start with a bottom up hat with a roll up brim which was fairly stupid as I used so much yarn on the brim that I ran out of green while I still had a bald patch sized hole to fill in. Top down makes much more sense. Plus my hat has a nipple.

*snigger*

Lulworth Castle

The Boyfriend and I spent last Sunday at Lulworth Castle catching one of the last summer jousting shows (*GASP! We left the house! We went outside and saw real life people!). I think I must have been spoiled by castle trips as a kid because Lulworth is rather heavily restored and I kinda feel cheated if a castle is more pine floors and plaster and double glazing than teeny spiral staircases and massive holes everywhere. Perhaps that's just me. Having said that, we had great fun on the outside of the castle. We wandered around the animal farm while waiting for the show to start, where among the pygmy pot bellied pigs (very cute, but rubbish at posing for photos) and many many peacocks, they had angora goats...

...and llamas.

...Or possibly alpaca. I couldn't find a sign and I don't know the difference.

We also had a go at the archery which I thought I was doing pretty well at when I had two arrows on the target and Martin was still shooting clouds and grass, but then he got into his stride and shot it three times in succession. Smug feeling gone. Dang it.

And then, at 12 o'clock, the knights!

who wore shiny lamé 'armour' and had heroic hair!

and galloped toward each other with big sticks!

and rode backwards and occasionally upside down on their horses!

and thwacked each other with wooden swords!

The blue knight is the bad guy by the way (obviously, he doesn't have Hero hair), but he got kicked in the balls at the end of the routine, so everything turns out for the best. It was horrendously cheesy and utterly utterly brilliant. Worth the price of admission by itself. Martin now wants me to make him a knight costume because he is 12.

In other news, my uncle emailed me a few days ago to say my cousin Laura has popped and she's given birth to a gorgeous baby boy called Oliver Theo. I finally got round to sewing the buttons on my cardigan yesterday (it had been sitting buttonless for about a week after sewing in all the ends annoyed me enough to shove it in a bag and forget about it), I've made some matching booties and today I'm finishing it off with a matching hat. Oliver's the first baby in the family and my first opportunity to knit baby clothes and they are soooo adorable. I keep catching glints of terror in the boyfriend's eyes when I squee over them.