Another six months of socks

You may recognise some of the socks in this post from this post.  At least they're finished now.

Ahem.  I didn't quite live up to my self-imposed challenge of knitting a pair of socks for each month of the year. The first half of the year went well, with even an extra three pairs done!  So, although I slowed down in the second half, I still had a pretty good output overall, methinks.

July socks - Nice ribbed socks

August socks - Plain vanilla socks

Both of these crossed the ocean for xmas gifts for my favourite sister and her bloke.  

But by September I had realised that there were too many unfinished sock projects still on the needles, so I decided I'd have to spend the rest of the year finishing those I had already started.  I also finished these...

 Diamond gansey socks from May.

and these...

Mockery socks from June.

Which brings my grand total of hand knitted pairs of socks for the year to eleven - six pairs for me and five pairs for others.  Not too shabby at all.

Some knitting has been done

I do love knitting small projects - socks and hat mostly - and while it's great to have small projects on the go through this hot summer, I did spend the cooler months knitting garments.

In Threes cardi for ma minette.

Abernathy jumper for Mr Bear.  Spot the poor colour change in the left sleeve?  I'll fix that before he needs to wear it next winter.

And Miette for me.

More softies

She's on a roll - xmas gifts designed and sewn by ma minette, age 6.

So proud

It's hard to describe the thrill of guiding ma minette's first foray into sewing.  At only six, she was so, so keen to try; so, so keen to do it herself 'I can do it, Nettie, let me do it'; and so, so happy with both the experience and the outcome.

We began our joint sewing venture with a secret xmas project for her mama.  She immediately wanted to move on to other, rather more complicated things.  'Let's make a shirt for Perko.'  mmm.

Given we were in gift-making mode, we started thinking of making soft toys for beloved little cousins. We asked Mr Google for images of monster softies. We pulled out some favourite soft toys for inspiration. Being six, the activity morphed into 'let's make a dolly for me'.

We talked about design and pattern making.

We talked about fabric and accoutrements.

I helped a little with some hand sewing of the button eyes, sewing the lingerie elastic mouth and fixing the woolly hair.  But she did the rest.  Her favourite part was the actual machine sewing.

She felt very pleased with herself.  I felt so proud of her.

I look forward to more sewing adventures with our little sewist-in-training.

Knotty mitts

A wonderful weekend back in May was spent with friends, new and old, for a feast of laughter, knitting, eating, drinking and buying up yarn at the Old Bus Depot Markets Celebration of Wool day.  Lauren had her gorgeous Knotty mitts with her, adapted from the Knotty Gloves pattern.  Well, we all jumped on to the Knotty bandwagon, me included.  I did make a pair, even though I only photographed one! Perfect for this sub zero weather.  And red is warmer, don't you know.

Rhymes with...

I seem to have a lot of orange yarn.  And what a great colour for a baby blankie!

I joined a knit-along to make the Twinkle Twinkle Blanket for my lovely friend Lis's new bubba.

And some beanies too

In my stash busting efforts, I am concentrating this year on using up my single skeins.  What better project than a beanie or two.  Beanies come in handy when little ones visit in these colder months and then want to play outside.  Or when the dog insists on a walk on a frosty morn.

Some are simple, but for others I am trying out some of the many patterns on Ravelry.

London beanie

Hurricane hat in wool that I spun myself

Hat fit for a boyfriend (or in this case, a wee cutie)

Simple beanie (which matches some mitts I  made for ma minette last year)

Felicity - this is my favourite hat, in lovely soft natural handspun wool

Odessa in soft alpaca

Classic WWII Watch Cap

It would appear that I've been rather productive over the past few months, looking back at all these projects!  To be honest, it's easy to knock over a beanie in a day or two.  And I do love to knit.