Sometimes a pair of socks comes together so perfectly. It’s a reminder of why knitting socks can be so satisfying. A perfect yarn and pattern match
makes for a dream knit.

A little while ago my sister requested new socks. It’s been a couple of years since her last pair so I take it this means she wore them out. That’s always a comforting thing to know.

I dug out a pretty skein of Sundara Sock yarn and in next to no time I’d found what I thought to be the perfect pattern. Turns out it was. Froot Loop socks from Knitty. Considering this pattern is from 2008, I was surprised I’d never seen them before. Or at least didn’t remember them.

These were fun. A simple little mock cable pattern that flew by. I knitted the entire second sock in the four days before my sister came to visit. Record time! Partly that was because we spent two days in a lovely little town called Berry where I pretty much knitted every time we sat down in a cafe or pub.

Just looking at these photos, taken late last week, brings back memories of happy knitting and a happy time. A joyful experience all round.

Sundara sock yarn, this was one was snapped up in a destash, is so smooshy and lovely. I knitted these on larger needles than stated since many said the pattern ran tight. So 2.75s turned out to give just the right fit for my sister who has slightly larger feet than I do. She put them on when she arrived for her visit and she loved them.

Sometimes I’m not sure it’s worth writing up about yet another pair of socks but actually I think they’re wonderful and sharing the happiness of a great pattern find is absolutely worth it. I think these will become a regular, go to pattern. Everyone who knits socks has a go-to pattern I’m sure, other than plain socks.

So leave a comment about your favourite sock pattern, one that’s like an old-faithful, repeat pattern, or even just a great pattern you love and I’ll offer a yarn prize in the next post.

Bells

This cardigan feels like it’s been unreasonably long in coming.  Such a gestation period for such a simple little cardigan – the reason is that in October last year, I acquired five skeins of Madeline Tosh Sport and promptly cast on an Audrey In Unst cardigan. Long story but it didn’t work out and I was never happy with the fabric and so it was no more.

As soon as i saw the Bluebell cardigan by Cecily Glowick MacDonald, I fell in love. It seemed to have all the components I love in a cardigan – simplicity of style, a flattering neckline, a hint of interest in the slight gathers across the bust, a nice shape that would work with various outfits. Six weeks later, I’d finished it.

It’s knit from the bottom up.

On Sunday morning, Alice was here and she posed with me. I didn’t see until later that there was some creasing on one side – I’d put it away a couple of days earlier and that was how it came out of the drawer. Those creases aren’t part of the design!

This was my first time knitting something bigger than a hat with Madeline Tosh. I’m a complete convert to this yarn. It actually lives up to the hype. I was slow to get on board because I’d read that people have trouble with mismatched dye lots and you can end up with all sorts of issues but that wasn’t the case with these five skeins. They matched beautifully. It’s a dream to knit with and even better to wear. This colour is Curiosity. Not heavily variegated but it’s certainly the most variegated fabric I’ve ever worn. I like it.

One of the best things about this pattern was that I learned to do short row set in sleeves, knit from the top down. What a revelation! I love everything about this and now want to find more cardigans with this style of sleeve.

Sizing wise, I’d have a different approach next time. And there will be a next time because I think this is a highly wearable piece. I’d make it a little longer, I’d probably knit one size down as it’s got a little more room in it than it needs, but all in all, I love it and I’m so glad that I got it done in time for the cooling autumnal days. It’s the perfect autumn cardigan.

I’ll leave you with a great, great picture I snapped of Alice on the weekend. She said she wanted to learn to knit. I cast on a few stitches for her – tried and failed pretty quickly to get her to do real knitting but she was just as happy to sit and pretend.

She told me she was knitting a hat. I just love the intense concentration on her face and I love that she’s wearing an apron I made her a few weeks ago. She looks like the perfect portrait of a knitter at work. Beautiful.

Bells

When friends of ours announced they’d welcomed a little girl into their family (on International Womens’ Day no less!) I said to Sean I felt I had to knit for her.

I’ve been saying for a while that I felt the absence of a baby girl to knit for, now that Alice is so big. Knitting for toddler or bigger girls is wonderful and comes with great opportunities to try new things, but the tiny little knits, the ones you can knock over in a few days, feeling charged with the knowledge that this is possibly the first, or at least one of the first, handknits that a little person might receive – well that feeling can’t be underestimated.

Girl or boy it wouldn’t have mattered but little Ruth sent me digging into the stash in search of something suitably pretty and feminine. I don’t really do pink knitting. It hasn’t really featured heavily in Alice’s knitwear wardrobe. If you remember rightly, her first piece of knitwear from me was blue.

How far we’ve come from those days – that sweet, sleeping cherub now comes to stay with her pink princess overnight bag and won’t stay in her own bed through the night. Together we look at photos such as this one and “remember” that she wasn’t always a big girl with a strong desire to watch Wallace and Gromit and logical argument to every wish that opposes hers.

But I digress. The knits. The baby knits are few and far between these days so I leapt at the chance to knit something pink for baby Ruth. I found a skein of prettiest pink Cascade Ultra Pima in the stash – a skein that I bought from Suzy Hausfrau for somebody who is too big to have anything knitted out of a single skein these days and away I went. I did try to replicate the February Baby Jacket that was Alice’s first handknit but alas it didn’t work so well in cotton. It was floppy and not in a good way.

Enter the Milo top. Georgie Hallam I love your work. How many projects of mine have come from your designs? So many! Not just for Alice but for other small people in my life. You are, or should be, a national treasure.

And now here’s another. A simple, timeless little baby piece that took me but a few days and came together beautifully. I said to myself, if you can’t have a pretty pink top as a newborn baby girl, when can you have one? I threw in a few stripes in contrasting magenta for fun. A friend, when i sent her a photo, called it Raspberry and Marshmallow. Perfect really.

No complaints, no issues, just straight forward fun knitting. I chose the owl cables (the pattern comes with five or six suggestions for different cable styles and different ways to make it more suited to different genders – she thinks of everything!) and declined to sew on buttons for the owl eyes in the end because I had nothing suitable and it was a public holiday and we were meeting Ruth’s parents at 2pm and well, I just didn’t bother. I do think the owl cables look good with buttons or beads for eyes and next time I’ll try harder.

Little Ruth was a great coffee date. She slept, she yawned, she stretched, she pouted, she fed. She didn’t pose for photos. One day when she’s older I might have words with her about that.

Her parents have promised a posed shot of her in the top. I made the three months size and her dad (an American, by the by) thinks it’ll fit her really soon even though she’s only three weeks old. He’s quite possibly right.

I hope she’ll get wear out of it. That’s all I hope really. Welcome to the world, Baby Ruth. I think this won’t be the last piece of knitwear I make for you.

Bells

For her 4th birthday, which was a few weeks ago now, Alice told me she wanted a purple cardigan. I had a few false starts with patterns – nothing felt quite right – until I settled on a sort of jumper-dress by the name of Sorello. Unsurprisingly, it’s another pattern by TikkiKnits. It came together quickly and simply and was a joy to knit.

Today as she came to stay for a couple of nights, I gave it to her. She posed before we headed off to visit Sean’s parents in the country this morning. I couldn’t be happier with a piece I thought was possibly a little risky. A t-shirt made of wool? How would she feel about it? It turns out, she loves it.

It’s made from Bendigo Luxury 8ply in Iris Mist which I know from experience is soft against the skin. For the last remaining weeks of warm weather, it’ll be fine as a t-shirt. As the days grow cold, it’ll go over a long sleeved t-shirt and it’s long enough that it’ll grow with her.

Check out the detail on the back.

I absolutely love that panel over her bottom. It’s perfect.

We stopped on the way to our destination today at a little town called Wombat. Being Alice’s first time in this part of the world, we wanted very much to show her the statue of the wombat that is a landmark in the little town.

He was quite obliging, as concrete animals go.

Later, at Sean’s parents’ house we had what I will always think of as one of the best moments ever with Alice. Sean’s parents have a cockatoo that’s possibly about 40years old. No one is quite sure because he belonged to Sean’s grandmother. He could be fifty. He’s a clever cockatoo. He can talk. He says the usual things these creatures say – like ‘Hello Cocky’ or ‘Crackers’. We had told Alice that Cocky could talk but I don’t think she really believed it until the moment he said in his loud, clear as a bell voice, ‘Hello Cocky!’

I was holding her in my arms as it happened, standing right there in front of the cage, close enough to see his beak move as he uttered the words. Her face. The look of surprise mixed with disbelief, the astounding shift in understanding and experience in her buzzing brain as she took on board the knowledge that actually, some animals really can talk, was amazing to see.

In the past I’ve pretended that my chickens could talk and Alice has scoffed ‘No Aunty Bells! Animals can’t talk!’ but here today I was shown to be wrong by an ancient cockatoo with a love of dancing on demand.

You can’t make that stuff up. The best moments come as a complete surprise and sometimes, ricochet through you as they’re happening. This. This is the good stuff. This is what we live for. This is the stuff that shapes who children become, moments of great discovery and joy found in something as crazy as a talking cockatoo.

You can’t beat it.

Nor can you beat the simple, fun knits that slip easily over a child’s head. My best girl. My special, happy, amazing little niece who gives me some of my greatest moments in knitting and life. She’s worth it all.

For fun here’s a picture from her 4th birthday party a few weeks ago – a simple family BBQ in a local park for which her cousin Willem, who just turned nine, came to town. We had a ball.

Two of my favourite people. Endless joy and love and knits.

Bells

I love an impulse knit. No planning. No days/weeks/months of deliberation. This newly finished top for Alice is one of those. A pattern that had been  in my queue for ages, it leapt off the screen at me one day and before I knew it I had leftover blue and white cotton in my lap and had cast on, feeling my way through the notion of blue and white stripes.

Cassia was born. Another Tikki pattern. I never tire of them.

And here she is.

Designed to be a dress or a tunic, I always knew I’d go for a tunic. All that cotton, in a calf length dress, would just be too heavy. I was sure of it. A tunic is more versatile.

I was never going to leave the pockets off. I could picture Alice with her hands in the pockets and knew she’d love them, which she did. The moment she discovered them it was all ‘oh there are pockets! I can put my hands in them!’ Yes and a million other treasures, I’m sure.

I love Bendigo cotton for tops and dresses for Alice. It’s soft, durable and holds up to continuous washing. She’s not wearing anything under the top and she said it felt soft against her skin. Can’t beat that.

Miraculously the little pale blue buttons I used for it were a magical find in a box of buttons that came as a grab bag from Addicted to Fabric. You know those big barrels of buttons some places have, and you can buy them by the scoop? You don’t really know what you’ll end up with. Those little blue buttons were in that scoop. What luck!

As I was knitting the stripes, I kept thinking of it as Wedgwood colours – that lovely white against duck egg blue is so evocative of Wedgwood crockery. I didn’t even know until I first saw the stripes emerging. Love it.

Knitted in a little under a month, in a size just bigger than she actually needs, I hope it’ll be a good year round piece. Come winter, I can see it over long sleeve tops as a layering piece – and as a warm weather top that will let the breeze move in and around her body. Can’t ask for more than that.

Bells