I've not been updating this blog! I'm terrible at keeping up with it. I have a personal journal on Livejournal that I jot thoughts on every day things on, and can just about keep up with that. I should update with a couple of craft related items though....
For christmas I decided I wanted to make an advent stocking set. The idea being we could put treats and toys in for the kids and they could open one each day to see what was in it. Of course I decided to do this at the beginning of November, which didn't give me a lot of time to get it finished, but I managed it with some help from my mother-in-law, Sandy. I made them out of felt and some of them turned out better than others...I may revise some of the designs next year, but overall I was very pleased with the outcome. Here's some pictures.
Shortly after Christmas, on January 16th, I gave birth to our third (and last!) child, Alexander. He's now 8 weeks old and I am starting to use cloth nappies/diapers on him. I used cloth with our first child full time for about 18 months at which point I had our second child and with the two of them, I just couldn't get the hang of doing it all the time, I was too far behind on laundry. I did do it part time on and off with both of them, but eventually it went by the way side.
This time I'm having another go, as I only have one in nappies again, but it's going to take a while to build up a decent stash of nappies, at the moment I'm having to wash the very few we have all the time which is not only a pain in the bum, but quite wasteful on water too. One thing I decided I'd like to do it knit Alex some clothes that will serve two purposes, one I can knit things that will fit over the cloth nappies as most clothes are cut in mind for disposables without extra room, and another purpose can be served in that wool can be used as a water resistant wrap over the nappies to prevent leaks.
I'm very much a beginner at knitting, but I managed to knit a little pair of shorts for him in about 3 or 4 days. I just used a spare ball of wool I happened to have, and a pattern from Tiny Birds Organics, which can be found here. It's for an older baby, so in order for it to fit 8 week old Alex, I decided to go down two sizes in needle, and it fits him perfectly!
In fact, at the rate he's growing it probably won't fit him very long, so I'm going to be making more for him but a bit bigger since it'll be getting warmer outside soon. I'm planning to try and make him some longies too, which will be interesting...I've never used circular or double pointed needles before and I think I will need to! All a learning experience.
With more knitting in mind, I heard about dying wool with kool aid. It sounded like fun, and relatively easy to do, and I'd be able to make things with the wool after.
This is my first two attempts. I got some 100% wool in a cream colour, and different packages of kool aid, which is a vile drink over here...it's super sweet when you get the sweetened type and really bright colours. Different flavours give you different colours. I'm going to be doing a step-by-step account of the way I did it for the next tries, and I'll upload it here.
For the blue green one I used Lemonade for the yellow and Berry Blue for the blue on the other side with the fact it would mingle into green in the middle in mind. However, the blue overpowered the yellow a bit too much, so the colours came out more green than I intended, but I still like the result. The orange one is orange and lemonade for the yellow. I was more careful with trying to keep the orange from overpowering the yellow this time, but I did have some spots that were too tight together and didn't dye, but since the wool was a cream colour originally it actually blends well together.
Here they are wet, and then dry.
Ok, that's it for now. I will try and update more often. Promise.
For christmas I decided I wanted to make an advent stocking set. The idea being we could put treats and toys in for the kids and they could open one each day to see what was in it. Of course I decided to do this at the beginning of November, which didn't give me a lot of time to get it finished, but I managed it with some help from my mother-in-law, Sandy. I made them out of felt and some of them turned out better than others...I may revise some of the designs next year, but overall I was very pleased with the outcome. Here's some pictures.
Shortly after Christmas, on January 16th, I gave birth to our third (and last!) child, Alexander. He's now 8 weeks old and I am starting to use cloth nappies/diapers on him. I used cloth with our first child full time for about 18 months at which point I had our second child and with the two of them, I just couldn't get the hang of doing it all the time, I was too far behind on laundry. I did do it part time on and off with both of them, but eventually it went by the way side.
This time I'm having another go, as I only have one in nappies again, but it's going to take a while to build up a decent stash of nappies, at the moment I'm having to wash the very few we have all the time which is not only a pain in the bum, but quite wasteful on water too. One thing I decided I'd like to do it knit Alex some clothes that will serve two purposes, one I can knit things that will fit over the cloth nappies as most clothes are cut in mind for disposables without extra room, and another purpose can be served in that wool can be used as a water resistant wrap over the nappies to prevent leaks.
I'm very much a beginner at knitting, but I managed to knit a little pair of shorts for him in about 3 or 4 days. I just used a spare ball of wool I happened to have, and a pattern from Tiny Birds Organics, which can be found here. It's for an older baby, so in order for it to fit 8 week old Alex, I decided to go down two sizes in needle, and it fits him perfectly!
In fact, at the rate he's growing it probably won't fit him very long, so I'm going to be making more for him but a bit bigger since it'll be getting warmer outside soon. I'm planning to try and make him some longies too, which will be interesting...I've never used circular or double pointed needles before and I think I will need to! All a learning experience.
With more knitting in mind, I heard about dying wool with kool aid. It sounded like fun, and relatively easy to do, and I'd be able to make things with the wool after.
This is my first two attempts. I got some 100% wool in a cream colour, and different packages of kool aid, which is a vile drink over here...it's super sweet when you get the sweetened type and really bright colours. Different flavours give you different colours. I'm going to be doing a step-by-step account of the way I did it for the next tries, and I'll upload it here.
For the blue green one I used Lemonade for the yellow and Berry Blue for the blue on the other side with the fact it would mingle into green in the middle in mind. However, the blue overpowered the yellow a bit too much, so the colours came out more green than I intended, but I still like the result. The orange one is orange and lemonade for the yellow. I was more careful with trying to keep the orange from overpowering the yellow this time, but I did have some spots that were too tight together and didn't dye, but since the wool was a cream colour originally it actually blends well together.
Here they are wet, and then dry.
Ok, that's it for now. I will try and update more often. Promise.
