Teeny Tiny

Firstly a huge thank you to anyone and everyone who suggested some Ipod apps - I'm having great fun exploring all of your suggestions, and I've got a Vuvuzela app which is great for creeping up behind H at critical moments in any of the matches.  I don't actually know what might constitute a critical moment from watching, but it tends to be when he looks as if he's about to start shouting at the screen!

Apart from it being really rather hot, it feels oddly like Christmas eve around here; all weekend we've been building up to tomorrow and doing things (or eating cake for lunch) 'because it's our birthday'.  The bump and I have been banished to bed with the laptop and there are mysterious and magical sounds of sellotape screaming off a reel coming from the baby's room next door.  I spent this afternoon making a cake and decorating it in my own inimitable style - it has been pronounced to be as good as last year by two exceptionally biased judges who had been bribed and corrupted by pizza, and you'll just have to wait until tomorrow to see it (hee hee!).

To counteract your inevitable disappointment (and I'll know if you cheat and go and look at flickr), I have some actual knitting content (yes really!).  The baby's blanket has grown by a whopping waves-whales-waves combination and looks much the same but my garden has been playing host to more teeny tiny cute things.


Iddly widdly shoes in the lavender bush, for example.



The pattern is Tiny Shoes by Ysolda from Whimsical Little Knits 1 and as with all Ysolda patterns it's beautifully written, cleverly constructed, and requires minimal sewing up (my favourites).


The buttons were one of those wonderful moments of kismet when you open the button tin and right at the top are cute buttons in the perfect size and a great colour, and you have enough of them.  Their only slight hitch is that they only go in one direction so the fish is forward facing on the left shoe and backward facing on the right.  I suspect the baby won't mind too much though!

The yarn is Sheldridge Farm Soft Touch Ultra in a special Socktopus colourway called Sea Lettuce and it is of course the leftovers from this:


a finished mitred baby jacket.  I loved knitting this jacket and it is definitely on the repeat list.  My only regret, and it's not even really a regret, is that my tension is a little tighter and so I have a much smaller finished jacket.  It's completely my own fault for not swatching (I don't really bother for baby things, just run the gauntlet that it'll fit someone's baby some day) and next time I knit it I'll got up to 3mm needles, or possibly a little higher.


I love all the little lines you get from the mitering, and it would look even more stunning in stripy sock yarn.

When I started knitting this jacket I genuinely thought it was going to be for Baby Bear.  But the more I knit and the more time I spent with the yarn, watching each of the colours slide between my fingers, the more I realised that this jacket is for my colleague K's baby (expected late September/early October, gender unknown).  K is blond, frequently wears bright summery colours and her collection of maternity dresses is the envy of many.  In short, these are her colours and so this is a present for her.


with teeny tiny shoes to match.
Baby Bear appears to have been doing some growing this week, so perhaps it's just as well that I'm not seriously contemplating anything teeny tiny:


29 weeks and counting - I'm still knitting some tiny shoes for Little Bear though - teddy will look great in them.