Kitty and the rose

Well it's not exactly sunny today, it's one of those days optimistically described as 'dry and bright', meaning complete cloud cover.  None the less it's a good sort of light for photographing creamy pink roses because nothing gets completely washed out by brilliant summer sunshine.  And we wanted the pictures to be good, because this is a very special rose.



My father has a talent for choosing unusual but perfect gifts for people; every now and then he finds something that no-one else would ever have thought of, but becomes something very treasured - my Ancient Greek interlinear bible, a present for getting an A* in my Greek GCSE, being a classic example.

When he and Mum arrived with Kitty's Christmas present, he explained that a few days after her birth he was thinking about her name, and decided that if there wasn't a rose with her name, there really ought to be.  And so began a little research into roses, that ended with a bare stem in a sea green pot arriving at our house in January.


It survived the frosts and the snow and slowly buds emerged and little green leaves unfurled and now we have beautiful fragrant creamy roses with a pink blush centre. It sits just outside our lounge doors and the scent floods in on a warm evening.

A little while ago we received a parcel from Kitty's Grannie with an almost finished dress and matching bloomers, and last week I finished it off.  So her we have Kitty, in a dress made by Grannie, with her rose chosen by Grandpa:




Of course, having got her all set up, I thought I might try to take some actual knitting pictures. I mean, what with this being a creativey type of blog and all.

First to be finished, the Bellyfant Baby Cardigan in Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino






Next off the needles was the wonderful Sweet Bunting. It's a Cosmic Pluto pattern and as soon as I saw it on Laura's blog I knew it was perfect for little miss. It's Baby Cashmerino again with a little scrap of aqua Sublime Baby Cashmere Merino Silk DK for the bunting string.









(and yes that is what generally happens when the baby gets too near the flowerpot!)

Last but not least, the cardigan I made in Venice, the Silver Cardigan, but in pink Sublime Cashmere Merino Silk DK with pink heart buttons in the exact matching colour.









They all have a little room for her to grow over the summer so hopefully she'll sport fewer 3/4 length sleeves in the future - although I love her Tulips Cardigan so much that she'll still be wearing it as a short-sleeved bolero.  Perhaps a bigger version should be the next Kitty cardigan on the needles?

Radio silence

I didn't actually mean to go missing last week, actually I never do, but this time it wasn't just a case of the days slipping away from me, and nothing terribly exciting happening in the daily round of cuddles, nursing and nappy changes, this time I was knitting.

Full speed.

All out.

In just about any moment I had.

A good friend and collegue of mine is expecting her first baby in May, and as babies should always be greeted with knitwear, I knew I was going to knit her something at some point.  What I didn't quite realise was that as she has her whole holiday allowance to take before her maternity leave starts, she was going to finish work last week.

On Monday morning I discovered her last day was last Friday, and on Monday afternoon I started knitting. We'd talked a while ago about what she might like for the bump and the plan was to knit for her baby the things I've found most useful with my baby. And so, first on the needles, and no prizes for guessing this, the ubiquitous Baby Surprise Jacket.



I've knit this pattern nine times now but it wasn't until Kitty arrived that I realised just how great a baby knit it is; the lack of seams make the arm holes really flexible for easing little new baby arms in to, the sleeves are the perfect length and the whole thing grows nicely with the baby - Kitty wore hers home from the hospital and was still wearing it at Christmas, long after she'd grown out of her vests and babygros.

The multicoloured bit is Opal 6-ply (colour 2020) and the yellow is my favourite Baby Cashmerino.  After a long hunt for good buttons I found these little ladybirds in the sewing shop in Kenilworth and knew that they would be perfect as ladybirds are supposed to be good luck and symbolic of motherhood.  They also fit through the button holes which I'll admit was a key selling point.

So by this point we've got to Wednesday night in the knitting marathon (although the buttons and the sewing up had to wait until Thursday lunchtime)

I picked up the empty needles on Wednesday and made ...

... a hat to match. It's a free Ravelry pattern (called Baby Beanie) that I discovered when I was looking for a quick little hat pattern fairly late on in my pregnancy to whip something up to match the green cardie that would be Kitty's first knit.  It was the first hat she ever wore, and when all the other oh so beautiful, cute and funny hats turned out to be too small for a little head that firmly hit the 95th centile (and yes 'ouch' is the correct response) it was the hat that I pulled out of the pile every time we left the house.  It grew with her until Christmas and even now the second hat that I made with slightly thicker yarn just about fits, although she's got other bigger hat for day to day.

And the best bit? that little loop - you can pull on the loop and ease the hat off a sleeping baby's head without waking her up, and for that I love it.

I cast off on Thursday morning before knitting and sewed in the ends at lunchtime and then both the cardie and the hat had a nice soak in some wool wash and a blow dry on the line.

And were we done? Oh no, that would be too clever.  I cast on:

Three baby bibs, from the Mason-Dixon pattern, knit in a new-to-me yarn, Twilleys Freedom Sincere organic cotton dk. It's a lovely yarn and on 4.5mm needles it knit up to a nice soft drapy fabric, perfect for wiping little baby faces, and the garter ridges are great for catching drool and posset before it runs off the bib onto the baby, you, the sofa, the floor, etc etc etc (guess how I know this!).

I cast off the stripy bib first thing Friday morning and set the poppers quickly before everything was wrapped up into a little goody bag with some other useful new Mummy things (New Mama tea, a water bottle that you can flip up with one hand, and some essential chocolate) and headed to Birmingham.

It was lovely to see the team again, and the mama-to-be (who has the neatest little bump you've ever seen) and I think she liked her presents although I know she's unlikely to 'get' some of them until after the baby makes an appearance but it was great to be able to spoil someone who helped to spoil me back in the summer.

The colours of the season

Warning: Actual knitting content ahead!

Yes, it's true, I have been knitting and even more than that, I have finished some knitting.  Ta da!


It's just taken me two months to knit a plain vanilla pair of socks for myself.  Chief in the acquisition of knitting time was Miss Kitty's decision that sleeping on Mummy is fun, and sitting in the baby bouncer kicking little legs and giggling gummily at Mummy is also fun.  (She also likes watching back to back episodes of Coast while Mummy eats supper with both hands which is wonderful!).

I'm not sure I could manage anything more complicated while she's asleep on me, and it's probably true that my baby befuddled brain couldn't cope anyway so plain socks it is.

Fortunately the stash reveals a collection of wonderful multicoloured sock yarn that needs plain socks to show off the colours to their best advantage.  Very few patterns would be strong enough to match up to this Fire on the Mountain so it isn't really worth the extra effort when these are pretty and soft and warm and so very cheery against the oncoming grey of winter.

They even outshine my sandals.

In fact I like this yarn so much that I couldn't bear to simply tuck the leftovers away in the scraps box, and as I've been meaning to make Kitty some mittens for a while to try to combat the Kitty-Mummy game where Mummy puts mittens on Kitty and Kitty tries to wiggle her hands free without Mummy noticing, I did a little scrap box diving for other STR leftovers:

And here we see that Mummy has won! Port and Starboard mittens for Kitty made out of STR mediumweight in Fire on the Mountain and Lucky and STR lightweight in Dragon's Dance. 

The bright colours are fun for her to look at, and they're big enough that she can wiggle her fingers to her heart's content without falling off, but at the same time her fingers will stay toasty warm.

As you can see she was wildly impressed with them!

We'd gone for a walk to find some autumn colour around Abbey Fields in Kenilworth and to introduce Kitty to the smell and crunch of fallen leaves.

I had a great time and enjoyed the change of scene (and the Scrumpy scotch egg from the Cotswold pie stall), and Kitty, well she had a little snooze:

until we went down one off the off road tracks and she needed to tell me in no uncertain terms that this was too bouncy and not acceptable.  I don't think there was anyone left in Kenilworth that was in any doubt that this was not a baby-friendly track by the time she had fully communicated her point of view!  Sorry Kenilworth.

Just in case

Well you never know how much truth there is in the rumour that babies wait for their knitting to be finished.  Even knitting that isn't for them to wear and has only a vague connection to their arrival.

So for my own peace of mind ...


I finished my team Girl socks.  They are now tucked into my hospital bag next to H's socks and the little pink cardie and hat ready for a little girl bear.

The yarn is Lorna's Laces in Tickled Pink, a present from my sister from a while ago when she decided (following I believe an intensive blog review) that I clearly didn't have enough pink socks.  She's quite right, I don't and these are gorgeous.

I wanted a pattern that wouldn't be overshadowed by the yarn variegation which runs all the way from palest whisper of pink to deep purply magenta, and although I eyed up (and Rav queued) lots of really sweet girly pink sock patterns, in the end I went back to a pattern that I've made before, Cookie A's Kai-Mei socks from Sock Innovation.  I think it was the butterflies that caught me; my baby shower had a butterfly theme so it seems somewhat fitting.


Kai-Mei socks (or in this case, Carie-Mei) are shown to their best advantage on actual human feet because then you can see the lines of flutter-byes dancing across the toes, but my feet and ankles are currently gargantuan little poofy sausages, with those mini Christmas sized chipolatas on the ends for toes, so they're staying well clear of the blog for the moment.


















Trust me when I say that they're pretty socks.

As H's aunt sent us the cutest little knitted bear in the post this morning, wearing a little jumper with the initials of Baby Our last name and I can't think of anyone else who could possibly be knitting me into a lengthy pregnancy, I think it's time for this little one to make an appearance, if for no other reason that I now have to choose either to cast on something new, which I'm itching to do but I want to knit a jumper and I have no idea what size I am, or I have to finish one of the three remaining projects on the needles, namely a shawl edging, the socks from my Cookie A Knit Nation class, or the socks from the Tsock Club that I started about two years ago - any suggestions?

Pink Lavender

Well I may have finished knitting for my baby (although I do like Mandy's idea of a knitted mobile ...), but I'm still happily knitting small things for some other forthcoming tiny people.  I've already got a little blue jacket on the gift shelf but as insider information suggests that at least one impending arrival is to be a little girl, and I just couldn't be bothered to think up a pattern to embroider daisies around the hem of the blue jacket, I thought a little pink was in order.

In the form of the Provence Baby Cardigan which I seem to have had favourited on Ravelry for ages and ages - high time I got around to making it.  It's a free Classic Elite pattern which was originally designed to be knit in bits and sewn together but I've made a few adjustments to get it as seamless as possible.

The first change was to knit the body all in one to the underarms; I simply cast on two fewer stitches than the back called for, and one less for each of the fronts and marked the three sections out with stitch markers.  When I got to the underarms I worked across a full row, casting off one fewer stitch than the pattern suggested for each of the four cast off sections (they run into each other so where the pattern says you cast off four stitches at the side of the front and at the side of the back, you end up casting off a total of 6 stitches - one fewer for each side).

But before we get to the underarms, I played around with the lace pattern to make the sides symmetrical, simply by starting the lace pattern on the right front at row 1 and the lace on the left front at row 4.

The rest of the body was as written, until the shoulders themselves which I joined with a three needle bind off - it's neater and there's no shoulder shaping in a baby cardie.

For the sleeves, I've done some reverse engineering.  They are designed to be knit from the cuff up but I picked up 50 stitches from the shoulder, and knit in the round working down for an inch before reversing the shaping from the original cuff with decreases instead of increases.  The final change I've made is to shorten the sleeves by an inch or so by eliminating the last set of decreases; the sleeves look about the right length to me, and for a 6-9 month size jacket I'd rather have sleeves too short than too long.

The picture above is from yesterday afternoon when it wasn't raining and I've since finished the knitting and the little cardie is having a gentle block on the conservatory sofa - all I need now is some buttons.

As it was actually sunny for a few minutes yesterday we even managed to take some bump pictures - sadly lacking during recent weeks as it's been unreservedly dreek around here.  You'd really never believe it was still August - I definitely didn't think I'd be wanting a jumper at this point:

And yes that does explain why I'm wandering around in an old pre-pregnancy jumper with the baby hanging out!


























39 weeks down, 1-3 ish weeks to go!

Off the needles

There's a little someone I'd like you meet:


Not the little bear obviously, who's still safely tucked away, but a friend who can't wait to meet him or her.

For the moment I think his name is Solomon, but the bear gets the ultimate say so, so I suspect he'll end up being called little grey elephant or something equally inspirational.

The pattern is another tried and tested baby favourite, Ysolda's Elijah, in Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino in colour 45 which I think might have been called Sea Foam.  

















For the moment Solomon is making fast friends with the other teddies and I can officially say that I have finished all the knitting that I'd planned for this little one.  I think that's called tempting fate, maybe I should cast on a pair of teeny tiny socks or something?

Ready, Steady, Go?

Let me take you on a journey, just a little one I promise.  Come in through the door, along the hall, up the stairs and turn to your left, and what do you see:


It very much appears that our spare room/junk room/additional wardrobe room may perhaps have magically turned into a sweet little nursery.  We have a chest of drawers full of ready washed little baby clothes (which was just about the cutest laundry load I've ever pegged out - the scratch mitts are smaller than my clothes pegs!), and other useful baby type things; and next to it, the chair of great wonder and awesome comfort (a very special treat from H's parents).

And next to it is a bag all packed, well almost all packed; packed with a little list of things to be thrown in at the last minute - I can't really not use my hairbrush or my toothbrush for the next however long it takes just so that I can say that I'm totally packed.

The changing mat stands ready and waiting on top of the cot,

and little horse and hedgehog are ready and waiting for someone to play with.
 
Although tiny wee zebra and tiny wee giraffe may be more to the scale of the future incumbent of this moses basket.

We have nappies and muslin squares and cotton wool and all sorts of things that smell essentially baby.  There's just one thing missing - a certain little person, whole whilst terribly wriggly as I sit writing, shows no signs of planning on making an imminent arrival (unlike the son of an antenatal class colleague who made his arrival at exactly 38 weeks on Saturday morning to the surprise of the rest of the class and no doubt his delighted parents).

Well little baby of mine, your nursery is all ready and waiting for you, your mother can collapse your buggy on two out of three attempts so we won't be completely housebound when your father is at work, and I've been practicing clipping your car seat and pram cot in and out of the chassis so we're looking good.  I know you're keen to meet your Daddy because I feel how you wriggle towards him whenever you hear his voice, and if it's the chicken and salami pasta sauce that I made for supper that you're so keen on, I promise to make it again.  All in all, we're ready to meet you any time you feel like it.

Oh, and I made you a blanket:


Just perfect for learning your ABCs when the time comes, and for snuggling up with Mummy or Daddy in the meantime.

Every time I finish one of these and pull it off the blocking wires I know exactly why I've now knitted four identical blankets.  It's kismet, a unity of Baby Cashmerino and a classic pattern.  It's possible that I could knit another of these for a niece or nephew someday, but I might choose something different, in which case, this is my last (and best) alphabet blanket.  It doesn't have the technical whiztrickery of an Alice Starmore blanket (which is awaiting the baby in a drawer, guarded by cedar block sentries), or the nubbly texture of a Cox's Orange Pippin blanket, but I'd like to think that it has a classic elegance, and whereas Point Reyes is specifically Baby Bear's, this is the blanket that I hope I get to wrap around all of my children.

I've got one little thing on the needles that is for the bear, but if it doesn't get finished, it isn't the end of the world, and the knitting for other people's babies and my quilting can always wait, but I'm not going to say that I've finished this baby's knitting just yet - I'd still like to have time to clean the bathroom.

In which there has been snoozing and partying

First and most importantly, I have not yet had the baby.  We've got three weeks to go (ish), and I swing wildly from thinking he or she is going to arrive any minute because I'm so huge to being convinced that I'll be weeks and weeks overdue and even more huge.

I didn't mean to go so long between posts but most of the last week or so has been spent sorting out and rearranging the baby's room which has involved a fair amount of things piling up in my study which somewhat impedes access to the computer and the camera cable.  We're getting there now though, and assuming that I don't have the baby in the next few days I might even have some pictures to show for it.

However, rather than seeing just how messy I can make my house in the name of tidying up (and I promise I could make it an extreme sport!), I have a tale of a very wonderful afternoon spent in the company of the nicest of people in which the little bear and I were spoiled rotten by family and friends who came round for cake, a cream tea, oh and my baby shower. I still can't quite believe I'm grown up enough and pregnant enough to have just had a baby shower; it makes it all seem very real!

Both grandmothers-to-be made the trip from their respective ends of the country and everyone else came from a little more close at hand, and in an uncharacteristic lapse I even handed off my camera so that we have this rare evidence of Carie in front of the camera and proof of the very great spoiling of my baby by all who have yet to meet him or her. 

Mary brought me flowers:



Unwrapping a beautifully knit blanket from Mandy

And a cuter than cute baby jacket from Mary.

Bibs (and a whole heap of other useful things like baby wipes, lotion and cotton wool balls) from the most recent Mummy in the group,

and a very special book from my sister, fondly remembered by all of us.

My lovely colleague L, who has an alternative career ready and waiting as a party planner, helped to organise the whole thing (including bringing the fizz for those not driving or hatching small children) and made a wonderful quiz from celebrity baby pictures; my MIL and I managed a respectable 7/10 (after some hints) although we did initially think that a young Jennifer Aniston was Prince Charles!
 
I hope everyone had as much fun as I did; we certainly made some inroads into the cake, and the cream tea was greatly enhanced by genuine clotted cream, carted all the way from Devon by my Mum in a cool bag (yum).  I decided that at 8 months pregnant I could follow the Calendar Girls rule of catering (if it's a really special occasion buy it at Marks and Spencer) but I did do a little cooking:



Well you can't have a butterfly themed baby shower without butterfly cakes can you? And L brought a sweet butterfly shaped sponge (the 'after' to Colin the Caterpillar perhaps).

I didn't have the chance to take more pictures of the oh so pretty knitting yesterday but this morning's sunshine provided ample opportunity:


This is the little jacket that Mary made - it's so sweet and I love how the buttons have been sewn on in different colours to match.

Mandy's present also included this little jacket - the bear and I are going to sport matching jacket and socks, although my socks don't have such awesome orange buttons.

Y made me a candle - definitely not for the baby but stunningly pretty,

And Mandy's magnum opus - the Apple Tree blanket:

I love this pattern, the yarn is soft and wonderful and the colour is warm and soft and perfect for a snuggly little baby! As you can see, the bear's hedgehog is already getting in on the action:

And last but not least, while we're on the subject of beautiful knitting that I didn't do, I caught up with a good friend at Kenilworth Knit and Knatter on Thursday and was utterly surprised and delighted to be given a little something for the bear when he or she has grown a bit more - this gorgeous hoodie:

D is a very very skilled knitter and this hoodie is just perfect and a gorgeous sunshiney colour to boot,

I love the little 'label' on the back of the neck!

I've been doing a wee bit of knitting in between naps and tidying but that can wait for another day - today I've got pretty toys to play with, and another reading of If I were a sheep: