Friendship Booties

Friendship Booties by Lorna Miser (yes, she of Lorna's Laces fame) from Faith, Hope, Love, Knitting.
How sweet are these? My friend Jayne says I made her cry when she saw the photos! They're so tiny, and will encompass a newborn foot so well. All you need to do is tie the ribbon snuggly.

Now, I know they're not a complex pattern and won't fit for very long; they're just a bit of fun but I enjoyed making them and am really pleased with the result.

Each booty is basically a square of knitted fabric, with eyelets along two opposite sides, through which you thread your choice of ribbon. I chose a rainbow stripe that I happened to have in my ribbon stash. Yes, you've guessed it, for as long as I've had the button problem, I've had a ribbon stash, though I wouldn't say it's quite as serious... yet. (You need only search the blog for the word button to find the myriad posts dedicated to the wondrous things!).

The ribbon is very girly, though it could have been worse (I have metres of pink gingham, grosgrain pink edged in dashed white lines, even birds and hearts). For a boy I would change the ribbon (fear not, boys are also catered for in the ribbon section).

Although I'm not religious in any way (the book is quite spiritual), I really fell in love with the ethos behind this book , when I found it when on holiday in the States last year: as Lorna says, "Each story has a knitting project that relates to that friendship". Though there are a few projects in the book which don't appeal to my personal taste, the story behind these miniature booties really touched me.

Though I can't put it as well as her, when Lorna designed these booties she had recently started looking after bunnies with a friend, with the aim of using their fur to spin and knit with. Thus the angora became these little booties for three new Mums when Lorna had her first daughter, along with two others who became friends. One of the other Mums took to the spinning and dyeing of Lorna's angora so much that she eventually set up a knitting and spinning business with Lorna. Apparently their daughters are still friends today, ever since they met in their little angora booties as newborns.

I didn't use pure angora, but Sirdar Snuggly instead as I was struggling to find bulky weight angora. However, they're still extremely soft, snuggly and sufficiently fuzzy to have that "aaww" factor!

Colour Wheel

The blanket is almost finished.

This is one of those projects which, though different on the reverse, unusually looks just as nice. The colours are lovely, as are the textures created by the cotton and slip-stich combination.

I've just realised this one looks like a snail.

This week I received in the post some buttons that I bought on Etsy. Don't you love them?

They are from PaperFish and I found out about them from Petit Filou. The red toadstool-like ones initially appealed to me, but I couldn't pass up all of those divine colours. There are some great colour combinations to play around with:

Powder blue and dark fuschia...

...teal and orange.

Think of all the different accessories and jumpers they'll look good on. In fact, I'm starting a dress-making course next week, and have an idea in my head for a garment that could do with some polka-dot button adornment! Don't worry, this doesn't mean that I'm giving up on my knitting. Far from it; I'm just adding another string to my bow and kickstarting my memory of past sewing.

Once the blanket's finished I'm moving on to my tank top. I'm making it in Rown Felted Tweed in Rage (dark red). Looking forward to it!

New Projects!

I started this on Friday night. It's the Rainbow Chain Carriage Blanket by Erika Flory. You can see other examples on Ravelry. It's knit using Peaches & Creme Solids in all the colours of the rainbow (16 to be exact) and alternated with this clever chain stitch in off-white which makes it look like a layer of chains overlaid on the stockinette colours (am I making any sense?). Anyway, it's soooo much easier than it looks, very effective, washable, tough (cotton) and ideal for summer. I'm sure it'll look fantastic when it's finished, but I can't do any more as I'm waiting for the rest of the MC to arrive (Ecru) and I've gone as far as I can, over a quarter of the way through in just one evening. I hope it turns out a bit larger though.

I think I might start this wonderful shrug next (also on Ravelry) as I've just taken delivery of some gorgeous Dream in Colour Classy, naughty me! I originally ordered it for the Tulips Cardigan (for a friend), but when it arrived I couldn't resist some more Giant Peach for the shrug!

Last night, probably too late in the day, I decided to dye some yarn for the first time (DH wasn't too pleased). I got these sock kits from Tall Yarns N Tales at a knitting show, and am planning on doing some blue and natural striped socks for DH, and some red and natural striped ones for me.

It's quite an easy technique that doesn't involve boiling in pans, but a quick 10 minutes in the microwave, woohoo! In order to get stripes I halved the skein in length and dyed one half in tupperware, with the undyed half left outside the tub. This is it just before it goes in the microwave:

Both skeins hung up to dry:

Those of you who know my blog will know that I hate sock-knitting. That doesn't mean that I don't think it's a very skilled task, I do, and I really admire the many of you who do it on a regular basis, but I had a bad experience a couple of years ago and swore I'd never try them again. Now I'm eating my words! The pattern seems like a very simple top-down construction, and as long as I avoid the dpn's, I shouldn't go wrong.... You know I will! I'll let you know how it goes once I've wound these now-dried skins and cast on.

I'll leave you with another magnificent peony; really striking:

Talk soon, Rowan

Rainbow Bear

Another little bear, this one in Koigu:

Hes's multi-coloured and speckled! Can anyone give me some advice: do you think he needs a face? Or would it look too fussy?

Close-up of the colours:

Here's the tie I made DH a couple of weeks ago:

Yes, there's a colour join (blue to grey - I ran out of the blue, but I don't think it matters). I still have to stitch in a sliver of fabric along the neck-band, so I'll show you that another time. It's basically a slightly graduated moss stitch tube with the ends sewn up, and a stockinette neck-band. I'm quite pleased with it, and DH seems to like it, but if he doesn't like the feel of angora I'll just put it on Etsy.

I thought just I'd just show you some legwarmers I made about a year ago. I've been meaning to send them to my Sister in Edinburgh, and I'm making a pair for myself now. They look very long, but they're not when they're on, as you scrunch them up.

Finally, some peonies Alex gave me when she came for lunch last week. Aren't they beautiful? The petals look like paper.

I've got Monday Knit Night at Stash tomorrow and my own group on Tuesday!