Knitted Baby Booties and Hat

I was supposed to be putting this post up earlier, but lo and behold I ended up taking Lil man to the out of hours clinic with Rikkis Dad because he fell over and bashed his nose at school and made it bleed and I was worried it might be broken. 

It was a long wait which was made slightly longer by the fire alarm going off, but its worth it for peace of mind and I can't fault any of the NHS staff or nurses because they were fantastic with him. He actually ended up having 3 nurses look at his nose because they wanted to make sure it was definitely okay. 

So naturally we got home late and I didn't have time to post until now! 

So this is a little baby set I knitted up a while ago because its useful to have one to hand. I used some nice soft baby yarn that I was given by someone, I have absolutely no clue who though so if it was you please feel free to shout up. 

I used an old knitting pattern that I borrowed from Rikkis Nan. It knitted up fairly quickly which is nice because I fit it between other projects.

The booties are a mixture of stocking stitch and garter stitch so they look quite textured. The instructions said to thread Ribbon through the holes to tie them but I made twists from wool instead. 

The hat was from the same pattern but I;m not as pleased with that as I think it looks a bit lumpy at the top. I wanted to knit a helmet type hat but I've made one of those before and babies don't tend to wear that type of style anymore. 

I've popped the set in the drawer ready for the next baby to be born. Luckily as their a light sort of turquoise I think they'll do for a girl or for a boy. 

Right I'm off to bed today ended up being a lot more stressful than I thought it would be!!

Much Love

Frankie 

xxx

Crochet Hexagon Blanket

The weathers still a bit naff isn't it? I ironed all of my summer dresses last week and only had the chance to wear one. 

On the plus side there's been lots of good too, I picked up a load of vintage sewing patterns at the carboot this weekend and the washer and dryer have finally been taken out of the house so now I have the spare room back for taking outfit pictures! And me made may starts tomorrow which is always nice because I love seeing what the rest of the sewing world is wearing day to day.

Anyway I made this blanket ages ago. I've been trying to experiment with new crochet techniques recently. This is the basic granny square but done as a hexagon. So its not a huge step but at least I tried something different eh? 

Its only a small blanket and I'm not mad on the colour scheme but it did use up a lot of odds and sods of wool so I guess that's good. 

Size wise its not very big. Big enough for a baby or a small dog???? Yep I'm still trying to wear Rikki down to get me a dog of my own. I figure at some point he'll just get sick of me asking and whinging on.

For now its living in the cupboard. 

In other news! 

Ill be spending the rest of today taking pictures for blog posts! 

Apart from when I'm hoovering! 

Then I'll be editing my next you tube video! This ones about the vintage patterns I picked up at he carboot! Now I just need to get lots of nice fabrics so I can sew them up! 

One issue I;m having with the vintage patterns is that they smell a bit musty? So if anyone knows how to make them smell less musty please let me know!!! 

Much Love 

Frankie 

xxx

Josephine's Blanket

Life is pretty good guys. I've had a chock full week and I'm knackered but I've got a Chinese on the way and I'm feeling pretty darn good!

As you already know we had the Easter bonnet parade on Wednesday, then on Friday I volunteered to walk the children from Lil mans school to church for their Easter service. It was a LONG walk but I was classified as an actual grown up and was responsible for lil man and one of his friends. Which quite frankly terrified me because OMG who is this child and what if I break it or it thinks I'm stupid or something? As it goes the kid was okay, quiet but okay and we broke the tension by talking about our favourite dinosaurs. 

Then on Saturday we had the Grand National and Lil man only went and won himself £44 at the bookies! [using his daddy's account of course!] which he has already spent on two new lego kits and the new version of mousetrap. 

Then on Saturday night I went out. Like out out. Like clean knickers, shaved above the knee put a full face of makeup on and a cute dress [this one to be exact] out! Granted I spent an hour sat on Lil mans godfathers sofa watching him play fifa until my friends actually arrived in town [It was really cracking of him to look after me until my friends were out especially seen as he had plans of his own! BUT since when did meeting at 10pm become a thing? 10pm is bedtime? If you want conversation you need to catch me at around 7pm] But when I was out I had a great time apart from my mock-tail had traces of pineapple in and my my face feel a bit tingly [I'm allergic to pineapple. Pineapple and Elastoplast.....so if you ever want to kill me that's the way to do it!] 

But anyway! This project is one of my sit and knit and not think projects. I started it to see how the new prym ergonomic knitting needles would fair with a hefty project [you can read my review here]. 

Its basically all of the blues, purples, whites and greens from my stash knitted together to make a diagonal blanket. I got all of my little piddly balls of wool from my wool drawer and split each one in half and used one half for the increases and one half for the deceases.

Its a great way to use up all of those odds and sods of wool however you will have to weave in 1 million ends [this might be a small exaggeration]. But I think it really works and I love the scrappy homemade vibe it has. It kind of reminds me of the sort of thing they'd have made in world war 2 when supplies were scarce and they used to re knit things. Which is a style of thinking I really admire. 

Its for my new baby niece Josephine. I seem to be using a lot of blues and purples when I make her things? Maybe because I always think of here older sister as being the little pink baby? Plus I tend to think the gender stereotypes of pink and blue babies have gone out of the window and things are a lot more neutral.  

This is actually the second blanket I've knitted for her the first being this rainbow one which was another diagonal stitch blanket! This one is a bit bigger than the rainbow one which is more of a car seat blanket than an actual sleeping one. Actually looking at the pictures of the rainbow blanket I think I might have to make another because its pretty cute! 

So yes I love it and hopefully the little one will get many hours of rest underneath it. I think its going to go and live at my mums thought because my sister in law and brother have said they already have lots of blankets at their house. Which I don't mind because my mum will use it and look after it. She even has a baby blanket from when I was born that's still in good nick!

So yeah that's it! I am way behind on photographing my dressmaking projects! But I'm hoping to get those done tomorrow unless we decided to go on a bike ride! 

Anyway I hope you've all enjoyed the weather! 

Much Love

Frankie

xxx

New Baby Bunny!

I don't want to alarm you all but......

I'M GOING TO BE AN AUNTY AGAIN!

Seriously was there a power cut I don't know about? everybody seems to be popping out the babies!

Anyway I've already started its gift basket in fact its what this quilt top is for! 

I've tried to go pretty neutral on the bunny, both of the fabrics are from the craft cotton company. and as a nice touch the triangle fabric that's on the body is on the bunnies I made for its elder brother and sister for Easter.

I used my own Easter bunny tutorial, and didn't make any changes. I was tempted to make a mouse but its mum and dad requested a rabbit.

I'm very pleased with how it turned out I'm just wondering if I should change the ribbon round its neck for something darker? 

And I've already decided if its a girl I'm going to put a tutu on it!

Frankie

xxx

Daisy Dress For Pudding

I cut out a dress recently and found myself with a small piece of fabric left. well a medium sized piece, Not quite enough to make myself something but a bit too much for it to go in the scraps box.

Luckily for me I have a lovely lil god-daughter "pudding" and it seemed a shame not to make her a lil something.

Now normally I don't do children, there's a few I like [my own included] but mostly I just think they are sticky, loud, obnoxious little beings. 

I like pudding though, luckily for me shes still small enough to think I'm humorous and doesn't require much more attention than the odd silly face!

Anyway the pattern came from the second great british sewing bee book, but I omitted the collar and added a ruffle along the bottom. For a dress the pattern seems very short?

I lined the bodice and left an opening in the back neck so it can be easily gotten on and off. I used an odd button and a loop for the closure.

I put lace trim around the join between the skirt and the bodice, mainly because I was caught up in a whirl wind of adorable baby making! Luckily I had just enough of this lace to do it!

I spent most of my time basking in how adorable it was turn out and the rest of the time trying to make sure there were no scratchy seams.

I top stitched the neckline and armholes so everything would stay in place and so It wouldn't need ironing.

I'm really pleased with this, It was actually quite nice to make something for someone else even if I don't think I'll be doing it a lot! babies grow too fast!!!

And I'm definitely glad I added the ruffle onto the bottom!

Now I just have to hope that baby likes it, mum likes it and that it fits!!!

Much Love

Frankie

xxx

Blue Fade, Spiral Quilt Top

I made another baby quilt top! I like to have a little stash of these ready for when people announce that their expecting. And I'm expecting a few announcements what with those long saummer nights nights with bottles of wine...[funnily enough it also works work those longer winter nights with a bottle of wine]

Anyway after the success of my last spiral quilt I decided to repeat the process but wanted to try and get an ombre effect.

It turned out pretty good, and I like the two boarder effect I ended up with.

I made it in an evening and my sister helped me decide on how to finish the boarder.

Its all scraps from the quilting basket, I just need to pick up some backing and then bind it and I'm finished.

In other news I have my first child and man free morning in months. Sadly I can't sew because Rikki is upstairs napping after his night shift. Usually I'd risk sewing and keep my ears peeled for if it was making him restless but yesterday he had a horrible migraine and stayed in bed! and then went to work! Lil trooper!

So yeah so far I've done some cutting out, shortened the hem on a skirt and now I'm thinking of knitting. Mainly I'm just pottering about, and binge watching desperate housewives.

I've got to say as much as I love my boys, I do love having time to potter about in my own company.

Much Love 

Frankie 

xx

9 Patch Taggy Blanket!

I kind of feel like becuase this took me less than an hour to make, its not really blog worthy. But it turned out cute so I'm going to subject you to it anyway!

Its is a really simple nine patch taggy blanket that I made using my own tutorial which you can find here. 

I won't go through the construction because its all covered in the tutorial but I only used fabrics from my scraps box and the ribbons are from my ribbon drawer as well. I tried to pick ribbons with different textures because I know babies like that kinda thing! Unseen is the back which was a scrap of soft red fleece! 

I quilted it very simply using straight lines. I might add the babies initial to the centre square when it arrives but it depends if I remember! Its going into a little gift basket I'm making for a baby that should be showing up around august? Anyway I've finished the making portion of the gift so now I just need to buy things.

In other news :

I brought a face powder that claimed to be translucent and now I look like I've been tangoed.

Litterally scared to leave the house incase someone mistakes me for a memeber of TOWIE! [which I don't watch! the kardashians yes but I draw the line at towie!]

Much Love

Frankie 

xxx

Spotty Bibs

I love that I now have an bunch of easy baby patterns that I can whip out when I need to create a couple of gifts! I used this self drafted pattern that can be found here.

I cut them out last night whilst cooking dinner and it couldn't have taken me longer than an hour to sew them up. And my machine was throwing a fit! I used scraps and offcuts that I had lying around so its a stash busting project as well!

I opted to put both sets of spots at the front and use other prints for the back. I was going to do press studs as the closure but I couldn't find any so I opted for buttons and loops.

I am lusting after one of these though! I think it would save me loads of time. 

The two spotty fabrics and the weird micro organism looking one are from my stash and I have no idea where they are from but the owls are from the Craft cotton company .

I had them for my birthday and they just seem to be never ending! I still have one fat quarter left and they have been used in baby blankets, cushions and loads of other bits!

It was actually quite nice to whip something up fairly quickly usually I make dresses and stay up far too late trying to finish them. So it was refreshing to be in bed at a reasonable hour. Although saying that I woke up feeling AWFUL this morning after a bad nights sleep, which is why I'm not showing you the other thing I made last night because this face is not ready for pictures! I'm also wicked bloated and that doesn't help! I refuse to leave the house today in case someone thinks I'm having a baby. [Its happened before and is the reason no longer eat curry! "awww when are you due?" I'm not but thank you for pointing out what spicy food does to my body I hope an anvil falls on your head]

So yeah that's it really I've added to my next baby gift set , I think I'll just finish it off with a taggy blanket and be done. And I've spent most of today lying on the sofa doing some hand stitching trying not to feel sorry for myself.

Much Love

Frankie

xxx

Second Baby Blanket - Spotty Spiral

This is my second baby blanket for a sprog that's being born this year. And i can take no responsibility for the crazy fabric choices, I pulled some very neutral colours from my stash for this quilt, and then Lil man came over asked what I was doing and who the quilt was for and he decided because they have a spotty dog, they must have a spotty quilt and then picked out every spotty fabric I own. 

And then I pulled a few solids and an owl fat quarter and the Spotty Spiral quilt was born!

For the piecing I cut all my fabric into strips the same size and joined them together. so i had one bit long roll of crazy spotty ness, kinda like a jelly roll.

Then I started with my gingham centre square [yeah I put gingham in the mix too!] and added a boarder to each side in a spiral and there you go!! Genuinely some of the most relaxing piecing I've ever done. Sew strip, Cut, Turn, Sew strip, Cut, Turn very therapeutic!

In the end I had to add a solid boarder to balance the quilt a bit more [And its ombre and my awesome matching skills means it goes from dark to light to dark to light perfectly!]

I backed it with white fleece fabric and quilted it in a very simple spiral pattern that I think looks super cool. This was also very relaxing, however I still hate wrestling a quilt under my domestic machine! 

Because of the nature of the project this turned into quite the little stash buster! And although its crazy because of all the prints I think it looks really fun!

And I really love that there's so many different sizes of polka dot! 

The mustard binding really ties the whole thing together, I machined the back and hand stitched the front for a nicer finish. In fact I think hand stitching the binding might be my favourite part of quilting.

I'm pleased with how it all came together especially seen as I didn't choose most of the fabrics and I went for a really simple piecing method! Now both of my baby quilts are finished I can focus on my quilt again! Yay! That is unless someone else decides to get knocked up!!!   

In other news , lil man has been getting up really early which is brilliant obviously [insert copious amounts of sarcasm here]. 

And I've started a full house clean, so far I've done the bathroom and airing cupboard, lil mans room and the kitchen. Just have to do the hallway and its cupboards, the pantry [sobs, there's always spiders in there] and then the living room and the dining/sewing/dvd/guinea pig room! And then our room! Its exhausting but It'll be worth it when its done. So far I'm using the if we don't use it bin it rules! And were putting a lot of stuff up the loft too.

In fact me writing this is me putting off tidying and cleaning 

Much Love

Frankie

xxx   

Finished Disappearing 9 patch quilt

Yay I've finally finished one of my baby blankets [Well I've finished both of them but I've not written the Blog post for the second one!] So I'm all caught up and I can start my own quilting projects again! Yay! 

So this one is for the first baby that's being born in April, or thereabouts. Its based on a disappearing 9 patch but added some borders.

These pictures are not brilliant because the wind kept blowing and I've been feeling peaky all day, so I just reached the point where I gave up and decided to live with what I've got.

Its quilted quite simply, I basically started at one corner and quilted at right angles so its like a corner quilting technique. Pretty simple but it looks cool and its all pretty flat.

Its backed with a piece of fleece, I don't tend to add wadding to baby quilts just because I don't see it as being necessary, so instead I just use a squishy fleece. This fleece came from b and ms and was part of a two pack of fleece blankets for 3.99 which is far cheaper than buying fabric from a fabric shop.

I also used fleece for the binding which I hand stitched because I'm a sucker for a hand stitched finish!

So yes very pleased especially seen as I did most of it whilst I was really tired and not in the mood for complicated sewing, actually it was quite nice to just do some really simple finishing of a project!

Aren't the owls adorable? The whole quilt apart from the backing came from my stash, although the entire quilt was inspired by the colours from the owl fabric. Mainly I just wanted to keep things really bright and fun and not fall into my usual dark colour palette.

Yeah so there's not much more I can say about it apart from I love it. I just hope the parents of the baby like it as much as I do! I think its fun and modern and doesn't look too homespun so hopefully they will.

Much Love

Frankie

xxx