Some Tiny Ones For The Girls, Lola and Esme

Jinkies (sorry I've been over dosing on Scooby Doo thanks to the boys) is it really 3 weeks since I last blogged! You can tell Christmas is round the corner when you start losing whole weeks!

This post is all about some tiny pink arrivals, very tiny pink arrivals.

Firstly (although she didn't arrive first but she is related and I have actual baby photos) Lola. A few weeks ago I became a great auntie. I have a few mixed feelings about this, yes she is beautiful and a baby is very very special and something to be cherished blah blah blah but I'm not 40 yet!!!!! In my (admittedly very very late twlightyears) 30's is not old enough to be be a great auntie. Honestly my nephew Paul has an awful bloody lot to answer for making me a great auntie at thirtysoddingnine and not quite a half !!He has had a light clip round the ear but unfortunately it didn't rectify the situation, Lola is still and here blissfully unaware of the agony and heartbreak to my ego. I mean come on, great aunts have grey hair (OK so I've been colouring mine for years and I have more, far more than my fair share of grey hair). Great aunties stay in on a weekend watching TV and drinking cups of hot chocolate (hhhmmm it's a few years since I saw the inside of a nightclub and the last time I was in the city centre on a Sat night I was pooped and ready for bed well before midnight, I couldn't wait to get home for acuppa and kick my high heels back into the bottom of the wardrobe where they still languish). Also great aunties have old fashioned hobbies like ....knitting. Eerrmm yes, well eeerrr OK. AL RIGHT then maybe I'm old enough in spirit if not in years!

Lola was born on 5th November weighing in at a tiny 5lb 12oz. She was only a few days early considering her tiny birth weight but mum is only tiny so no real surprise even if dad is a lofty 6'5" in his socks!

Hold on tight there are a few pic's to post, links to find and yarns to remember.

First up this is a preemie cardi and the link is here It is knitted in Hobbycraft's own Palette DK in a soft aubergine/dark berry colour. The hat is a basic preemie hat and although I cobbled this from memory from doing many of these there are patterns for these available all over the web in the guise of topknot hat or umbilical cord hat etc.

And the beautiful Lola herself wearing the hat!

This hat unfortunately is still a little big and I'm afraid that by the time the hat fits then this cute little cardigan both knitted in Sirdar Baby Bamboo won't fit! I may find myself doing the next size up once the crimbo knitting is out of the way. It is a pattern taken from a book no longer in print I'm afraid. But for reference the book is Knitting For baby 623 by Teddy Knitting Yarns. It goes down to a 14inch chest. The hat I made up as the hat to match the cardi was a bonnet and I didn't think being a young couple they would like a bonnet.

Next up is a baby slouchy beanie knitted when Lola was known as Peanut. I used this as my basic pattern but extended the straight body of the hat before doing the decreases. Dad is a huge fan of the slouchy beanie and has many of them, he is rarely seen without a hat so it was for a little jokey whimsical that I knitted this. It is knitted in Sirdar Snuggly 4ply, plain white.

I thought these were probably the cutest things ever when I first spotted them on Ravelry. The blog is in French but my browser prompted me to translate to English, even if yours doesn't then the very clever lady has done a very simple foolproof chart instead. They are so easy and quick it is actually ridiculous. I'm not sure what the yarn is I used, just some beige DK bought labeless from a car boot sale many moons ago. I've also just remembered that the pattern calls for aran but I re-gauged it and used DK

Even though there a few other bits for Lola at the risk of me crashing my blog from posting too many pictures I'll move onto Esme.

Esme is the daughter of Liz (my friend)'s SIL Julia (also a friend)'s brother and his wife (who I have met once but don't know personally). She came into the world 8 weeks early due to mum suffering from pre-eclampsia and weighing a teeny 3 and a half lb. These were so small they didn't take long to knock up.

This is actually a dolly cardi taken from Doll's Wardrobe (also suitable for preemie babies) 614 again by Teddy Knitting Yarns. It's knitted in Sirdar Countrystyle in a bright Barbie pink. It was an oddment left oner from something else so I have no colour way reference's etc

This last one is Paxton that is a Ravelry link as I downloaded the PDF from there. My apologies if you are not on Ravelry, seriously if you are a knitter then I question why not and urge you to join. It's the best thing sliced bread honest. It is a wealth of inspiration, knowledge and guidance which also packs in some wonderful patterns (many free some not) projects and totally fab everything you can think of. It is a place you can not only showcase your own projects but also unashamedly peer at other peoples and not only become amazed (and occasionally envious)at their skill and patience but also gogglefied at their sense of humour. It is the place to join like minded people! The yarn is some more Hobbycraft Pallette in DK and leftovers from this along with the above berry coloured yarn for Lola's hat and cardigan. I'm afraid I'm not sure where the buttons came from though I do remember they only cost 10p each.

OMG I nearly forgot to mention, Harrogate is in ONE WEEKS TIME whoop whoop!!!! Mama's gonna buy me some yarn!

The Force Has Bypassed Me Completely

Well after making such a brilliant start on the Star Wars hats for the boys some time ago I sort of lost focus a little! I finished Zakk's after a few attempts, he loves it, it matches his coat and all is lovely. Max's hat however is another story. September and indeed a lot of October were fairly warm and mild and the need for a winter hat for Max seemed far away (I'd given myself such a head start on Zakk's hat after all) so I let myself be seduced by other projects. These projects included other hats (OK so no logic there, knitting a hat for the 21 year old but not for the 6 year old hhmmm priorities!!), some preemie clothes for a friend of a friend (very near future blog post), arm warmers (blog post in the offing) and another commission (again another future blog post).

The cold weather is now however fast approaching, and the fact that I broke the boys new winter coats out of the wardrobe during school half term last week and that they even needed hats on one of the days brought me up pretty sharpish to the fact I'd only got around to casting on Max's hat and that was it! So I got back to it on Monday, finished the rib and started to try and place the characters from the chart around the hat as evenly spaced as possible, cursing myself that if I had remembered to write down some notes on how many stitches I had used to separate the designs etc then where the %$&*£ had I put them. After spending the afternoon trying to wing it, (which of course didn't work), tinking and then trying to count carefully (which still didn't work) and then even trying to not count carefully I finally threw my knitting down in disgust.

At that point Zakk came in with some Maths homework which he had been working on and asked me to check it....... there's no hope in me working out the maths to place 6 figures evenly spaced around a hat if I can't even understand a 7 year olds maths homework is there......

Leigh-Ann managed to finish the half marathon. She went past us so quickly we didn't get any photo's of her at all but and we were on the right hand side of her just down a few yards in this photo cheering her to the finish line. Her time was 2 hours 50 mins and she has raised more than £200 pounds so far. Thanks to everyone who sponsored her, it still brings a tear to my eye with how proud I am of her.