I just posted over on New Zealand Handmade about the recent Rugby World Cup Canada/Japan match that my family and I went along to. To get in the mood, I knit hats and scarves for my girls in the colour of the teams. Luckily, both teams' colours are red and white!

The pattern is A toque fit for a Canuck, eh! by Lyndsay Richardson which is available as a free Ravelry download. The pattern is written for an adult hat, so I took out one repeat of the maple leaf to size it for 5-year-old Nyssa. It worked perfectly!

It looks like all my dreams.

It's been months since I posted, and years since I knit this next item, but for various reasons I never got around to sharing it earlier.

Here's the full story...

Christmas 3 years ago my brother and sister-in-law got me the best present ever...  the amazing knitting book Kaffe Knits Again and all the yard needed to knit one of the projects in the book.  I was so overwhelmed and grateful for the amazing gift, that I decided that instead of knitting the scarf that they had selected the yarn for, I would knit something from the book for them.

With so many crazy, colourful designs to choose from, it took me a bit, but then I had the perfect idea.  There's this pattern for a men's vest, that has houses all over it.  The houses are all different colours, but they're very uniform in shape.  It's called Houses.

I didn't have quite enough yarn to make it full-sized, and I thought it would look a bit strange on an adult (though this model does look quite dapper).  So I decided to size it down for a toddler, as my nephew was just one year old at the time.  Then I realized what the Houses reminded me of.
 

Mr. Plumbean's street!  Before the the seagull flew over, of course.  If you've never read Daniel Pinkwater's The Big Orange Splot before, you must.  It's a fantastic kids book about non-conformity.  Mr. Plumbean lives on a neat street, where all the houses look the same, until a seagull drops a can of orange paint on his roof, and Plumbean refuses to clean it off.   He says, "My house is me and I am it.  My house is where I like to be and it looks like all my dreams."

Anyways, I knit Kaffe Fassett's Houses as a vest for my nephew, adding an orange splot to one of the roofs.  I love the way it turned out.

Christmas Koala

As I mentioned in the previous post, I entered myself in the New Zealand Handmade Christmas Ornament swap.  I'd like to introduce you to what will be the first decoration on our tree this year:

How cool is that!?

Handmade, obviously, but Christine in Australia, who has a blog over at http://fruitsofheart.wordpress.com/ .  She describes her creating of this ornament here.  I'm so incredibly happy with it, and I just hope that she enjoys the ornament I made for her as much as I love this little guy.  I can't post pictures yet of what I made, as I want to make sure she has received it first, so I don't spoil the surprise.

Time to Think Christmas

If you're at all a knitter and crocheter like me (read: slooooooow) then you have to start prepping very early for all your Christmas gift knitting and crocheting.  This year, I've added to my knit list a Christmas ornament because I've entered in the New Zealand Handmade Christmas Ornament Swap!  It's open to anyone in the world, and you just have to hand make a Christmassy decoration.  Join in, and you may end up with an original by me!

101 Blog Posts!

I missed the milestone of the previous post being my 100th!  Oh well, 101 is just a cool to commemorate.

I'll do it in style, with a new finished item.  Before I left the States almost 2 years ago, I bought a few crochet books to bring with me, as I was just getting into it, and I wasn't sure what the selection would be like when I got her.  I needn't have worried, as there's plenty to choose from at the local library.  But I'm still glad I got them.  Once of my purchases was Crochet Me: Designs to Fuel the Crochet Revolution.  It's got lots of cute patterns.  I've been wanting to make those fishnet thigh highs on the cover for awhile, but first I had to go for something a bit less fussy.  I decided on the Circle Motif Rug.

Once I had decided I must make myself this run, I needed yarn.  Wool yarn here in New Zealand is plentiful, but almost none of the brands available in the States are sold here.  So I'd have to find a close match.  No problem, I think I can count on one hand the number of times I've actually used the yarn called for in the pattern.  But I came across the problem that I couldn't find any bulky or chunky weight yarn.  At all.  I checked every yarn store in Napier and Hastings.  I even asked at all of them, and none of them were aware of any heavy weight yarns.  There are only 4 stores, so it wasn't too big a quest, but it did end in failure at first.  So I gave up.  I started other projects.  I forgot about the rug.

Then one day I was at JJ's Crafts in Greenmeadows looking for buttons for one of the baby sweaters I knit.  And out front in a basket was a HUGE skein of really thick yarn with the sign "Rug Wool - $10".  It wasn't the colour I wanted, but I thought it would have to do, as the chances of finding similar wool again was slight.

The skein was a bit of a big tangled mess, but I managed to get it into a ball.  A big ball.

Here it is next to my puppy for scale.  Okay, yes.  He's a small dog.  But that's still a big ball.

Well, here's the boy sitting on the finished rug!  I think he may end up adopting it for himself, despite the fact that I made it for the back door step.

Baby, baby, baby!

Recently there's been a lot of babies born in my circle of friends and family.  And of course being a knitter and crocheter, I've got to supply these newborns with their own first handcrafted woollies.

You may remember that in July my brother-in-law and his wife had a gorgeous baby girl who got this crocheted blanket, and then in August my brother and his wife also had a lovely little girl who got this hoodie and this vintage matinee coat.

Well now in September the last of the baby boom was born.  My friend Sara and her husband Will had their first baby, a wonderful little boy just last week.  And thankfully I finished this matinee coat for him just in time.

 Because they kept it a surprise if they were having a boy or a girl (even from themselves), I had to make an item suitable for either.  I figured the blue made it a bit masculine, but the lacy pattern made it a bit girly if need be.  Close up of the buttons:

This was from another vintage pattern from my collection.

As you can see, I didn't put on the collar, but the rest of it I followed exactly.  The shaping looks a bit odd, when laid out as I have it above, but hopefully once it's on the baby it'll look okay.  And since he's living in Alaska, he'll probably have need of the warm New Zealand wool!

More Vintage Patterns! (and more and more and more...)

I've been threatening to do it for awhile.  Well, the time has finally come, and I've opened an online shop to sell some of my vintage knitting and crochet patterns!  I've named it Clutch Instructions and I only just started yesterday, so there's not much there yet, but I promise, I've got heaps, so check back often.  For now, here are a few of the goodies.  Click through each photo to go to the shop listing.