Monday, October 10, 2016

Chickadee progress

My plain charcoal Chickadee cardigan is at the coasting stage. All the fiddly bits of knitting have been done (until the rib cast on) and now it's just knit knit knit until the bottom. I'm glad I didn't add a motif for this. However to pep the cardigan up I found THESE buttons:
Black, glittery - I had such a job getting them. I found the buttons I liked in John Lewis but they only had two in stock. So they offered to order me some from another store and post them direct. Great. Except when the buttons arrived they were the wrong size. So I went online and two separate companies posted me glitter buttons that were the right size but the wrong glitteriness. The first company, to be fair, advertised them as silver glitter on black. The buttons were too silver with no black glitter on them. The second company had a photo and they definitely matched the buttons I had, however they also turned up too silvery and not enough black. I finally found the last company, Marriner Yarns, and their photo matched the product that arrived. So I was very happy. I think the glitter buttons will add just enough sparkle and interest to an otherwise plain cardigan.
I finished Curtis's cardigan (except the sleeves, but they won't take long to knit). It's very sweet. I still have the buttons to choose for this. Not sure what I'll go for. I saw Curtis yesterday and he is a big boy. The cardigan is knitted for a two year old and at Christmas Curtis will be one year and three months old, so I hope it fits him okay!
And these are the pink sparkle buttons I got for Kelsie's cardigan. I might get darker pink sparkly buttons if I can. These seem a bit too light.

I have many other things I'd also like to be knitting - Christmas baubles, for example, but I'd better finish these first.

Saturday, October 01, 2016

Pockets!

After the runaway success of the pockets in my pyjama bottoms I decided to make a skirt with pockets. I love pockets, particularly pouch pockets (good for egg collecting), but I was so impressed by how easy these were to sew, and how effective they are.
The pattern is Bettine, by Tilly and the Buttons. Bettine is actually a dress pattern but I'd seen a skirt version online and as I only had enough material for a skirt decided to do that. I thought it might make an easy slip-on skirt for work.

I'm really pleased with how it turned out. I had to take a couple of chunks out of the side seams as the tulip shape made it too puffy, but that was easy and I will definitely make more.

The material is lightweight cord from John Lewis.