Small projects for tiny times

It has been a while since I've updated; I've been very busy - being hospitalised with pre-eclampsia, being induced and having a baby, bringing my son N. home and coping with the first few weeks of being a parent. All big changes.
While I was in the hospital for the week before I was induced I had a fair amount of free time, trapped as I was, and got some crocheting done.  I've finished the blanket I was working on (as discussed previously, "English Beat" from Candi Jenson's Candy Blankies.)  I do very much like the finished look.

My version of Candi Jenson's 'English Beat' - using cream and darker blues.

Since then I've done nothing. In the past week, however, we've started to get more into a routine and have begun to feel more in control and more competent with feedings and changes and settling to sleep, and as a result I've been able to read and we've started watching some episodes of shows on DVD in the evenings and today I found the impetus to start doing some crafting. Everything needs to be in small scale - anything could be interrupted by a waking baby, and my blocks of time are shorter than before.
Today's project involved updating a baby seat - this is something N won't be using for a while, as he needs to be able to sit up and support himself, but friends gave it to us. The tray cover had come off though and was just sitting in the tray, rather than being stuck down. I decided ages ago that it would nice to replace it with a Spoonflower wall decal - wipeable and able to be stuck to the tray.  I ordered a medium wall decal of giggleboy print from Spoonflower. To cover the tray, I simply traced around the old cover, cut it out, and stuck it down.

Before...

... and after!

Simplicity itself, but it is nice to get back into doing things of that nature.

Knitting 1, Crafter 1 - finally, a draw!

For many years now, that title would have read 'Knitting 1, Crafter 0' as knitting was a definite defeat for me.  I learned how to crochet first, you see, and it was the one that came naturally. As I've written before on an LJ craft blog

I love crochet. I'm competent at crochet, which is better than being 'good', as I understand it, because being good at crochet implies that I am reasonably fast and able to accurately complete intermediate to hard projects. Being competent, as I imagine it, includes that but also covers the ability to correct mistakes, to be able to look at the piece and tell what stitches I've been using, to really KNOW what the yarn is doing and how it will react to different stitches.  So learning to knit (again? I did once learn as a child, but not very well and I quickly abandoned the knowledge) has been disheartening because I am so incompetent. I cannot visualise the final product. I don't realise I've made a mistake while the stitches are still on the needle. I am a slave to the pattern and my instruction books. 

I'm not really sure what prompted me to try another learn to knit class.  Probably looking at all these cute knit baby ideas online? Anyway, Morris & Sons was running a competition on their blog to win one of their classes, and while I didn't win it occurred to me that I had plenty of days free and it wasn't stupidly expensive...

All my other learn to knit attempts have been from books or being taught by family, so perhaps it was just the different approach of a stranger. Perhaps it was the basics coming back to me from previous attempts and realising I was better than the 'true' beginners in the class. Maybe it was having the anatomy of the stitch pointed out clearly.  Whatever it was, I got to the end of the class feeling more confident than I have ever been before about knitting.

The sample above, done mostly in the class (I finished off the moss stitch and did the casting off at home) contains garter, stockinette, a 2-2 rib, reverse stockinette, a 1-1 rib, and moss stitch. No added stitches, no dropped stitches. I'm chuffed with how well it went. I don't think knitting will ever replace crochet as my go-to yarn craft, but I have my eye on a few baby projects.  Fingers crossed.

Starting conversations about craft

Visits to my obstetrician involve a lot of waiting. It isn't that they are always running late, although as with any doctor's appointment there is an element of that. But I see the midwife first, then I return to the waiting room until I see the obstetrician. Usually I just take a book but last week I took a panel of the argyle baby blanket I am crocheting. ("English Beat" from Candi Jenson's Candy Blankies, for the very interested; I've changed the background colour to a cream rather than the yellow and the blues are a shade darker each. Pictures when finished.) I've never had that much conversation happening in the waiting room before! The receptionist, the midwife (who is a knitter) and another lady and I all had a nice chat about what I was making, and knitting vs. crochet, and why it is only worth working with nice quality wools.

I mention this because I've set myself the challenge of getting more conversations going about craft generally, and what I'm doing in particular. In a way it is leading up to launching Parlour Duck crafts as a business, when I need to be prepared to talk about what I'm doing, but it is also linked to promoting craft in public generally.  Working on projects in public seems like an obvious way of starting such conversations. I haven't yet got to the stage where I'm comfortable starting a conversation with someone with someone who is clearly watching what I'm doing, as I can't yet judge whether they are interested particularly or just in lack of anything else to look at on the bus!

Another technique, inspired by the talented Tanith Rowan, is wearing things I've crafted in public.  The week before last I did a learn to knit class at Morris & Sons, which I'll blog about soon, and I wore a cardigan I'd crocheted. When we were introducing ourselves, and I mentioned I crocheted, the teacher asked if I'd made what I was wearing, and I was happy to be able to say yes and it got several admiring comments. The cardigan actually is a bit baggy and very much an overshirt normally, but I wore it fastened over my ever-growing baby bump with a silver pin shaped like gum nuts, and it fell nicely open from that point. Far more stylish as maternity wear than its usual "lounging around the house" wear.

I can't help but think that I am missing some ways to start more craft conversations - any ideas?

The Baby Drawer

I made my first deliberate purchase for a future baby at the Sydney Royal Easter Show when I was 19 or 20. I'm going to say 20. I was wandering around the sheep and wool pavillion (back in the days when that meant half was display of sheep and fleeces, and half was actually relevant sales and information booths) and saw these absolutely gorgeous handspun and handknitted merino wool baby blankets. They had other things as well, scarves and hats and sweaters, but the blankets were just amazing. I bought one, and a skein of wool (the very fine cream merino yarn shown in the stash photo in my last post).  The wool went into stash, waiting to be used for something Really Special, which clearly has yet to eventuate.
The blanket started my baby drawer.

This lovely blanket made from organic wool was my first baby drawer purchase. 

The baby drawer is an extension of having a hope chest. My first item for my hope chest was a lace tablecloth given to me on the occasion of my birth by Mrs Squadrito, who lived up the street in Balmain.  I used the hope chest not so much as a 'for when I get married' but as a 'for when I have a place of my own'. The baby drawer has been the place to put things I've bought or been given or have tucked away to save from my own childhood.
For example, the cute metal mug was mine as a child, and the dress was worn definitely by my sister and possibly by me:

Whereas these I've bought over the last fifteen years:

Isn't that frog washboard the cutest thing ever?

I have to confess, having a baby drawer made a lot of sense until I had to explain it to people, at which point I worried it made me seem desperate. I remember being a bit apprehensive when I talked to my now-husband about it for the first time. But I've always liked planning for the future, and grabbing cute items when I saw them - who knows if I could find that frog again?

Suddenly though, I'm buying with an actual baby in mind, rather than hypothetical future baby, and that makes a difference.  One or two cute singlets and onesies in a drawer are swamped by the bags of second-hand clothes that helpful friends have provided. We went shopping yesterday and ordered several important items, including a pram and a bassinet.  And I've been going through the baby drawer with a new eye, assessing which items will actually be used. 

A quick photograph display

I know it seems silly to be doing anything decorative when it won't be long until everything goes into storage or gets moved, but while I was cleaning up my bookcase I decided to try something fun with all the strip photographs I've been accumulating from weddings.
Lately any Redbubble T-shirts have come with tiny clothes pegs to attach the information labels to the shirts, and I've been collecting them. So I attached the pegs to the photos, strung them on some twine, and attached them to the edges of a shelf.

I end up with a cute little clothes line of photographs!

Making Room for Mustard Seed

The arrival of a new baby, even when eagerly planned and anticipated, has a sobering reality when one actually looks around one's crowded one-bedroom unit and thinks "where is all the baby stuff going to FIT?".  Our baby, who has been nicknamed Mustard Seed since the beginning of this pregnancy, is not going to have an excessive amount of material possessions - I hope; I'll blog later about how I'm planning to encourage ethical gifting and, inspired by my sister, discourage new plastic toys - but the little things add up. We've received some second-hand clothes and muslin wraps, a rocking sleepy-chair for day; we need to fit in a bassinet or cot, probably find a way to put a chest of drawers in for the clothes.

There are two main components to making more room - the first is a major plan to renovate our current unit and the soon-to-be-vacant unit behind us into one lovely family home which will be ours for the rest of our lives. I'm not going to blog about this much, except when it impacts the rest of my life; at the moment we are talking with my mother-in-law, who owns both flats, about the legal side, and starting to gather estimates from builders on what the renovation itself would involve and cost.

The more achievable plan is decluttering. Oh, the decluttering. I'm going through everything, slowly but surely trying to whittle down possessions I don't want or need. Occasionally I think 'wait, even if I do get rid of X, is another four inches of space on top of a kitchen cupboard actually going to make any more room?' - but then I remind myself that if the renovation is as severe as I think it will be, all of our stuff will need to be in storage or in temporary rental, so the real question is 'do I want this enough to pay to move or store it?'. Often the answer is no.

I'm decluttering in the bedroom at the moment. Clothes are mostly done, which I'm feeling good about. I'm about to start hobby/craft stuff, which is a bit more painful. I'm trying to be realistic yet balance future needs. It is one thing to say that I'll never go back to painting miniatures or making terrain, but... I've said that before. And maybe in 6 years time I'll have a little boy who wants to paint monsters...

As a result of all this sorting, actual crafting is taking a back seat. I'm making some star-stitch booties from a pattern in a library book that was going very well and now I've hit a point where the pattern doesn't seen to actually work out. Blerg.

Stash-busting for the baby

With my last week of work over, I'm turning my attention to a variety of things - getting Parlour Duck crafts underway, working on my assignment for the embroiderer's guild class, and crafting for the baby.
Since I've found out that the baby is almost certainly a boy (the doctor doing the scan said: "I could be wrong. But it would be one of those cases that we write up to use as an example of how we can be really wrong.")  I've had to readjust my crafting ideas - I'd been so sure I was going to have a girl. Oh well. I'm now totally besotted with the idea of my wriggly little boy, so all good. So I've been back through all my magazines and torn out patterns, I've been trawling through free patterns on Ravelry, I've been borrowing books from the library. But before I go crazy and buy a lot of new yarn and fabric, I want to use up what I can from my stash.

My sister sent me a link to a great blog post where the blogger has arranged her stash so seriously, she can make GRAPHS of what is left to use.  Awe-inspiring. For about ten minutes I was drifting in a 'huh, that wouldn't be too hard' daze but then I realised that I'd use organising the stash as another procrastination technique.  Anyway, I dumped out my yarn stash and made a pile of all the yarn I'd either bought to make baby gifts or had left over from previous baby gifts to work out what I had to use up. Turns out, not a great deal.

Baby-project yarns from my yarn stash. 

In fact, the more I handle the soft-spun mohair (the turquoise yarn) the less I'm happy that I ever used it for a baby poncho years ago. It has a slight underlying scratchiness. So that might be used for a grown up project. I made the decision that I didn't have enough of any one yarn - except maybe the very fine cream merino - to do a large project, so these won't make blankets. The cream merino and maybe the pale blue/white/yellow at the front will make cardigan-size projects. The others will go into socks/booties/hats/etc.

I'd forgotten that making baby things could be so quick! I made a hat last Thursday. Grabbed the pattern from my stack of 'torn from magazine' sheets. Grabbed yarn from stash and hook from roll. Started crocheting on the train to work. Continued during the evening minding the counter at the store. By the time my shift was over, the hat was complete apart from weaving in the end, as I hadn't brought a large tapestry needle with me.

Baby hat, made from stash, completed over the course of a day at work. 

Now I'm making some socks from the same yarn, using a pattern that I've made for other people's babies over the years and really liked.  It feels good to be able to add stuff to the baby drawer that I've made for this specific, known-about baby.