Baby Lace Jacket - Aqua

I can't believe the yarn company called this yarn "aqua", its nothing like aqua.  Moody, stormy sea maybe but aqua, no!

I've not got a lot to say about this one other than its the third one I've made in this design.  The yarn looks like a dark teal here but it has a browny black section too.

The work-in-progress shot and a close up of the buttons whilst its pinned out to dry to shape.  I've used the same kind of buttons as I did on the beige one only this time they are a murky browny purple colour, a bit of a weird colour but they do work well with the colours in the yarn which are dark greens, browns and grey.

Baby Lace Jacket - Beige

I guess this one is beige with gold.  Another of the same design I just finished.  Its been quite warm here and this yarn is fluffy so its been sticking to my hands a little and making it hard to work with but I'm no quitter.

I had a bit of trouble deciding which buttons I preferred with this one.  They both work well with the colour.

I think I chose the right buttons for this.  Took me a day and a half to make, that's pretty quick and I like a quick make, doesn't give chance for boredom to set in.

Baby Lace Jacket - Pastel

Carrying on with making lace baby things I thought I would try this vintage Sirdar pattern for a baby jacket.  The picture on the pattern is not entirely clear so I can't see the details but I am prepared to give it a go in non-traditional colours.

I have some slightly sparkly long colour change yarn that I think would be suitable and I have a few different colours so I can make a few of these if they look Ok.

This one is called "Pastel", not what I class as pastel but never mind, its still pretty and its a sport weight yarn 46% wool, 46% acrylic, 8% polyester.

This is a crochet design and I started on 19th May and had most of it complete in one day.

I had to trawl through my big tin of buttons to see what I had that was small enough but also pretty too.  I found a bag of buttons that were perfect and came in all sorts of colours so I chose 4 different colours to reflect the different colours in the jacket.

I do like this so I will definitely be making some more of these.

Claret Baby Dress, Bonnet & Bootees

Sales from the shop have been incredibly slow, views are down and I'm feeling a little despondent.  In a bid to increase views and interest in my shop I have decided to try making lace baby items and see how it goes as a lower price point product in my shop.

I inherited a lot of baby knitting patterns when my mother passed away years ago and so I trawled through them looking for anything pretty that fitted the lace theme of my shop.  Most of these patterns are vintage now, she hadn't knitted in years and my nephews who she did knit for are in their late 20's/early 30's with families of their own.

I fell in love with a pattern for a little baby dress, bonnet and bootees and thought I'd give it a try to see how it came out.  It is supposed to have embroidered flowers on the yoke but I decided to use ribbon roses and sew them on in a way that means I also sew through the ribbon so it won't unravel.

Seeing as it is for a baby and baby's make a lot of mess I decided to dig out some of the acrylic yarn that I have sitting at the back of all my lovely pure wool yarns.   I don't want to make it in white either.  Every Tom, Dick and Harry make baby clothes in white, lemon, pink and blue.  Bold colours for me, something different on offer from me.

This is a dark red / claret / burgundy colour yarn in a light fingering weight and I have about 200g/1150m of it.

I forgot to take work-in-progress photos so unfortunately I don't have any of those to show you but I can show you the finished product.  I was a little worried about the placement of the ribbon on the hat as the pattern doesn't give you any instructions regarding this and I don't have any babies to try it on, nor do my girls have any dolls that I could use, they don't have any dolls at all as neither of them are girly girls.

I guess the ribbon on the hat must have been OK as this was sold to a buyer in the USA, who gifted it to the parents of a new born baby and I've not had any complaints.

Shetland/Teeswater Shawl - Design F29

Staying with my plan to recreate shawls that I have made in the past and priced incorrectly my next shawl is the same design as another that I had a few problems making years ago.  This time I am not making it with mohair but with some of my own hand spun Shetland/Teeswater wool.

My first attempt at making this shawl was way back in 2010 and you can read about that here.

The yarn is some that I spun a couple of years ago in 2015 and you can read all about the fleece, where it came from and how I spun the yarn here.

I know that I want to bead this shawl and there are a few different ways to place the beads on this design, each giving a different look to the finished shawl.  The last time I made this shawl I only beaded the edging as I felt that the yarn was pretty enough and didn't need beads elsewhere.  This time I decided to place beads along the stems of each leaf as well as on the edging of the shawl.  I did get a little stuck on deciding on the colour of the beads though.  Decisions... decisions...  no, can't decide so placed an order for more beads in the two colours that look great with this yarn.  Toho beads, of course, they're the best for knitting in my opinion, ordered some silver lined crystal and some gold lined rainbow crystal as I don't have enough of either to complete this design and I have a lot of this yarn so will no doubt be needing more in the future anyway.

For this particular shawl I have decided to go with the size 6 gold lined rainbow crystal beads (shade 994) as these look very much like "rose gold", which is a very popular colour with brides right now.

With 7 beads per stem and 72 leaves in the design that is 504 beads and I think it looks fabulous depicting the stem like this.  When it came to the edging I decided to bead that in the same way as I did the previous version and that used 25 beads per section.  There were 17 sections so that's another 425 beads bringing my bead total to 929.  I really loved making this shawl and will probably be making another one at some time in the future.