Yellow – Turquoise – Orange

Made some baby gifts from self-dyed yarn and other happy fabric.

Baby gift time again! First up, dyeing. On the last day of 2022, the second dye project was a single skein of Chester Wool DK 115 (Worsted) 50s. It is 100% merino and has 50 grams in a skein for around 100 meters of yarn. Since I still had soft yellow dye stock left from the other dyeing I did that day, I put 20 ml of the stock in my pot. Then I added several resists around the skein and dropped the thing into the pot. When it had simmered for long enough, I took it out and dyed the resists turquoise. I couldn’t resist adding some speckles and chose orange. All in all this meant that the skein turned out extremely bright and cheerful. If you ask me, perfect for a baby.

Since there was going to be a new baby, I set out to make some baby things and settled on these two patterns: Easy Peasy Baby Ball by A la Sascha and Tiny Tot by Kristen Rettig. One is a rectangle hat with tassels or pompoms and the other is a ball. I used up the entire skein in the making of these projects, so no leftovers!

I’ve also had a bit of flannel in the stash with a similar colour scheme. There’s also some additional red and green, but I wouldn’t let that stop me. The flannel was bought to make some poppies, so I set out to do exactly that. I tried to make these somewhat symmetrical with the plaid, so the scale was based on that. There’s some difference between these two poppies, one has a green stripe near the head, the other green. One has larger hands, the other smaller, but they are still very similar.

Both knitting patterns were quick, easy to knit and went smoothly. Of course the hat is way too big for the recipient, but I guess my track record stays intact on that score. The last item for the little baby was a spit scarf. Now with skateboarders, rope jumpers and a terry cloth back. It feels very soft even if the snap is on the wrong edge.

I hope the little one will have a marvelous and colourful life!

Coloured Lines & Yellow Plaid

So I have been sewing quite a lot and then not posting about the exploits. That’s going to change again. This time, I’m going to tell you about more blouses. During the Great Utrecht Fabric Haul of 2019 (first described here), I got two more fabrics that were destined to become popper-tops. As per the original, the pattern is Simplicity Naaimode 9, model 59 (aka Simplicity 2255), but with smaller armholes and thinner sleeves.

I started with a white fabric with little bits of coloured lines on them. I sewed it up pretty quickly and added white poppers. However, the first time I wore it, everything itched, so I’m afraid this one is ending up in the goodwill pile.

The second one was the same exact pattern now in a yellow plaid fabric. At the market I’d spotted a completely white line about 20-30 cm in from the cut edge, so I negotiated and got that 30 cm + 1 meter for the price of one meter. I cut the shirt from the non-fault bit of the fabric. It’s very stable so that was nice. I have been wearing this one a little. Yellow is one of my favourite colours, so that helps.

 

The yellow plaid was also used for two other things. A handkerchief and a baby slobber scarf. I can’t remember ever using a fabric handkerchief in my life, but since we were invited for a family reunion and asked to bring a handkerchief, I thought I’d quickly sew one up. This one is cut over the fault line because, who cares. The spit scarf was the same as the ones here. Even using the same backing, since I’d cut out 8 more at some point in the past.

All in all I still have some of the yellow left, so I’m not sure yet what it will be. I’ll think of something eventually!

Spit Scarves

A friend of mine had a baby recently, and I’d been wandering around the Zeeman and found some spit scarves that I thought might be nice. Things you put around a baby’s neck, I presume, to keep them from getting spit, snot and other bodily fluids on their clothes. I knew that I still had some dinosaur construction worker and little monkey fabric that would suit a baby beautifully.

The tag on the originals said that they were 18 by 40 cm, so off home I went and cut out 20 x 42 cm triangles from the cute fabrics and linings of flannel in a similar blue. They were stitched right sides together, turned out through the hole left along the top and topstitched to close the hole. Then I added two ‘male’ snaps on the one side and one ‘female’ snap on the other side to make it adjustable. I ended up with four of them, two went to the friend and the other two will probably find a home sooner or later.

And here is mr. sultana backpack modelling the two spit scarves. He’s faded significantly from sitting in the window forever, but still cute as a button!