New baby gift set

Baby shower

Now days with the advent of baby showers and reveal parties, I was think of a new all in one present.

My idea was a parcel of hand made items wrapped up in a muslin and tied with a ribbon, in two different sizes.

These will be make from double knit yard from #Woolwarehouse and #Dearmore and will be made from #JamesCBrett, #stylecraft, #Patons and #knitsirdar yarns.

I was going to add baby wipes, but with the government, trying to stop the usage of these I've decided to add cotton wool and baby lotion instead. 

Size one

buggy sized blanket either plain or patterned.

1 cardigan

1 pair of bootees

1 pair of mitts

1 hat

1 bib / bandana

1 teddy

1 taggy/knitted comforter 

1 muslin

2 nappies

Cotton wool and baby lotion

Size  two

buggy sized blanket either plain or patterned.

2 cardigans in different patterns

2 pairs of bootees

2 pairs of mitts 

2 hats

1 bib

1 bandana

1 teddy

1 taggy

1 comforter

1 muslin
4 nappies

Cotton wool and baby lotion

The colours I was thinking of were, white, pale blue, a darker blue, green, yellow, pink, lilac.

I was then thinking of selling these at craft fairs and I was also thinking of approaching bespoke baby and children's wear shops to see if I could rent a shelf or a portion of the shop to sell assorted and knitted baby items 

Baby blue

Baby's patterned jumper

This weeks project was a pale blue  patterned jumper knitted from #Patons fab DK,  which is machine washable and can be tumble dry on a low heat, which is always good when you have a tiny baby.

This super cute jumper is for a 16" chest so that's an average new born to 3 months depending how big the baby is.

The jumper has a lovely moss stitch panel in the centre garter stitch panels each side ending with a double moss stitch on the outside edges.   The back is knitted in stocking stitch and has two buttons and the sleeves are also in stocking stitch.

  back of jumper

  front panel

              

front detail

just before being sewn together

As you can see it's a short jumper which I personally don't like on baby's I like a nice long jumper to cover their little backs to keep them warm so next time I'm going to add an extra inch or so to the body of the jumper.

Taking a break from craft fairs

Taking a break!

Over the past 2 yrs I've been doing a craft fair each month except to January, August and December, so as you can imagine this plus working full time has left me exhausted.

Taking stock 

After doing 20 craft fairs with virtually only weeks in between I was rapidly running out of stock, and so I took them momentous decision to take a year off from craft fairs, as I was rushing to make new items and really not enjoying knitting anymore.

So I've been looking for inspiration on the internet, and also I decided to  look at what were my best sellers and redesign a few items and look at designing some new knitwear.

Having a large stock of yarn I wanted to make more colourful knitwear, and I've been looking at updating some of my patterns adding stripes and motifs, and using different stitches, I rather like the double rib as this makes a super cuddly jumper without the bulk of chunky yarn on little babies, and it's also stretchy for longer wear. !!

I particularly like autumn  colours, golds, oranges, reds, greens, purple so I'm thinking of making this one of my jumpers, with think stripes on each colour, at #Woolwarehouse they have a large supply of beautiful yards as well as buttons.

Looking through my stash of yarns I found some rainbow yarns I'd forgotten I had, these are  #Paton, and I've also found yarn from #Stylecraft and #knitsirdar, and my imagination took off at a fair sped, I could see lovely dresses, tops and legging for when those dark winter days need cheering up.

I also have a large range of pastel yarns from #JamesCBrett, #knitsirdar and #stylecraft, which I'm going to use to make lovely summery knitwear to match with the dresses I want to make, and I want to try hand and machine smocking. So watch this space.

Monday morning surprise

Today whilst working from home, I received and lovely surprise in the post, from my daughter's lovely mother in law, a large package of knitting patterns.

Now anyone who knows me knows I like nothing better than rummaging around local charity shops in the hope of finding knitting patterns, I particularly like the vintage patterns.

 I'm  really looking forward to making these very soon

Great Garnetts farmers market 

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I always look forward to doing these markets, they are the 2nd Saturday each month except January, August and December.  Julie the owner rally does a good job with the advertising and lots of people attend there are two barns each side of the yard, one is for the crafts and the other is for food and drink.

This is my stall.  

The Christmas one which is in November is always busy with the extra added bonus of live music and carols.

Quilts Away!

Now that the evenings are drawing in and the weather outside is getting colder, there is nothing I like more than sitting in front of the fire designing new quilts.  At our last craft fair we were asked for a boys quilt, although we have a lovely elephant one and a few playmats, I decided to get a few boyish - unisex fat quarters to add to my stash of materials and fat quarters, (like I needed an excuse!), and I decided to make a quilt based around a boats theme.

The boating fat quarter is the middle with white panels around and blue squares with spots and wheels to break up the white.  And I used a new skill, binding the edges to give them a really professional finish.

I'm really pleased with the way it turned out.  The corners were a bit of an issue but I quite pleased with the end product and hopefully it will be going to a new home soon to keep someones new bundle of joy warm.

Been Away For A While!

So, it's been a while since I last updated this blog.  We've had a full on summer - an uncle over to visit from Australia which was brilliant, a 60th wedding anniversary to plan and throw, and my husband went in hospital to have a hernia op which turned into a double hernia op and an appendix removal!

I've also been updating the shop - I've migrated from the previous site onto Etsy, so we'll see what happens there!  It's a massive community and some really special items are there.

So now we are back on the making trail!  A friend at work asked me to knit a little dress for her friends new baby, and as I've been thinking about making a few comforters I added one for the new baby, with her name appliquéd onto it.

 I made a small 6" x 6" comforter using teddy material for the front and pink spotty material for the back with an assortment of ribbons and materials for the edging pieces. I'm going to make a few more for our next craft fair at The Old Chapel Upminster in October, I'm thinking of making some 6"x 6" and 12"x 12" and 18" x 24" play mat size. These will all be made experimenting with my large (!!) selection of fat quarters, ribbons, assorted materials and either fleece or towelling for the backing.

Designing

I'm really excited this morning, Ive been designing a few dresses over the last few days and today I get to sit and make them!  We are doing a craft fair on Sunday, and I'm hoping to have some finished and ready to display for then!

Ill post some pictures later!

Photography

It's really important to have really good photos to display your items when you sell online, and so I've spent the last few days working on my photos for the shop. I'm still struggling to get a finish I'm pleased with.  I'm thinking about a theme to keep all my photos on the shop looking as professional as possible. The white background I have been using gives a nice, clean finish, but I think it's a bit dull and uninteresting.

I tried a baby themed background before, but that looked a bit too busy:

I'm hoping to spend the majority of the day today actually sewing, or maybe crocheting, so Ill give my photos more thought and hope for some inspiration!

Button Holing!

I've finally finished the little owl dress for my niece!  I forgot to take a picture of it before I gave it to her - she popped by unexpectedly over the weekend which was lovely.

Here is a picture of the button holes marked out ready to sew.  I always measure and check at least twice before I actually sew the garment.  It's also very important to have a practice run on some fabric of the same weight as the garment to check that the stitches on the machine are at the correct tension and size!  Its also a good idea to check that your pen or chalk does wash out without leaving any residue marks.

Finished Seams

I like to finish my seams with a french seam.  I think it gives a nice drape to the finished garment, and its nice and tidy too!

Ive also finished the hem now, only the buttons and button holes to go!

We enjoyed the craft fair on Sunday, it was a beautiful, hot day and it was in a lovely setting.  We were near the windows and could see the river - brilliant!  :) 

Wednesday Chat

I really enjoyed meeting little P on Saturday, she's so very sweet, and her mum is doing brilliantly!

I've nearly finished the dress now, I've just got to finish the hem, and I'll put some pictures up.

Debbie is doing a craft fair on Sunday, its at Mucking Wildlife Trust Centre, so if you are around, pop in and see her!  The Wildlife centre has just been redeveloped and the area around it is a haven for all sorts of wildlife.  The fair is 10 - 3.

Summer has arrived!

Well, I still haven't finished my niece's dress!  I must do it this week as I'm seeing her on Sunday, yay! :)  It's been very hot here this week, and my garden is suffering, though my tomatoes look like they may be building up to something great!

In between projects, I've added a two little dresses to the shop - I love them!

Our craft fair for Saturday has sadly been cancelled, so Im using the time instead to meet my new cousin, P.  I cant wait for my first cuddle!

Dress making - the adventure continues!

So, after I'd pinned the yoke pieces together for my nieces dress and sewn them, and then the dress pieces together and sewn them, I pinned the yoke in place ready to sew:

I was feeling pleased with myself once I'd sewn all the pieces in, but as I went to turn the pieces out to press the seams, I noticed I'd sewn right side to wrong side.  :(  Why does unpicking take so much longer that sewing! 

Dress Making!

So, this is what I have been up to over the last couple of days.  I've been making a dress for my neice out of the owl fabric that I have.  I had to scale the pattern up first, but I triple checked all my measurements, and I'm confident!

Here is the first step, all the pieces pinned out, ready to sew :

Summer!

It's been a while since I was on here, we very sadly lost our fabulous Mum and Nan, Dolly, in April.  We miss her very much, she was very much an inspiration to us in everything and taught me to crochet and knit.

Now we are back working again, we are preparing for a summer craft fair on June 1st in the same place as our last one :

We are planning to be displaying our summer range at this fair, we are currently working on a range of summer dresses with some very cute matching shrugs and cardigans!  We've got some very sweet dresses made up which will be prefect for a little girl in this warm weather!  Here is a  preview of two that are nearly finished - both will fit a one year old.  I really like the cream with red flowers, and the blue with coloured flowers is so very summery!

Is Spring ever coming!

This weekend, I finished a blanket for my friend.  Now I’m just waiting for her baby to make his appearance!  I’m really pleased with how it came out.  I used treble crochet the whole way through because I like the way the stitch finishes.  It gives a nice, thick, warm feel to it.  Ideal for this delayed spring! 

I’m intending to start with our summer items this week.  We are making sun dresses with matching shrugs, some tops and matching bottoms, as well as some shorts and tee shirts, and cricket style jumpers for cooler evenings.  We’ve been accepted to another craft fair in June, so hopefully the other weather will be warm enough for our summer pieces by then!

Photography Lessons

Since I last posted, I've been giving a lot of thought to the way I photograph my items for sale.  It's really important to have excellent photos of clothes as the customer can't get to feel, or see the clothes before they are purchased with online selling.  I've got some software I've been playing with, but I don't think that will make up for a natural lack of talent!  Luckily, I have a very talented sister in law and Im going to ask for her advice tomorrow.  Hopefully, I will have some better photos to share next time around!

One picture I was pleased with was this one:

I thought it showed the actual colours of the jumper nicely - which Ive been really struggling with, with flash and shadows getting involved!

I also liked this one:

 I was trying to get creative, and think of different ways to show off the blanket!

Looks Like Spring Is On The Way!

Well, our craft fair went really well!  We had a great time, and met some great people!  It was nice to get feedback on our items and we were well pleased - but exhausted - at the end of the day!

This is me, albeit headless, behind our stall.  I think we learned a lot of things that we can take along to our next fair.  We are already looking for a summer event.

Since the fair, we have finished up a couple of special orders, and I have been having a bit of a rethink regarding the online shop.  I've got a few ideas in mind for new products, and some are a bit different to what we have done before.

As usual, you can keep up with us on Facebook and also keep checking our store.

See you soon

Louise

Only 2 More Days To Go!

Our first craft fair is almost up on us!

We are now finished our preparations - everything is washed, ironed, tagged, priced and labelled in boxes ready to go!  We are really excited about saturday, it will certainly be a very sharp learning curve for us.  The other stall holders sell some amazing items so Im really looking forward to meeting new people and seeing what they do.

We've got a few new products which we haven't put in the shop before to try out at the fair, and Im looking forward to seeing how people like them.

We've also had a couple of special requests in the last fortnight, so we are still busy!

Hope to see you Saturday!