Third Baby Jacket

Here's another baby cardy - a 'regular' one this time, as I selected the 3-6 month size.  After putting in loads of work on making a 0-3 months layette for a Chinese baby a few years ago - thinking an Oriental baby was bound to be nice and small, and her being big enough for 3+ months clothes at birth, I decided that I wouldn't be making tiny things for friends again.  I usually do something for when the little one is a few months old.

This one was a new pattern for me and I enjoyed it.  It was meant to be part worked in size 6/5mm needles and part in size 8/4mm, but I felt that the larger needles left the lacy part just too open, so I did the whole thing on 8s.  (Yes, I'm still using the old English sizes, partly as I have a bag of needles from my mum which are mostly in the old sizings).  As the little girl will be mixed race - half Philipino, half Serbian and therefore a little darker than average, I thought cream would be better than white and so got 2 50g balls of cream Sirdar Snuggly.

I found some lovely peach coloured buttons and decided to embroider a bullion rose design to match, as you can see in the drawing.  Multiple problems ensued.  For one, I'm still not confident with bullions, despite having experienced success on the wedding gift bellpull and a few previous projects, and so I delayed it, and procrastinated, and put it off.

Eventually, I realised I was actually getting stressed out by tiptoeing around it and just made myself get on with it.  The results were not good.  Not good at all.  For one, the thread was far too fine and I didn't have the right sort of colours in thicker types, so the knots didn't show up well at all, nor did they sit well. So, I abandoned the whole bullion idea and did a design in whatever suitable shades of pearl cotton #8 I could find.

I have almost a whole 50g ball of the yarn left, so I'm going to have a go at the matching hat.  Look out for that soon.

I've almost finished my black cardy now.  I've knit all the pieces and am working on the button band.

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2017

Some Trimmed Up Baby Jackets

Today I'm going to share two of the four things I've stitched since my monster wedding projects series.  They're both baby knits and, yes, I knit them myself too.

I've got really into knitting lately, which partly explains the absence of embroidery projects shared on blog.  I've also recently completed a scarf and am well on with my first adult sized garment - a blanck chunky cardigan for me.  More on those another time.

The first two are premature sizes and were done with a view to entering the completed items into this year's Otley Show as there's always been a category for premature baby clothes before (afterwards to be donated to a local hospital's premature baby unit ☺).  However, when I saw the Show schedule for this year, they'd actually changed some of the categories and, with 10 weeks or less to Show date, the charity knitting class was changed to 'baby blanket, max 1m'  So, the two tiny cardies I'd knitted were no good as far as exhibiting there goes this year and the only other category that I'd something almost ready for, a scarf, was also dropped in favour of a knitted household item, so I decided to scratch from the Show all together.  I felt much better afterwards too as it would have been a fair strain to get all the pieces ready in time, as I like to enter enough to get myself a free ticket.

Anyway, I have two pregnant friends at the moment, so I decided to keep hold of these preemie knits just in case one of them arrives early and then later on either put them in another Show that has this sort of charity class or send them to a suitable unit or organisation myself.

This first, blue one is made to my usual go-to girl's pattern in beautifully soft cotton DK (King Cole Cotton Soft yarn) and stitched on in various Anchor & DMC Coton à Broder #16 shades.

The second one, in white Sirdar Snuggly DK was a tricky one to knit as it was more or less a one piece construction - but a good learning experience.  I decided to trim it up very simply so that it could serve for either a boy or a girl.  It isn't exactly what I'd hoped, esp. as I had to use Coton à Broder #25 instead of #16 (lack of colours in the range), but it's slightly more interesting that just plain white.  I also managed to mess up the buttonhole spacing, but I dare say the little mite who wears it won't mind in the least.

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2017

Wedding Dress Modesty Panel - Beading and Embellishing

Part five today - the beads and jewel embellishments.

I'd never used pearl beads of this size before, or diamond-like sparklies either, so I wasn't really sure of myself here.

This first shot you might remember from the introductory post in this project series - it's from the dress proper and shows what sort of jewel trims it had, including the pearl beads in the small flowers and leaves.  Actually, I forgot to put them above the leaves in the end....  Just remembered that whilst writing this!

Here's the whole panel with the pearl beads added.

And a close up of my favourite section with just the beads on.

The dress proper had two different sizes of pearl beads, whereas I was working with just one, so I ended up adding more in later on to even things up a little in the central, large flower.

These are the sparklies I was given to work with from both top and bottom.  I'd never really seen anything like this before, especially not with a view to working with them.  As you can see, the back has an 'x' shaped finish and no visible attaching mechanism like beads have.  So, what I ended up doing was fastening the jewel to the embroidery by catching threads around the arms that hold the stone in the setting.  That worked very well

Finally for today we have a few shots of the final panel with the addition of the sparklies.  I loved these.  They ended up being realy quite easy to do and they just look great!  I was happy to add the leftovers to my stash. ☺  Wish I could think of something else to use them on now.  Couture 'commissions' aren't something I get every day, sadly!  Part of me rather likes the idea of working as an embroiderer in a big fashion house.

Here's the whole panel still in the hoop, just before being taken out and prepared for fitting.  More on that next time, on Monday.  Join me then! ☺♥

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2017