I knitted up a baby hat last night, which I’ve affectionately called “Blink and You’ll Miss It”. I’ll explain all that in a moment, but it has been a while since I gave you all a life update, so here is a brief one.
I’m commuting between London and Devon at the moment – John is consulting (and doing amazingly) but we are hesitant about which part of London to move to, so we are coming up with temporary solutions, one month at a time. I’m doing some work for my parents travel company (www.zambezi.co.uk), as well as markets, some consulting work and design. I’ve also started making lots of fun YouTube videos – mostly on cross stitch, as I want that to be slightly separate to my Plutonium Muffins knitting and whatnot, but it is all interlinked as I can’t stop myself being one person! You can subscribe here.
That’s where we are at right now! I’m finding knitting slightly uninspiring, so doing a lot more cross stitch, but I’m sure once I find the right project I’ll jump straight back on the band wagon. In the meantime…
Blink and You’ll Miss It
I don’t tend to knit newborn baby clothes for my friends and family, because I know that newborns grow so quickly that within a short space of time, they don’t fit the item anymore. I’ve also experienced family members receiving so much newborn clothing that they can dress their baby in a different item several times a day, without having to wash them because they get so much! I find it’s always well-received when I make my gifts for slightly later in life, and I normally aim for between 3 months and 1 year.
However, one of my friends asked me to make a hat for their newborn nephew, and I wanted to test out patterns. I did design a hat while I was in New Zealand, but I have yet to write that up and it currently sits on my phone in a slightly encrypted code that I haven’t cracked…so I had a look through my stash, chose some yarn and headed over to Ravelry to search out an appropriate pattern.
I bookmarked a few patterns, which I include here for your interest:
The pattern I settled on was Squiggly – it was simple enough, but had some patterning to it which would keep my interest up. The yarn I picked up was Sirdar Folksong Chunky in the Folkilicious colourway. I picked up ten balls of this in a sale last year, and have been wondering what to do with it ever since – it turns out it makes a gorgeous fabric, perfect for gentle baby heads. I also wanted to use chunky yarn because I didn’t want it to take hours to do.
The needles were 6mm Karbonz, which I adored using – I don’t usually use DPNs, but all of my circs are in London and I had to raid my dpn stash. These guys will make it into rotation, they are a dream – and the tips are beautifully sharp!
As for the hat itself, the pattern was great but I’m not sure if it’s newborn size. It seems big to me – not having a newborn to hand to try out the sizing, I can’t confirm this, but I will be modifying the pattern slightly to try make a smaller size, then take it over to one of my friends with babies for their opinion.
It’s been lovely to have a quick knit, on and off the needles in an hour. I’m taking so long over my knitting at the moment that it felt super gratifying.
Anyway, that’s all for now – don’t forget to check out the KLEE collection if you are interested in garment-accessory combos, particularly as I’m running a giveaway for a full set of the patterns!
Much love,
Corrie xx
