A rush on baby knits

Everyone seems to be having babies. I am inundated with requests for little items to send off to new parents all over the country. Two friends of my son are expecting babies within a month of each other . One knows that she is having a girl but the other has elected not to find out so I am preparing for each eventuality!

As so often happens with such events, today I learned of the passing of an uncle. At 85 he had reached a good age and outlived my Aunt by many years. When I heard the news, via Facebook as so often seems to be the case nowadays, I went searching for old photographs. In my favourite family album I came across a family shot from the 1970s. Only eight of us now remain, two whole generations almost gone but the few remaining are the characters we have loved for years.

I have one Aunt who is approaching 90 and is suggesting a family cruise to celebrate and I have a Great Aunt of a similar age who seems no different now to how I remember seeing her as a child.

This all prompts me to return to Family History research. An unexpected subscription to a family history site is going to be put to good use but maybe not until the end of the summer. I need something to look forward to when the garden is no longer a welcoming prospect and when the nights are long and dark. For now it will be some knitting of baby clothes in the evenings and days spent outside as much as possible. Memories will still be there when autumn approaches and some more obscure branches of the family tree can be investigated. In the meantime - the latest baby cardigans and that family photo.

More move knits

This baby knitting has been a great interlude and spurred me on to start using up more of the lovely yarn in the stash. I had just started a beautiful green 4 ply cardigan when I popped into a local yarn shop, which happened to be having a sale....so now I have more lovely yarn to knit up as baby items.....and enough to make a few more log cabins!

New house, new log cabin

Before we moved I had all these grand ideas:

We wouldn't unpack everything but have the bare minimum until everywhere could be redecorated.

We would decide on a new colour scheme for each room.

Each room would have a co ordinated look.......

So I unpacked the lot and no decorating has been done at all.

Colour schemes went out of the window - what was there would do.

Co ordination is all very well until a cold evening requires whichever blanket happens to be nearest.

I did, however, make a few decisions about the main sitting room. Our three sofas are black and the floor has grey slate tiles. The other major items of furniture are old pine. For a few weeks to these items were added random cushions - in red, blue and purple, and a couple of log cabins in purples, blues and pink. A couple of rugs were purchased in a neutral, natural colour and I found a lovely piece of linen that I had bought in New York a few years ago to make myself a dress. This piece of linen became cushion covers and provided a sort of colour scheme and a palette to sort of co ordinate some log cabins. I decided to use yarn already in the house rather than go out and buy yet more and the result is quite pleasing. I think that a second log cabin must be uniform in design instead of the randomness of this first one and maybe greens can dominate - to co ordinate with the view from the windows.

Dishcloths as log burner knob holders

The new house has two log burners in the sitting room. I love a log burner but they are unpredictable creatures and the door knobs have a tendency to get very hot indeed. For a few days I was bringing a tea towel out of the kitchen to hold on to the hot knobs whenever I was needing to open the doors to put in yet more logs and I was pondering what might be a better solution. Something knitted seemed a good idea but what pattern and size eluded me for a while. Then I happened to find an old dishcloth which had been relegated to outdoor cleaning - garden furniture etc and I decided to give an old standard pattern a go. Grandmother's favourite dishcloth is a good design and I found that using double strands of bamboo cotton produced a sturdy decent sized cloth which, folded in two, was perfect for opening hot log burner doors. So I made two.

The garden - makes the trauma of the move a distant memory

More finished "move" knits

I like knitting and I don't really object to sewing up but I find sewing on buttons a pain. To begin with there is the finding of appropriately sized buttons, and in the right colour. Then there is the frustration of needing 6 buttons when they come on a card of 5. Then it is buying the buttons and putting them on one side ready to sew on when the item is finished - and not remembering where that one side is.

Today I sewed on the buttons to two of the baby cardigans I had been knitting during the house move. I bought the same buttons for both which was great as 14 buttons were needed and there were 5 on a card so only one left over. Pretty sparkly buttons too and green which matched the two cardigans. I only had to unpick 3 or 4. I never seem to get the spacing right, even if I count the rows in between and match up with the buttonholes as I am going along. I have tried many techniques including starting at the top and the bottom and hoping that by the time I get to the middle there is enough space left for the final button. These don't look too bad if you don't look too closely.

Moved in at last!

I love the view I now wake up to.

I now just need to become a much better photographer.