Gifts, learning to knit and little bits to close out the year

I still have a couple of sewn garments to post to the blog before the year is out, but I thought I'd round up some little bits'n'bobs first.

A friend had a baby and I couldn't resist making a Brindle and Twig onesie from a remnant of Spotlight cotton/lycra

 

A little "Ta-Da" label from Kylie and the Machine seemed perfect for the side seam.

During the year I learned to knit. The first few things I made were squares to test stitches and were ripped out.

The main plan was to knit a beanie for our builder. I made a "muslin" first and it was perfect for P. The final version was a better adult size and with less mistakes.

First I practiced some more and made this beanie for A.

When I'm back home and not posting from my phone I'll try and remember to come back and add pattern credits and links.

One pattern I won't be recommending was these crochet lace mitts.

The pattern was in a book I was gifted when I first learnt to crochet. It contains no diagrams or sketches, so unless you'd made gloves before, it was hard to imagine how they'd come together.

And the pattern was riddled with errors! Grrrr.

A search on Ravelry found comments about the errors and links to an online errata page - but even that had a mistake. Making the first one was such an ordeal that I almost convinced my daughter that a Michael Jackson style single glove would do.

Anyway, they're finished, they're cute, and they'll probably never get worn.

When I bought a knitting book I also bought a single skein of the most beautiful yarn (link to come). It's the most exquisite, soft, squishy fine yarn in a lovely salmon pink. K tried a few things with it, but finally settled on this simple triangular scarf.

I'm pretty sure I followed the border instructions incorrectly, but it's cute.

The only project I'd actually intended to make during the year in the crappy rental, was this swan.

It's from the Crochet Trophy Heads book and A and I had agreed it would be great on her bedroom wall.

P made a little elastic and Kraft-Tex wallet for his teacher...

And A had me make a Genoa Tote for her teacher with Harry Potter lining fabric.

The outer fabric is a coated stretch bengaline on the $2/m table at Spotlight and it has a great faux leather look and feel, but a stretch fabric is really not a suitable choice and it took a lot of interfacing to make it work.

Finally, I found myself with one rostered day off that coincided with Flipper having a rare day at an office (that isn't also our house) so time to make him a gift.

I had some thickish brown leather that was gifted to me, so I made a mouse pad. It's a leather base, a smaller leather layer, a same size smaller wool Melton pad layer, then a top leather layer.

They're all glued together then I saddle stitched around the edge by hand and burnished the edges.

It's pretty amateurish leather work but it was fun to make and it passes the stand back and squint and it looks alright test.

I've taken some knitting away with me as I'm trying to make a simple cotton t-shirt, but I keep making mistakes and ripping back more than I've knit. Might be finished by next summer.

If not, I've got plenty of black cotton to make a native Australian version of that swan!