Ariane Dreams

In January I was lucky enough to test knit the Adriane Dreams pattern by Anne McCrea, she has done a wonderful job with designing this pattern. It has so many options, three different lace patterns for the skirt, four different lengths, heaps of edging options and sizes written for 8ply or 10ply. The sizes are a great range from 3months to 14-16yrs, so this is a very economical and well written pattern.


I really enjoyed knitting this pattern and the instructions were simple and easy to understand, especially for a beginner lace knitter like myself.

I used bamboo yarn which is great for summer but cotton or wool yarns would be suitable too, probably better, as bamboo doesn't have as much spring. The straps might stretch more with this yarn than wool or cotton. I can see this getting lots of wear over long sleeved tops in winter too.

At the beach

Wow we have had some scorcher days lately, getting up to 40 degrees. The best place to be is down at the beach. Everyone else around the country has been suffering too, what do you do to escape the heat?

Tessa just loved the beach checking out shells and bits of seaweed as we walked along down to the rocks. But the rock pools were even better, we found the smallest Hermit crabs and collected a few mussels. I wonder if Tess is a little unusual in that she love mussels at her age. Starting them young on different flavours and textures must be the way to go.


I can't believe this is my first post of the year, but then again it is summer holidays and everything grounds down to a halt here.


This week school went back, which wouldn't normally affect us. But this time I took Tess down to the local preschool for the first time and boy did she love it. From paint to playdough and the biggest sandpit out, she was in heaven. It made feel like I had been neglecting that stuff a little bit, but I guess she was ready to play with lots of kids her age more often. It's two mornings a week which suits a really well and only five minutes down the road. Normally we had to travel into town which is only 30mins, but does get a little too much more than a couple of days a week.

Hansel and Gretel Dress

I knitted an adaptation of the Kaia Babydoll dress a couple of days ago, it was a nice and quick project. I was inspired by the AliGknits version's of this pattern I've seen lately, she recommended casting on in the size smaller and then increasing to the size you want. I did this but there was still a bit too much gaping at the neckline so added shirring elastic, this worked a treat.

I used an 8ply bamboo/cotton yarn called Bella baby layette, doubled on size 6mm needles. I then hand sewed the fabric skirt which was originally a very cute apron I found at an opp-shop.


Tessa really does love her Pusscats and like to make sure they are very well fed and watered.

Summer Yarn Swap

This was the yarn I dyed up for the summer yarn swap, that was organized by the lovely Hannah of Rainbow Child and Red Riding Hood Yarns.

My lucky swap recipient is Kate from Chevgirl. I used berry colour tones for a summer berries theme, added some yummy berry chocolate logs and wildberry tea. I also gifted Kate a pattern on ravelry that I had been looking at for awhile. The sweet Spring Garden Tee by Alana Dakos of the wonderful blog Nevernotknitting.

I dyed 200gms of pure wool with Queens food colouring in the crockpot, wow was it fun and amazing to think what you can do with something as simple as food colouring and vinegar. It was my first attempt at semisolid colours but it didn't work very well as I didn't use enough dye. So I overdyed using the steam method, on the stove.

Summer Pants

I have been busy sewing some cute summer pants lately. With upcycled linen and cute cotton prints. The sweet smurf pants Tessa finally fit just in time for summer, I can't take credit for. I bought them from the lovely Hanna of CraftyKin from her felt shop a few months ago.

These cute Owl and Tree fern pants were made for one of Tessa's little friends at Kindermusik, they are in size 18months and were inspired by Anna Maria Horner's Quick Change Pants from her gorgeous new book Handmade Beginnings.

Meet Milly

Tessa is quite excited to have a new knitted friend.

Millie is knitted from Jean Goodhowe's Twin dressing-up doll pattern


Just because I'm loving her sweet curls at the moment and I know they won't last.

Tessa loves carrying Milly around but her head is so heavy from all the hair that it just flops over, I think I will sew it down to the neck a bit to see if that helps.

So the pattern has all the info for knitting lots of clothes for the dolly. But by the time I had finished sewing on the last of the hair, I figured it wouldn't be a bad idea to use Tessa's old clothes to dress Milly.

The Baby Expo

The first Gisborne Baby Expo was on Saturday. Thanks to all the hard work of three amazing Mums, Jacquie, Sarah and Janet, what a great day!!
Well all the hard work is over, and I couldn't have done it with out you Mum, I can't thank you enough. What a wonderful day, it started out freezing so we were lucky to have so many people come though. It was a lot of fun and I managed to catch up with heaps of people I haven't seen in a long time.

Here are few pic's of the table!


I quite like how the sign turned out, the bunting is so cute and effective.

Thank you Gisborne for your amazing support!!
We sold about a third of out stock, which was wonderful I am so chuffed for my first event like this. I learnt a lot about what people are looking for too, which will great to give me ideas for stocking my shop. I will be updating the shop over the next week with the stock left over and I think I might have a go with selling on Facebook too. Has anyone else had much success that way?