Calvin Macaulay - The Dramatic Arrival!

I feel I have been slightly (well majorly) neglecting my blog lately! Over the next few posts the reasons may become clearer... my spare time has been absolutely full of baby knitting and wedding planning so the blog has suffered. I am hoping to add in quite a few updates over the next few weeks though... now the babies are finally starting to arrive!

 

Calvin James arrived in the world rather dramatically when he was expertly caught by his daddy while waiting at home for an ambulance! He is baby brother to Lyndon (Grub) Macaulay who is actually responsible for the start of my baby knitting obsession. Huge congratulations to my lovely friend Leonie and her husband Sam - (though I am missing our work lunches now she is back on maternity!)

 

As I made Lyndon two cardigans and a hat in 6 - 12 months, which I know Leonie has kept, I wanted to make Calvin something special of his own! After some thought I decided on this Snuggly Snowdrops hoodie and booties to get him through his first winter... hopefully they will fit for a little while, though he was a whole lb heavier than his big brother when he was born!

 

 

I then couldn't resist having my first go at a cuddly toy! My eagerness was mainly due to finding this gorgeous free koala pattern on Deramores.com which was just perfect for my Aussie friends living in the UK. The nametag was a little running joke at work as that's what our boss wanted her to name both babies... luckily they thought of two lovely and unusual names (a non-intentional nod to two American Presidents!) ... but I wanted her to still have a "Bruce"!

 

 

I must say I do love him and he was very hard to part with, but I know he has gone to a good home! I've already had a pic of Calvin and Bruce making friends - see below! I have definitely got the bug for Cuddlies now and I am hoping to do some more in the near future, starting with an Owl for Hattie's Christmas stocking and then onto some TOFT Alpaca crochet patterns.

 

 

Awww! He is so much like his brother... I can't wait to see if that continues...

 

xx

 

The first born Wetherman girl in 64 years...

She spent 36 hours without a name, but the gorgeous Isla Jessica Wetherman arrived on the 15th May 2013 weighing a deceptive 7lbs 4oz, in person she's teeny tiny! 

I'm so proud to be an auntie to my second gorgeous niece and loved knitting up a gift box of pink & pretty things for her!

And here they are...

These were the first Mary-Janes I made after Isla's mummy Sarah showed me something similar in her baby magazine. I then made some blue ones for Hattie and will definitely be making more of these!

This one was a special request hat for Isla's first photoshoot in a few weeks time! 

Teeny tiny cardi :) even this one won't fit her for a while! 

Snuggly winter cardi :) this one was nice and speedy which helped me catch up after the next one took me so long. Both totally worth it though!

This one is a very vintage pattern from my nan, which my mum has made quite a few times! It's a lovely pattern... though very slow... But I was really pleased with how it turned out! 

Isla's mum mentioned to me early on that one of her friends had a gorgeous vintage white baby shawl. I've never done one of these before or crocheted anything so big, but I'm really pleased with it, the wool is so soft and silky and it's very well travelled... I took it on the Eurostar to Disneyland with me so I could finish it. This was just in case baby Isla arrived early :) like her big brother did! 

And finally here are the dress and booties that I invented specially for Isla, I think it'll be a long time before they fit her but I can't wait to see her in them! Very glad I made a note of this pattern so I can make these again.

So after months of baby knitting it now feels very strange to now be knitting a shrug for myself for my friends wedding! After that's finished I'm hoping to get a few wedding bits done for us. Then its back to babies... another four due before Christmas this year :D xx

She's finally here...

After making us wait an extra 9 days... Harriet (Hattie) Faith Austin was born on the 6th April 2013 weighing 7lbs 13oz and she couldn't be more perfect!

I wanted her mummy and daddy to see her new knitwear wardrobe first, but now I can share them :)

The His 'n' Hers hoodies are for Hattie and William her cousin who was born exactly one month earlier on the 6th March.

I made the bear-suit from a pattern but then invented a new-born version for her so she could wear it home from hospital as requested by her mama!

The Project Ada jumper is a special homage to her early code name within the family and two of the booties are my own creation. The little owl dress is my favourite i think and I designed the 'Owl Hattie' specially for her.

Hopefully i'll be making lots more of these in the future when I'm finally able to get 'Let me be your fancy tea!' up and running! Maybe I'll have to start with made-to-order requests...

Juno the Crazy!!

Considering how much we spoil our cat it is surprising that there are no posts of her on the blog! So... here is an action sequence from a few weeks ago. We bought her the tunnel for Christmas, it was a little pricey and we worried it may be a complete waste of time but she is actually obssessed with it and it's given us so many giggles that it was totally worth it!

So angelic at first...

"The Tunnel of Insanity"

Elusive fake mousey!

So close, I can nearly taste it...

Mine! Yum Yum!

...Now stop taking my picture!!

xx

Things I Love!

We've purchased four things lately which I absolutely love and have to share!

Firstly, my yarn bowl which I bought from Little Wren Pottery on Etsy. I searched for a long time to find a UK supplier and I definitely made the right decision. This yarn bowl is beautifully made and looks lovely on my little side table with my current project and needles in. It is useful as well as stunning and even when the yarn i'm using is too big to spin in the bowl, it still stops the cat chasing it along the floor and it then picking up cat hair. A fantastic purchase and a bargain for a handmade item at only £15. 

Next on the list of loves is our new tea drawers. Henry spotted these on a trip to TK Maxx and thought they would be perfect for displaying all my teabags in our lovely new kitchen. I did the labels myself with a set of alphabet stamps and brown kraft card and we really love the vintage look it has. 

The reason we made the above trip to TK Maxx was to purchase some kind of large but attractive box to store all of the wedding magazines and paraphernalia that was taking over our living room. Unbelievably we found the box below which was perfect - being not only the exact right size, but the matching partner for the two other smaller boxes which I bought from TK Maxx nearly three years ago and currently store my knitting and buttons! It had a broken clasp and had obviously been sat in a back room waiting for a clearance sale, talk about meant to be! We plan to use of of the smaller ones to store cards at the wedding so it was just amazing to find it's matching mama!

The final thing we bought was only little, but a very important piece of kit for a tea lover! I found it online on Mollie & Fred and thought it was just perfect for me, as Henry is constantly making comments the amount of teabags I get through. He created the below picture to show my acceptance of the challenge set and we now have no more teabags clogging up the sink. I love really love the Brightside products, we now have the calendar too and I am hoping for more in the future!

Ah, I have just remembered one final purchase which I absolutely love and must share! In the wedding box picture you may notice a small set of panda's... they are highlighters and I found them in paperchase whilst waiting for a train at Kings Cross. This is a regular occurance these days, I am just extrememly grateful they opened the new station and I have lots of lovely shops to browse in when I'm stranded!

xx

Lately...

I had been doing better at updating my blog more often but again this good behaviour has lapsed slightly! This is mainly because I have been distracted by wedding planning and niece knitting which is taking up most of my non-working time at the moment!

We had the first week of February off work to celebrate our Engagiversary which was lovely! We spent  one mammoth day finishing off the decorating in the house - kitchen and spare bedroom, which both now look lovely. The spare room had been a white box since we moved in and hurriedly painted over the dark purple, but it now looks like a proper room and is finally getting some wall art, including a canvas photo of our bride and groom which we took while walking in Baldock on our engagiversary! The kitchen is now almost finished (it only took 6 months) and we are just waiting for a new blind to be fitted.

In terms of the wedding we can now add a band to our 'Booked' list. We spent a very enjoyable evening with Pizza and a bottle of wine in a London Club waiting for our prospective band to play a public gig and I'm happy to say that we loved them. This was lucky considering we didn't really have a back up plan! So now we have the venue, photographer, my dress and the band all booked!

Next on the list is wedding rings and suits for Henry. We're getting our wedding rings made by a local jewellers in Hitchin, Glenray. We did have a look at Hatton Garden last year but there are just so many shops it is a little overwhelming and despite this we didn't manage to find anything we liked. I set two criteria for choosing the place to get our wedding rings -

1. That they didn't tell me I would have to have diamonds in my wedding ring (as all the others had, despite me saying I didn't want any)

2. That they didn't tell me I had to have the same metal as my engagment ring. I have a gorgeous white gold engagement ring, but I wanted a palladium wedding ring so it would stand up to my crafting a little bit better.

The lady in Glenray was fantastic, it wasn't intimidating like Hatton and she gave us options without imposing her opinions on us at all. We had a lovely half hour trying on lots of different ones and Henry managed to find one perfect for him (even if I did say he couldn't have the 'One Ring' script on it). I have already found something online that I wanted but I needed to be able to try something on and as if it was meant to be Glenray stock the jeweller that makes the ring I like, so we are just waiting for them to order it in for me to try now... along with a few other options just in case.

Suits will be next month I think, and hopefully the bridal shop where I bought my dress, Hinxworth will have something Henry likes as we are able to get a nice discount there :) every little helps!

I've also spent quite a lot of time looking at invitation ideas and sourcing products and materials to enable us to make them ourselves. We have a mock up of our design now, although a few tweaks are necessary so they are perfect. Then it will just be a case of borrowing a guillotine and purchasing a glue gun and spending a few weeks getting them all done. Luckily we have all summer to do this :)

The rest of my time has been spent knitting for the nieces due in March and May this year, very exciting!!

So anyway, there's a verbal update of what's been going on lately... Now for the pictures!

xx

Marple the snow dog!

After 10 years together Henry and I were finally in the same town/country when it snowed heavily enough to create something! And here she is...

Marple the snow dog, with her button eyes and ivy leaf ears!

As you can see from picture three, she is still sitting proudly in our garden 2 days on, just with a bit of extra weight! Hopefully one day we will be lucky enough to have a real Marple, but until then snow Marple is a great substitute that doesn't need walking in the cold :)

Like many though... I did excitingly peek out of the window yesterday morning in the hope she had come to life like on the snowman, but no such luck!

Save the Date!

We have finally managed to hand deliver most of our save the dates - due to the high cost of stamps - so I can now share them on here without ruining the surprise!

I knitted our little bride and groom in our wedding colours over the summer and then we took them away to Kassiopi, Corfu with us for a little photoshoot - Henry my fiance loves taking photographs with his big camera!

Kassiopi is our favourite place in the world and where we would have got engaged, I now understand, had Henry been patient enough to wait another 8 months for our holiday! Luckily after 10 years he didn't want to wait any longer and we got engaged on our trip to Lincoln (one of our other favourite places) in February, which means we've had a whole year to enjoy being engaged before getting down to the serious planning, and we also managed to get our dream venue for the date we really wanted.

Being quite an excitable and organised person we have already booked our venue and photographer and I have ordered my beautiful dress. Similarly to the venue it was the first I saw and I fell in love with it. I was sensible enough to try on another 15 afterwards but nothing compared. I'm hoping it will be ready in about 3 months time and can't wait to try it on in the right size!

Now we're into the new year we have lots more planning to do, starting with finding music - hopefully a band! Other than that it will be a year of making, starting with our Knitted Button Bunting which will feature in my next post!

Our lovely little button bride and groom will feature proudly on top of our wedding cake on the big day :)

xx