pimp my ride

I've been a bit quiet lately, partly because someone borrowed our camera to take on holiday and I'm not an interesting enough writer to make a blog worthwhile without pikshers, and partly because my time has been diverted to essential but fairly unexciting projects such as this. I thought I'd mention it though, because it's one of those crazy half baked ideas that seemed to work against all the odds, and other brassic mothers might appreciate knowing it is feasible.

The car seat in the picture had been not-so-gently used by seven of my nieces and nephews before it made it down the handmedown chain to rubbishknitterjunior. The amount of bouncing around had taken its toll on the upholstery as you see. The day I acquired it, Mr. Rubbishknitter was throwing out a perfectly good shirt with a slightly worn collar. These were the ingredients that combined with one sewing machine, some thread and a lack of general sewing expertise to form the half baked idea.

I drew the pieces of the original seat cover onto tracing paper to make a sort of pattern, then arranged them onto the shirt, adding seam allowances before I cut the pieces out. I sewed them all together to make a new template - there was just enough shirt to cover the really knackered areas. The really big holes I covered with iron on interfacing, then I sewed the new cover over the worn parts of the old one. This was much easier than making a whole new one as I didn't have to worry about any of the velcro or elastic fastenings. I then attempted to quilt the thing together, although my original draft of a pattern wasn't really accurate enough and there are all sorts of wibbly baggy bits of surplus fabric.

But all in all, I'm quite pleased because it looks like it will now withstand a machine wash, which was my only aim really. And I have saved a Large Amount of coin. Car seats these days seem to cost possibly more than my car is worth. So clearly I was now able to treat myself to something else instead! What could that thing be? You are probably wondering.

MOAR SEWINGZ!11! I've been stalking the clothkits site forever, fondly stroking the rather too expensive kits without buying anything. Then they had a sale in which one of the skirt kits was half price. Win! And the top thing in the picture is a purse and pencil case kit. Yes, I got a little carried away. I've always felt that you could make these things for a fraction of the price by just buying the fabric and notions yourself. And this is almost certainly true, but I need my hand holding a bit with sewing, and i've heard these kits have nice clear instructions, so hopefully this will be a good learning experience. And anyway look at that parcel! Black crepe paper! And some of it is wrapped in a measuring-tape ribbon!11!1 It's been a long time since the postman brought anything that exciting!

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yo ho ho and a bottle of milk

Literally everyone I know is pregnant at the moment, it's like the Midwich Cuckoos. So I have a lot of baby gift knitting to do. And in a remarkable stroke of fortune at knitting group the other week, a lady walked in with a massive pile of yarn she wanted to get rid of. We spread it all out on the table, it immediately disappeared behind a blur of limbs and a sort of feeding frenzy ensued, after which I emerged with a cone of mysterious black 4plyish acrylic. Paired with a neverending ball of cream coloured baby type acrylic, that has been in my cupboard for about 2 years and incorporated in tiny quantities into about 50 projects, it was ideal for this hat.


It's We Call Them Pirates, sort of. I had to make it smaller, obv, and I wasn't about to buy thinner yarn or wreck my wrists wrestling with tiny needles, so I missed out the vertical stripes. I just chopped off the right hand 4 stitches of the chart, so I cast on 112 stitches instead of 128. I also got a bit bored knitting the lining, so mine is only about an inch long - more of a knitted hem. It's stranded anyway so it's going to be pretty warm, the baby isn't planning on any arctic expeditions AFAIK. I've not done this sort of finish before - it used a provisional cast on to knit up the lining after finishing the main bit of hat. It sounds a bit faffy but I must say I do like the result - it has a nice sturdy feel to it, and it really didn't take that long. The skull and crossbones bit was loads of fun. I can sense more of these hats in my future. Modelled by rubbishknitterjunior with a bit of negative ease - he is one now, it should be about right for a normal head sized 6 month old.

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