of mice and daisies

I have two baby showers this week so there has been smoke coming off my knitting needles. In the nick of time, I have now finished Anouk. This was awesome fun. The great thing about this pattern is that it's endlessly customisable. Looking at the ravelry pages for it, there are so many very very different versions. And it's dead quick to make in aran weight yarn - I can see why it's so popular! So I thought about it for a while, surveyed my crafty stash cupboard and this was my effort.

It's quite a minimalist version of the pattern really. This is for a mate of mine who asked for a theme of mice and / or daisies. I was going to try and incorporate both mice and daisies but in the end decided to go for a very simple approach. Mostly because daisies are easier than mice. But it's tricky because my friend is one of those effortlessly stylish people, who always wears muted colours, dresses in an understated way and looks awesome. She has, like, proper outfits that co-ordinate and stuff. She'll spend ages putting on makeup and when she comes out of the bathroom you can't actually see it but she'll just look really stunning. (Unlike me, who tends to look more like Robert Smith). So I didn't want to give her some sort of tacky bad-acid-flashback-with-clashing-dayglo-colours childrens clothing nightmare - a 'less is more' approach is definitely her style. I hope I haven't gone too far the other way - the brown cotton when fashioned into a dress has a kind of potato-sack look which maybe isn't what every proud parent is striving for.


So anyway I left off the pocket and replaced the intarsia flower with three little daisies. At the bottom of each stalk, I slipped three stitches as I changed to the brown colour, and cabled each end stitch to the left and right to give a sort of splayed leaves type thing. I was quite pleased with this effect, but unfortunately hadn't thought far beyond this particular row, and after much headscratching I gave up trying to knit the rest of the flower. The stem is duplicate stitched on and the flower is embroidered very simply using white stranded cotton, with a tiny yellow bead in the middle.

The other awesome thing about this pattern is that it should last for a while. It's designed to change from a dress to a tunic as the child grows, and the side tabs have two buttonholes so it will accommodate a fat baby belly. I made the 6 months size but it should last till well over a year.

Apologies for the lack of modelled photos - it always annoys me when a picture of a garment is shown on the hanger - but the child for whom this is intended isn't born yet. I'll maybe sneak round with a camera once the young lady has made her appearance.