Mio's Pom Pom Beanie

I love making beanies so it's a good thing that it's autumn again and my small person has done plenty of growing over the summer and could do with some more cozy head wear for the colder months here in Melbourne.

This was a super easy beanie to make without a pattern, once you've roughly figured out the gauge and head circumference, cast on an even number of stitches and work beanie in a knit 1 purl 1 rib in the round until you have a cuff the width you like. Then knit in stockinette (knit all stitches in the round) until your beanie is the right size and cast off using kitchener stitch. Add a couple of pom poms and you're done. Easy!
The wool yarn was so soft and such a delight to work with, and it only used a little over 50 grams of yarn so it was well worth investing that little bit extra money to make something with natural fibres for Mio's precious little noggin.

       

Mio's Eco Dyed Romper

With eco dyeing in mind I designed and knitted a lovely wool romper fit for a Melbourne winter. I have dabbled in eco dyeing with plant materials for some time now since stumbling upon India Flint's book Eco Colour but most of my experimentation has been with cotton fabric which doesn't take dye as readily as animal fibres like wool and silk so I really wanted to play about with some wool and see what effects I could come up with.

As it's my first time knitting something this complex from my own pattern there is inevitably some tweaking that needs to be done with the pattern but for the most part you can't notice any of the things that are slightly off. I did get a head start with my pattern by grabbing a few numbers from a similar pattern so that I had a place to start and I could be fairly certain that I wouldn't have to undo all my knitting to change things along the way. Here's Miss Mio in her romper before it's had its dip in the dye bath.

The weather has been quite stormy here in Melbourne so I knew I would be able to find myself some leaves from windfalls somewhere nearby which is more sustainable than picking leaves from the tree. I was right, I found a great big branch freshly fallen in the park near our house.

Some of the leaves we collected, ready to be rolled up in the  fabric.

Tightly rolling the leaves into the cloth.

All rolled up ready to tie.

I wrapped a piece of cotton around the bundle and tightly tied it together with some cotton yarn to hold everything firmly in place. Ready for the dye pot!

I steamed the bundle in a big pot for about 1.5 hours during which it filled the house with the beautiful, almost citronella scent of eucalyptus. I made sure to open a couple of windows (yes, even on a chilly winter night) so the scent didn't get too strong. I then let the cloth cool in the pot overnight. 

It's super exciting unraveling the bundle, you never know how it's going to turn out. 

I put the romper in the washing machine to spin as it was quite wet and then flattened it out to dry. The longer you leave the fabric before it's first wash the better as you are giving the dye time to cure.

I'm really happy with how it turned out, it's earthy, gorgeous, warm and sustainable.

Mio's Red Cape

Red capes are the thing of the moment here at our place, after making the cutest one for Mio last winter I couldn't resist making her another one for this winter. While I was knitting it India asked me to make her one as well so now they both have a lovely- but very different- red cape each.

I didn't use a pattern, just made it up as I went, knitting the hood first and then picking up stitches along the bottom of the hood for the cape. Here's how it turned out...

Super baby! Mio is still in her early days of walking but she gets so excited when she's standing and walking.

Everything Mio is wearing I made for her, I love being able to make lovely things for both my sweet little girls.

Mio's First Year

I still can't quite believe that it has been a year since I gave birth to Mio. She's such a sweet and cheeky little girl and every moment I spend with her makes my heart overflow.

As I am a complete knitting addict I've spend many hours over this past year knitting clothes for this little girl, in particular this beautiful romper that I've kept up sizing every time she grows out of one.

Here's the proof that she was once a tiny little babe just 12 months ago.

Mio's Knit Romper

Mio grew again and I just had to make her another romper. Every baby needs one of these (or one in every size like Mio!). I used lovely cotton yarn which makes it deliciously soft and shell buttons that are just so pretty. Pattern found here.

Mio's Winter Booties

I finished making Mio's deliciously warm booties. I love this pattern but I needed to thread some elastic through on the inside to keep them from falling off while she was crawling around. Here is the pattern again for anyone that wants to make some.

Booties

It's suddenly very cold here in Melbourne and Mio needs something to keep her feet cozy. I made a pair of these booties last winter for her (it's hard to believe she's about to experience her second winter already!)

I love these booties so much and couldn't wait for more chilly weather made them a necessity again. Pattern found here.

Repair

So my beautiful knitted socks got a hole it them- a very big hole at that. It was definitely beyond a darning job so I decided to knit a patch for them.

I picked up enough stitches along the bottom of the foot to cover the width of the hole and then just knit the square until the length of my little square covered the hole. After casting off I stitched the square to the bottom of the sock and it was as good as new again ready for winter!

An Autumn Wool Top

I had some wool sitting in my stash for a while, so long actually that I've forgotten what I originally bought it for. I figured it was definitely time to put it to use and being nice soft merino baby wool I thought a nice Autumn top would be perfect.

I often find inspiration on Pinterest (follow me here) so I'd been wanting to experiment with an idea for a while. 

The design is fairly simple and if I make it again I would only make a couple of adjustments. I would probably make the arm holes slightly larger and change how I join the arms to the body. But overall I think I'm happy with how it turned out.

The sleeves are worked as rectangles and then the body is worked by picking up stitches along the edge of the rectangle casting on a few stitches for the middle of the chest/back before picking up stitches along the second sleeve.

The body is then just stockinette stitch with a few increases at the sides as I worked my way down the body.

I finished the neckline off with garter stitch and then sewed the sides of the top and the bottom of the arms together.

I usually just wing it when it comes to making things, I'm fairly hopeless at sticking to patterns so as you can imagine there are often times that things that don't turn out exactly as planned. For some reason my tension was super loose when I knitted the back which is why I only ended up doing the zigzag at the bottom of the front and not the back, but lets just pretend it's perfect. All in all it looks lovely on her so the little things that are less than perfect don't really matter.