I'm a cow..... sort of

I wanted to make some pants for Little Mister Almost-Four and I found this pattern which appealed to me in its ease and simplicity.

They were easy to make - there are only two pieces, but I have to admit I have since altered the pattern, a LOT. They are very straight, that is the front and back rise are both the same length, which isn't too bad for kids but I notice on little Mister that you can often see his undies at the back.

Anyway....

These are the Moooooooooo pants. (no cows were harmed in the making of these pants)

The material is a drill, from Spotlight and for Little Mister about 70cms is plenty on 120cm wide material.
(oh, the pants don't have pockets either, so I added those afterwards)
This is Mister Almost-Four being a cow - in case you didn't guess.


and his model pose means putting his hands on his hips of course.

This is a cow wagging its tail.
The pocket is nice and big - big enough to hold an ipod, although I got a good grilling about why I didn't make 2 pockets so he could put Little Miss 7's ipod in too!

They're a bit light weight for winter, but hopefully, when the paddocks are full of nice green grass the cows will come out to play.

Testing

One of the ladies in my crochet group asked me to test a pattern for her.
She's teaching it at a camp later in the year.
It's meant for beginners and she wants them to simply read the pattern to create the garment.
She gave me the yarn to use (Patons Totem, which was like creating a suit of armour).
And here is the result.

I'm not sure it's a pattern I'd get a beginner to do - it took me quite a long time and I'm a quick crocheter. It's also rather boring as the rows seem to drag on forever.
But I finished it! Yay! Which means I can move onto bigger things now.
(OK, so it needs buttons but she just wanted to see if I could get the right shape from the pattern.)
It softened up a little with some washing and conditioning, still, my kids definitely wouldn't wear it.
With a lot of beautiful simple modern patterns out there it's a bit 'old crochet' looking don't you think?

Square for a friend

The crochet group I like to be part of were making a blanket for the lady who set the group up.
We were all asked to make a 12 inch square for the blanket in the colours of our logo.
Mine is based on the Nordic Star Afghan Square pattern. (Rav link, pattern link)

A box full of red stuff

A cheap and cheerful swap over in the Swappers Group.
This time the idea was to send a parcel full of your partner's favourite colour.
Mine, of course, is red.
Here is my lovely parcel.


Love the gorgeous little notelets.
In fact, love it all, it's perfectly red. :o)))

Swapped Ya

A lovely lady from Ravelry offered me some crochet magazines (I love to collect crochet magazines) and I offered to make some project bags in exchange.

Here are the results.

This is one of my favourite shaped bags and has a large pocket on the inside.




A drawstring project bag.
And a bag of my design.
I love the material in this one.



I like to put pockets in all my bags, except the drawstring of course.

Raspberry Beret

My local knitting group encouraged us to put entries in one of the local shows.
I decided I'd use the yarn I'd received in the Valentine's Day swap to make something and I'd just bought Kristen Omdahl's book Crochet So Fine. The beret in there quite appealed.
My yarn was radically different from that used in the pattern so I did 'wing it' a fair bit.
Ravelled here.

Anyway, I didn't end up getting out to the Castle Hill Show (I actually ended up having a blood transfusion and then an iron transfusion in hospital, but that's a different story, there was also Little Miss's 7th birthday in there too) so I was quite surprised when this was given back to me at knitting.


Not quite sure it suits me, but Little Miss has sort of claimed it as hers too!

Cupcakes for School

School encourages us to send in things for the girls birthday.
Little Miss's birthday was on the last day of term this year and is always close to Easter.
The girls were already chock-a-block full of Easter Eggs that they'd been handing round all week so I figured a few more lollies wouldn't hurt.

I knew one of the other girls was having her birthday on the same day (they are both the youngest in the year) but I didn't know one of Little Miss's classmates had a birthday the next day (making her pretty much a whole 12 months older!) so she brought in treats too - it must have been a giant party.

I attempted to make cat and mouse cupcakes from the Women's Weekly cupcake book.
Hmmm. If you don't have exactly the same lollies they do they don't turn out quite like the book.
Thankfully Little Miss was happy with them and the girls eyes lit up when they saw the cakes with lollies arrive.
Little Miss was very happy that everyone went for her cakes first, so I was a good cake making Mummy.