A special 90th birthday bag set

 My Nana turned 90 in September 2011 and Mum organised that I made her a bag (or two) and she'd make her a knitting needle and crochet hook wrap.

One is a mini sort of box bag with a magnetic closure...

 The other is more of a tear drop shaped bag with a button closure.

The material was a lovely raspberry colour and the lining a nice light pink.

I was happy with how they turned out.

Same same but different

Kata in different colours.

I had to add another round of pink to get it up to 12".
Sent to a friend to cheer her up.

Mei Mei

I bought Doris Chan's Everyday Crochet a while ago. The first time I went through it I didn't think there was much in there that I would make, but I read it and reread it and rereread it. As I did things grew on me and I could see how I could change things to suit me.

I couldn't wait to try something, but what.

Well eventually I jumped in. A Mei-Mei (I believe you need the book to get all the details for this, but the book is worth the investment). However I added bits I liked from Mocha Roca like the border.

It took me a while to get the hang of how the instructions were written and how to do the yoke. I did join the Doris Chan group on Ravelry and found instructions Doris had written there - she seems such a lovely and approachable lady, always round to help.

I made this Mei-Mei with some Patons Soft Haze I had. I wanted to dye it a nice bright green, but soft haze is made up 70% Acrylic, 20% Wool, 10% Bamboo so doesn't take a strong colour.
This is a nice green though. (I used food colouring, Kool Aid and Landscape dyes.)

It didn't take too long to make up, although I didn't work at it every single day.
I have discovered that my tension relaxes, from what I did in my tension swatch, once I start on the actually garment, especially as I am whizzing along. This ended up making this little jacket too big for me. Mum was very happy to step in and acquire it. :o)
I used a little over 300grms of the Soft Haze to make this in a 40" size on a 5.5mm hook.

I think it suits her.
I'm going to make something from the book (probably a mishmash of a couple of other patterns) for me - not a Mei-Mei I think we're a bit old for dressing "Mother-Daughter" style.

Voila! A baby jacket

When I saw this pattern I really wanted to make one.
One of the ladies in the Crochet Lovers Victoria Group on Ravelry was having a baby, so what better opportunity.

I'm sure I had grand plans of dyeing some yarn, I can't remember now because when I was going through my stash I found some left over stuff from a jumper I made my DS (which is still not finished as I didn't think it was good enough then, but looking at it now it's fine).

It's 4ply baby wool, but doubled. The white has a little acrylic in it I think. They were both a joy to work with though.

I love the way you go round and round and end up with this messy hexagon...
... which turns quite neatly into one side of the little jacket.
I procrastinated putting the collar on, I thought it would be terribly complicated, but it wasn't at all!
I sewed a flat joining seam up the back and single crochet along the top of the sleeves.

Here it is before I blocked it.
And the end result.
No idea if it fits. It might be a little too big, but as the recipient is in Melbourne he might be able to wear it a little later in the year as well.

It was pretty cute when it was finished and nearly 3yo DS wanted to keep it for him.
He even decided he was still a baby so he could wear it. :o) I didn't try it on him. I'm planning something else for him instead.