This is a proud moment. You may recall that way back in July I mentioned a stripy baby jumper that I'd begun for the Bumpling, from my Millamia book.
It was a tricky pattern and I made a series of increasingly catastrophic mistakes, starting by knitting the front for 3-6 months and the back for 6-9 months. Next, I used entirely the wrong sized needles for a sleeve and muddled up the stripes, so had to pull that out and start again. Then, even once all the beige and cream sections were knitted, Mum helpfully stitched up a sleeve edge to the side of the front, and FINALLY Rachel abducted the wool I'd been planning to use for the colourful buttonband, forcing me to shelve the entire project for several months.
In fact, she's used up all the wool I'd wanted to use, but I re-discovered the jumper half sewed up in the bottom of the knitting bag yesterday and took it down to Essex with me, along with some nicely coloured wool I bought for a different jumper (not even STARTED that one yet!) to finish off.
And it's done. I spent nearly all of New Year's Eve sewing up seams and darning in the many ends, and it's a massive relief to have it finally finished.
Mum even found some buttons and kindly sewed them on for me, so it's totally and utterly completed. Of course, it's sized for a 6-9 month old baby, so Bumpling won't even be wearing it for half a year, but at least it's ready when the time comes!
Another, much less stressful project which I've whizzed up during the holidays has been some rather adorable bobbly socks, from Rachel's baby socks book:
It was a challenging pattern, considering that you have to keep making bobbles while knitting on the round with only 24 stitches, but I really enjoyed it!
They are very sweet. AND, since I used the same coloured wool as the coloured button band in my stripy jumper, they will match. Oh...although the socks are for 0-3 months. So maybe not.
This is going to be a well dressed baby!