Imogen

As you can see I have been a bit busy this last week.... But I have really enjoyed putting together all these pretty things for Imogen. They were all wrapped individually in different shades of pink tissue and placed in the bag I made (see the previous post). Denise, Dan and Tyler brought their new baby to meet us on Saturday so it was lovely to see the gifts being opened and enjoyed. The quilt was a last minute idea, I saw the piece of fleece in the remnant basket in the local cycle shop (yes they also sell fabric and patterns!), it was such a bargain and a perfect size for a mini quilt. I hadn't made one before but I had an idea of cutting strips of the same width and varying lengths into one long strip and the sewing them to a piece of interfacing,it worked really well. I then attached the fleece, right sides together, stitched all the way round. Turned right side out and added the herringbone edging. Easy peasy and a useful little item.
The dress and pants were made from a pattern that I have had for years. It sort of made me a bit sad realising that the last time I made this little ensemble it was for Maisie when she was just one week old. Maisie is now 11. I looked at every fold in the pattern and remembered the last time I folded the pieces. It really is a delicious pattern although there are many procedures involved with this set, and quite fiddly to put together, especially the sleeves which are so tiny but so gathered!!

The tiny bolero is out of 'One Skein' and I used Rowan Cashsoft Aran, it only took just over one ball of this delicious yarn. I joined the shoulders with Kitchener stitch and worked the sleeves from the armhole down using one long circular needle so there were no seams at all to sew up!
The little shoes are an adaptation of the ones I made earlier. I wanted them to fit a newborn baby so I worked out a size smaller than the pattern said and I changed the top so I could thread a ribbon around the ankle, I want to try this with some wide voile ribbon too. The bib is also out of 'One Skein' although I adapted it to use up a couple of bits of Rowan Handknit Cotton I had in my stash. Everything was very well received...Denise has been caught by the knitting bug too it would seem. She kept showing me the different knitted things she had started but then she wanted to knit the bolero from one skein...

Maisie gave me a delicious, organic chocolate egg for Easter and I still hadn't eaten it, so I thought I would make a chocolate cake and break the egg into pieces and tip it onto the top of the warm fudge icing...it worked well and tasted good and I didn't get a migraine!!

and now a little slide show of the star attraction...let me introduce to you all baby Imogen......