Oh! A Belly Cardi!

My daughter is a worthwhile recipient of knitwear. She gushes. She wears her knitted garments with pride. She takes them off to eat. She tells everyone 'My mummy made this for me'.

I didn't make this gorgeous sweater though, Karen did. The pattern, Bella, is now available on ravelry, and Karen was one of my patient testers. She made the three years size and it fits Noo with plenty of growing room. The yarn is Karen's own hand-spun which she sells (along with the handmade buttons!) at GiftofGraceHandspun








When Noo talks about this cardi she says 'This is my Belly cardi. It's not from the Postman, it's from Karen'.

I'll say 'This is the cardigan she mastered skipping in'. Because that's what I'll remember.

Thank you so much Karen, from me and Noo, we feel very special!

Thoughts on Knitted Gifts

With Christmas around the corner there's been a lot of talk about gift knitting. If, like me, you know you're going to knit some gifts, most of which will never get finished, in fact most will be started far too late to be finished in time for the holidays, then there's really only two rules worth making:

1) DON'T tell anyone they will be getting a knitted gift.

2) Have a back up plan (which you can always keep, save for later or give to someone else if you miraculously finish the knitted gift).

Following these two rules will ensure that you don't need to go through the embarrassment of wrapping a half finished hat and, MOST IMPORTANTLY you can enjoy your gift knitting, indulge your startitis, justify those Christmas shopping personal yarn purchases (come on, it's not just me, surely?) and to help get you started early, I'm offering a discount code for all my individual patterns from now until the end of November.

Enter the coupon knitgiftsnow to get a 25% discount on any single pattern (e-books not included)

If you're discerning about who you knit for and what you knit them, your recipient might happily wear their knitted gift everyday, like my friend below wears his new fingerless mitts: 

If I can get my act together, I'll put together a free pattern for these mitts, so you can make them for your friends too!

A Hereditary Disease

I look at my kids, and I want them to inherit a healthy world, that's all.

It easy not to think about it, because it's scary, but it's worth a little thought...