Latest FO: Booties and Cardigan

I've mentioned before that a lot of my friends/relatives appear to be having babies at the moment. The result of this is that I've discovered the joy of making baby clothes. I think I may be addicted. If you like making garments but have a short attention span and a limited budget, then baby clothes are your friends.

This package has been safely delivered to my friend Sarah, who had a gorgeous little girl a few days ago:

The booties are made with sock yarn, using this pattern.

The cardigan is the lace version of this pattern, and I used superwash DK. It was my first time doing picot edging, and now I want to put picots on everything.

Speaking of warm clothing, there's a definite chill in the air now that summer's drawing to a close. Clearly, I'm going to have to knit (or crochet) a jumper for Dice - a daunting task, since there is SO MUCH of him. But I can't have him feeling left out when Freya and I are prancing around in our matching red jumpers.

Foster Boy

I brought my new foster boy home on Monday - an enormous 9-year-old greyhound. His name is Dice and he's a model of politeness and good behaviour. He doesn't go anywhere in the house or get on any furniture without being given permission first. If he were a person, he'd hold doors open for you and take his shoes off before coming inside.

9 is not especially elderly for a greyhound, but Dice has had a hard life, and seems much older. He has Irish racing tattoos, but I couldn't find any details of his races. He may have been bred for racing, and failed to make the grade. I think he must have been hit by a car (or something) at some point. Half of his tail is missing, his hips are all misaligned with bones sticking out where they shouldn't, and he's a bit unsteady on his legs. He's also quite alarmingly skinny, but we're fixing that.

The first couple of days were - forgive the pun - a bit dicey. Freya wasn't impressed with the enormous interloper, and growled and barked if he so much as moved in his sleep. On Tuesday there was an awful (but unrelated, I think) incident when Freya got carried away running in the fields, and went missing. After 45 minutes of frantic searching, calling and sobbing, I came home to grab my bike, and found her waiting on the front lawn. I think she must have run after a rabbit, and lost us. Clever girl, working out that if she navigated her way home, she would find me eventually.

Anyway. A week later, Freya is being much more tolerant, and Dice has really come out of his shell. He's gone from spending 99% of the time lying on his bed, to following me around the house, coming to me for cuddles and even playing with his toy a bit. I hope we can find him a nice home.

Flea Market Finds

My first ever Flea Market Finds contribution comes from a delightful shopping trip with my good friend Gemma. We'd both been feeling a bit stressed out with work, and thought that a day browsing the charity shops of Shrewsbury - and drinking large quantities of tea - would be the perfect tonic. It certainly did the trick for me!


Lots of people seem to be having babies at the moment (is there something in the air?), and I thought the little cardigan would be a nice gift for a new baby. Being a vintage pattern, it is of course all done the proper (read: difficult) way. No circular knitting or short-cuts to be found here! I also got some cute purple beads, and a Dixie Chicks single (which was actually a gift from Gemma, thank you hun!)

I did rather well on the clothing front, too:


I was really taken with this lovely lace-edged waistcoat, which I picked up for £3.50. It wasn't until I got home that I noticed it still had the original tags on, including a £26 price tag!


I liked the colours and shape of this shirt/dress.


This jumper is possibly my favourite find of the day. I love everything about it: the colour; the gorgeously soft fabric; the asymmetrical neck; the covered button; the flared sleeves... literally everything. It is as if I imagined my ideal jumper and it materialised in front of me with a £3.50 price tag. This is what charity shopping is all about!

Finally, I picked up a few non flea market bargains:


Cheap and cheerful acrylic yarn to finish a crochet cushion cover I've been working on; beautiful half-price sock yarn (including Kaffe Fassett Regia!); three pretty Paperchase postcards; some basic black leggings and a basic yellow tank top.

It was a really lovely day, and exactly what I needed to de-stress. You can find more flea market finds here.

Tomorrow is kind of a big day for me. I've volunteered myself as a fosterer for the local greyhound rescue branch, and tomorrow Freya (my greyhound/whippet cross) and I are going to meet potential foster dogs. It's something I've wanted to do for a few years, and now the time seems right. I keep looking at the dogs on the website and wondering which one will be coming to live with me - it's very exciting and a little daunting! I'll keep you posted.