Dress to Impress

Well lookeeee here, I'm almost done. The back and the front are finished but I did decide to forgo the really difficult looking neckline in favour of some thin straps which I just made myself instead.

Next up came the sewing a.k.a. my least favourite part:

Followed by choosing buttons:

Wood wins. Bows are far to cutesy for my little terror.

Et voila!

Question: How much wool can one baby wear? Answer: Loads/never enough/all of the wool ever.

I should really block the dress so that it stops curling up at the bottom...but I probably never will.

Dress adapted from this pattern and made on two needles instead of circular needles. And I also knitted my own kind of straps. It was very, very easy!

I love this

Great outfit. So simple. Comfy looking shoes are always a plus for a mother carting around a giant baby. And the dress is lace. Lace which has been printed on! Is that great or what? I'll answer that, it's great.

Also, great makeup. Great legs.

In other news, I have knitting callouses. But, I have finished my summer sweater (which incidentally is really bloody warm) and am about 2/3 of the way through Whai's dress. But I want to get it finished and also a pair of mittens finished before Sunday so I'll catch you up.

Photo from Garance Dore

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Home Improvement

For what seems like forever now, we have been on the hunt for a sideboard. Buzz words to the like of "danish" and "Scandinavian" were floating around. Hours were spent trawling on Trade Me. Hours were spent drooling at the perfection of The Brick House. Hours were spent hating what we already had, a 70's cabinet that smelled like air freshener that my boyfriend got for free outside a hospice shop. I hated it and it's giant gold handle from the moment I saw it. I dreamt of this:

That thing to the left behind all the other great vintage things that I would also happily have

So understated. So practical looking. Soooooo attractive.

 Instead, we had this:

A blight on our beautiful, exposed brick wall

It only had one door. All the crap we have didn't fit on it. It had a stupid, ugly handle. It HAD TO GO.

Et voila!

 Helllooooo sexy. It manages to hold all my man's video games and their respective playing machines. All our dvds and our cds. It is a much better colour and thus looks much better with the brick. The fat tv is on borrowed time as it will soon be replaced by a flat screen. The stereo is also on borrowed time as I want to move it elsewhere and put some sort of plant there. I'm also toying with the idea of putting some sort of art where that woven flax flower is but I like just having the brick for now. It's not the sideboard of my dreams but it is a start.

But, there you have it. Much better but not yet perfect. I can breathe out now.

This time last year...

We were in Puerto de Santa Maria, Cadiz, Spain. Camping in a pine forest. Across the road from a tropical beach.

The world cup was on and my man got himself a wee ball to kick about

Pretty much

Then we left and went to Malaga. And continued our tournament of Five Hundred. We played about 30 games and I won one. ALL OR NOTHING.

I was pregnant so the agua is mine and the cerveza belonged to my man 

We spent the whole time in Malaga at the beach, I got sunburnt from topless sunbathing. Ouch.

Because of our obvious tourist wear and the fact that my man had dreads then, we were constantly asked by the drinks peddlers on the beach if we wanted to buy hash.

Right now it is winter in New Zealand and I'm wearing a ridiculous amount of wool in the sunniest nook in our house. Guess where I would rather be?

Knitta Please!

Okay so I've used this post title before and I didn't actually coin the original term either but WHATEVS. Because I've become obsessed with knitting. Making. Creating. (I'd say I'm currently enamoured with sewing at the moment too but when one has trouble even sewing in a straight line, I really can't claim that.)

Behold our new-look lounge with my pile of knitting-related thangs on it.

Ignore all the baby-related paraphernalia

I say "new-look" as we have bid good riddance to the lurid green of the past (for some reason the previous owner of this house had that wall, a wall in the hallway and the alcove in our bedroom all painted the same lurid green. I guess it were for if you got disoriented and needed to find south, just look for the lurid green wall!).

Anyway, knitting was it? So basically, I'm way better at it than just knitting in a straight line and have even finished a pair of bootees!!! (No photographic evidence though but I did it I swear!) And one mitten. (Is it a mitten if it has no pair? A mitt?) I knitted it with way thicker wool than prescribed and now it is the size of an oven mitt on my daughters hand. Maybe she'll grow into it. When she's five. And I made my boyfriend some fingerless gloves for his birthday which also turned out way bigger than necessary but I reasoned that he was super tall and maybe they would fit. Well they would. If he were an Ent.

At least this fits:

Cowl. Worn with a scowl.

What is all this building up to? I have undying faith in my patchy knitting talents and I'm gonna make this on big-ass needles. Followed by this for little Whai, because who doesn't love a breton stripe and wooden buttons. Fingers crossed...

P.S. If anybody else is similarly inclined, check out Pickles, it has amazing knitting patterns all for FREE. And it's Norwegian and everybody knows that Northern Europeans have some of the best style.

Who wears short shorts?

I have a long and well-documented history of loving shorts. I'd prefer them over skirts and they are probably on par with my love for wearing dresses. A summer pair of shorts can be worn with tights for winter and they can be dressed up in many ways. How versatile!

Shorts are great for music festivals (wearing my favourite corduroy shorts from AA) like Hop Farm

Shorts are great for summer (vintage Levis cut-offs)

Shorts make you happy (vintage Levis cut-offs that I left in the UK for some dumb reason) and are great for exploring in abandoned parks in Liverpool

Shorts are great for making you look like an air hostess when you actually want to look like Sailor Mercury (Country Road shorts borrowed from a friend)

Shorts are great for pretending you are Pania of the Reef (shorts from Country Road)

And, of course, shorts are babin'. RIP the beautiful Elizabeth Taylor.

For the impending Mother's Day, I was treated to a wee spree on ASOS and purchased a pair of woollen shorts after being totally inspired by Fashion Westie wearing her pair from Stolen Girlfriend's Club, making the path to motherhood look hot. Here's hoping my pair arrive before Sunday. Mothers Day. I opted for the ASOS version so as to make my money streeeeeeetch for longer.