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posted on March 3, 2013, at 7:58 pm Now, I know what you’re probably thinking. What on earth do lap blankets have to do with a good wife?
 Super Easy Lap Blanket No.1 So let me start at the beginning. You may have noticed that I haven’t posted for about three months. As some of you may know, I’ve been busy with my new Stitch 56 website that got rebuilt from the foundation up. After a successful launch, with lots of very gratifying feedback, I fixed my attention on building the business. Building the number of people looking at my site, building the number of people Liking my Facebook page. Trying (but not succeeding very well) to build the number of followers of my Twitter tweets. Building the stock lines I’m carrying in the shop. And building the number of sales each week.
 Love the colours! In the meantime, every evening, Moshe and I have been glued to the telly watching The Good Wife. We started at the beginning, the first episode of the first season. And we’re LOVING it!!! I mean hooked. Have you seen it? Did you you love it? Who’s your favourite? Kalinda? Peter? Diane? Will? Cary? Now, I know we’re kinda behind a little, like 4 seasons behind, but we’re just catching up as fast as we can. We’re somewhere in the middle of Season 3 I think, or maybe a smidge further.
 This wool is so soft! Anyway, I hate to just sit and watch and do nothing. Truth is, if my hands are idle, my nails end up taking a beating. Or is that a biting? Yeah, not good. So I decided to invest in a little Manos del Uruguay Maxima from Purl Soho, one of my favourite stores, and knit up a Super Easy Lap Blanket.
 It’s no kidding a “super easy” knit job It’s so soft! It has a gorgeous hand, not too heavy, not too light. Just right. A beautifully “cozy soft, decadently toasty, [.....] kettle-dyed, hand-spun 100% extrafine merino wool”. And the range of colours is so phenomenal. I kinda went a little bit overboard though. I decided to make 4 of these blankets, so we each could have our own for those cool winter nights of TV viewing. Well I just kept buying more colours! You know how it is, I put together a row of 7 colours, stood back to look at the selection, moved them around a little, changed this one with that one, took one out, added one in. You know.
 See, just the right size! And just when I thought I had four x 7 rows all lined up in perfect harmony, I’d mess around with them one more time. Then check the website for a possible better colour to use here, or another colour palette for another blanket, and so it went. On and on. By the way, Purl Soho didn’t have all the colours in stock, so I spread the shopping love around at Flying Fingers Yarn, and Happy Knits, and I think I bought one skein from another shop that I can’t remember the name of. Just do a Google search and you’ll find what you need.
 I’ve just started on the second blanket. You won’t believe it, … then again, maybe you will, but I have another few colours on their way to me in the mail. I just needed them, you know? In case they’re the perfect match, better than the one I’d already settled on. For the fourth time.
 a pretty seascape Those are some of the colours that might make it into this second blanket. Well, probably they’ll make it in. Depends on what my new order delivers.
 they’re just so pretty together, aren’t they? Here’s what I have left, after the first blanket.
 I know, it’s nuts isn’t it! And just so you can see all the wool in this full-to-the-brim plastic bag, here are some pics from both sides of the bag…
 can you tell how gorgeous they all are? OK. It’s been a long but lovely day. Glad to have been able to show this to you. It’s not rocket science, this pattern. Just a nice feeling of accomplishment when it’s complete. Time for the next ep, and more knitting. Yay!
Moshe? Are you coming?
Oh, and I’ll post pics when this second one is done.
x Helene
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posted on December 18, 2012, at 3:25 pm OMGosh! I am so happy with how this little hat came out! So chic, don’t you think? Aliya has a little black party dress that I think this might look rather divine with. Hope so. I just love it! It’s the 3rd little reversible sun hat I’ve made using this pattern By MiekK, and I’m sure it won’t be the last!
I mean, it’s so cute! Click on the images below to enlarge. That’ll get rid of the strobe effect of the black dots on white fabric!
I’m going to pop them into an express post bag and hope they get to Perth before the weekend! Can’t wait to see how they look on darling little Aliya!
posted on December 17, 2012, at 9:12 pm 
My darling daughter recently bought metres of flannel in 4 colours, and asked if I could sew up around 48 cloth wipes for her so she could ditch the store-bought wet wipes.
Of course, since I love both my daughter and my sewing machine, I agreed!
I have to fess up though, it’s been a s-l-o-o-o-o-w process for me. It’s not my very favourite kind of sewing, as you hopefully will agree. But I promised, and besides, there’s not much I wouldn’t do for my daughter, and even less for my grandson, and after all… there’s the good-for-the-environment angle that’s just all over this project.
So, in amongst the mundane cutting and sewing of flannel, I’ve spiced it up by adding in a little gorgeousness.
 a pink hat for Aliya I love this hat pattern by MiekK! It’s so fabulous to make up. It’s the same pattern I’ve just used to make a little bucket hat for Austin, but this one is for little Aliya in Perth, and I had to make a little adjustment.
Aliya’s hat needed a tie. Now, this would have been an excellent addition for Austin’s hat too, given he wouldn’t keep it on his head for more than a nanosecond, but of course, being a boy, that dog wouldn’t hunt, as they might say in some parts of the world. That is completely out of the question. Now, for Aliya, it was essential, but the pattern didn’t have a ribbon tie option, so I had to work out what to do.
I created a kind of button-hole for the ribbon to pass through from one side to the other, attaching the ribbon securely in between the sides.
I simply thread the ribbon through the hole, and gently pull it through.
Easy peasy lemon squeezy! If you’re interested, I could do a little tutorial to show how I did it. Let me know in the comments if you’d like that, and I’ll put one together over the holidays.
Isn’t it a simply adorable little hat? 
Now onto a second hat for Aliya, this time in black and white.
Then tomorrow, I’ll pull myself away from these pretties, and get back onto the flannel wipes for Devorah. Definitely. No, really. Definitely.
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posted on November 19, 2012, at 9:56 am  Sun hat for Austin He wasn’t the happiest recipient of a sewn gift. As soon as I managed to manoeuver around his fast little hands to plant the hat on his darling little head, those same quick-as-a-flash little hands pulled the hat right off that darling little head and threw it onto the floor. Almost to say, “You think I’m going to be seen wearing THAT!!!
I had Moshe on the other side of the table with his iPhone trying to capture a split second of a moment of Austin with his hat on. I think it looks quite gorgeous, don’t you?
I’d spent ages searching the internet for hat patterns for little boys, until I found this one on By MiekK, a gorgeous blog written by the wonderful Marieke K. It’s exactly what I was looking for, more of a fisherman’s hat than a full-brimmed sun hat, or a full cap, which is mostly what I found in my search. It’s so cute! I especially love that this adorable little hat is reversible! And it hardly takes any fabric, so scraps are ideal, and it takes less than two hours to whip up! Perfect, right?
The pattern is easy-peasy, once you can translate from the Dutch (I used Google translate, and it did a fantastic job). I also emailed Marieke to ask for the instructions in English, but she said she hadn’t done one. Instead, she very generously wrote me out a little paragraph of instructions that I could easily understand and follow. Thanks so very much to her, I now have the perfect sun hat pattern!
 Don’t you love this fabric! It’s Kellie Wulfsohn’s “Peak Hour” by Riley Blake  I love all the little cars, and the newspaper ads! Really gorgeous, isn’t it!  Here’s the other side, with the newspaper print peeking out.  I love these large dots!  Not happy, get this thing off me, Buba!  My wonderful parents-in-law, who are completely besotted by their little great-grandson
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posted on October 26, 2012, at 8:05 pm Picture this… it’s day three of a 5-day getaway in beautiful Hepburn Springs. We’re staying in a gorgeous bed-and-breakfast retreat, relaxing in front of a nice fire that warmed up the whole place – it’s working up to a top of 13°C outside – I’m nursing a really nice Trappist beer, and browsing the internet on my iPad. Moshe is happily catching up on his social media, and I somehow find my way to one of my favourite “window-shopping” fabric haunts, Shaukat & Company.
All of a sudden, I start jumping up and down. I’d found it! There it was – the fabric I’d seen ages ago made up into a gorgeous wrap dress by a very clever seamstress at Patchwork On Central Park! I’d been looking for it for a year, well more than that I think. And here it was! I couldn’t believe it. All there was to think about was how much I needed to get!
 Mirako in Orange Actually, I saw the fabric in Bright Pink first. I didn’t know it came in that colourway, and, still convinced I’d never find it in orange, and quite beside myself with joy that I’d found it at all, I squealed, and added 3.5 yards to my shopping cart, before continuing on my way through Shaukat’s virtual isles.
 Mirako in Bright Pink I really love it in pink actually, quite different, but it really rather grabbed me. I think it’ll look quite gorgeous sewn up.
So now I have both fabrics in the cart, the pink and the orange. I can’t say exactly what it is, but I just love this fabric. It just does something for me that I can’t put into words. I’m just so, so excited. Anyway, I decide to keep browsing just a wee bit longer. I mean, I am on holidays, after all. No need to rush. So I’m sauntering down the page, and I find myself staring at one of my latest new Liberty favourites – Matches.
 Matches in Black Oops! All by itself, it fell into my shopping cart! Seriously, I do not lie!
What a great holiday this is.
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Welcome! I'm so thrilled you're here! I'm Helene, and this blog is about my sewing, dressmaking, quilting, knitting, and sometimes other craft exploits.
