TdF day 16 - knittings out of the house

I promise this is the last you will see of my baby hats. I took the lot to the local maternity ward yesterday. 31 in all, if you want to know. And even if you don't. Wool, cotton and bamboo yarns, and a set of 4 in baby acrylic.

Four knitted blankets, these are all in baby acrylic.

Five tiny preemie quilts from earlier this year, one of my PIPs.

And finally the Angel Pods.

The nurses were pleased to receive all this. More than 1,000 babies come to the world there every year. They are getting hats from other knitters too.

The Tour was too exciting yesterday , I had to watch it from the beginning to the end. The Col du Tourmalet is the first thing I remember about this Tour from many many years back. All I can do without constantly looking at my hands is knitting, so here is the result:

I had about half of the blue square knitted on the rest day, and finished last night when the red square was ready. I have several balls of both yarns so this will be a red and blue blanket.

Our apple trees are full of promises of apples. Last year there was hardly anything, so this year my cellar will be filled with apple sauce jars again.

PIPS 2

This week I was supposed to clean my cutting table so I could start a new project from a clean desk so to say. Instead of cleaning the table like any sensible quilter would do (in 5 minutes, because they are not me), I just took one of the fabric piles there and found a Project in Progress. Oh how nice, Stephanie challenged everyone to finish their PIPS this year! I hurried to find the other pile of fabrics that belonged together with pile number one, to start finishing my PIPS. I found ready cut squares in three sizes, some lonely blocks, long strips of fabric and a large piece of white flannelet. I arranged the big squares first and made this Nine-Patch:

I cut some more of the middle sized squares and they turned into this:

The smallest squares became this:

There were some leftover blocks as well, with pale yellow centres. I used the remaining purple squares and added green borders to make my fourth preemie quilt.

The last one is a tiny quilt for a tiny preemie or a stillborn baby, with super soft bamboo knit backing:

 

When I get my Angel Pods finished I will take all these to the local Maternity ward to be given to the families and their babies. Five PIPS finished in two days! The table is still suffering from restricted access, but at least I put the baby fabrics away where they belong.

First PIP and some Winter fun

The new year began with many good intentions, and joining Stephanie's PIPS 2012 was one of them. Here is my first finish of a Project in Process from last year, two Christmas ornaments with a pattern from Suzie. I'm working on a secret project at the moment so no other crafty pictures yet.

We have snow now, and someone thought the concrete swans at the little playground in the pedestrian area needed something to wear against the cold:

All three of them have traffic cones on their heads. I think they could use warm scarves around their long necks too!

Bullfinches come to our feeder regularly. They change places so quickly that I can't count them, but at least 20 of them have been there at the same time. Today's temperature has dropped to -17C/+1.4F, so the poor things need a lot of sunflower seeds.

In the evenings I have been knitting Angel Pods for stillborn babies using Kaite's pattern. She has just amended the hood to be stitched with 33 to 35 stitches. Here is my first version with the too small hood:

When I have finished some in different sizes I will take them to the local maternity ward. They may only need a few of these in a year, because all risk pregnancies are directed to a bigger hospital.