Craft Files: Do the Robot

I thought I'd do a wee post tonight to show you some of the cool crafty stuff that has come across my radar in the last week or two.  By far the most impressive things come from my Mum and my Aunty Phil (no surprises there, these two are craft goddesses after all) but I've thrown in one of my projects just so you can see that I do actually do more than crap on about how useless I am.

My Mum recently finished knitting a cute cardi for my nephew, Marcus, who has just turned two.  She brought it with her when she came to visit for Edie's 1st Birthday.  She was trying to decide whether to add a subtle monogram or to cover the thing in robots.  Sounds a bit random, I know, but there was method to her madness.  Marcus has a pair of PJs that have robots on them and he loves them.  So much so I believe it can be a job to get him out of the PJs and into other clothes.  Other clothes are only able to surpass the robots in desirability if they have Thomas the Tank Engine on them.  I often feel the same, don't you?  Anyway, Mum figured that without the robots, the cardi had a classic cool to it that would appeal to adults admiring his cuteness.  But plastering it in robots would mean that Marcus would love his cardi and want to wear it.  So the decision was clear cut really: robots it would be.  Mum made sketches of the pajama robots and transferred these onto a grid so she could design how they would be embroidered around the knitting stitches.  Then she chose complimentary wool colours to embroider with and went to work.  A few googly eyes for good measure, and voila - a robot cardi.  I especially like that she still went for the monogram but just gave it googly eyes as well so it was in theme.  I love it so much I'm tempted to get Mum to put a few robots on some of my knits...

Note Mum Photography - finger over flash, slightly blurry.  In fairness, it may have been my Dad or my brother who took these.

The sketches (that Mum went over with a sharpie so we could see them :o)

Robots on the back

Robots on the front

This piece of gorgeousness arrived in the post for Edie last week.  Aunty Phil knitted this jacket and bonnet in 2 ply.  If that means nothing to you, knitting in 2 ply is like knitting with dental floss (except snugglier).  Basically, you need to do twice the work to get half the distance.  The pay off is that you can do fine work and it looks beautiful.  For a slacker like me that's not enough incentive, but for a seasoned pro like Aunty Phil, it's worth it.  And you can see where she's coming from.  It certainly is impressive.  Plus the colours on Edie look so cute.  I will be doing my best to keep the chocolate/marmite/weet-bix fingers away from this one.

And this is my contribution to the Craft report.  Bianca sent Edie a gorgeous apron smock for her birthday from Chick Pea so when I needed to come up with something for the 1st birthday of one of Edie's besties, I thought I would make my own version.  I found some cute fabric at Spotlight and then went to the manchester department and bought some plastic table runner to make the spill-proof front.  I traced the Chick Pea smock and went from there.  I thought I'd add a personal touch by putting the birthday girl's initial on the front.  It's far from perfect but it should still be serviceable for all the baking and art adventures she and Edie will embark on.  Don't you just love how parents force friendships upon their children?  You are friends so surely your kids will like each other.  It's quite a ridiculous concept.  But in this case, it will work because I say so.
Anyway, after paying my Mum out about the photos of the robots, the photos I took of the smock are pretty hilarious.  This was about the third go to get Edie to play ball.  What's the famous adage about never working with animals or children??  The previous photo shoot resulted in her passing out with tiredness and I had to peel the smock off her so she could sleep without plastic crackling sounds.  You'll get the idea anyway.

Lastly I saw this on a blog I enjoy, Prudent Baby.  I don't own many t-shirts as they tend to look bad on me but I thought I could probably find something retro-cool at a second-hand store and easily whip up one of these in the summer.  So simple and potentially awesome.