Alice Jean

The dress is made with 300 grams King Cole Merino . I have purchased the Aran colour and kettle dyed it in my own chosen colourway. It is knitted top-down, following my own pattern. After the increases for the skirt I finished the sleeves and neck first. Then I knitted the skirt until there was only 1 metre of yarn left. The dress fits perfectly well and it will fit another season. Doortje loves to wear it, it is soft and warm. And I have made another pair of longies. These were made with a regular Merino, kettle dyed in 'Dusty Rose'. They are fitting tight and were a excellent guinea-pig to try cabling for a long, almost forgotten, time. I like how they turned out.

This time it seems to be the real thing. Dd is coming out of nappies for the daytime. For me it is the end of an era. She will be the last baby in our family and this growth is making me proud and sad at the same time. She has moved out of her cot two weeks ago and sleeps now in a real princess bed. For the time being it is at its minimum size, though it is extendable to a maximum adult size. She is growing so fast. That is a good thing of course, but sometimes I'm wondering where my little baby has gone!

Just a picture: these are the real Dutch Treats, part of them very special for December. Someone asked why there was no 'drop' in the picture. Drop is a Dutch liquorice, it differs a bit from the English type. Here you can see some examples. The truth is: I'm not hooked to liquorice.

I love to do both. The last couple of weeks where like crazy, as the holidays used to be. We have had a lot of people around here and had a great time. Of course I did some knitting work and dyed wool. I bought merino sock yarn and merino Aran weight. They dye beautifully and easily. Before Christmas I did a mini swap with a friend back in the Netherlands. Doortje and I were very excited to get a lovely Pippi Longstocking skorts. Dd loves Pippi and her friends, she has all the DVD's of the original series and watches them regularly. I made for my friends daughter a pair of shorts. I used Blue Faced Leicester, dyed the wool following the Amazing Gradients tutorial of IBK , knitted a pair of shorts out of it and embellished them with a castle in the clouds.