this is my absolute favourite of nanny’s knits. the colour’s fab on madam (very blonde, big blue eyes) and the style’s really cute and funky. it took all of 5 balls of debbie bliss cotton cashmere. it’s a wonderful yarn, really soft and silky but quite heavy too, nanny said it was lovely to knit with. it’s machine washable at 30º but i’ll handwash to be on the safe side. it’s a good size, too, age 2-3 it just fits now but it’ll be a lng time till it’s as trim as the one on the pattern picture.

buster’s got new buttons!

they’re much easier to do up, and i think i prefer the cream look (if you’re so inclined you can check out the difference for yourself with the slide show feature in the gallery).

madam enjoyed shopping for them, though i didn’t enjoy vainly trying to keep her octopus-like arms from pulling out every tube of buttons from the rack.

this was the first of nanny’s knits and probably the only one that’ll be made in the proper rowan wool, for obvious financial reasons. i figured the big wool would be difficult to substitute plus it would be nice to see whether the rowan yarns are really worth it. the shade’s latte and i got it on ebay for a modest discount. fair do’s it is lovely, toasty warm and very light and soft. i love the colour, a bit more restrained than the original bubblegum pink. it’s a size 2-3 and it’s a bit on the big side right now, but still wearable and will likely still fit next autumn/winter.

there was enough wool left over for a rather lovely hat, which i reckon will take about 10 years for her to grow into. fits me a treat though

age 2-3 again, in the same bargain (well, comparatively ) discontinued matchmaker dk. image shows the purple darker than it looks in rl. this fits perfectly too, though the buttons are a tight squeeze. i might see if i can find anything a bit smaller at crafty sew n sew, maybe in cream, though the purple looks fine. think it was very wise to follow nanny’s suggestion not to use the cream on the sleeves…

photo’s a bit blurred but show the colours quite well.

in (if i remember right) jaeger matchmaker DK, on special at kangaroo.uk.com. didn’t have a huge choice of colours so i picked the dusky purple, dark purple and cream and decided to work out colour combinations when they arrived. we were worried there wouldn’t be enough contrast between the two purples for this, but it’s turned out perfect, with a similar contrast to the greys used in the original.

(again, if i remember right) the yarn is 100% merino wool, machine washable. it’s really light, smooth and soft.

it fits perfectly (age 2-3), with just a little growing room in the arms, though it wouldn’t have hurt to have an extra inch or so to grow into in the body. there’s nearly a ball of each left so nanny’s going to make up a multi-stripe version of this, maybe adding some pink to lift it a little.