Just finished my winter coat, adapted from the free (!) Burdastyle Talea pattern (www.burdastyle.com/patterns/show/12). I made it a lot less busy, and had to adjust the sizing, as the shoulders and waist were huge on me. It's a bit of a labour of love - I've been working on it for weeks - but it wasn't that complicated, it's just a lot of coat to manoeuvre round your sewing machine! 

I got the fabric from ebay for super cheap - it's a great heavy pure wool, and I lined it in light grey polar fleece, so it's super warm, but not at all itchy to wear! Buttons were from my stash, so all in all, one very low budget coat!

These pics aren't the best, I'll try and get some natural light action shots when I can (too excited). My dressform has smaller boobs and bigger shoulders than me, so the fit isn't ideal, and the flash washed out all the colours - it's lovely and dark and subtle really, but you get the idea 

Yeah, I knitted the whole thing on DPNs cause I didn't have short enough circs. They were probably not long enough, either! I just kept the stitches really bunched up on the needles so nothing escaped off either end 

How many yards did you end up needing (roughly)?  I know the pattern called for 110 yd skeins (2) so I have an idea, but I didn't know if you needed all or most or hardly any of the second skein.  Just curious.  

My yarn was 127 yds a skein, and I used about 1 and a quarter - I think! It's hard to judge, but there's still a fair amount of my second skein left!

So you didn't need to use any crochet for the cast on?  That is great, that was the one thing that was keeping me from doing this hat!  

No, I wasn't feeling great, and the tubular cast on confused me, so I didn't bother! A couple of people on ravelry said they'd just gone with a regular long tail cast on and it worked ok, so I just did that, cast on 120, and it worked out fine

I did use a pattern, and can definitely recommend it. It knits up quick (I finished this in two evenings and am not a particularly quick knitter) and is easy to follow. I did disregard the cast on and just did a long tail one, but it still worked out fine!

Here:

http://www.loopknits.com/2008/10/13/grace-lace-beret-class/

 

It's a tongue-twister...I guess. This is actually my third ever completed knitting project (I've got about a hundred UFOs knocking about, but rarely finish anything) and I'm pretty proud of it. It's also the first time I've ever blocked anything, and it is indeed magical, although in my noviceness I have somehow managed to get some of the eyelets to widen more than the others, so the one on the fourth pattern row is quite the loner and kinda looks like he shouldn't be there! Oh well. Live and learn.

I love it, anyway, and I really like this yarn - it's Sublime extrafine merino, and it's really soft and warm. Winter days, here I come!

My niece will be 2 soon, and her mum has asked if I'll make her a birthday cake. Only problem is, she's allergic to milk, so all my current recipes are no good.

Can anyone suggest a good, tasty dairy-free cake and frosting recipe?

Thank you 

I'm so excited about finally being able to post here! Me and the mister just got married on September 26th, and cliché or otherwise, it was totally the best day of my life.

The day wasn't as crafty as I'd have liked it to be, but we planned it all in about 6 months, so I didn't want to be too ambitious, as I'm the master at leaving things to the last minute. In the end I made all the stationery, all my jewellery, constructed the centrepieces and favours, altered the cake topper and did my own make-up (hey, that counts!). I had my photos taken professionally, but I'm doing all the editing, and making my own album.



Not the most in-focus pic, but my tables!



Favour boxes! I just bought them in bulk from ebay and got my wedding committee (mum, aunt and cousin) to help put them together. Kept it simple with double sided tape and 2 kinds of ribbon.



Better pic of my centrepieces. Bought the bits from ikea, assembled and popped in single gerberas.



my place cards!



Seating plan - i designed and printed it at work so it was A3 and nice and shiny



My bouquet. I was planning to do my own flowers, but then my work surprised me with free ones - win! How awesome are they?



Rings, obviously.



Cake topper - I looked everywhere for a little baldy guy. I painted him on a head mole and the right colour eyes too!



Me! My favourite part of my dress was the back. So there's lots of photos of me from behind!



You may kiss the bride. Yay! You can just about see my grandma about to actually explode with happiness. I'm the first of her grandchildren to get married.



Mr & Mrs! You can see my necklace, earrings and bracelet in this one. I used freshwater pearls, peridot and sterling silver, and my necklace had a little heart shaped clasp <3

So my latest crafty love is baking, and after eyeballing all the mouth-watering cupcakes on this board, I decided to try my own.

The first batch (chilli chocolate with red vanilla buttercream frosting) wasn't the best looking -  I put WAY too much red colour into the buttercream, and it was practically luminous. I'm surprised I haven't turned red - but I quite surprised myself by how nice they tasted. Go me 





So then I went for batch 2. Vanilla with vanilla choc buttercream (oh yeah, I'm mad for the buttercream). And now I'm in love. I may not even eat them, just peek adoringly at them now and again! I'm particularly smitten with the tiny animal sprinkles!





And I know this is not a dessert, but while I was baking, my lovely hubby was hard at work making these ginger chicken spring rolls (from SCRATCH - what a star!), which were totally delicious 

I took this macro of one of the flowers in my wedding bouquet. Not sure what kind of flowers they were (believe possibly spider mums?) but I loved them cause they looked like little aliens

I am letting future husband name our tables after either Star Wars planets, or Babylon 5 races. He hasn't chosen yet. He's also made some cufflinks for himself and his best man with some kind of gaming symbol thing on. Had to let a little bit of geekery into the day!

How about Star Wars character models as cake toppers? You can hot glue a veil to the girl one (presumably Leia!). Or have a guestbook based on his favourite comic, with room left for people to write their messages?