Tiny coats and tiny dresses

When I have an attack of the Anxious and Unhappy, the first thing to go out the window is my blogging ability. This is because the only things I can think to write about are (in no particular order): how unhappy I am, how everything in my life is difficult if not impossible and how getting out of bed is the hardest thing in the world. How awful to record my abject self-pity for all time! I write it in my diary instead. Of course, my diaries read as though written by a woman with the worst of lives in the worst of all possible worlds, which is not at all the case. I am torn between hoping my fascinating inner life(!) will only be discovered and publicised after my death, and that my family will open the first diary, shriek at how awful it all is and burn the lot.

While blogging is effectively nixed, my anxiety downtimes will lead to a sudden increase in the production of knitted goods because it's been proven* that knitting helps to alleviate feelings of anxiety. And sewing - I've been working hard on letting myself enjoy the processes: of pre-washing and ironing fabric, of neatly cutting out the fabric and transferring the pattern markings to the pieces, sewing and finishing beautiful seams. I've been so proud of the garments that I've made since I've tried to move my focus from getting to the end of the process to the act of the process itself.

The most recent anxiety spell wasn't too different in that I spent a lot of time in bed, needles and yarn in hand. Best of all, I didn't need to make a decision between knitting myself yet more woolly hats, gloves and socks OR blowing a fortune on yarn from which to make myself a garment. I have a wee potential subject to knit for, namely lovely Bex's new baby.

So, I have been a veritable bootie factory. I made two pairs of these wee double moss stitch booties - one pair from a Knitsch sock yarn, and the other from some (?) left over from from Nat's wedding bolero. Silk and merino! Swoon.

The second pair of booties match the tiny matinee jacket with double moss stitch border. The buttons, which aren't that easy to see in this photo, are wee owls from my button stash.

The little frock is made using Made By Rae's free Itty Bitty Baby Dress pattern, fabric that I was lucky enough to win in Make it til you fake it's de-stash*, and bias and lace from my stash.

This is the second time that I've made this dress. My only gripe is about the construction notes - using these, the dress ends up with a mess of seams on the inside. This looks pretty rough and ready, and it would be easy enough to conceal them. If I was to make this a third time (and I fully intend to make it again because it's crazy easy and a superb stash-buster) I would throw caution to the wind and follow my own instincts in the construction.

Making little garments is deeply satisfying. I've learnt so much about the way garments are put together from knitting and sewing the tinies, and any mistakes/unravelling misadventures are automatically rendered less awful by the relative size of the project.


*By Studies.
*I also made some pyjama pants that are not good enough to show the rest of the world.