FINISHED! Baby leg warmers in Bleu de Genes Bamboo

We have been lazing around on holidays, the weather has been average, so the kids have been playing with Hero Factory so I have been trying to knit. It's the right kind of holiday really, especially when visiting family. Imagine the damage I could do with all this spare time if only I had my sewing machine!  By now you must be sick of these baby leg warmers, but I have to close them off and post them as a finished present.  So here they are in all their wobbly lo-fi glory. I bought a little 'body' from Petit Bateau to go with them as they looked a bit lonely on their own as a present.
In the end I used about 50grams of the bamboo/linen wool.. so if you need to weigh your wool for this project that's how much you'll need!

Originally these were going to go to a little baby boy due in April, but I think now I'll swap this present with the beanie I made earlier in the year. Anyway, for now let's pretend it's going to the April baby.  His big sister received this quilt from us back in May 2011.  I could hardly call it a quilt because it is so simple, it is hand quilted - but only minimally.  I do love it though and the fabric is from the delightful MummySam on Spoonflower.  I love her love letter fabric.

Did anyone buy the new pattern from Colette the Laurel?  It is growing on me and now I'm hatching a little plan for a winter one to make on my return to Australia.  The sun is shining here - finally - so it might be time to get out of the apartment and walk around Strasbourg, maybe down along the river to Petite Emilienne to see what fabrics they have in store.  How cute is their little bunny bag for Easter?

French knitting, d'accord!

We returned to the La Droguerie earlier in the week.  I admit to being just a litle bit intimidated by La Droguerie and the whole process of asking for the wool so ended up calling Ben back from the toy shop with the boys to help me translate.

At the time I wished I'd taken some photographs of the process, because the way they actually wind the wool off the main roll onto a smaller roll and weigh as you go is super cool.  It is just so cute and seems very old school.   I chose some very cute wool: 100g each of this bamboo/linen combination.and also some Liberty piping - because they have SOOO much Liberty binding and piping. The lady kindly asked if I knew what it was used for, at least that's the translation that came to me from Ben.  

So, using my newly bought wool, I finished one leg of the leg warmers.  Yes, I started in a different wool before leaving Austalia and finished one leg in different wool earlier in the week, but hey! I'm on holidays.  I will definitely finish the other leg in this wool. I promise myself.

Ben also bought me this 100% wool beret from La Droguerie.
Yes, that is Oliver in the blue jacket racing off, desperate to find a shop with lego, not fabric, not wool, lego!

We went back to La Droguerie today because, well let's face it, I'm getting a bit over the leg warmers.  Don't get me wrong, it is a super cute pattern and I really enjoy (!!!!) knitting with the double pointed needles, I really do, but I feel a bit like I'm 'French Knitting' . Like I'm 7 again and knitting tubes. I'm going to finish the other leg and then move onto something else.. a scarf...? Well that's hardly exciting but Elliot needs one.  If you have any ideas of something that's easy but is a little bit of a challenge let me know.  I went back to La Droguerie today and bought some Alpaca because the ladies said it would be warmer.  Again, I think that's what they said! Yes, I've got a bit of a blue thing going on at the moment.  I asked if I could take a photo of them winding the wool but they said photos were forbidden.  

P.S.  Do you like David Sedaris?  I love him and think he is just so funny.  I am always reminded of this piece of his when in France... my French is not great, so find myself saying "d'accord" quite a bit! If you can find him reading it is even funnier. 

la droguerie Strasbourg

We arrived into Strasbourg yesterday through Frankfurt airport, which had snow!  As I mentioned on twitter yesterday: it was nice  to finally watch The Sapphires.  What a lovely Australian movie.  I managed to convince Ben that he should watch it too and he loved it and had a tear or two.  I also managed to watch two out of four parts of a documentary on Bill Clinton, This is Roller Derby and Paul Kelly: Stories of Me.  All highly recommended. Not bad in flight entertainment really.

 

So, now we settle into le Tour de la Famille (though we have next week off le tour for ski-ing).  As you would expect it is all wine and cheese and bread and wine and cheese and chocolate.  I am posting quite a lot of photos on instagram so follow along.

We did manage to pop into le centre ville this morning to do some errands where I stumbled across this store, la droguerie.  I was transfixed.  This is a new store for Strasbourg and wasn't here last time we were here in October 2011.

From the few seconds I was able to gaze in and snap a few quick phone photos it seems to sell fabric, wool, cute cute notions and a whole lot of other lovelies which I was only able to glimpse at as the boys (one big, two small) dragged me off.  A visit without the family is in order.