Cupcakes everywhere

There's something about having 2 princesses in the house that seems to inspire cupcakes. I finished Maddy's cupcake hat yesterday with some adjustments. My laziness just didn't pay off. The hat looks so much cuter with the dangly bits and pom pom. And yes, I did hand sew all those tiny beads on. 2 hours! Ugh. The cupcake princess is happy though.

More cupcakes:

The princess tea party on the lawn had pink cupcakes, pink lemonade and pink princesses.

Easter cupcakes with fluffy chicks (not entirely successful as a large amount of yellow fluff was consumed by small children intent on removing every scrap of icing)

and a cupcake tee to sell at the market (see, I am doing some sewing!)

Busy busy busy

The first Devonport Craft Market happens in a week and I am running it. I also have a stall at it and there are a great deal of things that should be done around the house (the kitchen table that I sanded last week needs varnishing for a start!) And yet.... I couldn't resist spending the best part of yesterday knitting a hat for my beautiful Eloise.

I found the pattern here: http://www.nakedsheep.com/cupcakehat.html but I made some adjustments. The pink part of my hat is shorter than suggested. I wouldn't do the 'nubble' part again as it such a fiddly thing to do. The next one I make will have 4 rows of garter stitch separating the cup and the cake, 2 in the cup colour and 2 in the cake colour. I also think I would either knit a ball or use felt for the cherry as pom poms use a ridiculous amount of yarn and I really don't enjoy making them. If you decide to use this pattern, the nubbles are made by casting on 4 stitches and then casting off 4 stitches. Very simple but very tedious when you have to do 40 of them.

TOTO KIDSWEAR to Cotton Kiwi

Oh this blog thing is a tricky business. I have just cancelled my typepad account to come over to blogspot as I find it so much easier to use. And the Devonport Craft Market blog is here too. Oh.... and its free. Yay for free!

And the name. That's tricky too. I came up with TOTO for my childrens's wear about 6 months ago. It means child in swahili. I lived in Kenya for a while so that's where that came from, but I was never really happy with it. Here I am in the beautiful New Zealand and so much I make is inspired by New Zealand so I will be changing my brand name to Cotton Kiwi in the near future (when my labels run out!) So apologies for any confusion. Just put it down to a creative process!