In need of some knitting

I haven’t been knitting much lately. To be honest, I haven’t hold my knitting needles for over a month now. With the birth of my demanding baby girl number two, my time for crafting became very, very limited. I started a striped baby blanket on the week before she was born, which I finished knitting about a month ago. More than six months have now passed since I started that blanket and I’m still not done with what I enjoy the least – weaving in the loose ends. I love stripes but it just comes with too many loose ends…

I have managed to do a few small craft projects in the meantime… All with hearts and made with love.

I learned how to do duplicate stitch and applied it to these two baby projects:

 

More recently, I have been practicing my crocheting on a basket for baby toys:

 

I am almost in desperate need of knitting something… it would be really helpful in managing my currently high anxiety levels. I am feeling though that I really, really need to finish that baby blanket to be able to move on. Hopefully I will show you the finished product soon, and will cast on a new baby project on my needles 😊!

Keyrings!

Keyrings are also part of my crafting portfolio (other things previously posted here, here, here, and here). Some more creative than others, more or less labourious with lots of cutting… Most of them, if not all, will have hearts on them.

I have made them for family, friends, charity…

Besides my knitting

Over the last couple of years I have been away from work for quite some time, for the reasons I previously posted. I have been lucky enough to have lots of support from family, especially from my husband, friends and specialists. Many, many, many hours have been passed at home though. I could spend most days in the sofa doing nothing. However, when I put my mind into being creative my days became much, much better. Doing something different almost every time challenged my mind into doing something positive 🙂!

Here you have a few things… Some are knitted, but many others hand stitched, sewed, crocheted…

All done with lots of…

My first pieces

I love knitting small projects and experimenting on different pieces and patterns. Here you have some of my experiments:

My first baby hat

My first baby blanket

My first baby cardigan

My first baby cardigan knitted from top to bottom

My first baby dress

My first baby vest

My first baby shoes and headband

My first baby toys

My first stress ball

My first baby cardigan with hearts

My first skirt

Why knitting with hearts?

A couple of years ago… my husband and I had our first baby, a beautiful baby girl! She was born with a complex congenital heart condition called hypoplastic left heart syndrome. She had surgery the day she was born but due to unforeseen complications, she sadly passed away when she was one week old. As parents, letting the ECMO machine being turned off was the most difficult thing we ever experienced…

We think about our baby angel every single day! and we hope she is in a better place now…

Crafting with hearts, including knitting with hearts, helps me doing something useful and, at the same time, having my thoughts with our baby angel. Hearts are also the simbol of love… Anyway, with or without hearts my crafting is done with lots of LOVE…

Just wanted to share with you my latest project, a skirt for my second baby girl.

Knitting with hearts – how it started

It all started a couple of years ago…

Knitting and other crafts have been part of my therapy in the recent years. Although I learned basic knitting stiches and a few other things from a very young age, I had never put it into something useful, and that knowledge was just stored in the back of my mind… for ages!

After a sad life changing moment, I have then started knitting as a way of relieving my anxiety, and it seems to be working as I am managing to be away from pills!! I hope this and other hobbies work as a therapy for other people too…

This was my first knitting project, a baby blanket for a friend who was expecting her second baby.

I also did a few more things for her:

 

Since then, I have been knitting much more, mostly for babies, and my favourites are baby hats with hearts.

… and that is how it started!