new clothes and less mud

(added moments after posting: Hello all who have found me via Whip Up. Hope you enjoy, and remember you can email me any time with questions)

With pants flapping at half mast I've had to spend time in the shed sewing for the youngest, and I've had to hurry up and finish a few jumpers for him too.
The pants are made from a range of cords, from thin to thick, all old material I've picked up around the place. Naturally one needs pockets to carry treasures around and each pair has several patch pockets, square and round, and all the pockets are made from contrasting vintage materials. Last year he had round patches on his knees with extra padding for those oh-no fall over moments, but this year I've turned them all into treasure carriers, but placed slightly above the knee.

The jumper is the Totem discontinued piece I've been working on. I found a bunch of Totem reduced to $1 a ball and grabbed a few colours and the result is a striped jumper. There were three balls of the tealy colour and two of the navy and the rest were one ball each. So the welts are in the navy and the stripe pattern is a doubled edged one. Every second stripe is in the teal, but the row sequence is the classic 1,3, 5, 8. Better know as the fibonacci sequence.



It's knit in the round, bottom up with set in sleeves. The sleeves have been knitted from the cap down two at once, in case I ran out of yarn, with a 3/4 cuff, perfect for youngsters who go to day care and love playing in water.
I've only to sew the sleeves in now and finish weaving in the ends.

I wrote the pattern myself, it is a rough 25 inch chest so there will be plenty of room for the boy to grow. I'll write it up properly later and stick it on the pattern page along with the stripe sequence.

In other news we are finally getting some success with the market placements. As the work slowly continues around the market areas (yes gutters are being laid), we have been able to invite potential stall holders who have been waiting patiently since late last year.

Ideally all this work would have been done months ago, particularly the clearing out of the last shed, and we could have had the 20-odd potential stalls on the reserve list from last year in. Since other markets have closed and more people have heard about the non-food side and the bent we are taking with diversity, (we have caps on the number of hand crafted stalls that produce the same product) we are getting more and more requests for permanent stalls, although if I hear one more person say "but my stuff is better-nicer-more professional-cheaper than theirs" I will scream.


Thankfully one of the other gals is a whiz with filing systems and has kept up to date all the incoming requests so people are being invited in the order of correct application, keeping in mind the diversity clause.
I've tried to sneak one or two in through early due to their financial need and had my hand spanked. Ouch. You could say I'm the softy of the trio, but luckily Jules has the ability to sniff out those who may stir up trouble. With 20 years of various markets she is a wonder to see operating she knows exactly what makes a market work.

Now I'd better go and weave in ends and finish the jumper for Jar to wear at WWKIP on Saturday, (see Ravelry for details) and then I get to pick up my February Ladies Sweater again. Yes finally I've been sucked in, it's the new clapotis.