Sunny Sunshine Top

About this time last year, not long after baby D's amazing home birth and with all the energy I was saving by co-sleeping, I had a real rush of "I can do anything" juice (not to mention maternity allowance and being in the middle of the summer hols). One of the books I'd bought to keep up my spirits before she arrived was Cute Crochet for Tiny Tots, and of course I rashly bought all the yarn to make not one, but two pieces of clothing for K, oddly enough, not for D. I'd wanted and promised to make them for ages, got started on the first, and then baby D came out of that newborn phase where they sleep and feed all day and you can do all sorts without them grabbing at you. And after that K started school, so there were school runs to do, homework to supervise, and uniforms to be washed through the dreary winter. So everything went on hold, my creative mojo completely fizzled out and all of these projects got filed to the back of my mind, with a mild worry that K would grow so fast over the next year that she wouldn't fit into anything I'd promised.

Back view - delicious little buttons!

Still, over the last couple of years I've got pretty good at reading patterns, and I could see from the outset that this one at least would scale up for a larger child without too many problems - just some extra yarn would be all that was needed. As to that, it's worked in Rowan Glace and Rowan 4-ply cotton - I believe at least one of those has been discontinued now, which is a real shame. If you know of a good alternative please let me know in the comments!


K has nicknamed it her "Sunny Sunshine Top", which is about right - just look at those yummy ice cream soda buttons! They are Dress It Up buttons from Debbie Cripps. The straps are simply stitched-on ribbons with little crochet flowers on the front.


Things I learnt: Not a whole lot, actually, as this was a really simple project - but I probably should have put more ribbon length on, the bows are a little shorter than I would have liked. It did teach me a fair bit about scaling up patterns, though.

I have a ton of little finishes and the button swap still to write about - bear with me, I'm hoping to get a few more posts done this week, D's naptime permitting.