More from the Archives

Hey look!  Baby booties!

(Don't get any ideas, they're not for any current or pending babies).

Speaking of Secret Santees, these are baby booties I knit for a college alumni Santee a couple of years ago.  She was pregnant at the time, and someone I actually knew (not always the case in this particular exchange), so I did something specialish for her.  Unfortunately, I have no memory of what yarn I used.  Frog Tree Alpaca, maybe?  Not fuzzy enough, I think.

I don't remember what pattern I used, either.  But they're supercute, and I think I enjoyed the pattern at the time.  They're seamless, and there was some cool and magical cast-on that started from the middle of the sole.  

I have no idea if the Santee actually used them.  But that wasn't really the point, so I'm okay with not knowing.

From the Archives, sort of

About a year ago, I made a lovely yellow Aran sweater for my friend Meowkat's imminently-arriving baby.  She did send me pictures of the sweater in action (better than that -- she brought him over to my house wearing the sweater once!) but I never got around to posting them.  Consider that an oversight, and consider it corrected.

The sleeves are crazy-long and she has them rolled up so they're more manageable.  But the body of the sweater fit him!

These pictures are actually from April or May.  He probably doesn't fit the sweater anymore.  Well, maybe the sleeves, but not the rest of it.

Action Shot

This is KnittingQueen's baby. Out for a walk on a fine October day (okay, so I've been sitting on this photo for a while), wrapped in the blanket I knit for her. Is she adorable, or what?

More babies on the way!

I'm at that stage in life where freakin' everyone I know is having a baby. Everyone. It's a baby-splosion up in here. Most recently, Meowkat has been the lucky mom-to-be. I offered to throw the Burlington-area knitters shower way back in the summer when I didn't know that this fall was going to be craaaaazy-busy, and we finally made it happen at the beginning of November.

The fall has been so busy, though, that I didn't quite have my gift for her finished for the shower. Eh, it happens. At some point, I just realized that I could either throw a baby shower or finish the baby sweater I was knitting her, but not both. So I threw the shower and gave her an unfinished sweater (which I immediately took back so I could finish it, of course). Well now it's done! I did the final seam at a conference in Boston the week after the shower. I think I was also knitting this sweater in Cleveland. And in New Haven, CT. So it's a well-traveled baby sweater, and there's not even a baby yet! He's due this week.

I figure as long as I got the sweater done before he's born, I'm still okay.

I'd been having a hankering to knit an aran sweater as fall came upon us and the pull toward cozy knits grew strong. I even went out and bought some beautiful and perfect yarn for just such a sweater. But seeing as how I'm still plugging away on Husband's monotonous stockinette sweater and it's taking me FOREVER (I've started the sleeves four times now! Argh!), and I've also got multiple almost-but-not-quite finished sweaters for myself, I just didn't feel right starting yet another sweater for myself yet. But given the baby-splosion...

I promptly went out and bought some gorgeous Malabrigo Rios (okay, okay, I was checking out The Knitting Studio's new location and gave in to temptation), and flipped through StrungUp's pattern library (mine doesn't have much baby stuff) until I found the Heirloom Aran Sweater (Rav link). Perfect! I cast on pretty much right away, and knit whenever I had a chance. It made for good travel-knitting on my Cleveland trip, but all my other trips this fall have been driving trips, so I didn't get as much done as I'd have liked.

A couple of nights before the shower, this is where I was, progress-wise:

The sleeves on this sweater are loooooong. Too long. But most baby sweater patterns have sleeves that are too short, so whatever. It just took a while to knit the sleeves. But it's a baby sweater, so that's totally relative.

Anyway, I plugged away and had the sleeves done for the shower, and finished the neckband during the shower itself. I got to the seams eventually and finished them during a conference-slash-visit with my sister in Boston.

And here's the finished product!

See, the sleeves were so long that I ended up folding up the cuffs. If I knit this sweater again, and I may very well some day, despite other Ravellers' complaints that it's a poorly-written pattern (I didn't think it was great, but it wasn't so bad I would bother to complain about it), I will shorten the sleeves about 3 inches.

Now I just have to find a time to get it to Meowkat, who's supposed to be having this baby...today. So, um. Yeah.

I cannot wait to see this on Baby Whatshisname someday. He'll be adorable! Congratulations, Meowkat and Meow-husband.




The obligatory Jared Flood-inspired artsy knitting photo. Although I'm not so sure my light is as nice as his.



Also, Happy Thanksgiving everyone! It's my favorite day of the year. I'm going to go hang out with the Most Awesome Nephew in the World now.

Adventures in Blocking on the Road

My friend LiturgyGeek had a baby. A daughter. BabyLG, we can call her. She was born a few months ago now, but I didn't rush to make her something because I knew I wanted to make a baby sweater for her -- and, well, she was born at Easter. She lives in Iowa and won't need a baby sweater until the fall. A six-month size sweater will be perfect for her. And I knew I would see her Mama in July. Sooooo I didn't rush to get anything done and in the mail.

Anyway, July is here. Seeing LiturgyGeek (and meeting BabyLG) involved a trip to Tampa, Florida (not because they live there, but because the United Church of Christ national meeting was there, and LG and I both had to attend). About a week before take-off, I put down the sweater I'm making for Husband, found a pattern I liked, and bought some yarn.

Side note: can I just take a moment to say how excited I am that Malabrigo is making a superwash worsted now? I'm surely the last person on the planet to have discovered this, but DUDE. Rios is an amazing yarn. I am totally smitten. I would use it for non-baby projects! I would make big-person-sized sweaters out of it! Hooray for gorgeous kettle-dyed superwash wool!

Okay. So I bought the Malabrigo Rios -- two skeins, just in case, but it turns out that I only needed one -- and cast on and had the body, like, a third of the way done by that evening. I knitted on the plane to Florida, I knitted in meetings whenever I could... At one point, LG said to me, "by the way, I haven't seen you knitting here! Are you working on anything? What are you making?" And I got a little cagey. I think I said something like, "Yeah, I'm working on something. I'll, uh, show you later." She got it, and did not push. This is the sign of a good friend-of-a-knitter.

Anyway, I finally finished the sweater about 3 or 4 days in to the meeting. And it totally needed to be blocked. Fortunately, I was staying in a fabulous Embassy Suites suite, and was therefore well-supplied with both space and tools. I pulled out the ironing board and iron, grabbed a washcloth, and went to town with a bit of washcloth-steam blocking. It's a sweet little sweater, but those leaves on the front don't stay flat on their own! (LG, now that the sweater is blocked, you shouldn't have to worry about this again.)

Also, I accidentally dyed the washcloth purple. Sorry, Embassy Suites!

It all worked out in the end. The blocking part, that is. I honestly have no idea if the hotel got the dye out of the washcloth, but I would assume they did. Hotels are generally pros at bleaching the towels.

And the finished product came out nicely. The Cascade pattern is really cute, and very simple to make. I didn't make any modifications this time, but if I were to do it again (and I might some day) I'd make a sixth leaf at the bottom of the placket instead of cutting it off at 5 for the seed-stitch band. It doesn't seem like it would be that hard to add, although I understand why the author wrote the pattern the way she did.

I added on the buttons during the business meetings on the next-to-last day of the event. We introduced electronic voting this year, and it took a bit of experimentation to get the hang of sewing on a button and pressing the clicker-thingy at the same time (in the past we just had cards to hold up, which isn't as hard because it doesn't involve the same set of fine motor skills that sewing on buttons requires). It all worked fine, and the buttons looked good AND I voted for important stuff like LGBT human rights.

Most importantly, LG and her husband Backbencher loved the sweater. And I'm sure that BabyLG will look adorable in it this fall, when it actually fits her. LG has promised to send a photo of BabyLG in the finished product when it does fit. For now, just enjoy this Jared-Flood-esque photo of the button band.

Baby Surprise (it's yet another) Jacket!

Okay, so my friend I've been knitting a baby gift for is currently on an airplane, headed in my direction (well, actually, we're meeting up in Madison, WI. But I'm already there, and she's in a plane). So I can finally show you photos of what I've been making for her, since she'll be receiving her gift soon.


Surely you knew I'd be making her a BSJ, right? RIGHT? I mean, come on.

Here is BSJ #5, also known as "green is a unisex color for babies!" I'm all about gender-neutral clothing for babies anyway, and it seems like the only way you can get them these days is to make them yourself. Also, when I started knitting the sweater, we didn't know if the baby is supposed to be a boy or a girl anyway, and I don't know if they're going to find out or not. Also-also, I had some green superwash left from another baby project I was doing at the same time. And some navy blue. And seriously, what's cuter than a navy blue stripe on a baby sweater?

So the question is, can you spot the error in this sweater? Can you tell why I had to rip and redo a few inches of BSJ?









It's right there. One side of picked-up stitches came out on the wrong side. Whoops.

Also, it turns out I ran out of green yarn before the end of the sweater, so I had to get creative with my striping. Still, though. Seriously cute!

(FO photo to follow, after the Proud Mama has actually received it.)


Also yes, those are the Knitpicks Harmony Options needles. My darling Husband gave them to me for Christmas. He's the best.

Not Just Any Baby Gift

When your really awesome knitting friend -- the one who got you back into knitting in the first place -- the one who reminded you of everything about knitting that your mom taught you when you were eight and you had since forgotten -- the one who would teach you how to do new knitting techniques while you were both waiting backstage before the choir concert -- the one whose now-defunct knitting blog first inspired your own still-going knitting blog -- the one who still, 10+ years after it all started, insists that you take turns flying across the country just so you can knit together every four months or so -- when that knitting friend gets pregnant, what the heck do you knit her?

Not just any baby gift.

You go to Northeast Fiber Arts. You buy 20 skeins of Debbie Bliss Rialto DK (you hope you can return whatever you don't use, but it turns out you can't return it after 30 days, and you've picked a project that you will spend more than 30 days doing, if only because you are a pastor and you were dumb enough to buy the yarn before Christmas and then leave it sitting in a bag for a month before casting on in the first place). You grab your Mason-Dixon Knitting book (the first one). And you cast on for the Moderne Baby Blanket. For this particular knitting friend, you will Log-Cabin your little heart out.

And then you make yourself write a blog post about it so that you are forced to block the darn thing and put it in the actual mail.

I can't wait to welcome you to the world, Baby Knitting Queen! I love you already!

Making Progress

Okay. It's been a while since I posted. I have been knitting, but I have been knitting baby gift things for friends, many of which are surprises. In the interest of not blowing the surprise, I haven't been posting.

Also, I am again stuck by my inability to transfer photos from my Blackberry to my computer. Apparently there is this thing called a "cable" that "plugs in" to connect the two, but... well, it's all the way over in my desk drawer, and that's in a whole 'nother room. Too difficult.

But:
*I have started sewing the labyrinth rug around the filler cord. It's taking for-freaking-ever. It's also been sitting on my living room floor for four months now. Every morning, as I'm getting dressed and standing on my cold bedroom floor in bare feet, I think "man, I wish that rug were finished so I could have something warm to stand on." Motivation. I got it. But apparently not enough.
*Baby Gift #1 is finished, I just have to block and cut ends (which are already woven in, thankyouverymuch.
*Baby Gift #2 is almost finished. There is one seam and a little bit of end-weaving, and then it's done too. A one-seam baby gift? You should know what this is. Mama may or may not read my blog. I see her in 5 weeks, so this will get finished up relatively soon.
*I purchased that one final skein of yarn I needed for my Minimalist Cardigan today! HUZZAH! I was (a) in a store that sells LPW in Bulldog Blue and (b) remembered to buy it! At the same time! Tomorrow I will look at the yarn in the daylight and make sure it actually matches. This is a huge step in finally finishing the darn thing. A year ago I wrote a post in which I admitted to working on the darn thing for "a shamefully long time." A year ago. And since then? No progress. Until today!
*I also purchased the one last skein of yarn I needed for the Lizard Ridge Blanket I've been wanting to do for a while. I shall cast on for this soon. I know, I know, I could have started it without that one last skein, but I want to look at everything I have and do a bit of strategizing with the colors before I cast on. It's a getting-the-big-picture thing, because I know I won't like the finished product if I don't plan it right from the beginning.

Here. A photo from the "archives" because I can't give you anything new. This is Doc deciding he likes the Kiki Mariko rug. And looking kind of undignified at the same time. Poor sweet kitty.

Opinions?

Owl vest is done! (Actually, it was done quite a while ago, I just haven't posted until now.)

I'm not entirely sure I love the owlie outlined with duplicate stitch this way. It is starting to grow on me, though. Except that, really, I was thinking it would be kind of like the LaCoste alligator (this is for a Texas baby -- Dallas parents who now live in Austin), and I've now realized that the owls will be marching across his tummy, not his pecs. That kind of makes me love the outlining less in general. So I'm soliciting opinions. What do you think of the outlined owl? Should I take it out altogether? Should I do a different kind of stitching (I also tried chain and blanket, and they both didn't work -- duplicate is the best of what I've tried so far)? What to do?

Owls!

My friend Amanda had a baby a couple of weeks ago. I tend to be pretty bad about knitting gifts for friends' babies, and I'd like to be better about it. I used the awesome new Ravelry search tool (Rav link), and found the Owl Baby Vest (and again), grabbed some Superwash 220 and my size 4 and 5 circulars, and knit this baby up in about 3 days.

Well, okay, it's been about 3 days so far. I'm almost done, but as of this writing, still have the ribbing around the arm holes to complete. Soon... I've got to block it and mail it before Baby G. outgrows it! It would be big on him right now -- and should be just right for a Texas winter! -- but knowing how bad I tend to be about getting things in the mail... I've got to seize the moment.

I did make a couple of minor mods in the pattern, nothing big. I put the decreases for the v-neck and armholes in one stitch on each side (so instead of p2tog, p to last 2 sts, p2tog, I did a p1, p2tog, p to last 3 sts, p2tog, p1). I also mirrored the decreases. And I thought the V-neck instructions made the V look a bit sloppy, so fudged that a little bit in order to make the V look better. And instead of 8 sts wide for the top of the shoulders, I went with 9 sts. Just a smiiiiidge more width, and the baby's head will still be able to get through the neck hole just fine.

Look! OWLS! CUTE!!!



I'm toying with the idea of outlining one of the owls in white or light blue -- some kind of contrasting color -- but don't want to buy a whole ball for just one yard. Any Burlington friends have some scraps of Superwash 22o in white or light blue?

Elephant!

While I was in Texas this past March, my sister was in...India. With husband and baby. That's right, she took a four-month-old baby to India. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. I didn't set foot on an airplane until I was fifteen years old. Can I be jealous of my nephew for being more well-traveled than I am? Is that okay?

They went to an elephant sanctuary and had a great time. I assume that Nephew slept through it all; he certainly won't remember any of it later. So I knitted him an elephant (Rav link), another one of the patterns in Zoe Mellor's Knitted Toys.

I love the projects in this book so much, but the patterns are so badly written. So much unnecessary seaming! It's infuriating! Not that I plan to knit another elephant, but I've been trying to figure out how to improve the process of this pattern -- what can be done in the round, etc. So dumb. But I digress...

I used Colinette Cadenza again, the same yarn I used for both toy bears I made last year. A great yarn for baby toys, soft and washable, and also good quality. I used the "Jewel" colorway for the elephant, because the colors made me think of the flash and color and beauty of India (not that I've seen them myself). And although I looked at this colorway on the shelf a zillion times and thought, "goodness, that's some ugly yarn! Who in the world would want those colors together?" when I decided to make this pattern, I knew that was the exact right colorway for this particular elephant.

I did manage to do a three-needle bind-off for the two gusset pieces (can I just say, how unhelpful is it to call the belly of the elephant a "gusset?" Legs, body, trunk...gusset? That is not a body part! Dumb!!! It's the underside of the elephant, the belly!!! GRRR!!!), so didn't have to get out the tapestry needle for that one. Then I blocked all the pieces -- and I must admit, I didn't know the Hot-Iron-On-Wet-Washcloth Blocking Trick before doing this pattern, and I love it and will forever be grateful to Zoe Mellor and her terrible pattern-writing for teaching me this technique -- and set about the stupidly time-consuming task of sewing them all together.

Seriously, it took me as much time to do the sewing as it took to do the knitting. Eye roll. The entire car ride to their house, then two nights on the couch... I had to give Nephew the not-quite-finished elephant before bed in order to get pictures of him playing with it (he liked it, I'm glad to say!), and then had to stay up until the wee hours of the morning before our departure to get all the seaming and stuffing done. Hence the terribly-lit late-night photo above.Still, I'm happy with the finished product, even if the process left something to be desired. Also, my nephew is so beautiful! He's slightly over six months in this picture (and today is his 7-month birthday).

BSJ #1 in use!

Remember the Baby Surprise Jacket I knit for Sister's Baby way back in the spring? Here it is in action:


Nephew is 2 weeks old in this photo, and the jacket is too big for him, but that makes it even more adorable. He's been growing like gangbusters (he's biggest -- and happiest -- and smartest -- and sweetest -- and mellowest -- baby in the Mommies Group!), so I wouldn't be surprised if he's already outgrown this one. Good thing I made him two.


And yes, Mom: Sister said it was okay to post this photo.

Baby Strawberry Hands

Several months ago, while Sister was still pregnant (but very close to due), I decided that Baby needed a pair of thrummed mittens that looked like strawberries. Then we could call him Baby Strawberry Hands -- which sounds vaguely like Edward Scissorhands, but much cuter.

I improvised the pattern, using the leftover Cadenza from the Red Bear, but didn't write it down. I made the first Strawberry in one night (maybe two?), and then it took me longer than I'd anticipated to sit down and work on the second one, so I had time to forget what I'd done. And then the first attempt at Strawberry #2 was terrible, so I frogged it and started over... well, my nephew is now three months old, and I just finished the second Strawberry today. And this after making a concerted effort to finish!

But SO CUTE!!!! He may have already outgrown them, I don't know. He is a BIG baby. But I'm popping them in the mail soon, and maybe he'll get a couple of days' use out of them.


I think I cast on two or three stitches and kfb-ed every stitch a few times, working in the round (size 5 DPNs). Then I just kept increasing randomly, adding the occasional thrum, and probably got up to around 100 stitches total. Then I started decreasing, also randomly. I also threw in purl ribs here and there along with the decreasing, so that the surface would have that irregular bumpy shape like a strawberry. (Inasmuch as you can make mittens look like a strawberry, that is! They're not very pointy/triangular.) I decreased down to 20 sts, all purls, and then switched to larger dpns and the green yarn, which is Jill Eaton Minnow Merino, by Classic Elite Yarns. I think I used size 6 for the first mitten, and 7s for the second mitten; it's hard to tell. Anyway, I did 6 rounds of k1p1 rib and then bound off loosely. I did a single-crochet chain to connect the two, so now they look like strawberries on the vine! And the vine can go through his coat sleeves.

Seriously adorable.