A few more...

I was amazed to find a few more hours before the holidays to squeeze in a couple more presents.  Pure fun for me.

I finally got around to framing the cross stitch (above) that I completed for a special little baby boy and sent it out to him in the mail.  In case you can't tell, I am a big fan of Alicia Paulson's work.

The next gift was a second taggie blanket for special friends that just welcomed their second baby girl.  I made two for their first daughter (she needed a second one because she loved through the first!) and I really wanted to send out another for their new addition.  These owls are too cute and paired with a bumpy purple minky should be fun for the baby to explore.  I sent the blanket along with a crocheted turquoise crown - I called it the 'big sister crown' - made by a friend for the older daughter.

The last few presents came from a burst of sewing for my own three oldest daughters.  They all learned to knit in the week before Christmas so I sewed them each a knitting project bag and filled it with a skein of yarn and some needles.  They love then and I love seeing the bags and their knitting float around the house: the couch, the bed, the dining room table and their locker.  I first made the fox bag below to match the needle case for my niece.

Then I made three more.  I am really happy with the construction of these bags.  My serger makes such a professional finish and the satin cording for the drawstrings work perfectly.  I modeled these bags on the small della Q bag that I have for myself and they turned out great - perfectly sized and perfectly useful (I did skip the interior pocket this time around).

For a Baby...

For the baby-to-be...a sampler from Posie Gets Cozy.  This piece is amazing.  Finished photos soon.

Taggie Blanket v2.0

This holiday season I got to work on a really feel-good project -and fun taggie blanket for the sweet daughter of a friend in NYC.  I met my friend many years ago when I was living in NYC and when her daughter was born I her a taggie blanket that had been made by my sister-in-law.

From having my own kids I knew that most kids l-o-v-e taggie blankets.  This little girl was no exception and possibly loved her first one more than most.  Her Mom contacted me and shared that it was on its last legs - I jumped at the opportunity to make another for her daughter.

I was able to pull it together very quickly thanks to my Mom who had a ready supply of pre-cut ribbon.  (Unknown to me she has been making a few of these with her friends for grandbabies!)  I picked up the minky from a local fabric shop and the yellow front fabric as well.  The design on the front is a small repeat of yellow rubber duckies.  Too cute.

My friend emailed to share that her daughter immediately took to the new blanket and has lovingly paired it with her old blanket and is happily using both.  What a great thing.  The photos are of the new taggie blanket in it's new home with it's new owner (I was so excited to ship it off I forgot to take any, smile).

Hospital Hat

It has been while since I did a baby knit - this adorable little hat is for a cousin that will become a father in just a few weeks time.  The baby shower is this coming weekend.

I received this yarn from a friend and I am happy to take this lovely, beautiful, organic cotton yarn (Blue Sky Alpaca) and transform it into a little hat for a new little baby.  What a magical time - the birth of a new baby - full of the unknown, hope and fear all rolled up into a little person.

My youngest is on the verge of being 3yo and we are out of the baby years for good.  No more little ones for me and my husband.  Our oldest are 8yo (twins) and we are so enjoying growing up as a family.  It does feel that the older kids are moving us all along: from Sesame Street to Harry Potter, from Mommy-and-me swim lessons to overnight summer camp.

I am sounding more nostalgic about all of this then I actually feel on a daily basis - mostly I am happy to have conversations around the dinner table (even though they are still punctuated by impromptu shouts of "shake my booty" and a tossed carrot or two by the 3yo) and moments of growth and sharing with my growing kids. 

It is starting to feel that the haze is wearing off, the hours of really intense, not-so-fun work from the early years are transforming into different kinds of child-rearing work.  But work where you can see the result more clearly and directly.  The kind of thing when your 6yo comes home and says with genuine pride, "Mom, I remembered what you said about not wearing my wet boots all day, so I put them in my locker and wore dry socks and my tennis shoes instead!"  Or the kind when you watch your child accomplish a new skill on the piano.

But this hat is not about me - or my kids, or my immediate family - it is about a new baby and new parents.  New life.

FO: Another too big sweater!

 

 

Such is the curse of the impatient knitter - or at least the one that casts on without regard for gauge.  No matter, she will eventually grow into it, just like this one.  I also realized there is another vest I finished and never blogged about that is too big.  I'll save that one for when it fits, and claim my work then (smile).

 

 

This lovely hooded wallaby is knit up in Peace Fleece in the most amazing blue-aqua color, Kamchatka Sea Moss.  The Kamchatka Peninsula is in the far eastern reaches of Russia, near the Bearing Sea.  You can read a bit about what makes the Kamchatka so special here.

 

I knit this wallaby to the 2yo measurements and added an extra inch in length at both the waist and arms.  I also modified the design details - based on the other two I knit years ago - and should have remembered that without the ribbing the fit is always bigger anyway.  My modifications include rolled hems at the waist and wrists, with seed stitch detailing on the pocket, placket and hood.  I just prefer that look for some reason.  I also seamed the hood using a mattress stitch at the end instead of trying for the kitchener stitch.  I can barely handle that exercise with 16 or so stitches on a sock toe.  The 30-odd stitches for this hood was just too much for me to deal with, although it would have made a nice seamless hood.

 

While the yarn is still a bit rustic to work with (which I personally love), I am really happy with how soft it became after a good soaking and blocking.

 

 

The sweater took about 2.5 skeins and I'm using the last bit for a thank you gift for a friend.  She was over one day and admired it on the mantle straightaway, commenting on the lovely color. She's in the midst of a kitchen remodel and this gift will be perfect for her.  She is a very talented local graphic designer/sewist and she volunteered her time and expertise to help me print some custom Spoonflower fabric.  More on that fascinating project in the near future!

FO: Red Fiona

I finished this sweet tunic the day before Thanksgiving - and actually sewed on the back button while in the car, on the way to the hike we took on Thanksgiving day.

This top could not be nicer: the fit, patterning and style are just about perfect for a little girl.  But the pattern is all written (no charts), and there's no schematic either.  So the pattern is a bear to follow, but once you settle into the groove it begins to make sense.

Also the sizing is off in my opinion.  The size I knit is labeled in the pattern as 3-6 mos.  Granted I was likely a bit off with my gauge, but not by much.  And while my youngest daughter is on the small side for a 20 mos. old, she isn't THAT small.  So if you endeavor to knit up this pattern go by measurements, not age range.

 

The yarn, which I've mentioned before, is a fantastic locally sourced alpaca/nylon blend.  It took just about 600 yards to knit this up, which seems like quite a bit of yarn, but the great thing about tunics is that they can be worn for a long time.  These photos are also pre-blocking, and given that it's an alpaca hand knit, it will grow quite a bit once we give it a washing.

 

The beauty and ease of construction for this top is something that I admire and I'm thinking I may just have to knit another, in a larger size - maybe size it up to an adult?

 

ps.  Don't mind the crazy wardrobe on my youngest - she gets the leftovers from the other three with regards to clothes/sizing and any hopes for matching outfits have sadly been lost.

FO: spring shrug

baby shrug, 12 mos.

This knitting basket of mine is overflowing with some nice leftover yarns.  I spied this lovely, left-over L.L. Bean-ish green and quickly cast on for a little shrug. 

I've picked up her summer wardrobe and put it into rotation, but the temps here are still chilly in the mornings and into the early afternoon.  Not time to show off her bare arms yet.  And a shrug is the perfect layering piece.  I knit her one about a year ago, so it seems a lovely moment to gift her a new one.

The pattern is Confection, by Tonya Wagner.  It is a delightful, quick knit with minimal seaming.  The 12 mo. size was probably a 2.5 hour project.

FO: 100th project for my 1yo

I just entered my 100th project on ravelry!  I find this to be a surprisingly delightful milestone.  I know that I've knit more than 100 items, but seeing that number - and all those projects - in one place really gives me a sense of accomplishment.  And it is amazing to look back at some of my earlier work and see how far I have come in my craft.

For my 100th project I knit up a little cardigan for my wee girl.  She turned 1yo last week.  I can hardly believe how quickly the months flew by, and find it even harder to remember a time in our family before she was with us. 

The pattern is in threes, and I knit this up in a Coed Mawr (a small scale fiber company in Cambria, WI) worsted weight; size 18 mos.  The buttons are from Jennie the Potter.  Next on my needles is a little shrug to help this cruising babe's wardrobe transition from spring to summer.

FO: Immie Tee, #1 & #2

I can't remember where I first saw this pattern, but I fell in love with it.  And I had just the yarn in my stash to make one - this amazing hand dyed sage green that would look fantastic on my youngest.  So I took measurements, did a swatch, and cast on.  I made it all the way through the sweater, thinking that it would fit - certainly wouldn't be too small - and that I had made the right choice on the yarn/color combination. 

But I made a mistake at the outset.  I didn't trust myself.  Instead of making the size that most closely matched my daughter's measurements, I made the size that most closely matched her age.  Surely at 10 mos., she should be wearing 12 mos. clothing, right?  [Since all my kids mostly wear gently used/thrifted clothes I have not found sizing labels to be very reliable.  There are times when my 4 yo is wearing size 6 pants, and my baby is wearing 2T onesies.]  And since I didn't go with the rational choice, which would have been to knit the sweater that would actually fit her, I wound up with a gorgeous sweater tee, perfectly matching the pattern measurements for 12 mos., but way too big for her little body.  She is a petite one, this last daughter of mine, and at 10 months she has an 18" chest, and more closely matches the 3-6 mos. size of the pattern.

So what did that mean for me after casting off and blocking this most lovely of sweaters?  Only that I had to make a second one of course!

I pulled some more yarn from the stash - a lovely reddish-pink left over from the Norwegian cap I knit late last year.  And the 3-6 mos. size tee fits her perfectly, with the green one waiting in the wings. 

Yarn (and book) love

Looks like someone loves yarn almost as much as I do.  I had better move that basket up higher for the foreseeable future or else I'll be in trouble.

On a different note, our family was at the public library in Skokie, IL over the weekend and I spied this amazing playhouse, constructed from old books. Now, I have been known to create shelves using horizontally stacked books, but a fully free-standing playhouse?! Now that is cool.

 

As I had all the kids with me I didn't get a chance to get too close and look at the construction.  It is quite possible that there are supports bars running though the books, but maybe it is also constructed by gluing the books together?  And if you want your mind blown, just google "new uses for old books" and check out the images.  My goodness.

Dispatch from the Workshop, Part 4 (Knitting)

Oven Mitt detail

I only knit two gifts this year - one was for my mother-in-law and the other was a commission for the son of a friend. 

For my mother-in-law I worked up an oven mitt, using the free pattern, Out of the Frying Pan, by Susan Anderson.  The bright blue worsted weight wool yarn made a fantastically dense fabric that was still surprisingly easy to embroider.  You can see the amazing shrinking properties of wool in the before-and-after-felting photos below.  I did use our front-loading washing machine to felt this mitt, but neglected to check on it at 5 or 10 minute intervals.  This mitt probably went about 5 minutes too long, but luckily it still fits well enough for a serviceable oven mitt. 

Oven Mitt, pre-felting

Oven Mitt, post-felting

And that embroidery?  Probably shouldn't have done it free-hand while bleary-eyed.  It most certainly came out crooked.  But when you hang the mitt from the loop it straightens out (smile).  DH was kind and said that it has that 'handmade' look, but 'not in a bad way'.  Ha.

I actually like this oven mitt so much that I am working on one for myself, using a bright, minty green.  It doesn't actually match, well anything, in the house, but the color makes me happy in the cartoonish-winterfresh-mint-green sort of way.

This next project I am particularly happy about.  A friend e-mailed me the pattern mid-December, asking if I would be able to make it for her third son by Christmas.  I said of course!  The pattern, circa 1940, comes from a collection of knit items from the V&A Museum.  I was lucky enough to get lost in that museum two years ago and knitting this toy brought back lots of pleasant memories. 

The pattern itself isn't difficult - there are 8 pieces (2 sides, an underbelly, 2 ears, 2 pieces of mane and the tail), and each is knit up in a straight forward fashion and then assembled for the final doll.  But, the pattern does require an intense amount of attention as there are new stitch counts for practically each row, and there are lots of rows that aren't accounted for (you are just supposed to know to knit those rows!)

Knitting the mane required learning a new stitch - the loop stitch - which was pretty cool.  I definitely see some future costume potential with a 'wig' made entirely of this stitch and some novelty yarn (fur, sparkly, etc.)

You can knit yourself your own lion if you like - there is even a companion tiger to go with it!

Dispatch from the Workshop, Part 3 (Woodworking)

This year my husband set out to make our girls some special boxes.  The twins each asked for a necklace from Santa, so we reasoned they would need each want a special place to keep their new treasures.  These two boxes are made of walnut, and the top is birdseye maple.  They close with simple hinges and are lined with red wool felt. 

Our middle daughter is not yet old enough for a necklace, or jewelry box, but is old enough to want what her older sisters have.  So he set out to make her a 'treasures' box.  The box is constructed of birch, stained to look like walnut, and opens and closes by sliding or rotating the top.  It is likewise lined with red felt.

And the baby got a new set of blocks.  Unlike the classic building blocks of years past, these are natural tree blocks, made from a single birch tree that was cleared from our family's land west of town.  The tree was sliced into sections and sanded.  There is also a protective coat of food-safe varnish. These are extra special building blocks - the emotional connection to the wood itself is enough to make me tear up.  They look amazing with all the natural detail of the bark intact and so far all the girls have had fun trying to recreate the tree, matching up the sections and building it high up into the air. 

FO: Baby Things

I had a niece arrive in the world a week ago today.  And I knew I had to make her something.  I started with this holiday vest - but it turned out too big - more of a 6-12 mos. size - so that won't work.  But it is cute for the holidays and made with a great, washable wool.  I'm not sure where this will ultimately wind up; into the gift pile it goes.

And upon looking through my knitting basket for inspiration I spied a bit of Manos I had left over from a hat I made myself a couple years ago.

And it was just the right amount to make my new niece a hat.  This is another version of the Hospital Hat.  And even though it is 100% wool (Wool Classico) it isn't scratchy in the least.

I am off to finish the rest of the half-done items in my basket.  Is it bad luck to leave strings hanging into the new year?  If so I had better get cranking.  I've a scarf, socks, mittens, hat, another pair of socks, two oven mitts, and a toy lion in the works.  Looks like I have a really good year-end, round-up-the-knitting post coming!

FO: Norwegian Baby Cap

sweet baby cap

I finished up this sweet little Norwegian Baby Cap last week.  I intended it for my youngest, but it looks that she will outgrow this size in the near future.  So another hat will need to be knit, and hopefully before the holidays come and go.  This fourth little one of mine - not forgotten - but sometimes overlooked.  The l-o-u-d voices, demands, wants and needs of her older sisters drown out her very, very rare cries.  But her smile lights up the family.  And she is finding her place among and within us - a calm presence indeed.  She needs a little something this holiday season I think and a new knit hat will do just fine.

top view

tie detail

I knit up this same pattern a bit over a year ago, but just got around to making the i-cord ties, so here is a photo of that hat as well.  I stopped the every-other-row decreases early on this one, making a more rounded head rather than pointy.  I'm sure this one is destined for a very special little boy or girl.

sweet baby cap - v1.0

FO: Eggplant + Pumpkin Hat (and a lesson learned)

A neighbor of mine is a retired Reverend from a dual-language church in our community. She is also an avid knitter. Over the past couple years she has organized volunteers - herself and friends - to make and sell fruit (and cupcake) hats at our downtown farmer's market and other local stores. They have raised a lot of money for the church and its educational scholarship funds.

A week ago she invited me over to learn more about her process and methods. The hats they sell are loosely based on the Ann Norling Fruit Cap pattern, and they use - almost exclusively - inexpensive acrylic/wool blends.

She didn't try to recruit me to knit with her group.  Instead she encouraged and mentored me towards making a stock of hats to sell to local stores. She was inspirational, and she made it seem so...well...doable. So I went home, pulled some yarn from my stash and did something I've never done before.

I timed myself knitting.

Relying on the pattern, I first made an eggplant hat, size 3-6 mos. I used stash yarn. It took me two sessions to complete. The first lasted 2:40. The second (with lots of kiddo interruptions) lasted 1:20. That makes this little cutie a 4-hour hat. Giving myself $10/hour, not including materials, I would have to sell this little number for $40, double what the group sells their hats for.

Second I made a pumpkin hat (modifying the pattern to my taste and adding a spiral vine), size 2-4 yrs. I used newly purchased acrylic yarn. Across 6 knitting sessions, this hat took 4:35 to complete. Including material costs, I'll let you do the math for what this one would need to sell for.

I am not telling a knitter anything that s/he doesn't likely already know. You rarely, if ever, get your labor cost back if you sell an item. And for me this timing exercise affirmed that for me.

I did think - for a fleeting moment - that I might be able to squeeze out baby hats made with inexpensive yarn and sell them for a reasonable labor-to-retail cost ratio. But that doesn't seem possible.

So I continue down the evolutionary path of my knitting, knowing that I am a personal knitter, a gift knitter and and future knitwear designer (I have two ideas incubating for original patterns).

But I am not a retail knitter.

At least not right now.

I did come out of this little experiment with two adorable hats, one of which is loved beyond words by my 4 yo. The other will go to the parents of a little baby that is expected to arrive at the end of December. They actually grow eggplants, so I think it will be an extra special gift for them.

Happy Halloween!



Gecko lizard, black dog, and black bat

This year I managed to sew something for one older girl and my middle girl.  My other older girl wanted to be a dog, again.

Making the lizard went really well.  At first I was brainstorming all sorts of ideas for attached scales, but when I pulled out the old pattern I used for the dog costumes there were directions for making a dragon/lizard too.  Away I went with pre-printed polyester fabric and gold accents.

The bat wings I made from scratch.  I wanted something small, sized just to her, and understated.  I didn't want to make her a long cape, or a hood, or something that would get her confused as batman, the character. 

Using black flannel, I traced the neckline of these capes, and then added a basic triangle (traced from a folded sheet of newspaper) with scalloped edges.  I added quilted lines on the wings, but you can't really see them and they don't actually make much of a difference in wearing.  I sewed one hair band at each of the wing tips so she could thread her hands through and she didn't have to grasp the fabric all the time.  This way they attached (and unattached!) to her easily - and became part of her arms as she flew around.

Overall this Halloween was a success for the handmade.  My youngest went as a gray kitten with a thrifted baby costume.  However, she has a whole wardrobe of mama-made costumes to look forward to in the years to come.

The girls ate their fill of candy tonight and are looking forward to the candy buy-back program this weekend.  In fact they already separated what they want to keep from what they want to sell back.  I am amazed to report that 90% of our candy will be sold back!

Oh fall...

Burberry cowl in organic cotton (colorway: almond)

I love you fall.

I love the way to make me feel about knitting.

I love the way you make my husband obsess about face cords.

I love the additional layers I get to wear.

I love the smell of slow-roasted food.

I love your gentle rains and wet leaves, even though they get tracked all the way through the house on tiny feet.

I love that you recall the birth of my middle daughter.

I love how you shed your layer of green in favor of more becoming colors.

I love the way you bring forth my instinct to prepare. And while the necessity of preparing for the barren months ahead has long-been dispensed with (thanks modernization), I love that you kindle the vestiges of this need deep within me.

I love the way you remind me that things change - life is dynamic - and that honoring the cycles in all parts of life is important.

Not-so-Noro hat at the WI River (rav link)



Baby shrug for friends' newborn daughter (rav link)



WIP: one sock done, one to go.  Pomatomus by Cookie A.