WIP Thursday

I have three different projects on the needles at the moment. Two are for me and one is for my youngest daughter. They are keeping me busy and happy and each offers a different knitting experience. I like it like this.

Typically I am a end-product knitter. And one of these projects fits that bill. The other two are process pieces and I am enjoying learning about how I react to them - and when I turn to work on them, or not.

Here is a photo of the cardigan for daughter #3. This is the product piece, and I can't wait to see her wearing it. She is 3 years old, going on 5, and she takes every opportunity to show you as much. Physically she is taller than her sisters were at her age and thus I am making her a size 5 cardigan. It will be big, but she'll get a couple years of wear out of it.

I really enjoy connecting with her through this project. In the beginning I picked out three patterns I was interested in knitting, left them at her chair at breakfast time, and let her pick out the one she wanted. Then we turned to the magic of the internet and picked out some yarn (Knitpicks CotLin) that would suit the pattern. She got to pick the color - a striking red. I am about half-way done with the piece and hope to finish it off shortly. It needs 3/4-length sleeves and some finishing details. We've already begun calling it her big sister sweater.





This next project - arguably soon to be out of season - is very much a process piece. I am knitting up some mittens with silk (inspiration here). I've never done anything quite like this and love, love, love it. It is very organic, very raw and very rustic.

The silk comes in a hankie (or roughly 11-inch square) that is as thin as a cobweb. Termed mawatas, these hankies are made from the the cocoons of silkworms (DO NOT FOLLOW THIS LINK IF YOU ARE SQUEAMISH ABOUT BUGS/WORMS). The cocoons are degummed, flattened, layered and then dyed, if one desires. Mine were dyed by the very talented folks at Blue Moon Fiber Arts.

For this project I am using the silk as is, no spinning or processing. I simply stretch out the sticky hankie, split it in one place and ply the end of one to the end of another. Then start knitting. Voila!

The width of the 'yarn' is all over the place, but that is one of things that I love about the project. The variation adds so much character. But stretching each hankie as I needed it caused me to stop too frequently, so instead I stretch about 10 hankies at one sitting and then wind them onto a spent paper towel holder. This allows me to work the yarn much faster and with fewer interruptions.





This last piece has been going for some time now (see here), but has been temporarily abandoned while I work on the two above. This scarf will take forever to finish - it is knit from three balls of sock yarn. Each ball gives you roughly two small socks so this scarf is the equivalant of knitting 6 socks. But the beauty! The colors! The new-to-me stitch pattern! It will be a happy spring scarf if I gather the energy to finish it. It would also make for a stunning fall accessory don't you think?

Baby Sweater

I am really excited to knit for this new baby. The trouble is that s/he will be born in the next few weeks. Not the ideal season to begin wrapping a newborn in woolens - spring is right around the corner, no? And since we don't know if the babe is a 'he' or a 'she', I am shying away from knitting anything bigger, knowing there will be time to knit fall/winter items later in the summer.

However, a nice set of coincidences headed my way over the last week and I was able to knit up this little newborn-ish size sweater out of a lovely un-dyed organic cotton. Kristen Kapur - the famous knitwear desinger from Through the Loops - was having a blog-based de-stash sale and I was able to purchase some lovely skeins of organic cotton by Blue Sky Alpacas at a deep discount. I love this yarn! It knit up very quickly and is super soft. I also love that it is undyed and organic - perfect for a little baby sweater.

I found the buttons on a special trip to the yarn store with one of my older girls - she loves dogs (look here for one of her dog-themed holiday gifts) and my LYS has a life-sized stuffed animal dalmation in the store that she can snuggle up with while I browse. Arn't these buttons just the greatest? I was hoping to find something unique, like little fish, but a little fish in a fishbowl with air bubbles? Oh my. That exceeded every hope I had!

So this may be the end of the baby knitting for a little while, and truth be told I should really get on making a light sweater for my youngest daughter. As she transitions into 'big sister' she is going to need some extra attention and snuggles. She is very independent, and at 3 yo she is a full year older than her sisters were when she arrived in our family. I am so grateful for the independence, but she is also old enough to sense the change that is happening; and young enough still to cling to being the baby when she feels she is not getting what she needs. I think a little tunic like this (the last sweater in the post) would be cute - and I'll let her pick out the yarn color(s) as an added treat.

Bring-me-home hat for baby

In between attending demonstrations and rallies at our state capitol (you can look here and here for why my family, and 60,000 other WI residents, are protesting) I wanted/needed to knit a little something for the baby. This little hospital hat was what I came up with. It also helped me slow down and put my feet up - something that I need to be doing as I enter these last weeks of pregnancy.

During my stash challenge year I knit a lot of baby items: sweaters, blankets, hats, etc. But nothing with this particular little peanut in mind. This the first hat that I made for our newest little one. It is sized to be the hat that we bring s/he home from the hospital in. In fact it is so small, and just the right size, that I bet it will only fit for about a week or so.

It is knit up in Misti Alpaca - an super-soft and cuddly fiber and the hand-painted colors are just gorgeous.

Valentines Hearts

In honor of Valentine's Day my youngest and I put together a small decoration for the dining room, the place we gather everyday as a family. I free-cut the hearts while she chose the contrasting fabrics, their placement and the order I sewed it together.

This is quite possibly the first heart-themed craft I have ever completed and while I am not totally sold or inspired to do something like it again it did fulfill February's Rumpelstiltskin Challenge: Red. We are not big into this 'Hallmark holiday,' but having these little hearts in the heart of our home is a nice reminder of how much love passes through here everyday.