FO: In Threes for my 9yo

A simple little cardigan for my increasingly fashion-enthusiastic daughter.  She picked out the color and buttons with me at the store and I knit away until I had something long enough to fit her.

She loves it - but is also becoming more and more interested in sewing and design - it is really fun to see how she interprets her world and what is 'cool' and what is 'unique'.  So far she has worked almost exclusively in animal (cheetah) prints in bright colors.  Hmmm...

Icelandic Sweater Repair

Late this year I had the privledge of repairing another important sweater - this one from Iceland from a friend of a friend.

It is a lovely sweater - one that she purchased in Iceland from the Handknitting Association of Iceland.  Unfortunately her sweet dog got a hold of it one day many years later and put a hole in the yoke.  Luckily for me the hole was restricted to only the cream color yarn!

We worked together to order some more yarn and I did my best to repair the hole.  There were some other areas that were weakening so I also did my best to reinforce them in hopes the sweater will last for many more years.

I currently have a friend and her family living in Iceland for a year and at about the same time as I was working on this sweater her parents went for a visit.  She offered to bring back yarn for all of us and I put in an order for a women's sweater. 

I settled on Grettir by Jared Flood, but am following the schematic laid out for a standard pullover by Custom Fit to get (what I hope to be) a nicely proportioned sweater.  I have completed 1.25 arms so far (no pictures yet.  The body will be light gray with white, black and green accents in the yoke.  I  am excited to see where the designing/knitting process takes me next.

I think that my friend was happy with the repair - I should check in with her to see how it is holding up.  She called it her house sweater and since we've have many days in the negative degrees (F) I am sure that it is getting quite a bit of wear.

FO: Happy Halloween

Three newly made costumes this year and one vintage.

One of my 9yo's went as a Tootsie Roll.  While we freestyle-sewed the 'roll' we spent some time making a lovely headband and ensuring that we had the right lettering.  My daughter cut the letters from a pattern (did you know that the Tootsie Roll font is really close to Cooper Black?), traced them onto fabric, cut them again and then glued them to her costume?  I am proud of my little DIY-er in training.  We also put together a cute headband with red ribbons and a real Tootsie Roll on top.

My other 9yo went as a cat - her favorite cat from the Warrior Book Series (by Erin Hunter), hence the yellow color.  I think the cats name is LionBlaze.

My 7yo wore a leopard costume that must have been sewn by my Mom in the very early 1980's.  I am amazed at how well it is holding up.  She wore a similar costume - also made by my Mom - last year too.

My 3.5yo is a snowy owl, inspired by her favorite animal and an article in Family Fun magazine.

The body suits for the owl and cat are from the patterns that are annually available by McCall's or Butterick for various Halloween costumes (lion, frog, dragon, cat, bear, etc.).  It is so easy to use that pattern as a base and then build off with details from there.  The cat really didn't have any additional details, but the snowy owl needed wings and the headpiece, both of which I borrowed on heavily from the Family Fun October 2014 issue.