Evelyn's Hemlock Ring Blanket

The Hemlock Ring blanket was a project I started back in November and finished over Christmas. It's been sent to baby Evelyn and I hope she's staying cozy and warm under it! Hundreds and hundreds of this aran/bulky weight version have been knitted since Brooklyn Tweed posted it a few years ago. It really is a beautiful little blanket, so cleverly done from a lace doily pattern - wish I'd thought of it!


I used almost 2 skeins of Cascade Ecological Wool on size 10 needles, though the pattern called for US11 (I was being cheap and didn't feel like buying a new needle) so I attempted to knit loosely for the entire thing, which affected my gauge on OTHER projects and now my tension is totally wonky. I would recommend just getting the right needle instead of re-setting your own gauge.

The hardest part about this project was blocking the damn thing. It was as big as my bed and I didn't have the patience or pins to properly block the scalloped edging evenly. You really have to stretch it in certain parts to get the feather and fan sections to lie flat.

Baby Trellis

Happy New Year! I just realized that the photos links I uploaded weren't working, so here are the pictures again. Hope you all enjoyed the holidays, indulged in lots of good food and drink, and had merry reunions with your families.

Once again, here's Trellis:

The Trellis sweater was my nephew's Christmas present - he got it early though, because I figured he'd get some more wear out of it now, that boy grows so fast! Did I mention he started walking at 8 months?!


I really enjoyed knitting Trellis and was very pleased with how it turned out. It's a free pattern from Knitty, made with just under two skeins of Plymouth Encore (an acrylic/wool mix). Soft yarn, good stitch definition, and great for babywear since it gets washed so much. If I have time, I'm going to make JJ one too.

Notes: next time I'd knit this as one flat piece to avoid all the seaming - have you tried joining together garter stitch?! It's awful. I'd also attach the collar with k2tog onto the neckline as I went along, and avoid sewing it on after - not sure why the pattern is written like that. I thought I'd be thrown off by short rows later on, but it's just a straight stretchy piece of garter band, which curls into a shawl-collaresque thing.

So cute!!

Baby Sun Hats

Wow, where did the summer go? School has started and it's been over a month since we returned from our big Canadian trip. JJ turned 7-months old recently, and is really on the go - trying to clamber over anything and everything and desperately trying to crawl.

Back in the summer I made these little sun hats to protect her little bald head from a sun burn. I had grand plans of making one for all the little babies I know, but sadly that never happened...it took me much longer than I expected. Maybe next year. I've got patterns that go up to toddler sizes. I think it's a Simplicity one, I'll have to look it up.



I've been knitting too. I've actually knitted a few things but haven't gotten around to photographing them, so my blog has been painfully slow for some time now. I finished my hot-pink Ishbel, the Swallowtail shawl, and started the Tulip Cardigan for JJ. I've got some Christmas knitting on my mind too...maybe a little ambitious, but I'm going to try this year.

Hope you're all enjoying the cooler weather!

Baby Lily's Quilt

I can finally blog about a little project that has been completed since early July! It's another version of the stacked coins baby quilt, this time using a pattern from Oh Fransson (which is actually featured in Sew Mama Sew). This past summer I have been doing more quilting, and I read Elizabeth Hartman's blog quite often - she's great with colours, and her designs are modern and fun.

Baby Lily was born on June 21, and I wanted to give her something handmade that would be useful (I'm sure she received a ton of clothes, bibs and stuffed toys) so a personalized baby quilt fit the bill. It turned out a little bit smaller than I expected, so I added an extra two rows of off-white sashing to increase the size somewhat. It's just the right size for the park, or using in the stroller. At the time, I didn't know if Baby Lily would be a boy or a girl, so I chose rainbow colours to keep it sort of neutral but not too boring. I love the animal fabric! Lorah said her nursery had a safari/animal theme going on so it seemed like a perfect fit.

I used stippling again to quilt the whole thing. This time, I made my designs much bigger so that there wouldn't be as much thread going onto it - the last one I made felt really heavy, probably because it was so densely quilted.

Some acrylic paint and stamps to put the name and date on...

Here's the back, with just a narrow strip of coins. This is my second baby quilt, and I'm still figuring out how to get the pieces lined up straight. Is it just practice? I thought I had cut and sewn so carefully, but still things turned out wonky and I had to rip out stitches and try again and again. I even pinned! The sashing is hard to get straight. Maybe next time I have to line it up square by square instead of just judging by the ends of each strip.

I did finish a third quilt, the Red Triangles, but I forgot to take a picture of the finished project, and now it's found a new home at my mom's house. I can show you the quilt top at some point...I do have a pic of that.

We just got home from our Canada trip - JJ had a great time visiting everyone. She grew up a lot during the vacation - learned how to sit up, eat from a spoon, and even took a dip in the river!

Blue Knit Dress

It's been a long time since I've completed any knitting, but I've finally got something to show you. Yes, it's another baby garment, because they are so much quicker to knit and you feel really accomplished for getting it done!

This is called the Happily Ever After dress in Chesley Flotten's Soft + Simple Knit for Little Ones. I used about 3 skeins of Sirdar Dreambaby in blue, and 1 skein in aqua on US5 circulars. At the start, the skirt feels like it's never going to end...just round after round of stockinette. When you finally get to the waistband, switching to seed stitch is such a relief! I like how it turned out - still too big for JJ, but she'll fit into it this fall and winter. She's got a lot of pink in her wardrobe, so it's nice to have something in a different colour.


It's probably going to be another little while before I can post some new crafts. I'm working on a baby project for my friend Lorah, so I can't post that until after she receives it. The red triangles quilt is still lying around unfinished (I think it's become Gatsby's new cat bed).

I'll also be making a wedding cake in July for a friend's wedding, and this week I'll be doing some mock-ups, which I'll write about soon.

Have a great week.

Fedora...or Bucket Hat

I've been able to start doing some sewing again now that JJ is becoming a better napper, and I'm getting rather skilled at doing things one-handed. With summer approaching, I started making little baby sunhats to keep them well-shaded. This one turned out just right, which also means that JJ will probably outgrow it within two weeks! They grow so fast it's unbelievable.

The hat is just quilting cotton with medium-weight interfacing and a muslin hat linimg underneath. I was able to finish it over two days. Cute!

Not a Totoro fan.

My mommy made me this super cute hat and I was only able to pose in it for about 10 seconds.

This is how I spent the rest of the 5 minutes is was strapped on my head:

Modeling her finest Knitwear...

I can't believe JJ is almost a month old! She's having a little nap right now, so I have a few minutes to share a few new pictures. I have taken a ridiculous number of photos of the wee one, and am clearly suffering from new-parent syndrome...I can't bring myself to delete even the blurry, bad pictures because she just looks so darn cute in all of them. Ha! That's how it is with your own baby.

This is a crafting blog, after all, so here she is modeling one of her hand-made hats:

This is the little green one from Courtney, although it appears to have rotated on her head...

The cuffed booties I knit for her were too loose, and the only way to keep them up was to unroll the cuff. Sort of a legwarmer-shoe-thing. This is the first piece of baby clothing I bought when I was pregnant - at the time I could hardly imagine what it would be like when she arrived, and here she is now...

Introducing Baby J.J...

You probably guessed why I disappeared for a couple weeks.

Baby J.J. made her grand debut on Feb 16...isn't she a cutie?


She is such a joy. D and I spend a lot of time just staring at her. She's making some faces...little smiles, pouts, pursing her lips, raising or furrowing her eyebrows...

I likely won't be around much for a while, but please do check in from time to time in case I've had a burst of energy and managed something crafty. I'm not sure I'll be doing any quilting for a bit since that means lots of stairs to run up and down from all day, but I'll probably manage some knitting.

And, of course, I'll post more pictures of JJ when I can.

Jenny

More Quilting! This time, a Flock of Red

Last week I started another crib-sized quilt, the Flock of Triangles quilt, which is a Denise Schmidt pattern based on a traditional quilting pattern called Flying Geese. I just googled it and found a free pattern for it online - right here. I bought the book last year and this is actually the first time I've made something out of it.

Pretty!!

I was inspired after seeing a blue and white version at a friend's house, and, remembering that it was in my pattern book, I decided to try one myself. The only rules were that it had to be made from fabric that currently exists in my stash. I could have gone with green and white, but the red looked more fun. Plus it's pretty much the perfect month for lots of red, with Valentine's day, Chinese New Year and the Vancouver Olympics.

This time, I actually cut out ALL the pieces for the quilt top at once. I see why quilters suggest you do that - now I'm committed to sewing all those suckers together! Unlike with the snowball quilt, I cut and sewed bit by bit, and got bored 2/3 the way through and ended up abandoning the plan for a queen-size quilt for a wee-sized one.

So, I cut out the pieces over a few days, and then laid out all the triangles in the order I was going to sew them. Stitching the triangles together is a little tricky because they're sewn on the bias instead of the grain, which makes them stretchy and a little fussy to iron. And, you line up the pieces to sew within a 1/4" seam, which does NOT mean just lining up point to point...I found this out after stitching a whole row of triangles and had to go back and rip the damn thing out. The even-feed foot has been a huge help, and after about 9 rows I'm finally getting the hang of it.

Here's my progress so far - only 3 more rows to go! Then I have to figure out what to do about the quilt backing. I only planned for the quilt top, and not the bottom. It might require a dangerous trip to the craft store...uh oh.

Owls & Friends (and DIY curtains)

Just thought I'd show you what J.J.'s nursery looks like.

The room was already painted a light beige, and we decided to keep it that way and add colour to the room with other pieces, like a striped rug and polka dotted curtains. Eventually, we sort of just ended up with what you could call an owl theme. They must be really popular right now because there are owls on everything in the stores. Hopefully JJ likes owls, and isn't scared of them!

There's a pretty tree growing beside her crib with songbirds and owls, and there are owl sheets on her little mattress...

Here's Mr. Green Owl sitting on his branch, shocked eyes looking over the dresser (please excuse the bottle of beer...and no, I wasn't drinking it)

Mr. Hedgehog peeking up from beside the closet...

I have to say, it was a lot of fun to put up the decals! As a kid, it would have been so much fun to cover your bedroom walls with stickers...especially since stickers are usually reserved for putting on paper or in sticker albums. The wall decals actually came from Target. They were on clearance a few weeks ago and I thought it would be fun to add some animal friends to the nursery. They are supposedly easy to remove and even re-use, so we'll see...

Here's the crafty part of this post: here are the curtains that took me, oh, about 4 months to get around to making. I bought the fabric ages ago, and as usual, there were more interesting things to work on than curtains! I was originally going to make Roman shades because of the way one window frame is flush with the wall, but D was able to install a curtain rod that worked with the width of my curtain.

They were very simple to make since I only did one panel per window instead of two. Each panel is approximately 1.5 yards of 45" upholstery-weight cream fabric, with 1/2 yard of the same weight polka dotted fabric attached to the bottom. Then I did a 1/2" hem along the length (I left on the selvages so I wouldn't have to fold under). Because I was a little short on yardage, I decided to serge the raw top and bottom edges to keep as much length as possible. Then I turned up a 1" hem on the bottom, and did a binding on the top with some leftover cream fabric. I made the curtain rod loops also with leftovers, each one cut to 5" long and about 3" wide and sewed them onto the backs (just eyeballing the distances between loops).

Now if only J.J. would make her appearance so she could start enjoying her little nursery! There are only 4 days left until my due date, and STILL no signs of her coming. It'll be slightly depressing when my response to "when are you due?" becomes, "Oh, 3 days ago". Although I am told this is entirely possible and actually not uncommon for first babies!

Anyhow, I didn't really have anywhere else to put this, but here's a pair of socks I've been knitting...just some basic, cuff-down, 64 stitch socks. It's by Socks that Rock in the Knitters without Borders colourway...so far making some crazy tiger stripes. The wool is incredibly sock and squidgy!

Happy Valentine's Day, and Happy Lunar New Year!

Baby Orangina Dress

I have to show off the prettiest little dress that my friend made for J.J....

Apparently it was one deceptively difficult, hellish knit that took at least 8 attempts and lots of ripping back, because the pattern was written in another language and didn't make any sense. And the final garment had to be heavily modified. Something like two other people on Ravelry had ever knit it.

BUT!! Is it the cutest thing ever or what? And the fabulous thing is, it'll be super long-wearing - she can wear it as a top when she gets bigger. Thank you, Rachel! This baby sure has some talented aunties in the Lehigh Valley...

In other news, I am officially in waiting mode - I surpassed the 37-week mark without any labour drama, and will be 38-weeks on Wednesday. The waddling is getting comical...

Totoro Bonnet

I've never actually seen the show, but this is the much-recognized character called Totoro, a tree-spirit from Miyazaki's anime film My Neighbor Totoro. I really ought to rent this sometime. Isn't he cute?


Anyhow, I saw a knitted pattern online for a cute Totoro hat and couldn't resist making it:

It's made with leftover Lion Brand Cotton Ease, knit on US6. I had just enough to make the ears, ties and tassles, and the face details are just white felt and black scrap yarn. The pattern is a free one by Hello Yarn and calls for DK weight, but it's not hard to sub in worsted weight. It's quite a clever little pattern...basically a toe-up sock using a figure 8 cast-on, and then you make a few decreases to shape the back of the bonnet.

I think Totoro's nose should have been a little bigger, and I forgot he had whiskers...oh well. he's still pretty cute as he is. This staircase bannister is the best baby mannequin ever.

Stacked Coins Baby Quilt

Ta-da!! The Stacked Coins Baby Quilt is done! Yay! I love how it turned out! This is a really simple, straightforward pattern for a beginner quilter and the size is also perfect for a not-too-daunting project.

First time at doing mitered corners!

I was able to finish it over four days, working on it about half a day each time. The binding was a bit fussy to do because I finished it by hand, but it looks clean and tidy that way. I also got better at the free-motion quilting as I went along, although it took much longer than I would have guessed. Plus it ate up nearly a spool of thread! I like the look of the squiggly bits over top of the rectangular design...I think straight lines would have looked a bit boring.

Here's the quilt sandwich pre-quilting:

Here it is after. I took this picture last night in bad lighting, sorry:

All you really need is about 1.5 yards of fabric in at least 2 colours for the sashing and backing, plus a few fat quarters to make your coin strips with them. There are 22 coins in each strip, each coin cut to 2.5" x 5" and sewn with 1/4" seams. Now, I think of myself as a decent sewer...I can sew tidy, even seams, install invisible zippers, you know, all round proficient enough. But my coin strips didn't line up AT ALL with the sashing when I was done. Even if you're off by a millimeter it adds up when you iron things out and try to get them lined up. Not a big deal, but it's not perfect. Some chop chopping solved that problem (but I guess I can't do that for more complicated quilting designs). For quilts to turn out beautifully, you have to be ultra precise...when all the corners and seams match up, it looks amazing.

I bet this will fluff up nicely in the wash!

What else but more baby knits!

JJ is quickly acquiring a stylish hat collection....

This one is based on the Gooseberry Hat pattern, except with some heavy mods because I only had 20g of this pretty yarn from Tasmania...I only included 6 sections instead of 8. I still had a few yards left at the end though, so I made a fat crochet flower to top it off.

Leftovers hat using a generic baby hat pattern...this will match the Crossover Top also made with Jaeger Aqua. I cast on 80 stitches on US6, and just alternated stockinette and garter rows. When the hat reached about 5" in length, I decreased 8 stitches every round until 8 stitches remained, then pulled it shut. The bow thing is made of the last couple yards knit into I-cord.

Ok, I didn't make this one...Courtney made it. She is spoiling JJ already. Isn't it cute?! It's super soft. This one is coming with us to the hospital!

Bitty baby socks made from leftover Plymouth Happy Feet...

And some adorable rollerskates and stuffed bunny from two lovely ladies at my knitting group!

Not particularly chatty today...just got back from an all-day Lamaze birthing class and feeling a little pooped. We talked about labour and delivery for almost 8 hours! It was a good class though and we are feeling more prepared for the big day.

Have a good weekend everyone.

Baby Quilt

I'm still here! Blogging had to stop all week because our camera batteries died, so no new pictures...but I ordered some new rechargeables that arrived last night!

This week I suddenly had the urge to make a baby quilt. I started a quilt ages ago, but it's just been hanging out unfinished because I can't decide how to quilt it and what colour backing to make. So, I went online to look for an easy baby quilt pattern. There are so many great quilting blogs out there! I ended up spending hours browsing through them, and admiring all the beautiful quilts...I thought this Stacked Coins quilt by Crazy Mom Quilts was super cute and didn't look too hard, so I made it using some pretty blues and yellows I bought a while back.

So far so good. There are a couple of booboos, but I'm learning as I go. For one, it was a LOT harder to line up the coins than I expected...I thought I cut everything carefully and stitched 1/4" seams on each one, but they turned out as all different lengths! Plus, when I put the cream sashing on (the strips between the coins), I somehow ended up with very uneven edges that requiring some heavy duty trimming. In some cases I had to trim off a whole damn coin. Grrr.

I wanted to try free-motion quilting on this project, so I've been practicing on a little square. It's rather tricky...you have to control the fabric with steady hands and maintain a steady speed on the pedal. It's kind of like learning to drive again, trying not to accelerate or brake too suddenly and not jerk the wheel around. It's turned out pretty well, but I can definitely see my learning curve from one end of the quilt to the other. I have about 1/4 more to quilt, and then I'm moving onto binding!

Baby Crossover Top

Here's another baby sweater I made for JJ, which I started some time back in November and only just finished seaming this week. It's a Debbie Bliss pattern called the Crossover Top from the Essential Baby book.

Knitting a DB pattern always makes me crazy, but the projects look so beautiful it's hard to resist. For some reason, they never seem to put any diagrams in the pattern to show you how the project is assembled. Considering everything is knit in itty bitty pieces that require outrageous amounts of seaming and weaving in ends, you'd think they'd make your life easier by giving you a schematic. Nope. You get weird, awkward directions on how to set in a sleeve, or attach a button loop, with instructions like "starting 4 rows up and 3 inches over from the first point of decreases in the left underarm, attach the band". That's not much of an exaggeration. Ugh!!

I knit the newborn size but my gauge was much bigger, so the sweater is probably closer to a 3-6 month size. I put it off this long because it didn't turn out as nice as the model in the book...the edging seems a little uneven after picking up all the stitches, and the underarm seams seem a little awkward. I'm not sure if it's because I knitted this in cotton (with leftover Jaegar Aqua from my Cherry cardigan), or perhaps because the contrasting yarn was a little thinner that the main yarn, but there's just something a bit off about it.

It's still adorable though, and I made a matching hat to go with it. Doesn't everyone wear matching hats to their sweaters? :)

Anyhow, here's another super sweet knitted baby sweater that JJ received at the shower...I didn't knit it, but it's so cute that I have to show it off. It was made by my friend Courtney in the most beautiful Sundara Yarn. I have only ever oggled Sundara yarns online and in other people's stashes, and now I find myself petting this sweater every time I go into the nursery. It's Elizabeth Zimmerman's February baby sweater without the lace stitches.

And there are booties to match! Too cute. Thanks Courtney!