Winter Kitty Hat

A little late, but here's a finished project: JJ's two-year winter hat. She wore this all winter long and it keep her head toasty and cute, and she received so many compliments on it. Funny how the plainest looking things get noticed. Anyhow, given how often we lose things around here (socks...mittens...toys) it's amazing we held onto it all season!

Pattern: Kittyville Hat (free! And also found in Stitch 'n Bitch)

Yarn: Tahki Yarns Lana, 1 skein (92 yards) in cream

Needles: US8 dpns

For her 21-month old head size, I cast on 77 stitches and knit a narrower seed stitch for the head band. I knitted 3.5" of stockinette before beginning decreases every 11 stitches. To make smaller ear flaps, I just decreased the total number of cast on stitches by 2-3.

I used almost the entire skein exactly - only 6 inches leftover! I love when that happens.

So glad the weekend is here. Have a good one!




 

A break in the lengthy hiatus!

Is anyone still there?!! Someone out there is still reading. Thank you for still checking in even though I've been away for such a long time. I was so surprised by the sitemeter stats showing that my blog was still getting hits daily. My last post was in February 2011, right around the time JJ started toddling around, and life pretty much became all about chasing her around and preventing mischief.

I just got an iPad though, and a new blogging app, so hopefully I'll be showing up a little more frequently than I have for a while. So much has happened in the past year, and I have actually managed to dig up some small finished objects to show you. I'll have to space them out so that I'll have a new post once in a while.

JJ recently turned two (!!!) She is such a funny kid. I still look at photos and videos of her almost every night after she goes to bed. Not surprisingly, I have about a million photos of her that I can share given that she is the recipient of most of my hand made projects.

After being a full-time mommy for 16 months, I went back to work part time. Not in psychology but in pastry! I've been a cake decorator for the past year, which has been great creative outlet. We are doing great with the daycare and work life balance.

 

I'll leave you with this hat I made for JJ last year that matches her Tulip Cardigan (yet to blog, it's coming). It's Knitpicks Shine Sport, On US3 and US4 needles. The pattern is free from Looking Glass Knits. I made it last year and it's already too small, which is sad! It's such a good hat and perfect between seasons...not too itchy or warm, and goes with everything. JJ wore it all the time and the flower was also detachable for a second look.

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.

Knitting Lace

A little late for holiday recap, but here's the only finished object I managed to gift:


It's the Swallowtail shawl (for the second time) knit in alpaca lace yarn. I think next time I'll use a sock yarn just to see what the added weight is like. This turned out floaty and soft, I'm on a purple kick right now.

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!