Year of the Hat

I thought it was time for a "knitting lately . . ." post.  :)  Funny, but my last, hrm, six projects have all been hats!  I did a newborn icord beanie for Derek and Liz's little sprout (41 weeks and counting! We can't wait to meet you!).  Then the twin toddler nieces got red Christmas pilot caps, finished just in time for our family celebration. Both of those patterns have just about become old favorites of mine!  (Ruthie's currently wearing Gemma's pilot/pixie hat, as you can see in this little post about her coat.)

The new patterns I tried this year were Esme (for Gemma) and Rikke (for mom).  Rikke was a pretty pattern, but I adjusted the gauge wrong (again, *sigh*) for the pretty wool I had chosen and it came out a bit too tight.  Esme is my current favorite.  :)

I have to give credit where it is due--the tam with a bow was completely inspired by a hat Elizabeth from path-less-traveled made for her daughter a year or two ago.  If you see this, love your ideas, Elizabeth!

Gemma's wearing her hat in the picture above.  :)  She just loves it, which makes my heart so happy!  I had yarn leftover from making Ruthie's (too-big) coat, so Gemma wears them as a set and looks just . . . English and 19th century and darling!  I did "yarn-overs" instead of "make-one's" for the row of increases because I wanted to create eyelets for the pink bow.

I had enough yarn to make another, so I decided to make one for our niece turning 11.  11 seems so long ago these days, but I wanted to make it a tad more grown-up looking than the version with the bow.  I considered adding just a button to fasten the brim, as the pattern calls for, but ultimately decided to play with what I had at home and make a felt flower.  There are plenty of tutorials on pinterest to consult!  I stitched a pin-back behind it, and think it looks quite sweet!

Still playing with the new camera, as well. :)

Ruthie's Coat

"My mommy made me this coat!  It's really warm!"

"My grandma found Mommy six skeins of Shetland Chunky at Salvation Army!  She was so excited to try this pattern that she dutifully checked the gauge and carefully made adjustments for the chunkiness of the yarn.  She just couldn't understand why the pattern would call for such short sleeves . . . so she lengthened them to match a size 18 month jacket's sleeves."

"They're so big on me!"

"I guess my sister can wear it for now."

 "The collar needs a little blocking, too.  Ahem, Mom . . . "

My naughty little kitten

It's been since November that I've knitted anything!  Gemma needed mittens, so I quickly knitted some up with the rest of the purple wool I had dyed for her hat last year.  She loved them!  Warms my heart!  And thankfully they were done in time to travel to New York for Thanksgiving.

We didn't have any snow then, but they traveled north with us again in January.  Gemma finally got introduced to sledding and snowman-making.  It thrills me that she likes playing in the snow!

Then we came home, and as has been our practice on recent Saturdays, we bundled up and walked part of the way down the nearby bike trail instead of biking.  It's not quite warm enough for biking, and Ruthie is too small for the trailer, anyway.  Well.  Somebody took off her mittens to play with leaves and other findings, and soon they were gone.  My beloved jogged back a little way, looking for them, and we retraced our entire path on the return trip, but they truly were gone.

I hope somebody picked them up who can use them, because now Gemma is wearing heavy socks on her hands in the cold.  ;)

And she did not get any pie that evening!  (But neither did the rest of us . . . lately dessert has been ice cream!)

Dolly's Diaper Bag

It's finished, and ready for Christmas!

Most of the ideas came from this blog post, found via pinterest (of course!).  I loved the little aqua doll diaper bag, and then discovered upon further reading that it wasn't homemade at all, but a purchased scrap book caddy!  So, I rushed out to Michael's and found the exact same one, for about $4.  I also bought the little "magic" bottles for $2 (is it tacky to talk about money so much?).  

For the dolly diapers, I only had to buy velcro!  The pattern and directions are from this blog.  I just changed  the directions slightly to add a strip of the loop end all the way across the fronts, to make them more adjustable.  I cut up an old t-shirt for all the white, and used fabric scraps for the three colorful diapers!

It also has a changing pad and wipes case!  Yay for scraps, once again!  I begged the fleece scraps off my mother, after eyeing $7 fleece remnants at Joann Fabrics.  I already had scrap terry cloth for the changing pad, which I also just made up as I went along, adding a the heart and ribbon loop to make it more detailed.

Aren't they sweet?  These two little items were the quickest and most fun to make, I think!  They aren't perfect, though, so don't look too closely!

And, finally, with some leftover organic cotton I knitted up a blankie for Gemma's baby.  The little book is from the $1 section at Michael's, and I added the title to it . . . so she can "write" in her baby's book while I try to work on her sister's baby book!

I am just so excited!  These little sewing projects have been the most fun things to sew ever, I think!  The next project . . . is for a special little boy!

Are you making any Christmas surprises?

We're Halfway There

20 weeks!

With this pregnancy already half-over, it seems like it's time for a bit of an update!  

Overall, I've felt great since the early weeks.  There was one rough weekend of up-chucking, but since then everything has been pretty smooth.  The hatred of onions marking both my previous pregnancies hasn't returned, and I'm so thankful that I've been able to enjoy the pregnancy-heightened-sense-of-smell for the most part!  It has made it easier both for cooking and changing stinky diapers, and I'm so thankful.

It was also quite fun to feel movement from earlier on this time!  There were some tap-taps that I debated about around 11 weeks, but at 15 weeks they started becoming regular and unmistakable.  

I was very tired, especially during the first trimester.  I don't think my energy has come back quite like it did the last time, either.  But even though I have an active toddler to take care of, she takes good naps in the afternoons, and I've been able to nap when I've needed to, also.  The house is not cleaned quite as often or as thoroughly as it used to be. but that's the way it has to be for now.

Last week, I knit our new daughter her own hat!  

It's from the same pattern I used last year for some gift hats and then for Gemma, and I love it.  :)  I was also really happy to use some more of the hand-dyed Merino superwash that I bought last summer.  It's such pretty yarn, and I love that our little girl gets a hat from it, too!  (I think there's enough left for one more hat, in fact!)  The only thing I'm not crazy about is how the yarn starts to stripe toward the crown . . . oh well.  I decided to leave off the tie-strings for now.

In many ways, finding out that we're having another girl has been a bit relieving.  I won't need to adjust the nursery other than adding a little floor-bed for Gemma, and she and her baby sister already have matching pink gingham crib sheets.  :)  I was looking forward to making some baby boy gowns from John's cast-off tees, so that's a project that will have to wait, but there are plenty of others to tide me over in the mean time. Christmas baby does need her own special quilt.  :)  And I do want to start on some Christmas gifts, too!

Winter Knitting

In this part of the country, winter is quickly passing by.  :)  Still, I wanted to share with you all the few things I did knit for this winter.  The pictures aren't tops, but the people in them are. :)

I did end up making Gemma's very own pixie hat! It was from the same pattern I used last September and it came out beautifully.  Since I couldn't find any wool in a weight and color I liked, I ended up buying a skein of Paton's classic wool in plain ivory and dyeing it with grape Kool Aid.  :)  I followed directions found here, and it was a pretty fun process . . . which I did document with photos and intend to tell you about, but those photos are all gone along with our original computer. . . 

These photos are from January, when we visited one of my dearest friends and former roommate, Sarah, along with her husband Logan in the Boston area.  What a sweet day that was.  :)

I loved this baby sweater pattern which I found through ravelry, and knit it up for Gemma in Paton's Classic Wool, as well.  Since she was nine months old at the time, I chose the 18 months size and assumed that the fit would be fine . . . oops!  I think the cotton recommended must be much heavier than the wool I was using, because my first sweater came out newborn-size.  I'm a pretty average knitter, but I think I learned my lesson to check the gauge in a new pattern from now on!

I ended up knitting up a little beanie to go with it and giving it to the precious newborn of a family at church.  The baby hat pattern was the same one I used for the little hat Gemma lived in for the first three months of her life in this big, wide world!

For sweater attempt number 2, I switched to size 10 needles and Paton's Roving in the same color as the first sweater, and it's a much better fit!  I'm now using the rest of the roving to felt some dryer balls!  They're halfway done.  

Yes, Gemma figured out that music comes out of the ear buds.  John was pretty excited to teach her that.  :)  

And, I actually have NOTHING on the needles at the moment, which feels a little strange!  But I have been doing some other sewing and crafting projects lately, so perhaps I'll tell you about some of them, too!  It's nice to be back here.  :)

Of Pilot and Pixie

"Despite what the thermometer says, autumn is coming!"  That's how I planned to begin this post, and then God blessed us with a suddenly cooler day which does feel like autumn!  It was the right kind of day to bake rice custard and actually wear Gemma in the Moby wrap for our walk.  (I make my custard with brown rice and only a little bit of brown sugar, so I offered some to baby, but she wasn't interested!)

Gemma and I were cozy together in the wrap, but I wished I'd put a hat on her.  Her new winter hat is still very much in the works, but I've finished two others!

I'm indebted to my friend Amy for inspiring me to grow in my knitting skills and for introducing me to Ravelry.  There is a world of free patterns to be had and so many pretty ones to try!  When I saw this pattern there last year, I knew I wanted to try it someday.  The author actually directs folks to her updated version, however, called the Lil' Midi Bean.  I loved how it is completely seamless!  It came together nicely.

I worked the first one up in Paton's Kroy sock yarn.  It was the prettiest color I could find at Michael's, but when it was finished, I decided it was still a bit too masculine for a girl.  It was also just a tad small for Gemma, and winter's not even here yet, so it will go to someone else. 

 In search of prettier colors in wool, I visited a local yarn shop and brought home this lovely fingering-weight superwash Merino.  The woman who had dyed it sold it to me, and it is soo pretty.

This hat is actually smaller than the first, but it's for a friend with a newborn.  I'm sure it will look much prettier on a little girl than on Gemma's monkey! 

The sweet pixie point was a large part of what sold me on the original pattern, but the author said the revised pattern eliminated "the awkward point to the top."  I decided to follow the revisions exactly in hat number one, and it is a bit more pilotish, but I followed a more gradual decrease pattern in hat number 2, hoping to get the sweet fairy look back.  :)

Just a little while, sweet baby, and yours will be next!

Homemade Swiffer Pads!

Back when I was exploring homemade cleaning products, a friend shared that she crocheted her own Swiffer covers! I finally chose a pattern from Ravelry and got started!

So far, I've made two and have one more on the needles. The pattern looks fancy but is really quite simple! And does it work? It probably works as well as an ordinary Swiffer pad in that it does a good job with dust but doesn't pick up bigger crumbs. I haven't tried it wet yet, so we'll have to wait and see!

For a Niece Who Likes Pink

The elder of our two little nieces is a girl after her auntie's own heart. When I heard that her favorite color was pink, I chose the Briar Rose pattern on the Ravelry website for her birthday sweater. And I decided Caron's Country yarn with its bit of merino mostly because it had the best colors for the project.

This poor little pullover took me far too long to knit, considering that I started in November and her birthday was in January! But there were two big reasons for the delay, one foreseen and the other quite unforeseen. I hope she forgives me.

As for the pattern itself, I'm pleased with how it turned out, but I probably would not choose it again. I modified it slightly, knitting the front and back simultaneously in the round and both sleeves in the round as well to help avoid seams. It's not completely seamless, however, since the shoulders and arms as well as the picot hem are all sewn. The little top-down tunic top I knit for her sister last fall was more fun to knit because the pattern was more streamlined.

Hope that this sweater fits her next fall! Happy Belated Birthday, dear niece!

Happy Birthday, dear niece

The latest knitting project is done!

I used a pattern from ravelry (http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/hetty-2) and Patons Organic Cotton, and I think it's quite darling. :-)

On Knitting Smarter

With a little one on the way, I realized that if I'd like to plan at all on making some of our Christmas presents, this is the year to do it.  And since she's due at the beginning of December, this, now, is the time to do it!  As a result, I've been knitting a lot more than usual in the past month, and getting more and more addicted.  (Addicted --> increasing love and frequency!)

One of the neat things about my mother-in-law is her love for learning.  She's been an outstanding craftswoman since John was little, if not before, but never stops taking classes, reading books and watching videos on youtube to help better herself.  I've found myself inspired by her and other friends like Amy not to get stuck in a rut myself.  And I've learned a lot about knitting in a smarter way than before!

All my recent projects, including my current one in the picture above, have been "in the round" patterns.  Happily, they've all also required size 7 needles, so the same two pairs of circulars have been doing marvelously lately!  I love knitting in the round, and I love doing it with two pairs of circulars instead of with double-points.  Here are some of the reasons why.  

• Knitting in the round is faster and cleaner.  There are minimal (if any) seams to sew up at the end, and fewer yarn tails to hide away.
• Seamless projects also come out beautifully, with no bumpy seams!
• The two-pairs-of-circulars method is flexible enough to work for very large circles or very small ones, like thumbs!
• I find that I lose stitches more readily with double-points.  There are more points and places for stitches to fall off, and with circulars the stitches all push handily onto the middle parts of the needles for storage.  
• There are also fewer needle-changes with two pairs of circulars than with double-points, making it faster still. 

Yay for knitting, and yay for natural fibers like wool and organic cotton!

For the Love of Wool

When I was first getting into knitting soakers, I found a pattern online for a soaker sack!  It's just darling, and was fun and easy to knit-in-the-round.  (I used Patons wool in the creamy natural you can see above!)  It would be paired more appropriately with a side-snap shirt, I think, but I don't have any of those yet and I do have onesies, so I stuck one in for the photo.

John can probably testify to how many times I exclaimed that our little one would look like such a sweet glow-worm in her sheepy sleeper soaker sack.  I was thinking of the toys that were popular when I was little.  You squeeze their bellies and they glow.  Anyone?  (Picture on Wikipedia.)  All she needed was a hat to match.  Then I realized that I could probably make one of those, too.  :-)

I found this pattern and got to learn how to make i-cord!  I just used one i-cord strand, though the pattern gives you a few different options.  That part was fun, although the initial increases after the i-cord were kind of hard for me . . . took me about three tries, in fact.  But it was exactly what I had in mind, and came out just darling, I think!  Better yet, I ran out of the Patons skein I'd used for the sack when I was about half-way through the hat, and my Mom-in-law just happened to have a matching end from one of her projects hanging around the house.  :-)

Some Recent Knitting

I've been doing kind of a lot of reading about baby stuff lately.  :-)  In the spirit of being healthy, frugal and green, I'm really interested in cloth diapers.  For a week or two, in fact, every time the thought of food was about to make me sick, I refocused and tried to picture putting a clean baby's bottom in soft cotton prefolds with wool covers.  Ahh. 

I still have a lot to learn about using wool.  I was first inspired by seeing my cousin Missy's little girl in pink wool leggings, and have learned a lot more from my friend Amy . . . Apparently, these little things I've made are called "soakers," and I'm excited to discover how well they work.  My mother diapered all three of us in prefolds with pins and rubber pants, and I have some memories of my 5-year-younger brother wearing them.  They seem natural and nice.  But wool is much more exciting than rubber pants.

Sooo, for those interested, I used a free pattern from Fern and Faerie for these, mostly because the pattern worked with the needle sizes I have around.  The blue one came first, but since I was also using yarn that I had around, it's from a rather thin wool.  Hmm.  I'm considering trying to felt/shrink it a little, but I've never felted anything before and don't know how to get it to the size I want to get it to.  We'll see.

The second went much faster for several reasons: 
1.  I was using thicker yarn (only 25% wool, though, so it might not work so well.)
2.  We were visiting my mom-in-law, who convinced me to try using two pairs of circular needles instead of four double-points. 
3.  She also convinced me to (once again) try knitting in the Continental method.  Way faster.

In the process, I had the opportunity to try to teach myself the Kitchener stitch from youtube, which was interesting.  Now they're awaiting lanolizing and product-testing.  :-)

I Don't Always Finish Projects On Time

This is Gonzo.  He's my version of Gonzo, anyway.  :-)  My brother and sister and I all love the Muppets, and Gonzo is Heidi's favorite.  Mom has a puppet pattern, so, years ago, I started making this little guy as a Christmas present for Heidi.  Many hours later, post-Christmas, I finally got his body done . . . then pants . . . then found little baby sneakers for him at a garage sale . . .

But he sat in her closet, shirt-less, for the last couple of years. 

He's finally clothed!  I knit up a little sweater-vest this winter with some leftover yarn.  I found a basic pattern for an American Girl doll sweater online (but I don't remember where) and just added some length.  It has a 3/4 opening in the back with a snap-closure, and I'm so glad it fits!  Gonzo is finally complete!  :-)

Mittens

The title of this post makes me smile because "mittens" is also a Latin word for "sending."  (Present active participle, if I remember correctly, for those who know and care!)

This is the second pair of four-needle mittens I've made and kept; the fourth, I suppose that I've actually made, because I ripped out a couple of early attempts with weird patterns I tried.  This pattern is from freevintageknitting (http://www.freevintageknitting.com/mittens/615-mittens-pattern.html).  It's great because it has numbers for five different sizes!  I just added the cables and some increases to adjust for the cables.  And since I was using Paton's Shetland Chunky yarn, they came out a bit larger than the pattern said, which, come to think of it, may be why one of my attempts got ripped out.  Anyway, it's a nice wool-blend yarn with the washability of acrylic.  They were a present, along with an Olivia book, for John's dear little niece turning 7. 

It's great to be back at our home on cottage lane, though I do feel a bit overwhelmed with all there is to be caught up on.