Topping it off

Well, after much deliberation, I decided to make the Children's Cotton hat from LMKG. I even went online and checked for errors in the pattern. Found it here at the blue blog. There's also a cute version of the children's placket sweater.

So I'm knitting along and everything seems great. I finished the whole thing in a couple days (given my limited knitting time). And well, I still had an uneven number of eyelet holes, even with following the "fixed" pattern for the eyelet round. So I'm not too sure where I messed up, but I just threaded the i-cord through a knit stitch to bring it back out.

I measured my just barely 8-month old's head and she was at about 18 inches (she is humungous by the way, without really be overweight or anything. She is just very tall and at the top of the charts for her age). Anyway, so I decided to make the child size hat thinking it would then fit her later this fall/winter. Uh, no can do. The hat just barely fits her now. So, I guess the hat will be given to another well-deserving, but small-headed baby. I did a gauge swatch and my gauge was right on. Unless I changed my knitting tension once I started, this pattern is definitely for children on the smaller-head side of the spectrum.

I used Bernat's Cotton Tots yarn in Lovely Lilac for the hat. And I REALLY liked the yarn. I think I may try a placket sweater in it next. It's so soft and easy to knit with. I think I like it better than Knitpicks Crayon. The Crayon was too stretchy (like my technical words?). I also want to try Knitpicks' Shine worsted.

Past projects

Here are a few photos from things I've finished up in the recent past. I made a modified version of the Big Bad Baby Blanket from the Stitch n Bitch book. I cast on less stitches, used smaller needles, and double-strand yarn. I really liked the way it came out. I also gave the same couple this set of baby booties. The free pattern is here. I made pillows for each of my girls. My older daughter got this version. She LOVES (aka OBSESSED) with all things Nemo/fishy. So I made her an "ocean" pillow with bright Nemo orange on one side and ocean blues/greens on the other. She ended up loving it! I started out with the "funky cushion" pattern from The Cool Girl's Guide to Knitting and sort of modified it. I was originally planning on just stuffing the pillow myself, so I was making it 13" square. Then I remembered, you could buy pillow forms at Michael's. Of course those are only 12" square so the knitted squares didn't quite come together as nicely as I'd have liked, but I fixed that for my other daughter's pillow. I made that one in deep purple and light pink (she's much more of a girly girl). I used Bernat Boa in peacock and Lion Boucle in an orange (not sure the exact color) yarn for the ocean pillow and Patons Twister in Grape Nuts (I sort of chuckle at that name) and Baby Clouds in Pink Lemonade for the other.

More ramblings....

So miracle of all miracles, D1 and D2 are both sleeping at the exact same time today so if I don't waste too much time blogwriting and blogreading today (ever notice how you think, "I'll just check So-and-So's blog and then get off the computer" and then an hour and five different blogs later, you finally realize how addicting blogs can be. Everyone has links to everyone else's and you can just blog-jump from one to another.....anyhoo), I just might have two whole hours to start a new project. And I will be ignoring the dishes on the counter, the toys all over the living room, the laundry that needs to be folded, and the floors that need to be cleaned. After all, we do have a three-day weekend starting tomorrow. A whole extra day to get caught up around the house. Yippee!

*off to decide on a project*

Hmm.....what to do next?

I can't decide what to work on next. I reorganzied my craft cabinet this week. I found all the yarn I had just been stashing in various corners of our bedroom (is this why they call it yarn stash?) and realized I have a ton of stash yarn already! Mostly baby yarn stuff. So I could make some blankets, sweaters, etc. And I plan to. I was at Barnes and Noble yesterday and actually picked up a copy of Last Minute Knitted Gifts. For the sweater I just finished, I used the corrected pattern from here. I do like some other projects in the book so I gave in and used my 15% off one item coupon on that. I haven't been doing much regular reading lately anyway.

I like the hour-glass sweater in there and was thinking of maybe making that for me. But I wouldn't have the first clue of what color or type of yarn I would use. Hmm....maybe I should just do another children's placket sweater with my stash yarn. I definitely want to make another one soon. As I'm an almost perfectionist (meaning, I'm truly lazy at heart but know that I can do something better. The lazy part means I never really stop and redo something, the almost perfectionist part means, I just do it better next time).

Oooh, I loved some of the hats in LMKG too. So maybe I'll try one of those for a change of pace....

Just rambling today...

It's an actual sweater!

The title of this post was my husband's response when I showed him that I finished my first baby sweater (my first sweater of any kind actually) yesterday! He was actually surprised it turned to have two arm holes and a neck and everything. He said, "You made an actual piece of clothing!" This was all meant to be very supportive and about as excited as one man could get about a baby sweater his wife just finished knitting.

I was so thrilled with myself. I haven't washed or blocked yet. But here are pictures of the FO and the sweater being modeled by Daughter #2 (D2-age 8 months). It's the Children's Placket sweater from Last-minute Knitted gifts in Knitpicks pink Crayon yarn. I should have used size 6 needles but forged on with the 7s anyway because I was too lazy to rip it back and start over. I did do a gauge swatch and knew I should use the 6s, but went ahead anyway. (I was too excited to get going on it and didn't want to wait to order size 6 dpns).

I felt like an idiot reading the pattern. I am one of those visual learners, so often a bunch of words on paper in a technical manner make me feel like I'm reading mumbo gumbo. But of course, the Knitting Goddess came to my rescue and translated. I figured things out after awhile. But I don't know why they just don't say knit one round this way, knit the next seven that way....yada yada.

I think I'm slowly becoming addicted to knitting. I found myself standing at the kitchen counter frantically knitting in about 15 minute increments while dealing with the kids. I have found that I can sort of "trick" Daughter #1 (D1-age 2 1/2 years) that Mommy is busy in the kitchen if I stand at the counter and knit. If I sit in the living room and knit she wants to bug me the whole time. I don't ignore her, if she needs something I get it, but there are times when Mommy just has stuff she needs/wants to get done. And dammit, that sleeve just wanted to be finished!

Anyway, here you go:











I realize you didn't really need FIVE pictures to see my handiwork. But that's what you get because I'm so excited about it. I did modify the pattern a bit. I made the 6-12m size (for the body) and used the 1-2 years sizing for the length of sleeves and the body length. D2 has pretty long arms and is long-waisted, but still pretty skinny all the way around. So I compensated for that. It turned out pretty well. The sleeves are a smidge long, but I did that on purpose for "room to grow".

Well, I think that's all for now. I may post a few pictures of my previous projects in the coming days.

Raison d'être

I fancy myself a person of many interests. I like to be crafty and creative. I have become quite an adept cross-stitcher even adapting and creating my own finished objects (well, okay, not exactly all finished. I do have an whole craft cabinet filled with unfinished cross-stitch projects. My intentions are very good. You may see a couple of those on here from time to time). I like to read as well. In fact I have a book blog (On My Bookshelf). On the flip side, I also enjoy technology. I'm somewhat of a gadget girl, even more than my husband is a gadget guy. I guess I am a true product of my parents (a design engineer and a book worm/crafty type). I like playing around with website design, blogs, photos, etc.

Jeez, see I'm already rambling on. The reason for this blog. I learned to knit a couple years ago. But not very seriously. Last summer, I started knitting easy baby blankets for our friends who were expecting and scarves as other gifts. Starting this spring, I grew tired of all things rectangular. So I threw in a pair of booties with a blanket. And made pillows for each of my girls (I guess those are still technically rectangles). I am currently working on my first baby sweater (definitely not rectangular!).

I have a friend who I shall call The Knitting Goddess. She has helped me tremendously in my quest to improve my knitting skills. And I shared some pictures of my knitting with her. She suggested that I should think about starting a knitting blog. I thought to myself, *another* blog! I also have a blog for our family and friends of things our daughters do. But as I thought about it, and enjoyed reading other knitting blogs, I thought why not?

So here we are.