I knit this to be a 3-6 month old sweater, but it sort of fits my 10 month old. I suspect it's the sweater that's off size, not the baby. It's knit from cotton, which apparently stretches width-wise a lot. I did make a gauge swatch, and I tried really hard to stick to the dimensions given in the pattern, but it somehow ended up being a really wide sweater with extremely long sleeves. Considering how wrong the proportions are, it still manages to look pretty cute. Maybe that's what's so nice about knitting for babies. The look great in anything.

Here are the details:
pattern: based on the "hooded sweater" pattern in Special Knits by Debbie Bliss, and I fair isle striping detail
yarn: Jo Sharp Soho Summer cotton
needles: I think I used 9s but I'm not sure.
start date: June 2007
end date: July 2007

Fluffy lavender yum. I was worried that such chunky wool would overpower and overheat my small man. But this super snuggly sweater has proven to be a useful part of his winter wardrobe. And it's so nice to have him in something colorful. Even at his young age, I find that so many of the boy clothes in the shops are in subdued colors. Beige. Navy. Maroon. Grey. Maybe it's just the winter wear, and the spring/summer stuff will be more cheerful.

The only problem with the sweater is that the neck opening is too small. Therefore the top button has only decorative status. I used an Osh Kosh sweater that he has as a guide to make sure the size was right, and that sweater had kind of the same thing going on. But both sweaters look nice on him anyway. I didn't feel any need to rip it back and rework it.

Here are the details:
pattern: based on the 6 to 9 month old pattern in Style Your Own Kids Knits, and I modified it to have a button placket
yarn: 1 skein of Luxe Wool in lavender from the Woodstock Wool Company
needles: I think I used US 9.5 - I'd use a bigger needle if i were to do it again.
start date: sometime in January 2008
end date: February 28th, 2008

booties are so quick and satisfying. I still haven't put the sleeves on the Pup's purple sweater, of course, but at least I'm three booties richer. and i'm getting better with every bootie. I'd say they're great stash busters, but they're so small they don't bust anything. they're stash snackers.

the fair isle bootie, which is pictured first but which I made second, is a little more successful in design and color choice. I haven't yet made the laces for it though, and I think the laces will disrupt the nice diagonal pattern. I also still have to make the mate for that one.

all of these booties are modified versions of the Stay-On Baby Bootie pattern in Knitting for Baby by Melanie Falick and Kristin Nicholas. I hear from some who I've made them for before that they really do stay on, which is not always the case with baby booties or socks.

I haven't made a pair for the Pup, but I plan on it. Poor pup, he hasn't any booties. Booties, booties everywhere, and not a boot to wear.

enjoying his blankie. I'm so happy to say that i'm all done knitting his purple slubby chunky sweater and i'm now assembling it. new post with the finished result soon... i hope it fits okay!

i am currently knitting a sweater for my son, whom i will probably call Puppy here because that's what I call him. If i don't finish it soon he will outgrow it before it's done. and that is not good. must knit, must knit. I'll put up a cute pic of the new Pup and his new sweater soon, I promise. I resolve.

1. nursery stuff
2. the fair isle blankie to end all fair isle blankies
3. a crochet blankie
4. some clothing, both knit and sewn

I'll show you the nursery first and then make separate entries for the other things...

Putting together the nursery was really fun -- when else do you get to make a room from scratch all at once like that? Super-crafty elements include: the curtains which I sewed myself, as well as the cover for the pillow on the rocking chair, and the cover on the nursing pillow (boppy). The pillows were easy but the curtains were a much bigger project than I expected.

I also bought fabric and brought it to Pickleboots in Park Slope where they made it into a very cute crib bumper, hooded towel and receiving blanket. We don't have the crib set up yet though (we're just using the bassinet) so it's not in the picture. But it was fun picking out the fabrics.

Steeking is a scary proposition! But with a little help from Maxcine and her friends at Stitch Therapy (okay, a lot of help!), and armed with directions from Eunny, I was able to move past my fear and CUT the blankie. It was oddly satisfying. And once I sewed the ribbon on over the steeked edges I had total confidence that it would never unravel.

And thus endeth the saga of my Fair Isle February project (see link in sidebar). It only took 4 and a half more months than I expected!

I have to say it turned out really great. It took SEVENTEEN balls of Debbie Bliss Chunky Cashmerino, definitely more individual skeins than I've ever used in any one project.

Here 'tis:

I love the back of it almost as much as the front...

some closeups of the front and the ribbon edging...

It took me a few tries to get going on this project since my crochet skills were rudimentary. I was finally getting the hang of it but still something seemed off... I was several inches into the blanket when I happened to go into Stitch Therapy when the pattern designer happened to be there. A stroke of luck! She was so nice to help me out... It took us a while to figure out why my work wasn't coming out like hers, but eventually we figured out that I was wrapping the yarn incorrectly around the hook. I took a deep breath, unraveled all five-by-thirty inches, and started over. After that everything went smoothly, and I love the way it came out:

I also knitted a hoodie with the yarn I originally intended for this unfinished project, and there's also this sweater that I knitted intending to give to some non specific recipient, but I never gave it away.

I went away this weekend and decided that I would set aside my baby blanket and take some smaller projects with me on the trip. So I pulled out my giant space bag of yarn and picked some leftover bits and pieces to make baby booties with. I was excited to have some relatively instant gratification with some FOs by the end of the weekend. And it was indeed very gratifying.

I made these booties out of the leftovers from my clapotis. The first bootie took about three hours to knit, but I think the second was much less time consuming since I was familiar with the pattern (the stay-on baby booties from Knitting for Baby by Melanie Falick and Kristin Nicholas). Another reason why they took so long is that they came out MUCH bigger than they were supposed to. Apparently my gauge is much bigger knitting garter in the round than back and forth, as I did for the swatch. So I took a little risk and I felted them. They shrunk back down to the perfect size and they look great, I think. I love felting! It's so satisfying to feel the fabric get all thick and matted in your fingers as you knead it, and to watch it shrink before your eyes. Magic.

I also managed to whip up one more little bootie, and the other one is almost done. This time I modified the pattern to use garter stitch only on the sole of the bootie:

And last but not least, I visited a lovely yarn store in Woodstock where I got some slubby lavender yarn for a baby sweater, which I wound into the biggest ball of yarn ever. That apple isn't smaller than usual, the ball of yarn is just enormous!

So this baby is a little more than half baked. I've got four and a half months to go.

Likewise, my super fantastical mega-colored uber-warm baby blanket is a little more than half knitted. Of course, there will be no need for an uber warm blanket in July when the thing pops out, so I really don't need to keep pace so precisely.

Actually, I'm hoping to have the thing done in a week or two. I'm too eager to start on other projects.

I'm pretty happy with the way it's coming together. The more stripes I do, the more balanced it looks between warm and cool colors.

I tried to take a pic outside today where the light is better, but it turns out I'm snowed in. Or iced in, really, since there's not more than two inches. Eek.

Anyway, this part of the blanket making/blanket blogging is less than thrilling, but there's always the looming STEEK in the future. This part of baby making is a little more exciting, but there's definitely the looming BABY in the future. Ah, the scary scary world of the unknown.

My evil plan is working. I didn't think I could stand the boredom of knitting an entire blanket, even a baby blanket. So I loaded my attack plan with tons of fair isle and tons of color changes with seven colors total, and then I threw in a new skill (steeking) for good measure.

And this blanket is zooming along. I'm knitting it in the round so I have to imagine what it'll look like once steeked and laid out flat. I have 12 color stripes with 6 flower/diamond color stripes overlaid. And I'm done with 3.5 of the 12 color stripes so that means I'm more than a quarter of the way done. In not much more than a week. Thank goodness for chunky yarn, and for my anti-boredom formula.

Here's a closer look at the steeking stitches. They're the stockinette in between the seed stitch blanket border stitches.

And here's a look at the inside, just because I really like the nubby effect of the reverse. It feels heavenly on your fingers. I wonder if I'll end up covering it with fabric, as originally intended. Even the ribbon-covered edging is in question, although that may be necessary to protect the steeked edges from distress.

I realized the other day that my first blogiversary just passed a couple of weeks ago. To get all misty-eyed about it I decided to take a look back at the projects I've made since I entered blogland. One or two of them are still sitting around waiting for finishing so they're not technically finished objects. But who cares about technically?

So let's see.... my last entry was October 27th... a little less than three months ago. I think it's fair to say that I did not feel like knitting in my first trimester (of pregnancy). I oddly lost all interest in all things knitting just as I was supposed to be knitting my head off. I think it was a mixture of fear, denial and exhaution. But trimester two is in full swing, and I'm feeling better now, so I've begun an ambitious baby blanket, and I've got a little over five months to finish. I bought a whole slew of Debbie Bliss Chunky Cashmerino, which I really enjoyed using in this fair isle project, and I set upon the task of a chunky fair isle blanket. Which sounds really appealing as I look out the window at the first real snow of the year falling.

I stole the idea from this sweater vest in a catalog, which I think was Anthropologie. I don't even really like the sweater vest, but I thought the pattern had potential, and a child-like appeal.

So I swiped it. And I hand drew the pattern out from the picture...

I decided that a less random pattern would work better, and less contrast-y colors would help too. A few swatches later, I've begun.

I'm knitting in the round because purling in fair isle really sucks, and then I plan to steek to open up the tube. I've never steeked before, so that will be interesting!

I'm also planning on putting a ribbon around the edge, and probably backing with some fabric. But I'm afraid it will be too think, so maybe the wrong side will look nice enough without fabric. I'm tacking down my floats every other stitch to allow for this possibility. Does that sound crazy?

I've also plotted out my color changes ahead of time, to ensure good color balance. I mocked up the whole blanket in photoshop. That took hours, finding the right number of color changes of stripes and patterns, and not repeating colors too close to each other... eesh.

So that's a lot of planning, but at least now there's nothin' left to do but knit (and buy some extra balls of yarn because I think 11 might not cut it!).

I was pretty psyched to get back to crochet when I witnessed someone make an entire hat from start to finish in a single sitting at my last "craft nite" (which used to be "yarn nite" before someone started sewing, and "crochet nite" before I joined with my knitting). So I figured I'd whip up a little something for my friends' two year old's birthday this weekend.

It's been about a year since I've crocheted anything so it took me a few tries to get it right, but I did, and it was still pretty quick compared to knitting. I whipped up a few flowers, which was really fun. But then I had to weave in all my ends and sew on the flowers and of course one of my new labels. No fun.

Sometimes sewing feels so evil. It takes forever. I considered not sewing on the last flower, just to be done, but I thought having only two looked unbalanced, so I soldiered on. By the time I finished I was angry at crochet for not being as quick as I wanted. Like I got tricked into it. I still feel a little angry as I type. I'll do some deep breathing exercises....

...Well, I think the thing that got me angry was that I don't like the hat so much. I don't hate it, but I definitely don't love it. Maybe the slowness of knitting is good in that you can't just whip things up - everything's a little more planned out, so you don't start something without a good idea of what you'll end up with. That's probably whye there are considerably more crocheted toilet paper cozies in the shape of roosters than knitted ones.