This site in the [ Previous | Next | Random Site | List Sites | Join ]
I forgot to share with you a photo of the finished baby booties I made from Zoe Mellor's 50 Baby Bootees. These are absolutely precious. I will definitely be making more booties from this book.
The yarn I bought in Italy was for something small and portable that I could knit quickly and easily. I mostly buy sock yarn while traveling and turn my purchase into a handknit souvenir of my trip. But now my sock yarn stash is getting unruly, so I decided to turn my attention to even smaller projects. I went on Ravelry and found Christine's Stay-On Baby Booties by Christine Bourquin.
Here are the WIP booties acting as Evian bottle cozies on the airplane ride home.
I finished everything but the crocheted laces on the ride home. As soon as I was home, I pulled out my crochet hook and whipped up some chain stitch laces for these adorable booties.
Aren't they just too cute? I seem to have a lot of friends with new babies these days, so I think you might be seeing more and more little projects on my blog. I've never been much of a baby bootie knitter. In fact, these are only my 3rd pair. But I can see myself getting into the groove.
What's your favorite baby bootie pattern?
I've made more progress on the navy blue Sirdar Snuggly DK weight Oh So Soft Baby Blanket. I'm really enjoying knitting up this easy and lovable blanket.
I have used 2 full skeins of the Sirdar Snuggly and it's approximately 12 inches tall. I think all-in-all it will be about 36 x 36 when it's done. You can see it compared to the original Oh So Soft Baby Blanket in the two strands of baby yarn on US Size 13 needles. Here's a close-up of the baby blanket:
I'm not rushing through this project, but it's a mindless one to knit, so it's easy to take to a place where I want to knit and chat. I'm still a bit jetlagged, so I haven't finished my mitten homework. I should probably get working on that, though.
I worked on the Oh So Soft Baby Blanket while in Brazil. Here are some pictures of my traveling knitting.
Here I am on the observation deck of the tower in Brasilia.
My knitting likes heights apparently. Here we are in the helicopter tourist tour of Brasilia. This was an interesting trip since Brasilia was designed in the shape of an airplane. Here's the city map. It's hard to tell... but if you're good, you can just pick out the airplane. Here's a hint... the center column is the cockpit, fuselage and tail of the plane. The heavily built-out areas on the left and the right are the wings - or residential areas. Check out more information about Brasilia here.
Please disregard my vacation hair. The change in water, humidity and hair dryers always figure into hair styling while on the road. Do you ever suffer from vacation hair?
Yeah. I've knit about another 1-2 inches. Whoopee! I can tell you're very excited.
It's almost time to add a garter stitch and eyelet stripe. I am quite pleased with the way it's turning out, but since I only have 6 skeins of yarn, I still have no idea what shape this might be upon completion. I think I'll have a better idea after 2 skeins are used. Right now I'm nearly finished with the first skein. I believe the seed stitch border eats up more yarn than the stockinette. That's why I want to have 2 skeins used before I feel I can accurately judge the dimensions. Regardless of whether it's a square or a rectangle, I'm sure it will be well-loved.
I cast on 160 sts on a US Size 7 rosewood circular needle. I have six skeins of the Sirdar Snuggly. I hope it will be enough. If not, my blanket will be more square than rectangular. That's a good thing about baby blankets - they really fit no matter what.
Here are my thoughts on making this Oh So Soft Baby Blanket in the DK weight (and with a single strand).
That last part isn't really fair. I am Ms. Immediate Gratification, so this blanket takes a normal amount of time to knit. I knit up the super quick yellow Oh So Soft Baby Blanket on US Size 13 needles with two strands of DK weight yarn in about 12 hours. This blanket is single stranded on needles half the size with twice as many stitches. Any Math-Knit-ician can figure out that this blanket should take twice as long to knit - or 24 hours. Not bad, right? Except that since it's a smaller needle, I will knit slower due to the finer motor skills needed. I am certain that I can knit this blanket in under 30 hours, but I'm not certain I want to. Uh Oh. Already committed. Not much else I can do except knit. Plus, I've got a lot of plane rides coming up in the next few months, so it will be a good traveling companion. It won't become priority knitting, but it will be worked on regularly.
What do you think? Do you like speed, quality, design or comfort? What's the number one factor when you pick out a pattern?
The reason I like the Oh So Soft Baby Blanket is that it knits up so quickly. You hold two strands of yarn together at the same time and knit it on very large needles. It's done in no time at all. In fact, I finished this entire blanket in about 12 hours. I believe I knit rather quickly, so I would allow 16 hours of solid knitting time to have this finished. If you only knit a few hours per day, you could easily finish this in a week.
Since I was in a hurry and grabbed the US Size 13 circular bamboo needles instead of the recommended US Size 15 it's a bit skinnier than the original dimensions. Although truthfully, for the 20 or more that I've made of these, I've often switched between the two sizes. Here's a small Curious George next to the finished blanket.
Here's the finished blanket spread out over Curious George's lap in my Knit Nook. You can see that there are four full stockinette panels, 5 garter and eyelet repeats and two half stockinette panels (one on each end). You can alter the pattern to fit your needs.
For this particular blanket I ended up altering the pattern as follows
Remember this summer when we visited our friends in Carlsbad? Well, Nancy finished the baby blanket and baby Olivia used it at her christening.
Isn't Olivia just precious in her christening outfit against her Easy Knit Baby Blanket from Fiber Trends?
Nancy said she couldn't have finished the project without all your help answering her questions about binding off. She also got plenty of great assistance from the wonderful staff at Common Threads in Encinitas, California. Thanks to all!
Before hitting the road, I got out my Philospher's Wool fair isle DVD and book and tried to learn how to knit the steeks for my abandoned Crayons and Chalkboards vest for my nephew. During the eight hour road trip, I managed to knit the chalkboard strip. That's it. Here I am at the racetrack trying to get started on the red crayons.
Just so you know how exciting Mazda MX5 racing can be, guess who drives this car
Did you guess Patrick Dempsey? You'd be correct! But let's get back to truly exciting stuff. Here's a close-up of the Crayon & Chalkboard vest.
The bad news is that when I knit my swatch, I was not knitting loose enough (see how tight the first chalkboard and crayons are?), so instead of being a size 6 vest, this will actually be a size 10. That's not so bad, except it means I'm less than halfway done. Drat. The good news is that I'll get to add more colors from the Crayola box. Red is next. Then I think purple, orange and yellow.
I have finished the pink, orange and cream baby sweater. I used Zara yarn and US Size 5 needles and generally followed the pattern on the cover of Zoe Mellor's pattern from this book. I made this graph for the heart and used it in place of the star. Feel free to use my graph as well. Download iverson_baby_heart_pattern.xls
Since I started working on this sweater while traveling, I didn't really have an option to switch needles, but I think I would have prefered using US size 4 needles to give the fabric a tighter stitch. I don't care for the unevenness of the stockinette stitch in this sweater. I tend to knit loosely, so I generally go down 1-2 sizes from the recommended needle for the yarn. I am going to try a US Size 4 on the second sweater. Wish me luck!
We got to Carlsbad and visited the Iversons. Nancy is busy making an adorable pink heart baby blanket for her first granddaughter. Isn't it sweet?
It's this Easy Knit Baby Blankets pattern from Fiber Trends that she bought at her LYS.
I like Nancy's particularly ingenious method for keeping track of which row she's on.
She copied down the instructions for each row on an index card and then hole punched the entire stack and connected them with a ring. Now all she needs to do is flip through the index cards to keep track of where she is in the pattern. I think this trick is brilliant, don't you?
Baby Olivia will be one lucky baby when she's swaddled in Grandma Nancy's heart blanket.
After we left Carlsbad, BF and I drove to Los Angeles where we visited more friends. It was great to see them and get to know their children. Brooke and Micah were eager to show me their Kool-Aid dyed yarn when they saw me knitting.
This skein of yarn is actually the one that Micah dyed. He used red Kool-Aid, so was a little surprised when his yarn turned out pink. He thinks it should be made into something for his sister or his Nana. Brooke's yarn was at Nana's house so she couldn't show me her yarn. She did make a great copy of the instructions for hand-dyeing yarn with Kool-Aid for me. I've never dyed yarn before, but now I believe I will. Thanks Brooke and Micah. You are truly an inspiration!
Gotta love pink! What's not to love about this warm and fuzzy cap. It's the perfect size for a teenage girl to keep warm at some outdoor high school event while still looking cute and adorable.
Conor insisted on wearing his favorite Aunt Jennifer sweater for Christmas. Isn't he a sweetie?
I decided to revisit the Fruity Pebbles hat and scarf. I knit this scarf awhile ago, but never got around to making another hat. So I finally whipped up this hat as a gift for Bethany's little 3-year-old niece who was visiting this weekend. I'm going to make another hat to fine-tune the pattern. I already bought more yarn, so it shouldn't take me too long.
My friend had a baby girl last month and we had a Girls Night Out baby shower for her. I made a Flying Triangles Baby Blanket for the newest addition - Baby Annika Rose.
Here's the Flying Triangle Baby Blanket with a Knit Note for Annika. I hope she loves it to pieces. Click here for the pattern graph for this baby blanket.
Hurry up and wait is a common expression in the military. In my case it's more like wait, wait and then hurry up. That's what I did with Grace's Ballerina Wrap. After waiting until the last possible moment to finish it up, I had no choice but to express mail it to her in South Dakota. Luckily when she got home from her fun-filled afternoon Easter Egg hunt, it was waiting for her. After her bath, she got to open up her new Easter outfit.
I wonder if she slept holding those little shoes?
Note to self: The hat is a little bit too big. Maybe I still have enough yarn leftover to make another hat a bit smaller. Then Grace and Ellen can have matching Mommy and Me hats. Interesting idea.
Have you been wondering what ever happened to Grace's Ballerina Wrap? OK. I confess. It went into the UFO pile. But since she's a growing girl, and Easter is this Sunday, I just had to finish it in time. So I spent six hours yesterday and today adding beads to the felted flowers, sewing them on the sweater, weaving in the loose ends, and knitting I-cord wraps. I was quite pleased with the results.
I've never been one to avoid a challenge. The third sweater I ever made was a children's colorwork sweater for my niece Molly (a huge Nebraska "Go Big Red" fan) that I made while living in Brazil in 1987. Now, 19 years later, it's been passed down to my nephew Conor who asked me "Aunt Jennifer, May I keep the Go Big Red sweater forever?" Ah... a true fan of handknit sweaters. What a wonderful young boy.
In 1988 I made a matching sweater for Molly's Dad - my BIL Guy. Here they are side-by-side
Alas, since these sweaters were knit over 18 years ago and from a pattern in Brazil, I do NOT have the pattern, nor can I tell you where to find it. Please don't ask. I'm just sharing the pictures because I thought you'd enjoy seeing them.
Meg came to SNL today and shared this UFO that she started ages ago. Isn't the little lamb pattern adorable? Meg's pattern is from one of the Vogue Knitting on the Go books. I'll have to go see exactly which one it is. Anyone remember off the top of their heads?
PS - Thanks to Judy, Gail and Sarafina for reminding me that it's definitely from Vogue Knitting on the Go - Baby Blankets. The pattern is called "Little Lambs - Counting Sheep".
Every well dressed girl needs a hat. Grace is no exception. Since I had some leftover yarn, I decided to make a roll-brimmed cloche for her with the brown and pink Aurora 8 Bulky. I cast on 63 stitches on US size 10 1/2 circular needles (plus dpns) and knit away.
Here is the cloche with the felted I-cord flower and the unfelted I-cord flower. Either one would be fine.
I added the button. I added the beads. I did some felting. They were a failure. Enough said. These things happen. You just have to accept that and move on.
Today BF and I went to visit my college roommate Mary and to meet her new baby. Baby Daniel is such a sweetie. I took advantage of the non-navigational moments to knit up some I-cord flowers to embellish the ballerina wrap sweater. I'm not sure if I should use them as is or if I should felt them. I definitely want to add some buttons, sequins or bead to jazz them up just like they are on the little shoes.
Doesn't this just remind you of freshly tilled soil ready for planting? That's what I see when I see the base of Gracie's Ballerina Wrap like this. I still need to make the wrap part (ribbon or knit ties?) and then I'm off to plant. I'm looking through the Nicky Epstein Knitting on the Edge and Knitting Over the Edge books to see if there are some handknit flower embellishments that will be the perfect accent for this sweater.
Gracie saw the picture of her sweater WIP this morning and calls it her "Ballabina" sweater. Isn't that cute?
I went into the city today, so I had that wonderful 70 minute commute on a cold rainy day which allowed me to get a great deal of knitting done. While I don't miss working in the city, I do miss the quality knitting time I had on the train.
In case any of you were wondering if I would ever knit anything other than American Girl Doll sweaters, the answer is yes. I picked up the chocolate Aurora Bulky for Gracie's Ballerina Wrap. While it's only slightly larger than a doll sweater, at size 4T, it is bigger. So, I casted on 110 stitches and began knitting. I haven't gotten very far today, but I am enjoying it. Since it's a bulky yarn, it's knitting up very quickly.
But, my American Girl Doll catalog arrived today, and I was was tempted to buy clothes, shoes, glasses and more so I can have a more stylish fashion shoot next time around.
I went to my friend Debbie's home show yesterday to buy her Dear Friends stationery which I've been needing If you need some - email Debbie. Of course, her friend Lisa was there selling Miss Kriki clothes for girls. How adorable! Of course, I have boys, so what do I care about girls' clothes? Well, I do have nieces, you know. These little shoes caught my eye.
So I bought them. And a little frou-frou pink skirt with brown and glittery white dots. How does this relate to knitting? Because I had to rush straight to the yarn store to pick up matching yarns so I can knit a matching sweater to complete the ensemble. Here's what I got.
Karabella Aurora Bulky 25 yarn in chocolately brown and pale pink plus some, green Filatura di Crosa Zara for leaves. Of course these 4 skeins of Lorna's Laces for Laruen's Socktoberfest and some US 10.5 circular addi Turbo needles - 24", two sets of Lantern Moon dpns in sizes US 2 and 6, and a Yarn Requirement Guide.
I knit up a swatch of the Aurora Bulky 25 in stockinette
I think I'll make a little ballerina wrap sweater and make some pink flowers to attach all over the sweater. I made a sketch of what it might look like. Thanks boys for letting me borrow your crayons!
Won't Grace look amazing?
I had just enough yarn left over from the Jazzed Up Denim Jacket I made for Itty that I decided to make a little hat. I had hoped it might be enough for a 1 year old, which is how old Itty is, but it really was only enough for a newborn hat. Maybe I'll be buy another skein of yarn to make another Jazzed Up Denim Jacket for some soon-to-be-born babies in my life. Hmmmmm.
There's nothing to this pattern. Try it yourself. Download baby_hat.doc
OK... here's the worst part though. I just wrote down that it was Pink Fiesta. I can't find the label and I don't really remember the gauge. Sorry!
POSTSCRIPT: Here's the good news. I was cleaning up and found the yarn label in the bottom of my knitting bag. It's Fiesta by Feza. For the Feza home page (in Turkish) click here. You can find aqua, lime and orange Fiesta yarn by clicking here. Or you can contact Janet Kemp and see if she still has some in stock.
BF went to meet baby Enzo while he was in Brazil. He brought back the little baby mementos with him. They're the cutest little things and I bet many of you could recreate something like this.
Here's a close-up. I took one apart so you can see what goes into the little gift. Oh... the mementos are staged on top of the Criss Cross Baby Blanket. Here's what you need to make your own little souvenir for visiting a new baby:
Congratulations Carol & Arthur on the birth of baby Enzo.
When you can't find your measuring tape in your knitting nook, you raid the tool box for the tape measure! At least that's what I did.
Without blocking, the Mets blanket now measures 32 x 32. I still want it to be longer. I guess I have another straight week of knitting before it's done.
Well, last week was oldest son's turn to have a handknit item for his school project. This week, it was youngest son's turn. I was one of the chaperone's for today's trip to the Noah Webster House in Hartford, CT and everyone dressed in colonial garb. Most of the boys merely rolled up their pants and wore a white shirt. I rolled up my sons's pants, tucked them underneath a loop of elastic (this made them look more like knickers), combined that with long black men's dress socks and black boots, plus a white dress shirt and this handmade vest from ages ago. (No, I don't have the pattern - it was knit in 1998 using Lion Brand Wool Ease). I'm wearing my Berroco Suede "Oakley" shawl. Together we made our attempt to be colonial. What do you think?
Here's a close up of the makeshift knickers. I used the military blousing technique as described above with a small piece of elastic (not too tight!). I'm sorry it's hard to see, being all black and everything, but I thought this might give others out there a great idea of how to make an instant costume using things around the house.
Believe me, Son#1 is much cuter in the Cleopatra Wig - or rather "Hallowig" than I am.
Don't you agree?
When you're 10 years old and you have to do a HUGE project for the 5th Grade Ancient Egypt Job Fair that you've known about for weeks, you'd probably wait until the last minute to do it, wouldn't you?
Well... that's what happened at our house last night. Part of the project is to make a costume. Fortunately, it's a fairly simple costume - farmer - so all Son #1 needs is an old white sheet to make a little skirt wrap, a black wig, a wooden bowl and some seeds. Now, I happened to remember an existing black wig on somebody's blog, but couldn't quite remember where. Thank goodness for Google! I found the Hallowig Knitalong when I did my search which lead me to the fall 2004 Knitty issue and this wonderfully hilarious pattern by Meg Reardon. I have plenty of acrylic yarn, so I'm busy knitting a black "Cleopatra" wig for my son.
[Check back for pictures of the finished Hallowig - or - "Walk Like An Egyptian" wig]
I promise I'll be back to serious knitting soon.
Here are some pictures from Christmas day when Julie and Emily opened their Jazzed Up Denim Jackets. Emily was a bit reluctant to try her jacket on at first, but with Mama (Debbie's) help, she managed to pose for this picture. On Christmas day, Emily wasn't too excited about her jean jacket. She just kept saying that it was "too big", but the next day at Church, Emily sat with me while wearing her new jacket and said "Aunt Jennifer, You're SO beautiful". Sigh! OK sweetie. Whatever you want Aunt Jennifer to knit for you for the rest of your life... it's yours. (I'm such a pushover when it comes to compliments!)
Here's Julie the Elf wearing her jazzed up denim jacket. She was in charge of passing out the Christmas gifts to everyone. She's too old to use the same line as Emily... but it would work on me, too. Heehee!
Here's Priscilla modeling her first scarf. It appears to be made with a pink and orange boucle. Priscilla knit it length-wise in garter stitch. It's probably done on a size 13 or 15 needle with perhaps a Lion Brand boucle? She probably cast on over 100 stitches and knit back and forth in garter stitch until the scarf was about 6 inches "tall". Go Priscilla! I'm so happy that you've picked up the knitting bug. It's a great virus to catch.
Here's a picture of the hat and scarf set I made for Grace Louise. Remember the scarf from August? I finally created a hat pattern to go with the scarf. Nothing like planning in advance -- I created the hat on the plane ride home to Iowa, of course. Thank goodness for that delay in Minneapolis. Anyway, I was quite pleased with the results.
For now you only get a close up on the kitchen counter. I took some pictures on Christmas day, but they're weren't any great shots, so I asked Ellen to get out her camera and start taking more close-ups of my niece. Here's the best picture I have for now of Gracie wearing her hat and scarf.
