Baby Stuff



My sister is due to have her second baby in January and she sent me some Pinterest pics of what she wanted for her girl.  Obviously her nursery color theme is pink, white and gray.  The set below was done with one skein each of Lion Brand Vanna's Choice in Pink, White and Silver Grey.

 



The patterns are: Itty Bitty Ribbed Leggies (w/striping & minus the pom poms), this newborn owl hat crochet pattern (though I added the flower but in pink instead of the white & used felt instead of button eyes), this other crochet owl hat pattern (with sleeping lashes instead), and the striped crochet flowered earflap hats in 2 sizes (0-3 & 3-9 mos).  I ended up doing 2 striped hats 'cause I forgot to work in the gray into the smaller size, so I made a second in the next size up.

Before I got my color marching orders from my sister, I had started a cutely constructed pattern that my knitting BFF was working on.  I may give this to my sister anyway since it's in cotton (for HI).

Pattern: Snug
Yarn: Plymouth Fantasy Naturale in a multi from a lys closing awhile back
Needles: size 10

Color Affection, Placemats & Violets Rising

Like a lot of the knitting/crafting world, I'm completely lagging behind on my blog posts.With Instagram & other quickie online social media sources, they're so much easier to update than it is composing one of these blog posts.  In any case, a few things I've finished in the past few months.

Pattern: Color Affection
Yarn: Dream in Color Smooshy in Spring Tickle, Cinnamon Girl, & Romeo Blue
needles: size US 7

mods:
Ran out of Romeo Blue right at the bind off, so I had to switch to Spring Tickle.  When I had bought the yarn at a lys years ago for another test project (wasn't right for it - not lofty enough & too thin), I had an inkling the Romeo Blue skein wasn't quite as full as the other Smooshy skeins.  I don't know why I didn't weigh it & brought it to the lys' attention, but I don't remember if I had a kitchen scale at the time.

Like most other Color Affection knitters, subbed a kfb for the M1 & added a yarn over near the edge stitch on the RS row & dropped it on the WS row for stretch. And like everyone else, I've have tons of sock yarn in my stash, so I'll probably make another one in a different color scheme, probably with some STR.

Per DH's request for our family cabin, I knit up a bunch of place mats.

Pattern: My own though I used this tutorial to miter the seed-stitch border.
needles: size 8 (border for the thinner yarn) and size 10 for the body

Lastly for now, an Anne Hanson (Knitspot) pattern I got from a Yarn4Socks (now a defunct online yarn store) sock club kit. I've been meaning to knit up this pattern ever since I got it, but since I hadn't knit any socks in awhile, I figured now was as good a time as any.

Pattern: Violets Rising
Yarn: The Woolen Rabbit Superwash Merino
needles: size US 1 (2.50 mm) nickel-plated dpns

No mods.  Cuff is a little on the short side, so I have plenty of leftover yarn to do a pair of fingerless mitts if I wish.

Traveling Sweater

Pattern: Traveling Sweater
Pattern size: The first one in the original publication (the 'smallest' size).
Yarn: Blue Moon Fiber Arts Woobu in In the Navy - over 3 skeins.  Will need to weigh the remainder to figure how much is left
Needles: US size 4 Knit Picks nickel-plated circs for everything except the wrist bind off when I switches to size 3 circular needles.

Very helpful for the assembly of the sweater is the designer's blog post if you have difficulties picturing it based solely on the written text in the pattern.

I was a little crazy and decided to do a grafted bind off of the 2x2 ribbing spine instead of a 3-needle bind off or the crocheted bind off recommended by the designer. After some research, including this YouTube tutorial , as well as this blog post and a knitting manual here and there.  This worked really well for the body of the sweater which is worked in the same direction and so the knit & purl columns line up when the 'top' and bottom' are sewn together. 

However, grafting doesn't work when the pieces are knit in the opposite direction, such as the back/shoulder/sleeve pieces were.  The columns were a half-stitch off, so the grafting doesn't align perfectly.  But since I already grafted the body, there was no way in hell I was going to undo that seaming and switch to a 3-needle bind off for the entire spin.  I think most muggles won't notice & the knitters that do will get a nice technical discussion with me on the subject matter.  If you're so inclined, that is. ; )

Sorry, for the blurry pic.  At some point I'll re-take and replace it. My last modification was to do a tubular bind off of the 2x2 ribbing as described here.  But before that, I tinked back 4 rows since I wanted the sleeves ever so slightly shorter.

Bigger on the Inside

Bigger on the Inside, a photo by crochet_chick on Flickr.

Like most crafters, I've pretty much abandoned my crafting blog in favor of quick posts on Instagram. I'll have to make an effort to blog more. It would be easier too if I took the time to learn how to add more than one flickr pic into a blog post.

In any case, I'm on vacation, so I've got a little time to post.

Project deets:
pattern: Bigger on the Inside from knitty.com
yarn: BMFA Socks that Rock medium weight in TARDIS Blue bought at Stitches West 2013
needles: size 6 (US)

No mods. I bought 3 skeins of TARDIS Blue and only used 2 for the shawlette, so I'll probably make a pair of socks from the 3rd skein. I don't like the existing TARDIS sock patterns online since they're all colorwork. I'll probably take the TARDIS chart from the shawlette pattern & put them on the leg of the socks & just do a simple rib pattern for the rest of the socks.