Tag: knitwear

They Are Just That Cute

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I just finished up my first commissioned project, another pair of Spring Breath Booties. I had a friend request a pair after seeing my post about The Cutest Booties Evar. She wanted a very stylish colour combo, chocolate brown with an ivory trim and pink buttons. I bought some Cobasi at The Loop, and though I really liked working with it, the booties were more like socks with such fine yarn. The Cobasi has now implanted itself in my mind and is destined to become a new design for toddler socks. I went to my other local yarn store, Make One Yarn Studios, where I found Diamond Luxury Collection DK Superwash in just the right  colours. Three days later, voila! We have another pair of adorable baby booties ready to be applied to adorable baby feet!

It’s Almost That Time Again…

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Even though I love summer, and this one has been particularly awesome, I always enjoy a change in season. The cold mornings and crispness in the air these days is making me think of cold-weather things like stew, apple pie, jumping in the leaves, and knitting. Yes, it’s true, I’m pretty much always thinking about knitting, but this time of year is specialer (apparently spell-check is totally okay with that word… what is this world coming to?) I’ve got little mittens and hats and sweaters on my mind now, and I can’t wait to get started. I loved the stuff I made for the kids last year, it’s going to be hard to top them. Here are the mitts I made for A last year, rainbow colours and all! What are you going to knit to keep you warm this winter?

(sorry for the photo quality, I had to steal them from Ravelry since I couldn’t find them on the computer)

My little goofball
Nice long cuffs to keep them on

I did a lining with scrap sock yarn to make them extra warm

Cutest. Booties. Evar.

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I’ve made three pair of Julia Noskova’s Spring Breath Booties now, and I’m sure there will be more in the future. The booties are absolutely adorable without being overly cutesy and they stay on really well. You should hear the oooohs and aaaaahs when a pair of these puppies gets opened at a baby shower! And the best thing of all was that the edging forced me to finally learn how to crochet a little bit.

Here they are on handsome Mr. Quinn.

It’s a Process

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Now that I have finished Ryan’s socks I can turn my attention to the sweater design that is brewing in my head. My original plan was to use this beautiful plum-coloured lace weight alpaca yarn from Misti Alpaca. I had never used lace weight yarn before so I wasn’t really sure how it was going to go. So on Friday night I got a chance to sit down and start a swatch with my 2.25 mm needles. Result: yuck! Speaking as someone who generally has very good tension, it is damn-near impossible to do so with tiny yarn and tiny needles. So that idea was scrapped.

Then I got to thinking, if I’m going to knit a sweater for a toddler then the yarn definitely needs to be strong, and it needs to be superwash. I also want it to be fingering weight yarn. What does that leave me with: sock yarn! I didn’t have anything on hand that was appropriate for this project so I just had to head to The Loop and pick up something pretty. I ended up with the most beautiful teal Cascade Heritage sock yarn, 75% superwash merino, 25% nylon. Perfect!

I started my swatch and really like the look of it in stockinette stitch, but the lace pattern I picked out just wasn’t going to work on a toddler shirt. That, coupled with the fact that Pippa screams like a banshee any time I try to put anything hand-made on her lately, may mean that this turns into a sweater for me. While I don’t relish the idea of making an adult sweater with fingering yarn, I think it would be very pretty and appeal to a wider audience. There will be more swatching tonight so we will see.
Also, I was a jelly-making machine today, pounding out a batch each of mint and jalapeno jellies. Stay tuned for jelly-post-palooza.

Thank-You Socks

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My friend Ryan is a great lover of hand-knit socks. If I have the story correctly, he has an aunt who knits him socks that he calls “power woolies” because if you push them down your leg then they pop back up on their own. I think those socks must be made of some stout stuff!

Ryan is also a great photographer. When the time came to take some pictures for my Everyday Hoodie pattern I knew he was the guy to call. He was such a great sport and came to the playground on a hot day and took pictures of less-than-accommodating models. I couldn’t be happier with how they came out.

So, as a thank you to Ryan, I have just finished a pair of Anne Hanson’s Sign of Four (a Sock for Sherlock) in Trekking XXL. I don’t knit socks very often because I’m usually ready to be done after the first, and this was the case again with this pair. But it was for a very good cause and I kept on truckin’ until there were two. They look great, I just hope they fit!