I Love Knitting for Babies

I love knitting for babies.  Everything turns out so cute that you just want to cuddle it and because the pieces are so small they knit up quickly.  I adore this set I made for a beautiful new girl named Shaina.  The corally pink will look beautiful on her.  I used Blue Sky Alpacas Organic Cotton in color #609, shrimp for this set and I like it better than any cotton I've ever knit with.  I will definitely buy it again.  It is soft and had a tiny bit of bounce.  Most cotton wears my hands out but I enjoyed every minute of knitting these tiny pieces.  The Baby Bolero is from Oneskein by Leigh Radford. I've enjoyed poring over this book many times...  when I'm up at the cabin I often read knitting patterns in bed before going to sleep.  This book has been on my nightstand for the past several months.  The hat is from Last Minute Knitted Gifts by Joelle Hoverson another bedside book with great patterns.  Both of these books have ended up being faves.  I made up the little sock booties as I went and was very happy with the way they turned out.  Aren't they the cutest?

EmKnitz Too!

This is Emiley and Shane, my niece and nephew who live in Arizona.  Paul & I just got back from a visit.  While we were there I taught Em how to knit and she was an amazing student! She was attentive, quick to understand, focused, diligent...  I have to say brilliant :)  While we were there she learned to knit and finished her first two projects:  1: a small pink square that became the "cleaning cloth" for her Nintendo hand held & 2:  this lovely pink scarf.  This picture was taken at a Mexican restaurant in Phoenix last Sunday.  It was 90 degrees out but Em just had to wear her new scarf.  

Shane took on the needles too after sharing his personal knitting device with me.  He has a circular thing with pegs on it that he wraps yarn around and then lifts loops over yarn  with a little tool thingy.  He makes hats and scarves with it and says that some kids like sports but he is happy with no injuries and something cool that will last ;)  He tried his hand with Em's needles and he almost has it.  I have faith that he will be a brilliant knitter too if he wants to be :)  How cool.   

I Finally Finished!!!

I am not really a quilter but over the years I have made several log cabin quilts. They have all been machined and hand-tied and while I have enjoyed making them, quilting never really seduced me the way that knitting has. Anyhow, I have been working on this quilt for my sister, Donna, for the past year and a half. I am going to visit her tomorrow and thanks to that deadline I finally finished it last Sunday!  I spent all day Saturday and Sunday in the barn watching hail, snow and blue sky through the big hayloft windows and working on the quilt. I am happy with it and I really truly hope that Donna & John love it.  It is their housewarming gift for their "new" home in Arizona.  They have been in it for well over two years...  these things take time ;)  

P.S.  If you look under my work table you will spy a beautiful hand-painted floor cloth.  It is the project my sister, Julie, and I did while she and Mikey were visiting last October.  I LOVE it! Julie designed it and I was her assistant.  By helping her I got to learn how to do it (not to mention have all the pleasure of playing with her).  I think I'll do another when the weather warms up a little and the barn warms up with it.  I had to wear 3 layers and mitts this past weekend while working on Donna's quilt; it was cold out there :)

A Scarf for Sweetie

Paul loves his new scarf!  It is a great match with his gold barn coat that he wears on the island all the time.  I knit it up with Manos Silk Blend in color #300X.  It is a gorgeous coppery gold color (they call it Topaz) that the pictures really do not do justice to.  I loved knitting with this 30% silk 70% merino blend.  Paul is sensitive to wool and this blend feels great on his neck. The silk gives it a slight sheen that makes the color glow.  I knit it with US size 6 needles in the same rib as Mikey's scarf (see my November 18th "Cashmere & Alpaca" entry for the pattern).  The scarf is handsome and just chunky enough to be masculine. Sweetie is a manly man and he could make a pink lace scarf look manly ;)  If you look carefully at the picture Paul took of himself using his webcam you can see me in the background spinning :)

Kid Stuff

These adorable children belong to my niece and nephew, Jeanie & Jesse. Jesse is JennyK's brother and she is in love with these kids.  While she was visiting for Christmas she helped me with ideas of what the kid's might like and I came up with a purse for Kiki, a hat for Dilly and a scarf for Chanze. Please note the cute little orange scarf that Jenny made for Dylan to match his hat (she learned how to purl!).  The purse and scarf were made up as I went but the cute little earflap hat is my version of an Nicky Epstein pattern that I found in my Family Circle easy Baby Knits book.  I found all the yarn for these projects in my stash and it was a great way the spend the week we were all snowed in for Christmas.  

More Socks!

A girl can never have too many pairs of handknitted socks.  My beautiful striped socks are made from a gift of yarn that one of my girlfriends brought to me when we had a dinner party here at Woodinvilla.  I'm sorry but I can't find the yarn wrapper to give you the details :( I just went with my standard sock pattern.  I LOVE plain socks because they are so comfortable to wear and so relaxing to knit.  Jenny's tweedy house socks are Cascade 220 Superwash.  They are a little tight on her but she loves them and says they're toasty.   I knitted them for her while she was here visiting for Christmas.

I LOVE Blocking!

I had so much fun with this project :)  This lovely scarf is a Christmas gift for my sister-in-law, Mel.  I still haven't given it to her because the snow storms in December eliminated our family holiday get together.  That's the bad news...  the good news is I get to fondly gaze upon it a little longer.

The pattern is Lace Ribbon Scarf which you can get for free on knitty.com by following the link. It is not a difficult lace pattern and is easily memorized after you get through a few repeats of the pattern.  I did find it slow going on the size 3 needles.  Overall I have to say I did enjoy the knitting of it.  The really fun part was using my new blocking wires!  The transformation from clump to lovely scarf was as good as I've read about on many blogs.  When I finished the scarf and looked at the rumply blob after casting off I had to call upon my faith in the process.  I got online immediately and ordered my blocking wires from Angelika's (it's called Fiber Fantasy's Blocker's Kit). As usual her service was impeccable and I had them at my doorstep within a couple of days.  I gave the blob a good soak in some Eucalan and went to work with the wires.  I was nervous until I saw it pinned out on the guest bed and then I just kept coming upstairs to look at it.  It was really hard waiting the requisite  24 hours to unpin.  But it was worth the wait!  I held it up, folded it, tried it on, folded it again and again.  A blocked lace piece is just so irresistible.  

The model is our delightful, delicious, well-fed  JennyK.  She just left for home in Portland this weekend after a two week visit.  We miss her already even if she did eat us out of house and home ;)