Kiss My Knits!

My daughter’s teacher is expecting, and I want to knit her something. I turn to you for your thoughts.

As a rule, I don’t like to knit tiny little baby things, because my baby was born at 9lbs+ and let me tell you, she grew out of her clothes quick. The smallest I’ll generally make is a six month size. But I had an idea.

I’m thinking about making this sweater, but in a lighter blue and a size 2. I’ve got lots of blue CottonEase hoarded during the Great CottonEase Drought of ’05. I might even have enough blue Aurora 8 if I check my stash again.

The difference is that I’m thinking about duplicate stitching or appliqueing a pencil into its mouth and giving it along with the book Giggle Giggle Quack by Doreen Cronin. I think an older toddler might enjoy it, but a baby wouldn’t really get it.

So, is it too old a gift for an expectant mom? Would I be better off making something more traditional? Sometimes knitters make gifts that are more about what they would want to knit and less about what the recipient would want to receive, so I want to be sure my thoughts are clear on this.

FO: Holly Jolly legwarmers.
Needles: Size 3 for ribbing, size 4 for body.
Pattern: Cast on 30. Do some ribbing then some stockinette then some ribbing. Cast off.

Notes: This is another pair of legwarmers for supersweet ‘s little girl. They arrived yesterday, just in the nick of time. I kept out one bit of green from the skein in case I had to patch my daughter’s heels, but aside from that, this used up all the rest of my Holly Jolly yarn. These are a little bit shorter than I’d like, but they really used ALL the yarn, so I can live with it.

I hope and her family and all of you and all of your families have very happy holidays. This won’t be my last post before Christmas, but it’s always a good time to wish you wonderful people well.

A study in contrasts:

The person for whom I knit this sweater never even acknowledged receiving it. No more knits for them.

writes a wonderful glowing post about the legwarmers that I knitted for her little girl. MANY, MANY KNITS FOR HER.

The moral is to always say thank you.

Thanks, Angelfly, you totally made my day.

Crazy Groove Legwarmers
Yarn: 1/2 ball Schachenmayr nomotta Regia Stretch Crazy Color, Colorway “Crazy Groove” 119.
Needles: Size 2 needles for body, size 1 for ribbing.
Gauge: 7.5 sts per inch.
Comments: 40 st caston over a size 3 needle for looseness, approx 1 inch of ribbing on size 1 needles, switching to size 2’s for the body. These were made to fit little legs 6.5″ around to a length of 9.5″. I realized this morning that someone had sent me a mailing tube 6.75 inches around, which was handy for checking size.

They match! It’s a minor miracle! Both came from one ball. I got lucky that the color repeat started over at that point without me having to cut a lot of yarn out.

This yarn was a little scratchy off the ball, but after a wash and machine dry it softened up some. It’s a stretch yarn, so I wasn’t expecting gauge to grow, and thankfully it didn’t! I don’t want the recipient to have to follow elaborate care instructions, so it’s great that it stood up to the machine so well. The fiber content is 70% superwash wool, 23% nylon, 7% polyester so it ought to stand up to a lot of punishment.

If you’re on Ravelry, the Ravelry project page is here although there’s not really any info there that isn’t already in this post.

I owe my friend two more sets of legwarmers in different colors, but this is a start. I feel better having gotten something out this year, at least!

Summer 1944 McCall’s magazine. Remember: just because you CAN crochet something, it doesn’t mean you SHOULD crochet something.

Sorry for the lack of updates recently – remember, I have evil hand issues – but there’s been stuff going on, no worries. Today Em and I went to a local production of Annie, Jr.. Our seats were in the next to the last row, and Em couldn’t see great swaths of the production. We moved to another set of seats about 3/4 of the way through the show and things went more smoothly. Em had a great time and wants to go again. It’s playing next weekend, so sure. Em loves theater. I feel better about spending that money on tickets than on another doll.

Jayne hats are chugging along. When my gauge and tension mess up due to evil hand issues – for instance, when a 24″ hat comes out 23″ – I just assign it to the next person of that size in the queue. It means folks are getting stuff out of order, but at least they’re getting stuff. The queue is actually just under 20 now, which is a minor miracle. I’ve had to order another large amount of earflap red, and consequently may have to temporarily stop ordering kits so that I’m sure I’ve got enough for my finished hat clients. We’ll see.

Non-Jayne on the needles: little legwarmers, pictured right. They’re around a pill bottle which is much larger than it appears, I assure you. I’m waiting to hear back from the client on whether these colors are what they had in mind. The yarn is Regia Stretch, so it ought to fit well. I am very skeptical that I can get the second one to stripe up identically to the first one, so I may go completely in the opposite direction, depending on what the client tells me she prefers.

Pardon, I need to go check on some Smurf cobbler which is currently baking. When blackberries are on sale, you’ve got to seize the moment!

I apologize for the small size of these photos. Click through if you want, but these are as big as it gets. I’m not sure why iPhoto decided to suck them in at such a low resolution, but I’ll look into it later.

These are three baby hats in Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sport Multi, colorway Happy Valley, knitted on a size 3 needle. Left, 48 st caston. Center, 51 stitch caston. Right, 54 stitch caston.

I knitted these in three sizes to show how a fairly small change in the number of stitches cast on can dramatically change where the striping on space-dyed yarn falls. It also demonstrates just how many tiny little hats you can get out of leftover yarn. I’ve made four from the remnants of this skein, and there’s enough yarn remaining for at least two more.

Left has six repeats for the decreases. Center dropped down to 50 stitches for a five section repeat on decreases. Right was a straight k2tog across over two or three rows for a quick pull-in to avoid disrupting the swirl as much as possible.

At the bases, which obviously you can’t see in this picture, the left is a k2p2 rib, the center is seed stitch, and the right is k1p1 rib. At the top, the first has a long i-cord tied in a knot, the second ends with a fairly standard crown, and the third has three short i-cords sticking out like a mini jester’s hat. I kind of figure that it’ll be easier to take off if there’s a handle on the top.

These show the sizes: a little organic Gala apple, a giant non-organic Granny Smith, and a grapefruit. There’s only a three stitch difference between each size, but it makes a significant difference.

These hats were knit for the Charlotte Knitting Guild‘s “Hats for Alex” charity project. They’ll be going to a local children’s hospital.

Another preemie to small newborn size hat, this time using Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sport Multi, 100% machine washable soft wool. It’s the same pattern – size 3 needles, 48 stitch caston, but this time with a little i-cord nub at the top. This is modeled over a large apple, and you can see it has to stretch a bit to fit over it.

I bought this yarn at Haus of Yarn in Nashville a few years ago on the way through Tennessee to St Louis for Simucon. It’s not my color at all, so I’m not sure why I got it. I last used it for a tiny pair of baby socks. It’s perfect for these little hats. I’ve got another pattern I want to write up, and I think this yarn will do just fine for it. When you’re making tiny little clothes, one skein goes a long way.

I did this for tonight’s Charlotte Knitting Guild meeting, where I’m giving a talk about basic hat design in conjunction with our charity project, Hats for Alex. We’re knitting hats for the Levine Children’s Hospital. To give you a sense of size, this hat is modeled on an apple. I deliberately kept it very simple, so that the individual knitter could customize it however he or she liked. Personally, I think this would look good with a little embroidered heart on the front.

The pattern is here on Ravelry, or here (pdf) on tvini.com just in case I screwed up the Ravelry link. Turtlegirl, I know you can’t see flickr at work, so pics are here and here.

It’s a baby hat, but the pattern tells how to do the very simple math to do spiraling decreases at the top of any hat, like this one or this one.

Hopefully the talk will go okay tonight. I have handouts. Everybody loves handouts.

Something besides Emily art today. Knitting content!

Pattern: Knitted Kitty by Lilian (warning: pattern contains profanity)
Yarn: Blue Sky Alpaca sportweight
Needles: #5 (3.75mm)

Bertha at http://karmakitties.com/ sent Emily a care package in December. I knew some things I wanted to send her, like Koigu, but based on her blog, everybody who sends her packages includes some kind of really beautiful thing for her toddler. I got intimidated! There were any number of things I could send, but I honestly didn’t have the time to knit something worthy. So I procrastinated and procrastinated, as I am wont to do. Finally it had gotten to the point where it was just shameful, and I had to send something. I finally abandoned my plans for sweaters and darling little original hats in favor of a very cute and easy pattern so I could get something in the mail to her already.

This was an incredibly easy pattern. You don’t even have to know how to purl. If you can knit a rectangle, you can make this cat. You make three little panels, then seam them up and stuff them. Voila. Cat.

The eyes are spare embroidery thread, and the nose is leftover pink alpaca. I’m a little concerned that I didn’t fasten them securely enough, but I trust Bertha to be able to fix them if they come undone.

I’m told that June is quite happy with the cat, so it looks like this was a good choice. I’m hapy to have a new pattern to add to my repertoire. Quick, easy, and cute – just how I like ’em!

Faster, Gartercat, Kill, Kill!

Meet Jennifer!
Yarn: Dale of Norway Baby Ull for doll, panties, and dress. Crystal Palace cotton chenille for hair. Embroidery floss for face.
Needles: #3 for the doll, #2 for the dress
Doll pattern: Basic Doll from Toys to Knit by Tracy Chapman
Dress pattern: Me!
Turtlegirl76 suggested eyelets on the waist of the dress with an eye toward running a ribbon through. I decided not to do the ribbon, but I liked the eyelet idea.

Notes: This is the third one of these dolls I’ve made. This is not because I have any great love for the pattern. In fact, I think it’s rather poorly written, but my daughter seems to love these dolls. She picked out the color for the hair and dress. She specifically requested a dress, not a skirt and shirt, and asked for a purple heart. When the doll was done, she elected to find a scrap of Jayne hat yarn and make it into a hair tie.

At this point, I don’t have a whole lot more I can say about the pattern beyond what I’ve said about the previous dolls. Also, I’m tired and my wit has preceded me to bed. I’ll be joining it in a moment.

Here’s Emily’s original concept drawing. The main difference is that she picked out hot pink hair when we went to Charlotte Yarn, but I think that’s mainly because she felt like she had to pick whatever color they had, and that was the closest to red. Once she’d picked it, there was no swaying her to any other color. She also made sure to tell me early on that the dress should be sleeveless, unlike the drawing.

Emily chose the name Jennifer in the same way she chose her other two dolls’ names – by getting me to go to a baby names site on the web so she could pick one from a list. She tells me that Jennifer is older than Taylor but younger than Elizabeth. The three dolls have already had some pillow fights, so it looks like Jennifer is fitting in just fine.