Baby shower stuff OR How I made a sweater, and did intarsia all in one week!

My friends Brooke and Pat recently had a baby boy! The baby shower is today so when I got the invite last Tuesday I thought I’d take the opportunity to knit something small and baby-y!

I know when I had my son, Caleb, 8 years ago, that I quickly got sick of all the pastel blue and cutesy-wootsy Winnie-the-Pooh coated baby items I received. Brooke and Pat are a really cool couple, so I want to make something cool for their little one, so I went on the search for patterns.

I found two hat patterns that I thought were pretty neat-o, and I really wanted to try them both, so I decided on two hats, two pairs of matching booties and a hoodie! I made the two hats using the hoodie colour as the contrast colour, so everything is matchy-match and the hats and booties can switch up the look of the hoodie. I chose to knit everything in acrylics, because they’re easier to care for. I remember when my son was a baby, if I couldn’t throw it in the washer, I didn’t want it, plus, lil' baby won't be allergic to acrylics, and they won't make him itchy.

The hoodie pattern can be found at this site: http://fibredaze.blogspot.com/2008/03/baby-hoodie.html

Its the first sweater that I’ve ever completed, so I’m pretty happy with it!

I found a few things in the pattern a little weird, so I changed it ever so slightly to better suit what I wanted, such as adding ribbing to the edges of the hood so that it didn’t roll. I also left out the pocket, cause babies don’t need pockets, holding stuff is what a momma is for!

I didn’t like all the hand-sewing and end-weaving-in that I had to do. In the future I’ll be knitting sweaters in the round, thank-you very much.

By the looks of the finished product I’d say it’s a size 3-6 months, which should be a good size, cause it’s currently COLD here in Newfoundland, and will be until at least June.

Here it is being modeled by Caleb's Cabbage Patch kid.

I used this pattern for the baby booties: http://ooobabyknits.typepad.com/ooo_baby_knits/2005/02/mi...

I highly recommend it! They knit up super fast, and even a beginner shouldn’t have any problem with them.

I used this pattern for the skull and cross-bones hat: http://pippi-ob.livejournal.com/6735.html
It was my first time doing intarsia, and I’m pretty psyched about how it turned out!!!

This is the second hat from this site: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/skater-baby-brim-hat

I loooooooved knitting this hat! It turned out so well! I’m actually thinking of modifying the design a little to make a bigger version for Caleb, cause it is seriously so cool!

Toasty while you type: Momma's Xmas Present

My mom spends a lot of time at her computer, and she gets cold in the winter time. She asked me to make her a pair of fingerless gloves that she could wear while she types to keep her hands warm, and I wanted to make a cozy pair of slippers for her too.

I chose Patons Stretch Socks yarn because it's thin. this is so that the gloves wouldn't feel bulky on her hands, cause theres nothing worse than having a pair of gloves on that make your hands feel awkward. The stretch in the yarn also makes sure that the gloves fit snuggly. In the future i would choose a plain yarn, because this one sort of overwhelms the pattern.

The pattern I chose was Knitty's "Spirogyra" http://knitty.com/ISSUEspring08/KSPATTspirogyra.html It wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be, and I did my first yarn overs and slip slip knits. :D I think this pattern is really pretty, and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to make a really elegant looking pair of fingerless gloves.

I found this one skein of Blueberry Red Heart Light N' Lofty at Zellers and loved the colour so much that I had to buy it. It doesn't match the gloves, but it was such a nice colour (I'm a sucker for periwinkle).

I used the same pattern as I did for my cast sock, but I knitted the medium size and altered it a little to make sure the foot part would be more narrow, and added some pom-poms for decoration. Light N' Lofty is a big yarn, and really fluffy so it makes a nice pair of comfy slippers.

Now that all my Christmas knitting is done, I can't wait to give everyone their gifts! :D

Merry Christmas Emo kid!: The Sister's Christmas Present.

I wanted to make my sister a scarf and she asked for a slouchy sorta hat. The book "Pretty in Punk" has this super cool scarf called "The ska scarf" and it is pretty much the easiest scarf you could ever make. Just garter stitch, but knit horizontally instead of vertically. Jenna's favorite colours are purple and black, but she asked for a black hat. I couldn't give you an exact pattern of how I made the hat, I just knit a few rows of 2x2 rib at the beginning, then started increasing each row until I was satisfied, then started decreasing each row until I was done. Found a nice big ol' black button in my button tin to finish it off. It's probably the best beret-ish type hat I've made. Both items are made out of Bernat Softee Chunky.

I wanted to make Jenna a necklace too, and I had this great idea in my head. I saw something similar on Craftster one time, only made with shrinky-dinks. I made my little polymer clay cloud, spray painted him white, added a coat of sparkly varnish, and painted on his little happy face. The beads are hanging on wire and are a mix of random glass and plastic beads I had. The necklace is seed beads on fishing line and it has a bead and loop closure, because my sister has a pretty bad nickle allergy. There are a few small pieces of metal in the little cloud pendant, but I made sure they were well coated in super glue and varnish to make them hypo-allergenic.

I had these little wooden boxes that I found at Dollarama. I'm a sucker for boxes, I collect them cause, hey, you always need a box for something! Anyway, they're perfect little gift boxes for jewelery, and they were $1 for three. I spray painted this one back, added a coat of sparkles to the lid (iridescent sparkles make everything better!) and glued this little emo-kid drawing that I drew and coloured to the lid.

So, I thought I was done Jenna's Xmas gift, but she recently fell in love with the "Twilight" books (what teen girl hasn't?) and even more, I have recently fallen in love with the "Bella Mittens" pattern that has popped up on Craftster and Ravelry! They're SOOOO nice, and I'd realy like to try making them, (I'm becoming one of those "Ooooh! I need to make that!" people. And any excuse to buy more yarn...) so I'm thinking of making her a pair. I guess I'll see if time constraints allow.

Only 3 weeks to Christmas! aaagh!

OH! I joined Ravelry this week! I LOVE IT! my username is Kris-13. :D

Because I can't stand to see a shivering bottle of liquor: Mom and Dad's Xmas presents

I'm only buying one present for everyone on my list, anything else they get is going to be handmade. Mom and dad's bought present is alcohol. A bottle of coconut rum for mom and a bottle of whiskey for dad.

I wanted to make bottle cozies, mostly because I wanted to go on a bit of a stash busting expedition, and also because they're just do darn pretty. Knitty had a pattern (http://knitty.com/ISSUEwinter04/PATTwinecozy.html ) but it's knit flat, and I hate sewing seams. I also had no idea how to wrap my head around that i-cord base thing. The knitted embelishments look pretty in the pictures, but blah, I didn't wanna do that. Instead I did what I usually do and cruised some knitting blogs and found this one: http://taras-knits.blogspot.com/2007/11/wine-bottle-cozy.html This person has a couple of really pretty wine bottle cozies, and they're knit in the round. She seems to share my hatred of seams. (Ahaha!) The pattern is really similar to Knitty's, but it's easier to read (At least I find it is)

Mine are knit in that cheap-o Wal-Mart Sean Sheep wool. It mighta been cheap, but I like the colour-ways. The Green is for dad, the purply-pink is for mom. The ties are made out of a length of Lion brand Thick n' Quick with the ends split into 4 pieces and beaded.

I also knit a few teeny-weenie-beanies. These can fit over the top of a bottle, or you can hang them as Xmas ornaments. They're made of white Paton's divine for the brim and pom-pom, and Bernat Softee Chunky for the rest of the hat. Because they;re so small, I knit them flat and sewed the seams. theyr'e pretty easy to make:

cast on 20 stitches with Paton's Divine
knit 3 rows.
change to red softee chunky
work in stockinette stitch for 17 rows.
row 20: p2tog to end
row 21: k2tog to end
thread yarn through stitches, BO.
Sew side seam
Make pom-pom and sew to top.

My First Gloves: Dad's Christmas Present

Gift giving occasions where I have to find something for my father are more often than not, painful. I feel bad if I don't give him something, yet he always says "I don't want anything". He's the kind of parent that really actually does appreciate homemade gifts, but I've given him enough paintings and drawings that my parents living room looks more like an art gallery. The stand-bys on store bought gifts always include a bottle of liquor and chocolates (dad is a mega chocoholic)

So this year I can knit. I could knit last year too, but I was only just starting, and wasn't brave enough to attempt any project that involved circs, dpns, anything other than straight needle knitting and knits and purls. This year I'm far more daring, I'm able to follow patterns and make simple patterns of my own, so I decided that in order to fit my meager Christmas budget, each member of my family was getting hand knit items.

I spend hours scrolling through the internet looking for patterns. Knitting pattern central and I are tight. I eagerly anticipate each seasons issue of Knitty, and spend hours each day lurking the boards at Craftster. I wanted to find really cool pattern that would suit each of my family members, and I wanted something that would be a new experience for me to knit, so when I was scrolling through back issues of Knitty and saw "Cigar" I thought "Cool! This is perfect!" Check out the pattern here: http://knitty.com/ISSUEsummer05/PATTcigar.html

While I don't condone my father's smoking, he does it. He's always been a smoker, and he doesn't plan on stopping anytime soon. So the "Cigar" pattern only seemed to make sense, but not just on a smokers level, but on the level that my dad, along with his brothers, are just picky. They need to be picking at something ALL the time, whether it be some sort of engine or whatnot, dads always got his hands into something, and more than one pair of his gloves has the finger tips ripped out of it. These gloves seem like just the thing to have when twisting spark plugs and picking up screws and bolts.

This was my first time casting on with dpn's. For some reason before this the concept seemed completely foreign to me, but I sucked it up and did it. Now I'm an old pro and can't believe I ever thought this was difficult.

I encountered a few problems along the way, at one point I counted my stitches wrong and ended up with one finger much too wide, I changed the pattern a little because I thought it would be too big, but ended up changing it back (I can be a nay-sayer at times) After one glove, I didn't want to do the other, but I went to work, and got the second finished in no time.

I wanted to make a hat to match too, and I'm an expert on hats, as its mostly what I've been knitting over the past year. I decided on a k2 p2 rib with a roll up brim, because dad thinks the new fangled beanies with no roll up brim are goofy looking. He's just not ready for a world where there are hats that don't roll up... I cast on 120 stitches and knit away till I had a hat.

Both items are made out of Paton's Canadiana, and I think i did a fairly good job. I haven't seen any mistakes, and I think they look pretty good.

Always look at the knit as half finished, not half frogged...

Well, a month ago I broke my foot in an alcohol related accident (an intoxicated friend fell on an intoxicated me…) and I’ve pretty much been home on my couch, knitting while I mend. (haha, theres a pun in there somewhere, I just know it!)

One would think that breaking your foot would be a bad thing, but for me it has been tremendously beneficial as it’s forced me to sit still long enough to actually complete a project. I have successfully completed Xmas presents for my father, sister, brother and a friend, and am currently working on my mother’s Xmas and Birthday presents.

Not only Xmas presents, but I have also made myself a wonderful scarf (can be seen in my blog title banner) out of yarn that I was given as a birthday present from my friend and fellow knitter, Diane, and this evening accidentally made a slipper that I can wear over what I used to refer to as “this God-forsaken cast”.

As usual I was perusing the internet for knitting patterns and came across a super simple beginner pattern for slippers that looked pretty darn comfortable. (Here’s the link: http://www.aokcorral.com/projects/how2oct2005.htm) a very simple pattern great fro a beginner, and even though I’m more advanced, I was being lazy and decided that it would be nice to knit something that didn’t take too much thinking. And these would be nice to go with my Mom’s Xmas present.

So I hobbled my way to the craft department at Wal-Mart and bought a skein of Red Heart Light and Lofty.

For some reason that now makes no sense to me, I decided to make the largest size. After knitting up one slipper I realized that they would be MILES to big for mom, cause they're gigantic. They will however fit ME while being able to wear a pair of socks underneath which is FABULOUS because my basement apartment with laminate floors and electric heat here in Western Newfoundland gets COLD!!!

Even better is that the slipper stretches to fit over my cast!!!

I can't even begin to tell you how happy this makes me because the cast is open toed, (and yes, bright pink) and my toes have been FROZEN for the past 3 weeks! I am a person who always wears socks in the fall, winter and spring, so I am totally pumped to have this awesome new slipper. :D My last 3 weeks with “this God-forsaken cast” will be warm and cozy.