Introducing Baby Nat

Uhhh..  I realize I’ve been neglecting this blog for a long while, and he’s almost 11 months old already, but I guess it’s better late than never, right?  Here he is:

Day one.

Eight months old.

With big brother Tim.

Yes, I am a shameless parent who will torture my child for my own amusement with silly Halloween costumes.

It’s amazing how much he’s changing, and how fast everything is going by. Hopefully it won’t be another 11 months before I blog again! I have plenty of good knitting and spinning material which I hope to catch up on in the coming weeks.

 

Cheating on the baby knitting.. again

Suddenly, I had a burning desire to learn Entrelac.  Noro was on sale at The Loopy Ewe, so why not?  I did feel guilty about cheating on my baby knitting, but this project didn’t take that long.

• Pattern:  Entrelac Scarf by Allison LoCicero
• Yarn:  Noro Silk Garden, Colorway 282, 4 skeins
• Needles:  Knit Picks Options (metal), size US 7
• Ravelry link here

I cast on for this pattern and learned to knit backwards to avoid turning the work so much, using this video:  http://www.knittinghelp.com/videos/purl-stitch (it’s the last video on the page)

On the first pass through Tier 1, I encountered a knot with a very ugly color transition, from magenta to light green.

So I knit through all the different components of the entrelac pattern to make sure I understood everything, got the tension right for knitting backwards, then ripped it out and went through all 4 skeins with a ball winder to look for other knots. 3 of the 4 skeins had a knot. One of the other knots was an abrupt color transition – from pink to black. The last was magenta to black which wasn’t too bad so I just spit spliced it and left it that way. The rest I rearranged so that the color changes weren’t so obvious.

Entrelac is a very addictive technique – I stayed up too late a few times knitting just.. one.. more.. square…  and I think it turned out well.  I love the texture of it, and have decided to leave it unblocked.

After that, I went back to the baby blanket and finished half of it.  But then, I received The Knitter’s Book of Wool by Clara Parkes from my sister for Christmas, and could not resist the Tibetan Clouds Beaded Shawl, by Sivia Harding.  I even had suitable yarn in my stash:

It’s Briar Rose Fibers Sea Pearl, a fingering weight merino/tencel blend, which is a bit variegated but not so much as to overwhelm the pattern. I am skipping the beads, because I was too impatient to start the project to go looking for the right beads. I think the pattern is plenty beautiful anyway! I used Emily Ocker’s circular cast-on to start, a tutorial can be found here.  Here’s what I have so far, using very poor flash photography – I need to get a better photo in natural light.  This doesn’t nearly do it justice.

I also wanted to show off this beautiful project bag that I got from ZigZagStitches:

It’s beautifully made using Japanese fabric, and quite sturdy.  I love it!

So, as I wait to go into labor, I am knitting, knitting, knitting.  Keeps me from going nuts.

 

A selfish knitting interlude

I admit, I got a little tired of knitting blue baby stuff.  As cute as it is, blue is just not my color.  So I went back to my very favorite Brown Berries colorway in Malabrigo Worsted that I had leftover from my Boatneck Bluebell sweater, and made a couple of things for myself.  That’s right – selfish knitting!  I had been meaning to make a Foliage hat for the longest time, and I don’t know why I waited!  It was a fun knit, and took only a few hours.

• Pattern:  Foliage, by Emilee Mooney, whom I’ve met in person!
• Yarn:  Malabrigo worsted merino in Brown Berries, 0.6 skein
• Needles:  Knit Picks Options (metal), size 7 for main body, size 5 for ribbing
• Ravelry link here

No modifications!  Can you believe it?  It came out a little big, so I wear it slouchy.

After the hat was done, I had 35 grams of yarn left, so I searched Ravelry and found the perfect pattern to use it up.

• Pattern:  75 Yard Malabrigo Fingerless Mitts, by Jeanne Stevenson
• Yarn: Malabrigo worsted merino in Brown Berries, 0.35 skein
• Needles: Knit Picks Options (metal), size 5 for ribbing, size 6 for the rest
• Ravelry link here

I knit from both ends of the ball to squeeze out every last bit of yarn, and this is how much I had left!

I went down a couple of needle sizes because I have small hands, and wouldn’t mind a denser knit.  I cast on using size 6 needles, switched to size 5, did 10 rows of ribbing, then the 2 rounds plain, then switched to size 6 for the gusset. Inadvertently, I added 2 plain rounds after finishing the gusset increases because I thought round 3 was round 1. Duh. But I like the way it covers my thumb better.  So I thought I had less yarn to finish the rest of it and knit only 3 rounds plain instead of 7, then started the ribbing on the smaller size needles right away.  Turns out I had plenty enough, so I frogged back and knit the 7 plain rounds after the gusset, and still had enough yarn for 11 rounds of ribbing at the top. I wish I had made the cuffs longer. Maybe someday I’ll frog and reknit for a better fit – I’d make the cuff longer, maybe make the gusset 11 stitches instead of 13, and then a shorter top.  But for now I’ll enjoy wearing them for a while.

 

Wigs for Kids hair donation

I’ve donated my hair twice before, to Locks of Love, and was planning to do it again.  I hadn’t had a haircut since February 2008!  Then I heard from my knitting friend Suzanne that a lot of the hair donated to Locks of Love doesn’t actually make it to the kids – a lot of it is sold or discarded.  It seems that since they are the most popular hair donation charity, they get overwhelmed with donations and can’t handle all of them, plus they get a lot of unusable hair.  Suzanne suggested Wigs for Kids instead, so that’s what I did.  On the website there is a list of salons that give haircuts for free or at a discount when you donate.  Unfortunately, it is not completely up to date – one place I called had been out of business for 4 years already.  But I did find a good place not too far from me.  This is what I had to donate.

This is what it looked like after being chopped – about 12 inches!

And here’s what I looked like.

And here’s my almost-31-week belly!

It turns out the Tilted Duster makes a great maternity sweater!

 

Halloween, and baby knitting progress

We had another fun Halloween this year!  Tim asked to be Percy, one of Thomas the Tank’s friends, so Chris obliged with this:

It’s tradition in Chris’s family for Daddy to make the costumes.  And you can’t buy Percy in the stores anyway, only Thomas.  Of course, Tim was thrilled!

He got lots of candy dressed like this.

He also dictated the look of the Jack o’ Lantern this year – he wanted a scary one!

Boo!

I started a second baby project, a blanket made from Lily Chin’s Reversible Cabled Rib Shawl pattern. It’s a little bit insane because it will take forever, but it’ll be cute! Dream in Color Smooshy has been my “go-to” baby yarn recently, and I thought it would look great in a cable pattern, so this is what I got from Webs. It’s the Some Summer Sky colorway.

It came in 4 different shades, as you can see in the picture, so I’m just going to knit them in order of lightest to darkest, and make the gradient a design element. No way am I alternating skeins!

From my swatch and some rough calculations I did 5 repeats across (CO 248 stitches) using size 9 needles – and it is turning out to be about 32″ across which I think should be okay for a baby blanket. Here’s what I have so far:

And a close up:

The pattern and yarn together are making a wonderfully cushy fabric!  I hope baby likes it.

 

Baby bunting!

Okay, now that I am entering my third trimester today I should get going on some baby projects, shouldn’t I?  I found the cutest baby bunting pattern, which I’ve started in Plymouth Encore Chunky.

I got a gauge of 3.5 stitches to the inch with Size 10 (6mm) Knitpicks metal Options needles, and the honeycomb stitch pattern is a really easy mini-cable stitch.  Of course, as usual I am modifying the pattern to avoid seaming as much as possible.  The front and back and hood are supposed to be knit separately, then sewn together, which I hate!  So I started the bottom pretty much like a giant t0e-up sock, using Judy’s Magic Cast-on, and am knitting in the round to the point where it divides for the button placket.  What a great technique!  It took me no time to cast on 108 stitches (54 for each side), and looks beautifully seamless.  Here’s a link to Cat Bordhi’s video demonstration of the cast-on.  So this is what I have so far; hopefully in chunky yarn it shouldn’t take too long.

 

As for my Feather and Fan Comfort Shawl in Sea Silk, it’s almost done.

I’ll just knit until I run out of yarn, and omit the crochet edging on the top edge.  It is taking forever to get across a row now, but still an enjoyable knit.  The Knitpicks Zephyr needles have been lovely to work with for this yarn.  

Maybe a bit too sticky for wool though – I’d have to try and see.

 

Clara Dress for Lillian

Poor neglected blog..  I haven’t even looked at it since April.  The main reason is that shortly after the last post, I started a new WIP in my uterus – which led to fatigue and not doing that much besides working, spending time with Chris and Tim, and sleeping.  After the first trimester, I did manage to do a little knitting for my niece Lillian, who was a month old in these pictures (about 2 weeks ago).

She is so sweet!  The dress is a little big on her still, but she’ll grow into it in no time!  These two pictures were taken by her mommy and my sister Pat, who took the photo of Tim’s Baby Surprise Jacket that was published in Spin-Off Magazine.

When she fills it out I’ll post new pictures.  I also forgot to photograph the cute flower button I used for the back of the neck.  That will come too!

• Pattern:  Clara by Karin Vestergaard Mathiesen
• Yarn:  Dream in Color Smooshy, colorway Wisterious
• Needles:  Knit Picks Options (metal), US size 5 (3.75mm)
• Ravelry link here

This is the dress in the Soak ads from a while back.  The pattern is a little hard to find, and it only comes in kit form – from the Ravelry forums I found this source.  You need to call them, but their service is great! I called on a Saturday and received the kit by Tuesday.

The yarn that comes in the kit is alpaca/wool Isager Strik Alpaca 2, quite lovely, but not very practical for a baby. So I’m saving it for myself and used the Dream in Color superwash wool instead.  Smooshy is listed as fingering, while the Isager Alpaca 2 is listed as sport, but the Smooshy is actually thicker than the Alpaca 2. So I used larger needles and came up with a larger gauge, about 5.5 stitches to the inch (I also wanted it looser for better drape, given that it is pure merino with no alpaca).

The pattern is rather sparse and has no lace chart. I recommend a good swatch to make sure you understand the lace pattern, as well as for sizing purposes. I decided to use SSK instead of K2t tbl, since it looks better.

 

After finishing the baby dress, I started on a project with the Handmaiden Sea Silk that had been sitting in my stash, calling to me for some time.  It’s a 150 gram skein in colorway Blackberry, that I had been wondering what pattern to knit with it, since the colors are quite contrasty and not really suitable for complex lace.  I chose the Feather and Fan Comfort Shawl, since Feather and Fan makes any yarn look great, and I thought a triangle shape would hold my interest more than a rectangle.  I am trying out the new Knitpicks Zephyr needles for the first time with this project – I think the “stickiness” of the needles is perfect for this slippery yarn.  Here’s a photo from the start of the project, along with my baby bun, though this was also two weeks ago.  Both the shawl and my belly are bigger now, more photos to come later!

 

Finally finished! Bleeding Hearts Stole

• Pattern:  Anne Hanson’s Bleeding Hearts Stole, from Interweave Knits Spring 2008
• Yarn:  The Painted Sheep Jasmine, 50/50 merino/silk laceweight, dyed by my friend Kris Gonzalez in the most beautiful, subtle variegated browns
• Needles:  Knit Picks Harmony, US size 4 (3.5mm)
• Mods:  I did not switch to a larger needle size for the bleeding hearts portion of the stole. Partly, I was too lazy, and partly, because I thought that flared ends might look nice.  And I did not knit two equal halves, as detailed in my previous post.
• Ravelry link here

I am completely in love with this stole, partly because it took over a year to knit (with interruptions), but I love the design, and it was fun to knit.

To block the stole, I put it in the sink with some cool water and Soak Wash (I had a sample of the Citrus fragrance, mmm!) for about 20 minutes, then put it on a towel, rolled it up, and went across the rolled towel with my knees.  Then I used blocking wires to go through every little point on the edging – that was really a pain, but at least I had blocking wires!  It would have been much worse with just pins.  Then, I stretched it out and pinned the wires in place on some interlocking foam tiles I have.  At first I stretched it really long and wasn’t able to stretch it as wide as I wanted, so I moved the ends closer together and was able to stretch out the width some more.  Here’s what it looked like blocking – not much, since it’s brown yarn on black tiles..

But it gives you an idea of the process. I didn’t have quite enough blocks for the whole length of the stole, so I had to improvise. This gave less than ideal blocking for part of it, but I don’t think it’s too noticeable in the end.

It took about a day to dry, and then I got this:

Here’s a closer look:

Aaaah..  I love it!

 

Grafting the Bleeding Hearts Stole

Aah, the return of real knitting content!  I started the Bleeding Hearts Stole over a year ago, and just finally managed to finish the knitting yesterday.  This evening, I grafted the two parts together.  Here’s the “before” picture.

 

I am a real novice at Kitchener stitch, since I have only done it for a couple of socks, and I prefer to do toe-up socks in order to avoid it..  Because I was not confident in my grafting skills, especially in lace, I moved the graft off-center so it wouldn’t be featured so prominently on my back – I did 14 repeats for one half, and 6 repeats for the other, instead of 10 and 10.  For guidance on Kitchener stitch, I used this Knitty.com article, which has excellent step-by-step photos.  The grafting itself went rather easily, but the hard part was evening up the tension so it would look nice.  What made it harder was that in this lace pattern, the graft line is zig-zagged!  Here is part of my graft, done losely at first:

With much effort and strain on the eyes, I managed to get it looking somewhat even.

Below is the “after” picture.  The grafting turned out better than I thought it would, but it’s still obvious, so I’m happy with my decision to move it to the side, where hopefully my arm will be covering it somewhat.  

Tomorrow, blocking!

 

Mouse Guard art, and our new baby rats!

After my last post about Mouse Guard, I got the okay from David Petersen to post pictures of Sadie!  My husband bought this original page from him for my birthday, and my dad blew up the colored page from the comic to the same size, then framed them side by side.  This is hanging on our living room wall.

Isn’t she gorgeous?  I love her!  Here is the sketch he did for me in my hardcover book, while we were chatting at the New York Comic-Con.

This is why I was clutching the book in my arms in the picture I took with him!  Brilliant.

Speaking of small rodents, we had a pair of real mice for almost 2 years, but they both passed on recently.  Unfortunately their life spans are pretty short.  They were very darling, but were more afraid of us than interactive with us.  So Chris decided on rats instead (we would love to get a dog, but don’t have the space or the time to raise a dog right now).  I know that most people think, “ewwww, rats!”  But we had a friend in college who kept a rat which was quite smart, clean, and cuddly, and Chris read a lot to confirm that pet rats tend to be that way.  So when the Paper Heart Rattery had babies available, we put together a rat home and went to pick up a pair of new rats! Here they are:

Here’s Tim meeting them for the first time:

He did manage to be gentle.

Even so, they were pretty scared, especially in the travel cage.

Here’s the new home we had ready for them. Pretty sweet for a pair of rats, if you ask me.

During the car ride home, we decided on their names. I’ve always found human names for pets to be funny, so that’s what we did. This little guy we named Steve.  Pretty darling!

And this one we named Joe.  He’s a little bigger and bolder than Steve.

Already, they’re settling in and starting to get used to us. Here’s Joe getting acquainted with Daddy Chris.

They like to climb around on us, and when we go near the cage, they come up and try to snoof us through the bars.  Pretty cute!