FO: Big Bad Bubbles Baby Shawl

Today I am super pleased to share that I finished the big white blanket.

 The pattern is a very old one from Patons. Like the original pattern suggests, I knit the shawl in 3ply, but instead of using Patons I used Bendigo Woollen Mills in Luxury 3ply in Frost (about 180g of a 200g ball). I used 4mm needles. 

There were a few things that I did in this shawl that I would do differently if I did it again. When I cast the shawl on, I had just moved and I didn't know where any of my crochet hooks were (I still don't - I ended up buying a new set). Therefore, I used Tin Can Knits' directions for a circular cast on that uses knitting needles instead of crochet hooks to do Emily Ocker's cast-on. I'm sure the fault is with me and not the instructions but my cast-on is really loose and looks a bit gappy in the middle of the shawl. I wish I'd waited till the crochet hooks arrived and I'd started the way I'm more familiar with.

 The construction of the shawl is quite easy. In the centre panel, you increase eight stitches every second row until you have 220 odd stitches. You then use the principle of the Pi Shawl and double the amount of stitches in one row and then just knit until you get to the edging, so there are no increases in the feather and fan pattern at all. While I was knitting that section, I used four stitch markers, with one marking each quarter of the shawl. That was super useful and allowed me to catch mistakes when they happened. Then, once you have finished knitting the 440-odd stitch rows to the desired length, you knit about an 880ish row knitted on border.

I hated knitting that border. Flipping a giant blanket back and forth every eight stitches almost 900 times was not fun! I powered through most of it in a few marathon podcast sessions (thank you Knitting Go - the first and only video podcast I have ever watched but I wouldn't have been able to finish without it) and ended up three stitches short. I knew I'd started with the correct amount of stitches, so I'd obviously lost three stitches along the way. The thought of undoing the border made me want to cry so I just fudged it and hoped they weren't very important stitches. Once I blocked it, it was pretty easy to see each of the three stitches I dropped (in the middle right and bottom right of the above picture). However, since the recipient is a non-knitter and so they won't know it's a mistake, I've decided to call it a design feature and let it go.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with it. It looks all pretty and shawl-y now it's blocked and stretched but, once it's been washed a few times, it'll be soft and round and more blanket-like, which is perfect for a baby's security blanket. I just hope the mum-to-be (since she's American, really mom-to-be) likes the Bubbles Baby Shawl as much as I do.

Little Sister Baby Dress (2016 FO #4)

As I sat down to write this post, I logged into Ravelry so I could check how many FOs I've posted this year. According to Ravelry, I have only completed four things so far this year... oops! I've made a ton of stuff, big and small, and simply neglected to write about it and, in many cases, even to photograph it!

To begin the catch-up process, I'm starting with a little FO. As I wrote here, before moving I sorted out all of my yarn and projects. In theory, this should make finding yarn and knitting following moving easier. In practice, however, due to how things were packed and the order in which they were moved, in the two weeks after moving where we were sorting through boxes and deciding where to put things, I only had easy access to one of boxes - the box of 4ply. As I wrote here, I wasn't very happy with the baby blanket I knit for a blanket for a friend whose baby is due in September. So, I thought I'd take the opportunity presented to me by pure necessity and whip up a little baby something out of the Cleckheaton Merino Bambino I have had marinating in my stash for about eight years. Sometimes the universe tells you you are onto a good thing, and about 10 minutes after I decided to do this I checked my Feedly and saw a new post from Olivia at Dreaming all the Time where she talks about knitting a variety of patterns for her niece, including the Little Sisters Dress, and I was thusly inspired to cast on for one straightaway. Two weeks later, the dress was done.

       

Six weeks after that, I finally got around to sewing on the (adorable) buttons and the dress was finally ready to be photographed. 

Ravelry tells me that this pattern has been made over 5,100 times and there is not really very much I can say here that hasn't been said before. It is simple, easy and very cute. I spiralled two colours of the yarn on the body to avoid pooling and instead ended up with a funky flying saucer colour repeat. If I did it again I would omit the buttons, as they are just for effect and I am lazy (although, who doesn't love an opportunity to add itty bitty buzzy bees?). The Cleckheaton Merino Bambino is delightful to work with, as always, and I hope the baby-to-be gets lots of wear out of this adorable little garment.

One down, seven FOs to go!

2016 FO #3: Baby Sophisticate

Last week, I spent a bit of time patting myself on the back for changing the way I do things and work ing on projects one at a time, thereby getting them done faster. It has since been pointed out to me that the self-congratulation was a little bit premature, which is true - I did in fact knit an entire project while also working on the purple blanket. I'm not exactly sure how I forgot about it so completely but, since it has been brought to my attention, I wanted to share one of the cutest things I have ever made: a Baby Sophisticate.

The story behind this jacket is pretty simple. I had been invited to a wedding where the couple wanted cash as a gift. I don't like giving cash, so I was ecstatic the day before the wedding when I found out the bride was up the duff. Being knocked up = baby knitting.

I immediately - like literally four minutes afterward - went and bought some wool and cast on in the car on the way to the ceremony. I was going to get 10ply, as recommended in the pattern, but for some reason Cleckheaton Country 10-ply was ridiculously priced at Spotlight - $9 for a 50g ball, which I was simply not going to pay. I went for the 8ply instead (a much more reasonable $6 a ball, even though it did feel wrong to pay full price at Spotlight).

To adapt the pattern to the difference yarn thickness, I just used the larger size numbers and the smaller size measurements. It seems to work okay, although the arms look kind of long.  

Solve the problem of long arms by pretending the baby jacket is being held up by a bushranger. Works every time.

The pattern is very simple, the knitting of it is quick (so quick I don't even remember doing it, apparently) and the results incredibly gorgeous. I highly recommend this pattern (and having a gift registry at your wedding). Five out of five itty bitty baby stars.

WIP Wednesday: The Not Another Baby Blanket Edition

A few months ago, one of my favourite friends announced she was expecting her third child. I was a bit surprised - I don't know about you, but three seems like quite a lot of children to produce in five years! However, it is her reproductive system, so I hugged her and immediately started planning the blanket. 

Again, I don't know if this is just me but sometimes the planning is harder (and more fun!) than the actually making of the blanket. The last two babies got lacey blankets (the Serenity-ish blanket and the Happy Thoughts blanket), so I thought this time I'd go for either colour or cables. After many happy hours of browsing, I settled on the Dreams of Granada blanket by Triona Murphy in the recommended yarn, KnitPicks Brava, in Tidepool.

I cast on in the final frenzied two weeks of my thesis (still no results yet...), so can therefore remember nothing of knitting this at all except a vague sense of panic.

The succulent is a clipping from a plant of my neighbour's. 

It took me about five days to finish the first ball and five minutes to freak about how little knitting had been done with 20% of the yarn!

One week and another ball later, I had something that looked a little bit more blanketish. Only a little bit though!

When I cracked open the third ball, I could tell immediately it was going to be an actual blanket because Lucy automatically assumed it was for her and tried to go to sleep on it.

At the end of the fourth ball I had an almost completed blanket.

Then two short days it was done.

As I type this, the blanket is having a good long soak. It is nice, except that the cabled section in the middle is elevated. It looks like a platform! If blocking doesn't fix it, I think I'll just rip out the centre and do it in stocking stitch. Also, to help with future planning I marked each change of ball, so the next time I flip out the ratio of yarn in a square blanket, I'll have a reference. Looking ahead, one baby blanket at a time... 

FO Friday: The Knit-Purl Blanket (2014 FO #13)

I am back! But only briefly, so please don't tell my supervisor I stepped away from my thesis for a bit. This is our little secret.

The last few weeks have been pretty crazy, uni-wise. I have put on without exaggeration 1.5kg from spending so much time sitting on my arse (both working and eating chocolate). I've been trying to take breaks and go to the park and the beach but the truth is that the final part of any research project requires a bit of slogging to get to the end and there's no just no way it can be avoided. Fortunately, slogging away is an activity that goes remarkably well with stockinette stitch, which means lots and lots of finished projects.

For example, this baby blanket is finished TWO MONTHS before the baby is due. This is an event that surely has never happened in the history of knitting baby blankets before.

Where's the tension? Where's the desperate race to finish it before the mother leaves hospital? 

The pattern was simple - I cast on 100 stitches and then knit it until it felt big enough. I then picked up stitches all the way around and knit the border in garter stitch until I felt it was big enough, then I cast off (yarn is Bendigo Woollen Mills Luxury 8ply in Citrus, Frost and Ghost. I used maybe half a ball of the Frost and Citrus and about 160g of Ghost. There are lots of leftovers).

It felt seriously weird not to be weaving in ends on the way to meeting the baby for the first time.

Of course, Lucy helped me block the blanket.

She is going to be so annoyed when she realises the blanket is not actually for her.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Baby Gift 1: Teeny tiny booties and a hat (2015 Fos #5 & #6)

Today's post, like the things it features within it, is bite sized. I present here the perfect Tier 2 friend baby gift.

First up, Fleegle's seamless version of Saartje's famous bootie.

So cute!

Paired with a Mandie Harrington swirl hat (88 stitches, 2.75mm needles).

This hat looked alarmingly tiny when I cast off... 

..but fortunately relaxed during blocking to look of appropriately matching size with the booties.

Took about 25g of yarn (Knit One, Crochet Too left over from a Baby Surprise Jacket) and one week relaxed knitting to get done. Paired with a lovely soft Country Road cashmere blend washable baby blanket and a nice card, this is an excellent gift for a new bub on its entry to the world. (I just hope the parents-to-be think so too!)

WIP Wednesday: A Tale of Two Hats

Babies always seem to come in waves. There's never just one person who's pregnant - it's always three or four due within a month of each other. As a knitter who likes to welcome new babies with something special made just for them, this can be very inconvenient (shout out to the friend who told me at brunch today she was trying to get pregnant so I would have lots of time to get her blanket ready. That's a friend who knows what a knitter wants!).

So, Baby 1 is due in about two weeks. It's for a Tier 2 friend (I like them a lot but we are not very close), so that means a hat and booties. First up is another Swirl Hat made in some leftover sock yarn:

It looks a bit narrow! Hopefully it'll stretch enough to fit a newborn.

Unfortunately, despite the very close deadline for the baby stuff, I was able to get my hands on an ARC of Knit Nordic and I could not hold off from casting on for a new grown-up hat.

The 12 centimetres of 1x1 ribbing was brutal but it was worth it when I got to the colourwork.

I'd forgotten how much fun stranded knitting is! I clearly haven't done it for a while, though - my tension is all over the place. Hopefully blocking will fix it.

The knitting of this hat has not only been marred by baby-knitting-related guilt. Yesterday when was heading out to go to the doctor I reached over to grab my project bag and saw this:

A spider having a nap on the handle! Needless to say I ran out of the room without my knitting and locked the door behind me. When I got home two hours later, the spider was gone.

I hope...

In with a whimper not a bang (2015 FOs #1 and #2: Swirl hat and booties)

Can you believe it's the third week of January already? For me, the year so far has felt full but remarkably, notably uneventful. 

For example, with my Christmas money I bought a huge cast-iron Dutch oven:

It's great! I used it to make seven litres of veggie stock (pictured in the saucepan) which I am using in the risotto that I also made it in. It's wonderful and I love it but really, not newsworthy (although, look how healthy and delicious my dinner is? I love eating in summer.)

I got beautiful flowers and breakfast in bed for my birthday:

I made a cute little hat and bootie set on the request of my favourite Dutch grandma (not mine but I wish she was!)

Rav links - Swirl booties and Swirl hat

My favourite thing of the entire year so far is a gift I received for Christmas:

 a 2000-piece jigsaw puzzle.

Lucy absolutely hates it. She does not understand why we are paying so much attention to it rather than to her.

She tried to join in one evening...

but her method of attempting to beat the puzzle into submission proved somewhat ineffective.

See - all very nice, remarkedly uninteresting! I'll see if I can rustle up some actual events for my next post...

Meet Buzzy (2014 FOs #9 & #10)

On this cold and chilly winter morning, I'd like to introduce the bright and cheery face of the newest member of my household: Buzzy the Bee!

A few months ago Sam and I drove down to Morning Peninsula for a seaside picnic and stopped at the Pure Peninsula Honey Farm on the way back. I do like honey but the real motivation for my visit was because I love going to the places that make this kind of thing. They have a room with a glass beehive in it where you could see the bees coming in from outside, depositing their pollen and then going back out again. There was a honey tasting station that I think put me into a brief sugar coma and lots of lovely ancillary honey products like beeswax candles and honey-based moisturisers and honey beer and icecream. Did you know there's a low GI honey that's suitable for many diabetics? Honey is a fabulous versatile product.

The farm also had a section of kids stuff - tiny clothes, blankets and toys. We picked up a bee toy as a present for a baby that is arriving shortly (literally very shortly - the mother went into labour yesterday morning). We brought him home and popped him on the kitchen bench so Sam wouldn't forget to take it with him when he left. But (and this is so ridiculous from two grown adults) he looked really cute there! He's such a happy bee and provides just the right amount of cheer for when you get up in the morning and the thermostat says that the temperature inside the house is three degrees. So I decided to keep him and make the baby a hat and booties set instead. 

The booties are the famous Christine's Stay-on Booties. They are designed so that the baby can't kick off their shoes, as they are apparently known to do. The pattern is really quick to knit and requires like 20m of yarn (I don't know if that is correct, but it felt like a teeny tiny amount. Next time I make a pair I'll weigh them).

The only modification I left out was knitting a row of YOs at the ankle for a ribbon or knitted icord to be threaded through. It seemed a bit fiddly plus I kind of thought they looked like space booties without it and I like the idea of kitting out little girls in outfits that look like they could be on astronauts. Better than giving them any of the myriad pink plastic crap that we force on young girls from birth that reinforce rigid gender stereotypes. DEATH TO ALL PINK PLASTIC REPLICAS OF CLEANING AND COOKING IMPLEMENTS GIVEN TO LITTLE GIRLS!! 

The hat was pretty easy - I cast on 88 stitches, knit till it was long enough, decreased at eight points until there were four stitches left and then knitted an icord until it was long enough to tie into a knot.

It was a little too big for Buzzy though! The poor little bee toppled over under the weight of the giant newborn baby hat.

The yarn I used was the Jo Sharp Alpaca Silk Georgette left over from my stepmother's birthday socks. The colour is more accurate in the outside shots. I didn't weigh them but I'd guesstimate the set used about one 50g ball. The yarn is super soft and deluxe and I hope this cute little set keeps the baby warm and toasty on these cold cold mornings.

Much better than a stuffed bee would, really!

2014 FOs #2 & #3: Snowflake hat and bootie set

Because I love making booties more than just about anything else in the entire world, as soon as it was clear I would have wool left over from the OpArt blanket, I cast on a pair of baby socks that have been in my Ravelry queue forever.

These socks were easy, cute and used very little yarn (only 34g in total!). 

They're a bit bigger than the booties I normally make (the pattern says they're for 6 to 12-month-old babies), but I figure new mums get heaps of newborn stuff but not a lot of stuff for when the kid is older. I can say for sure that they will fit the baby at some time (hopefully winter time - these socks are very very thick and warm).

I did a short row heel but when I make these again, I'll use an afterthought heel as recommended in the pattern because I think it will look a bit more finished.

I still had a little bit of yarn left over (the case of the never-ending Bendy balls strikes again!) and so I whipped up a matching hat. It was also quick and easy - cast on 66 stitches in yellow, knit 5 rows in 1x1 rib, changed to purple, knit 1 row, increased 6 stitches following row, then continued as shown. The hat took 23 grams of yarn.

For not a lot of extra time, these little extras add a whole lot of cuteness to the package.

I hope the new parents like these as much as I do.