Swatchless

Many of my friends are having babies these days, so I’ve started knitting some baby clothes to give them.  It’s a great way to use up some of my sock yarn/baby yarn stash.  The yarn is generally superwash wool or acrylic, which is suitable for baby clothes that tend to need quite a lot of washing.  This particular pattern is my new favourite.  It is the Garter Yoke Baby Cardi by Jennifer.  The pattern is so easy to follow, and is knit in one piece with absolutely no seams to sew up at the end.

To go with the cute sweater I knit up a “Top Down Bonnet” by Adrian Bizilia of Hello Yarn .  It is such a nice pattern that fits babies so well.  I just need to add some ties and it will be all done.

The combination will be packaged up, ready for the first girl to be born.

Since she was about 6 years old I’ve known Kendra as “The Sparkle Monster”.  I believe the name came from arts and crafts at camp, and grew into a bit of a sparkly obsession over the years.  Sparkle monster has grown up, gotten married, and now has a little sparkle monster of her own.  Baby Julian has made his arrival and must have some sparkles in his wardrobe.

The bonnet is the “Top Down Bonnet” by Adrian Bizilia (Hello Yarn) and the vest is an improvised pattern that ended up making a much larger garment than planned!  It’s a good thing that babies grow quickly.

I knew it would be very important to find the perfect yarn to knit a sparkly ensemble for young Julian, but I do not own any sparkly yarn.  It’s not really what I tend to collect.  I do often get bombarded with knitting advertising which led me to finding Gumdrop Sparkle Yarn in Lemon and Cherry.  I waited while this lovely package of sparkly goodness made its way through the postal system, and was delighted to see that the sparkly bits are not rough and scratchy.  In fact, the yarn is soft and slippery with a single thin ply of a shiny metallic thread throughout.  The slipperiness of the yarn led to issues when joining a new ball.  If you don’t tie a knot between the two balls of yarn they will slip and slide and stitches will work themselves undone.

This yarn did get a bit fiddly to knit with–the yarn becomes easily split, and the sparkly thread can stretch or bunch up, or sometimes get dropped or knit together with another stitch.  It’s worth it to get the sparkles though!  The glint shows up in the stitching really nicely.

As I was finishing the neck and arm edges on the little vest I came across another issue with this yarn.  There is really limited elasticity, so on cast off edges it was really really tight–so tight I had to undo it and redo it about 4 times before I could even imagine putting this over a child’s head.  I think it’s big enough now!

I hope that little Julian will enjoy being a little sparkle monster.  I look forward to meeting him some time soon!  In the mean time, this little outfit is going in the mail later this week.

A great excuse to get back to knitting!  A long time friend of mine is having a baby pretty soon, and I was thrilled to get an invitation to her baby shower.  Since nobody knows if the little one will be a boy or a girl, neutral coloured clothing was requested.

I’m not really sure if rainbow and blue count as neutral, but I sure think it is cute!

The blue acrylic is left over from the secret santa mittens I knit, and the rainbow superwash wool is from my excellent score at value village.

The hat is my favourite baby bonnet pattern (Top Down Bonnet with Anime Character), and the wee baby booties are a version of Saartje’s booties written for seamless construction and published on Fleegle’s Blog.

I look forward to seeing pictures of the new little baby wearing these bright happy colours!  Best wishes to the mom-to-be.

I wasn’t really sure what I’d end up making when I picked up this ball of handspun.  I was pretty sure that I’d be making something that didn’t come in pairs, since I had no way of knowing how the stripes or colours would distribute themselves across the ball.  So…socks and mittens were out of the question.

I knew that there’d be stripes of some kind–with handspun from painted roving, you can’t really escape it!  I decided to try knitting Laila (ravelink), a baby sweater that I created for friend’s of mine when their little Laila was born.  It is a top-down, placket neck, raglan sleeve, seamless sweater, knit in the round.  I love it because it requires very little finishing, and shows off stripes really well.

I also wouldn’t have to worry about the front and back being two very different colours (some of this yarn is very orange, and some is very green).

Being swatchless has its advantages–I knit, and make things, and usually they turn out the right size for someone….the problems arise when I try to make baby clothes.   I don’t have access to many babies, so I’m at a loss as to their proportions.  To this end, I brought the sweater to my mom–a fairly conventional knitter who works to gauge, from patterns that have sizes on them.  She measured what I had against some of her 6 month sized sweaters.  This one seems about right for a 6 month old.  The neck opening is very stretchy, and so is the body.  I left the sleeves wide until the cuff, decreasing only 4 stitches over the entire arm.

I had wanted to do garter stitch at the sleeves and around the body just like I did at the neck.  Garter stitch is so much more brainless to knit than ribbing…but I found that the bottom edge of the sweater started to flip up when it was edged in garter stitch.  I ripped back, did a few rows of K2, P2, ribbing, and it seems to lay flat now.  I’m not sure if the flipping up is due to the garter stitch, or the twist in my spinning–it was not a balanced skein, but with me, it rarely is!

All that remains for this sweater is to pick out the most adorable little buttons.  I’m thinking that I might go for wooden buttons, or black buttons, or maybe three different coloured buttons….there are so many options….I’ll bring it along to the fabric store and see what speaks to me.

And now….I’ll have to wait for a knitter to have a baby sometime in the spring or summer….I don’t think a non-knitter would fully appreciate all the work that has gone into this creation!

Thanks to slimchicken (etsy) for dyeing the roving.  It’s lovely!

After the harrowing canoeing adventure on Wednesday, I decided to stay on land for most of the day on Thursday.  I spent part of rest hour watching over the children as they relaxed under the trees and I finished up some i-cord ties.  I am thankful that my camera revived itself enough to take several photos.  I think the water has ruined some of the electrical workings on the insides.  I can’t turn the flash on or off anymore.

Pattern:  Top Down Bonnet (Ravelink) by A. Bizilia (blog).
Yarn: Cotton Supreme Batik (which I now adore!)

I noticed that the colourway “summer camp” seems to match the paint at Camp Hyanto perfectly.  I love the combination of these natural colours, the colours of the beach on a sunny day.

Camp is certainly a peaceful place to be when the sun shines.

At 8 AM I was at the car place…..knitting the last of the cabled baby vest, and getting my car checked out before I take it on a bit of an adventure this August.  The car guys noticed that the chip in my windshield was no longer a chip, and starting to crack and spread a little…..

Long story short, I headed off to Speedy Glass to have the chip filled in with resin–I’d had this done before, and it worked really well, and cost a whole lot less than a new windshield.  Of course, on the way there I happen to leave a few extra minutes for a quick trip to Wool-Tyme…(it’s on the way if you plan your route correctly)  I bought some more Cotton Supreme Batik in the colourways “summer camp” and “waffle cone”–it’s SO soft and silky, you’d hardly know it is cotton!

knitting while waiting for the windshield outcome

So I sit and wait (knitting a top down bonnet for yet another friend who has just had a baby) while my windshield is being operated on.  And after half an hour I get notified that the chip wouldn’t seal, and in fact, the pressure that was used to try to seal it has now cracked the windshield even more!

Great….

So, I am the proud owner of a new windshield.  Luckily they had the right kind in stock, and it was early enough in the day that they could install it before closing time.

In the mean time, I knit while the Speedy Glass man drove me downtown to meet some friends (blog)  visiting from out west, and their two darling boys.  We took a fun ride on the Wolfe Island Ferry and saw boats and windmills and enjoyed the sun.

I went on the roof WAY up there.

My next adventure for the day was to find Maggie, another crafty girl who makes pottery for a living, but she knits and spins and sews too.  She has recently been in search of vast quantities of denim.  Since I had worn through the knees of my jeans and made them into shorts, I donated the bottoms to her.  She’s turning all of the pieces she is collecting into a denim ball gown!  Pretty cool idea.

I got invited up to her roof and enjoyed the view and the breeze from up there.  I don’t know that I have ever been on a roof like that before!

Since I was already downtown, and it was hot and sticky and I was ready to have a rest and knit a bit, I headed to the screening room to watch The Secret In Their Eyes, a mystery that is entirely in Spanish.  It’s a challenge to knit, follow a pattern in your head, and read the subtitles.  After the movie, the woman sitting behind me started talking with me.  It turns out that I was a camp counselor for her kids, she wasn’t sure that she recognized me until I pulled out my knitting–I guess it’s my trademark!

What did you do today??

There’s nothing like eating watermelon with feet dangling off the dock, toes dipping in the water, listening to the loons call from a distant corner of the lake.

I’ve taken a few days away from the computer to sit in the woods, by the water, and enjoy the company of family.

My knitting came with me.  I picked up a ball of brown Life DK from Wool-Tyme.  This yarn is such a joy to work with. It feels like wool, it has a nice shine and softness to it, the brown colour has glints of green, blue, pink, orange in it–it will coordinate with many outfits, and it is completely machine washable–something VERY important for baby clothes. It is the same brand of yarn that I made the Eilidh sweater from.

I’m working on a little sweater for a friend who has just had a baby girl.  Making up the pattern as you go is such fun, but you have to be sure to either keep notes, or finish it fast so you remember what you did in previous rows.  I’m trying the “finish it fast” approach.  The ends got sewn by Monday morning!

front view

back view

I really like how the neck turned out, the cables continue from the front and back, framing the neck, and meeting up along the shoulder.  I think I might incorporate these ideas into other projects.  What is best (in my opinion) is that I did not have to sew ANYTHING!  There are no stitches picked up either!

front of neck

The body is knit from the bottom up, in the round.  The front and back are knit flat, but the shoulders are joined by a three needle bind off.  I like the look of the neck as it is, so I will not add any ribbed border.  The sleeve openings are also nicely defined by the seed stitch.

back of neck

I look forward to seeing this sweater in action.  I hope it could be a dress this fall, and a sweater next year.

Ever since I saw the Top Down Bonnet pattern on Ravelry by Adrian Bizilia (helloyarn) I was smitten!  I made the original bonnet with the anime face on it, and sent it to a friend in Japan.  The ears aren’t sticking up, but they are there!

I’ve also made it without ears, and with stripes, for another friend’s baby.

Today I worked up another little variation.  I added some lace…

This is the lace pattern that I used.  Since I worked it in the round, row 2 and 4 are knit.  If this were worked flat, row 2 and 4 would be purl rows.

Row 1: (K1, K2tog, YO, K1, YO, SSK) repeat

Row 2: knit

Row 3: K2tog (YO, K3, YO, Slip 1, K2tog, pas the slip stitch over *this decreases 2 stitches*) repeat

Row 4: knit

After working 12 rows of lace, I cast off knitwise.  The edge kept rolling, so I added another border.  I will not admit to crocheting, because I didn’t actually use a hook.  This is my process:

Pick up a stitch through the cast off edge.  Work a chain of single crochet 2 times then crochet through the border again 2 stitches away from the first stitch.  Continue this (or something like it) around the edge of the bonnet.  It helped the border stay flat, and I think it makes it extra cute.

What do you do to spice up your regular patterns?

Yesterday I met with Eilidh and her mom to take some pictures in the park to illustrate the “Eilidh” cabled vest pattern.  It was a lovely day, sunny and warm.  We found a spot in the shade, and got the wee one all dressed up, and sitting up.  Now, sitting up is new for her, and maybe she rolled a bit too far forward, squishing her stomach….or maybe she’d just been fed….but before any pictures could even be taken, she spit up down the front of the vest.

Thank goodness mommies always carry a bag full of wipey things.  We cleaned her up (you’d never know the vest was dirty in that picture!)….but she was really not into the whole modeling thing.  There were lots of pictures that look like this one!

Cuddles with mommy made it all better.

Funny thing is, when you take pictures of grown ups, you never have to worry about if they will spit up, or spontaneously cry when you get out the camera!  Thanks for being such a good sport Eilidh, and thanks to her mommy for letting her be a model!

What’s your craziest photo taking situation?

Download the .pdf for $5.00 CAD

Eilidh (Ay’-lee) is a Gaelic name that means LIGHT.

When my friend told me that she was choosing a Gaelic name for her little girl, I knew I needed to knit her something with lots of cables.

This celtic cabled vest will look charming on any little one, and could even be worn, over tights, as a dress by a very young girl.  Knit almost entirely in the round in double knitting weight yarn, this vest is quick to finish.  The cables are predictable, which is great for beginners, but each row is different enough to keep the expert entertained.

Here's Eilidh, who is just learning how to sit up!

The pattern is explained in row by row instructions, and also in chart form.

Download the .pdf pattern for $5.00 CAD

Thanks to Eilidh and her mom who met me in the park today for the pattern photo shoot, and thanks to Jean for test knitting this pattern and providing excellent feedback.

If you like this pattern, check out my others!