The Lyf So Short

A Finish! Baby Kimono for Niece

So, I've finished the world's most beautiful baby kimono for the world's most beautiful niece-to-be. See the baby kimono in a less symmetrical state here. Like Brooke's kimono, I finished this one with a single crochet edging--this time in heather Suss Love (a kind of light gray-green). This yarn is amazingly soft, perfect for baby clothes.

Sorry for the murky photo. Here's a close-up of the crochet edging:

Here's a slightly more detailed close-up of the button closure:

The pearlized plastic buttons are just flowery enough to suggest femininity without being too girly. They also go really well with the neutral colors. I think my brother and SIL will love it.

What's next, Auntie Kate?

WIP: Cabled Raglan Baby Sweater

When I saw this free pattern on Knitting Daily, I liked it instantly and I knew I just had to make it for the niece-to-be. Here's my version of "Cabled Raglan Baby Sweater" by Rebecca L. Daniels:

My version is worked with heather Suss Love (I've sung the praises of this yarn before) on size 5 needles. I made the sleeves a bit longer than the pattern called for and used seed stitch for the edging instead of garter stitch. Seed stitch is probably my favorite simple edging. This change caused some minor glitches at the neckline, but I'm hoping those will be covered up by the button. I'm thinking a shell button would look rather elegant.

Bonus: the raglan, top-down shaping means no seaming! Sweet.

Sister-in-Law in Sweatery Goodness

I've just returned to Chez Stitchgeek after a lovely, albeit overcast, weekend at the Tickle Pink Inn in the Carmel Highlands, one of my favorite places on earth. Check out the photo gallery on the website and you'll see why. On my way, reluctantly, out of town, I snapped this photo of my SIL, Karen, wearing the sweater I made for her as a Christmas gift:

It's a good thing I made this sweater a little big to make room for my little niece on the way. And Karen was such a good sport for agreeing to have her picture taken outside with wet hair!

WIP: Baby Kimono for Niece

Ever since I found out this past February that I'm going to be an aunt, all I can think about is what I'm going to make for the little tyke. OK, yeah, yeah, I hope the baby's healthy and all that... And, yeah, I hope my sister-in-law has a healthy and relatively uneventful pregnancy... But the real questions are: what to knit? what to stitch?

I'm particularly excited since this is my first outing as an aunt, and, since I'm the family spinster and I have only one sibling (brother Bill), I'm not likely to have a lot of children in my life to shower with painstakingly crafted handmade gifts. We found out recently that the baby's going to be a little girl due at the end of September/early October. My SIL put it perfectly: "I can't wait to meet her!"

To the left, we have the latest WIP: "Baby Kimono" from the Summer 2005 Interweave Knits "Baby Gifts" section (the pattern is also available for free from Knitting Daily). Although I don't usually like to repeat patterns, you can see another version I made for my cousin's baby here.

The yarn I used is ivory Suss Love, an incredibly soft 100% tactel nylon yarn that feels like cashmere (I swear!) but is washable. The pattern is worked all in one piece and I only have two halves of the two sleeves left to work. The pink stitch holder is holding the stitches for the right sleeve and my circular needles (Size 4, if you're curious, and Size 4 if you're not) are holding the stitches for the left. Since the entire piece is worked in garter stitch, the safety pin is marking the "wrong side" (the inside of the garment).

And here's a lovely close-up of said garter stitch, complete with requisite cat hairs:

A Finish: Shepherd's Bush "Folk Heart Roll"

I'm so happy to have finished this project. This is one of those kits I bought on an impulse just because I liked the colors and the hearts and the lace and the black checkerboard design and the... well, you get the idea. You'll have to take my word for it that I'm not much of a "hearts and flowers" gal, but something about this design's simplicity and "folkiness" spoke to me. After all, there's no explaining love.

Unfortunately, the kit sat in a bin in my "office" for several years waiting to see the light of day. And then, one day, I needed a simple project to get back into the swing of cross stitch and there it was. After I started stitching, of course, it was completed in no time flat.

By the way, please pardon the hoop marks!

If memory serves, this is the third Shepherd's Bush needleroll I've completed. The other two were Christmas themed and were given as gifts. I can't decide what to do with this one. I don't feel like making it into a needleroll because I'm afraid it will just sit around collecting dust, but I can't think of what else to do with it except perhaps get it framed. With some minor modifications, it would make a lovely birth sampler for a little girl. Any finishing ideas, gentle readers?

Merry Stashmas!

And, from my crazy and creative roommate, I present the World's Best Way to Use Up Your Yarn Stash^TM:

These were so fun and easy to make--and the assorted novelty yarns and yarn mixes hid a multitude of flaws "design elements." A couple of the balls are just gauge swatches I had lying around that have been sewn up and gathered at both ends. So this is a great way to use up those old gauge swatches too.

You are doing gauge swatches, aren't you? OK, OK... Christmas is no time for nagging, especially not when you've got multicolored yarn-covered Christmas ball ornaments to wrap.

Happy Stitching to all and to all a good night!

Pumpkin Hat for Ronan's First Halloween

In celebration of All Hallow's Eve this Friday, I've made this pumpkin for Ronan, the son of my high school BFF. If you're interested, the story of the last gift I made for Ronan starts here. This is Ronan's first Halloween and I thought he needed a suitable "costume."

I have a thing for pumpkins. And I love the idea of babies wearing hats shaped like fruits and vegetables -- the result of some early childhood trauma, no doubt. Knitty has an adorable berry tart baby hat pattern here.

The pattern is slightly adapted from "Kurbis" from the Sonnentaler blog ("kurbis"--with an umlaut of course--is the German word for "pumpkin"). The yarn I chose (a double strand of Berroco Comfort DK color 2731) had a different gauge so I redid the math for a 15"/38 cm head circumference. I also chose to do a seed stitch border rather than garter stitch to avoid the "rolled brim" look. Not that there's anything wrong with that...

The stem is knitted from the lefover scraps of some Noro Kureyon (color unknown) and the leaf is made from some scraps of Suss Ull in "nervous green." To me, the slightly scratchy texture of the Kureyon suggests a pumpkin vine stem. The leaf pattern is just something I pulled out of my hat. Get it? I pulled it out of my hat... nudge nudge...

You know what Samuel Johnson said: "He who would make a pun would pick a pocket." Enough said.

Anyway... Happy Halloween, Ronan! Love, Auntie Kate

Latest WIP: "Celtic Band Sampler"

Here's my latest work in progress, "Celtic Band Sampler" by Homespun Sampler. I've had this pattern in my stash now for at least a couple years and it's long been at the back of my mind to start working on it. I was looking through my pattern notebooks awhile back (all eleven of them!) and decided the time was now. The fabric is from R & R Reproductions. It's 32-count but for the life of me, I can't recall the name at the moment.

I have a love/hate relationship with the colors. I love the green and dark rose, but I'm not so crazy about the two shades of mustard/caramel (DMC 831 and 832) or the gray of the lettering. What do y'all think?

Checkerbird Finish

I was feeling the need to work on something small and "completable" (yes, I know that's not technically a real word, but needs must, as they say), so I dug out this old kit that's been sitting in a plastic tub in my craft room since before the flood.  It's by Heart in Hand and it's called "Checkerbird"; the kit came with the chart, fabric and the pillow form. I started it a couple nights ago and voila!

I simply can't resist anything with pumpkins on it.

The pattern called for Gentle Art Sampler Threads in some of my favorite colors--the bird's body is Nutmeg, the black is Black Crow, and the green is Dried Thyme. The colors match the pillow form exactly.

An aside: I'd like to send a "shout out" to Gentle Art. They have been so supportive of my fledgling cross stitch design company. They have been generous with samples of their latest threads and have always responded promptly to my emails. No wonder they have such loyal followers in the stitching biz.

Anyway, now that I've got this quick and easy pattern out of my system, I can go back to work on the Celtic Band Sampler and some knitting. If any readers out there care to comment, I'd really be interested to know how you decide which projects to do next. Do you like to mix small projects with larger, longer projects? Or do you work one project until it's finished and then, and only then, proceed to the next one?

Hat and Booties for Baby Lewis Finished!

In my excitement to finish the hat and booties for Baby McKerrow (see here for the beginning of that journey), I had set aside my goal of making a hat and a pair of booties for my goddaughter's baby girl. [Note to self: Does that make me a grand-godmother?] This little one wasn't due until early May, whereas Baby McKerrow is due in about a week, so I prioritized.

Well, Grand-goddaughter has her own plans and it looks like she's coming early, maybe as soon as the 20th, so I figured I'd better get going. I have had my eye on this simple picot-edge pattern from Louisa Harding's book, Natural Knits for Babies and Moms, for some time now, but there's no time like the present! One skein of Debbie Bliss Cotton Cashmere (in ivory), one skein of Suss Love (in taupe--it may not be organic, but it's vegan!), a couple pairs of knitting needles, and a few Law & Order reruns later and we have this beautiful set:

Although the mission statement of the book, as expressed in the subtitle "Beautiful Designs Using Organic Yarns," seems a perfect fit for my nature-loving goddaughter, I must admit that I used the available yarn in my stash instead.  If you like neutrals and natural fibers (especially cotton) for babies and moms pre- and post-partum, this is the perfect book for you. The patterns call for basic to intermediate level skills--nothing too arduous--and are very classic. Anything you make from this book will stand the test of time.

I did make some minor modifications to the original pattern for the booties, however. The pattern called for several lazy daisy stitches but I opted for just one, and the pattern called for a ribbon tie but I crocheted a couple of ties. The biggest change I made was on the cuff of the booties; Harding's pattern calls for a ribbed cuff, but I thought that a picot-edge cuff matching the picot-edge of the hat would be cuter and would tie the hat and the booties together better.

If you want to do a picot-edge cuff like I've done, it's very easy to modify Harding's pattern. Just work a picot cast-on as you did for the hat until you have 27 stitches total (9 X 3). Then work four rows in garter stitch (just as you did for the hat pattern) and proceed from row 4 as called for in Harding's pattern.

This is the first pair of booties I've ever worked from the cuff down, and I must admit I found working the instep a little uncomfortable, but the results are hard to argue with! I also love how the neutral colors take away from the potentially cloying girliness of this pattern.