Baby Clothes

Thanks to many wonderful friends, I now have a closet full of baby clothes and other baby items. As nice as it is to have all these clothes, that will surely get a lot of use, I just couldn't resist making some items from scratch. This first item is a pea coat that I started almost 2 years ago on my honeymoon. That may sound strange, I know Dan was freaked out by this, but I didn't know who the coat would end up on at the time, I just wanted something small and easy to make for our travel-full honeymoon.

Needless to say, without a person in mind to give this to, it was put down into the bottom of the basket many times over the last year and a half. When I found out we were having a boy, I knew who the owner would be. The remaining pieces knit up quickly. I love the hood.

This is a little beanie that I have in mind for his first ride in the car. I made it out of the leftover yarn from the next two items.

Shirt and pants to match. Very cute and soft and a lot bigger than I thought they would be. They probably won't be worn home from the hospital but maybe a few months afterwards. I still need to get some buttons for the shirt.

That's a start. I've got a few more things I'm working on and hope to have done before little one shows his face. Dan's been knitting too...baby should be set!

Knits for a Niece

I love gift knitting and, for me, knitting for a new family member is probably one of the most satisfying ways to gift knit.

These were made for my niece Eva, born November 8th.

The model/recipient in her new blankie:

One more before Midnight

I have to squeeze one in before the end of the year. i've been meaning to post for days but haven't taken pictures of my recently finished products. yes, there are new products. many, really.

where I've been...the summer was a blur of morning sickness and a new job. not at all fun. i lost my knitting mojo until about october when a new niece would be born. finishing something for my new little niece jump started my knitting senses and i realized i only had a few months to knit for my own child.

so now that i've settled into pregnancy and am not feeling horrible everyday i've been working away on clothes for the lil' one. pictures to follow.

HAPPY NEW YEAR...for me it truly will be a NEW year...

In Record Time

..at least for me. Maybe there are knitters out there that routinely finish sweaters in just 6 days but this amazed me. I decided, on a whim, that I wanted to make my mom a mother's day gift and that it would be a sweater. I found the pattern on May 1st, bought the yarn and dug in for a weekend of knitting. I finished on May 7th just in time for her arrival (my parents came for graduation). She's seems to like it. I love it and want one of my own.

The yarn is hand painted which made for some variation in the color. Of course I forgot to get a picture of my mom in the sweater, but it looks really nice on her.

Also, I finished up my Hey Teach! but need some buttons and a shower before I model it. This is the first sweater I made for myself that I actually like. I must mention I've only made 2 other items for myself: both vests (both too big and bulky). I now have hope that I can make clothes for myself and others.

Its a great feeling!

Not about Knitting at all...

I found this blog while looking for a home made deodorant recipe. It seems really awesome and I thought you (two who read my blog) would find it intriguing as well...

here it is: Passionate Homemaking...you'll like it, I promise.

And if your wondering, I want home made deodorant for a couple of reasons. I've always kind of (fleetingly) wondered about the effects of putting all those chemicals straight into your armpit could do to you body and now it seems that it can do a lot...breast cancer, Alzheimer's etc. Also, Dan has super sensitive skin and has tried many an alternative to the highly chemicalized deodorants with no luck. I bought him a natural deodorant at Whole Earth that works for stink but not for sweat. The recipe in the blog above has really good reviews so I'm excited to start.

Also interested in her simplifying the bathroom section. Think about how expensive bathroom products are...I know I can spend $12 on a bottle of shampoo which is ridiculous...She seems to have a lot of ideas for homemade everything! Shampoo, lotion, toothpaste, aftershave. All of this equals less waste, less money and NO harmful chemicals.

As you can see, I'm excited about this. Anyway, check out her blog...

A Wonderful Man

Yesterday I woke up to this....Shadowy but you get the idea.

He's great. Need I say more?

As a break from the bobbles, I started a new project on Friday. It is coming along very quickly. I hope it fits!

I really love this colorway. Its called Atlantis. It is very fun to knit with.

The End of an Era

With graduation only 2 weeks away I thought I should take some time and blog, you know, before its all over. After all I did start this blog in order to take some of the stress away from my social work education...and now its almost finished. Which, by the way, is extremely exciting!

I really only have to finish my final practicum hours and write a paper for my elective class. I've presented my research and my committee signed off and told me that I passed! So I am at the end and nervous about the next step. Now the real work starts.

Anyhow, I thought I should make a final and awesome entry as a "student" because in just the blink of an eye I will be back in the realms of those who have "real" jobs. Not that I am ending the blog or anything. I will probably need it more in the next steps of life. Now I have to put all that stuff I was reading and writing into practice, which should prove much more challenging.

As you may have surmised, I haven't been working this semester or rather, I haven't been making any money. This situation has been a bit of a shock to my system, in particular, to the system of my yarn addiction. The system being: I see yarn, I buy yarn. It has forced me to go into the BASKET and find some yarn that I already have.

And what do you know? I have lots of yarn worth knitting and some that was almost completely knit into wearable garments. This first item was going to be finished for my wedding last June. It wasn't. But the main piece has just been sitting in my room for the last year. I decided to pick it up and finish it about a week ago. It was so close to being done I wonder why I didn't just do it last year.

Here is where I left things about a year and a half ago:

The results took me only a few hours to finish. I really like this design. It was my first time doing anything like this so the pattern kind of confused me, just because I wasn't sure of the way it would come together. Well, this is a very simple and easy construction. Basically, knit a rectangle to your measurements, knit some lace border, fold the rectangle in half, sew the edges of the rectangles about half way up and sew the lace border around and put it on.

Well, that might sound complicated but its really not.

The Lacy Hug Me Tight from Knit 2 Together, one of my favorite pattern books.

Some lace detail, my first time with lace. There are a lot of mistakes but its pretty hard to tell.

The next item was a frogged piece from some yarn that Nate and Michelle gave me two Christmases ago. I was trying to knit my first sweater and it was just not working. I think that either I was flawed or the pattern was flawed. I haven't done any further research with this but let's say the pattern was flawed.

I found a pattern that I reaaallllly liked and decided to frog the first sweater and make it into something more interesting. Here is my progress so far:

Here I have the back, left front, and the right front almost finished. This project is making me nervous for a couple of reasons. The first is, it is knitting up so quickly that I think I must be doing something wrong. I started this just 8 days ago and I'm almost done with the main pieces. Second, I don't think I have enough yarn to finish it. Yeah, I know I probably should've made sure I had enough but I just decided to go for it. Third, I can't seem to find this yarn in the U.S. anymore, which I guess isn't that big of a deal but I really like how it is progressing and don't want to wait for any extra yarn to be shipped from London. The end result should look like this. Which is interesting and wearable at the same time just like most of Norah's patterns. She is great.

I was going to keep going and tell you all about our Opening Day Weekend and about all the new plants we bought at the UW Greenhouse but I've lost some steam so I'll leave you with these tidbits:

This isn't my knitting project but I was around during the whole process so I hope you enjoy Dan's Ernie Sweater. Doesn't it look great?

Our first cactus garden. Ouch! The outcome was worth the pain. I can't take credit for the idea of putting 10 cacti together but I can take credit for re-potting this one. It was a very time consuming and delicate process. Definitely worth trying.