Birthday Lace

My mother's birthday came and went very quickly this year. So quickly, that I didn't even manage to purchase yarn for her present before the day came.

My initial plan was to knit her a ring of lace to wear around her neck - something in between a cowl and a smoke-ring. I even had a pattern picked out (Nachaq). But when I swatched up Knitabulous' lovely silk/wool laceweight, I decided it was singing out to be tranformed into a triangular shawl.

After a bit of research on Ravelry, I decided on Percy. Relatively intuitive, with some chart changes to hold my interest.

This photo was taken just after I started the second chart (with no rest rows!). It's progressed quite a bit further now ... I'm working my way back through the first row of nupps in the final chart. Woo hoo, Nupps! I love 'em!

I'm really loving this project. I think I was feeling a bit lost without a lace project on the needles. Now I just have to get if off them!

Dying for Comfort

The quest to produce the ultimate piece of knitted comfort for our little llama is ongoing.

One of his favourite scarves is one I knitted out of some cream coloured angora blend handspun, that I picked up at a knitting exhibition a couple of years ago. It's lovely and soft, and he has excellent taste.

However, I wasn't too comfortable leaving him in the cot with the scarf ... he's mobile even when sleeping, and the thought of it wrapping round his neck could not be borne. So I decided to knit him a comforter with the left over yarn.

Only one problem ... it's no longer cream.

Back into the dye pot it went. And came out this lovely purple ... if I were to give it a name it would be something like Midnight Passion.

Then after some rather boring, but very practical knitting (in the same stitch pattern as the scarf) it ended up squarish, and ready for use.

Can you see the two finishing touches? There's a wrist/pram strap, and a fringe (how nice is a fringe to suck on huh?).

His third piece of knitted comfort is this fierce bunny blanket.

The pattern is from the Drops Baby collection, and can be found here. It's knitted in Shepherd Colour 4 Me. One of my favourite basic DK yarns.

I decided to embroider the face in duplicate stitch, giving it a rather scary appearance. But he doesn't seem to mind.

And this is a holiday???

No knitting pictures this post ... we're on holidays at 'the snow' (staying at my parent's place, outside of Jindabyne).

As far as holidays go, it's been rather stressful. What have we been up to? ....

Getting up early enough to get myself and an almost 10 month old ready and in the car by 7:45.

Sharing a room with aforementioned baby who has decided that 3 wakes per night is now a minimum.

Donning layers of clothing to protect against wind/rain/snow, making it very difficult to carry a 10kg child across the carpark to the creche (especially as his super cute ski suit is slippery too).

Gradually remoulding my calves with ski boots.

And skiing from one landmark to another as the weather closes in.

Despite all this (and partly because of it), I'm still having a good time. Will be doing it all again next year.

Comfort

Our knitting obsessed son was just about strangling me, trying to eat my scarves while I put him in the cot/car/pram. One nap time, after 10 minutes of wailing, I gave up, and gave him my scarf ... he was asleep in 2 minutes!

So how to give him his knitting fix, without the risk of potential strangulation??? A new knitted blanket is still a while off (though I have a plan, and I think it's going to work), so I made him his own mini-scarf comforter.


Here 'tis



And here it is being devoured.



It's two sided, worked in double knitting (using two strands, you alternate yarns and knit/purl stitches, so that you knit both sides at once). A smaller version of the Exchequered Scarf from Knitty. The photos are actually of the second one I knitted. The first was dropped from the pram 2 days after it was completed (you'd think I'd have learnt by now).


I've also finished another baby cardigan for 'the stash'. I've been working through an old book of Patons patterns. Not sure what I'm going to do next.



And in between all this, I've been having some fun with the a new yarn from heirloom. It's called bliss, and I know why.

Tragedy (and another FO)

I've posted before about the blanket I knitted for our llama while I was pregnant here.

I like to think he loved it. It was a lovely size for a pram, and being knitted, he liked to suck on it when feeling a little sleepy, or whenever he got his hands on it. (Elijah's ears a looking a little worse for wear because of his taste for knitted objects) It was special, cause I made it just for him, before I knew him. I took the squares along to appointments with the obstetrician, in the car on road trips, whenever I needed a project that I could grab and take with me at a moments notice. And with all the grafting involved I'm ever so confident whenever I come to a sock toe, or soaker gusset.

Alas, the blanket is lost.

Probably in Target at Shellharbour. But nobody has handed it in.

So after a day or two of mourning, I started thinking of a replacement. I'm now thinking something blue and cabled. I've had a look around, and nothing is quite what I fancy, so it looks like I shall have to design one myself (not so hard, it's just a rectangle with some cables running around).

While I've been pondering this future blanket, I have actually finished a cardigan (buttons and all).

This baby cardigan will either go to a friend's son, or enter the stash of 'cardigans to be distributed as babies arrive'.

The construction is really interesting. Starting at the bottom front, you knit up and over (splitting for the neck, then rejoining at the back). The sleeves are made by casting on then casting off stitches, with the cuffs picked up at the end. Only 2 seams and 3 buttons. What a lovely pattern.

While I remember I have been meaning to thank RubyGirl for asking if the striped jumper was a top down raglan (on account of the stripe alignment). What a compliment! As there are seams lurking in there ... very carefully counted mattress stitch seams.

And on the matter of baby socks. Charmaine should recognise those socks keeping his feet warm. Such a useful baby present. Right when he was big enough that most outfits no longer had feet, and the weather turned cold, there was a stash of socks to keep those tootsies warm. They're probably a little small now (we have a large-footed llama), but I can still squeeze them on in a pinch. Of course the ability to find only one sock of a pair is seriously exacerbated when they are so small, and can lurk in all manner of places.