Category Archives: knitting

Brenna’s Camilla

love her!

I’ve had these pictures on flickr for a week at least and still haven’t gotten around to posting them.  Remember my Christmas sweater and skirt ambitions?  Well, I did get Brenna’s done.  I was weaving in the yarn tails late Christmas Eve and she wore them to church on Christmas day.

Brenna's camilla

She’s also worn her sweater a lot since.  I’d say on average 2 times a week.  It is super cute and comfy.

cutie patutie

I could have made it one fan repeat shorter, but oh well.

Isn’t she looking so grown up.  She only has half an inch to catch up to me in height and her hands and feet are just slightly bigger than mine.  She’ll be 12 in May.  Yikes!

Brenna's christmas sweater

brothers were helping her pose

Love her, and love that she loves her mama made sweater.

Eva’s is done too, so stay tuned…

green is my favorite color

green sweater

In January I took my Christmas money to the yarn store and came home with 5 big soft squishy skeins of  beautiful green Madelinetosh superwash merino yarn.  (The color is Malachite, but I’m sure I bought worsted weight yarn and I’m not seeing anything that looks like it on their site.  I think Madelinetosh Vintage is the most comparable.)  I wanted a sweater with sleeves, so I cast on for my very own February Lady Sweater.

February Lady back(this photo by Jonah)

It’s the biggest thing I’ve knit with a fancy lacy stitch pattern.   I made a hat for my mother in-law last Christmas which I constantly miscounted and messed up so bad I had to start over, so I was a bit nervous I would mess this up too, but none of those mistakes are noticeable and I never ripped a single row out.  About halfway through the body I realized I was twisting my yarn overs wrong which resulted in smaller holes in the lace, but I just kept on with that mistake for consistency’s sake.  I think that was a good thing actually because I think it would really stretch out of shape if it were knit any looser.

nearly a year in the making(this photo by Brenna)

I finished it the week we were getting ready for our Thanksgiving trip to Idaho.  There’s nothing like having a bunch if things I need to do (like laundry and packing) to make me feel ike I really need to knit or sew or create something.

It is itchless (hooray!) and warm.  I picked out the buttons with 3 littles in tow and have since decided I need to change them to something round that won’t be constantly skiwampis.  I’m also wishing that the buttons went all the way down, instead of just being at the top because I’m so newly un-pregnant.  Oh well.  I’m sure I’ll love how it fits next fall.

pretty knitting

It certainly is the prettiest thing I’ve knit.  I love the magic of knitting.  I know I probably say that in every knitting post, but it is just so cool that a really long piece of string can be looped and looped into something lovely and useful.

getting ready for a road trip

We are traveling to Boise for Thanksgiving so today I did my most important preparation for the 30 (give or take) hours I’ll be spending in the car to get there and back.

Laundry you might guess?  Finding a lizard sitter, perhaps?  A trip to the library for books on CD?  Nope.

I bought yarn.

girly christmas outfits in the works

Today while the 3 big kids were at school I braved the yarn store with the 3 littles in tow.  Eva and Hunter were both asleep in their car seats when we got there, so I opted to take the stroller in.  Consequently I kept knocking things over with it.  Yarn stores are not frequented by doubler strollers, I guess.  And of course Hunter didn’t stay asleep.  There was much too much to touch and carry around and knock over for the sleeping to continue.

Luckily he’s cute.  The little ladies that work at the yarn store were very gracious when he decided to show me the skein of canary yellow yarn from the BOTTOM of the stack.

Ian found a lot of things he thought were irresistibly beautiful too, but since he’s 4 he’s not quite as destructive.  Not quite.

Eva stayed asleep.  Phew.

thanksgiving knitting

Amid all the re-shelving and even a potty break I did find what I needed.  You see, I’m going to make a Camilla for Brenna and a baby one for Eva.  I love the colors of the Quince & Co. yarns and thought for weeks about just ordering yarn, but I decided not to.  I am so wool sensitive that even merino is itchy to me sometimes and I know Brenna is the same way.  The Quince & Co. yarns are 100% American wool– not merino wool, just wool.  I don’t want these to itch– I want them to be worn and worn and worn, so I got a cotton blend yarn called Weekend by Berroco in exactly the colors I wanted.

I’m going to make them some skirts with ruffle fabric to match.

Now I’ve got to do that laundry and make lizard sitting arrangements before I can yet started.

 

a pilot cap and booties

pilot cap and booties

The very first knitting I finished for Eva was this pilot cap and these little booties.  It was actually my road trip knitting from our trip to Idaho in June.  I intended for them to be the first thing we put on her after she was all dried off from being born, but the hat ended up being too big for a fresh newborn.

It fits great now, at 2 1/2 months.   On our way out the door to go grocery shopping yesterday I snapped a couple of quick photos of it in use.

pilot cap

pilot cap for princess purple

The booties, on the other hand, are almost too small now.  They’ve seen a whole lot of use.  I love booties that tie on because they STAY on.  Socks just never do the trick.  These have been in constant rotation since the day she was born, along with the pink booties I ended up knitting to be her very first.  (You can see them in this post.)

the booties

I used the Lil’ Midi Bean pilot cap pattern (found through Ravelry, of course) .  The booties  are Christine’s Baby Booties which is such a wonderfully simple pattern I think I could do it from memory now.  The yarn is a bamboo/silk/merino blend made by Crystal Palace that is so soft.

I guess you’d say I’m in the knitting mood.  I have my green Febraury Lady Sweater nearly done! (I’ve been working on it since January.)  Hopefully it will make it on the blog soon.