Finally! Knitting for S

Since I last posted (more than 8 months ago!) I became a mom :D  I gave birth to a lovely baby girl in February, and this little munchkin has taken over my heart.  I dove into a world of baby songs, baby games, baby talk, cloth diapering, shopping on baby deal sites (which is highly addictive!).. everything baby!  It left little time for anything else - like knitting!

After months and months of learning how to be a mom, I think I finally got the hang of it (sort of).  This meant I could finally knit again! Hooray! :D I realized about a month ago I haven't really knit anything for S.  I did knit her a hat before she was born, but it was too big for her, and by the time she was able to fit into it, it was summer.  Who wants to wear a wool hat in the summer?  And since the colder weather was slowly sneaking in on us, I decided to knit her something to keep her warm.  I scoured Ravelry to find a cute little sleeveless cardi I could knit her.

I used Estelle Cloud Cotton 100% organic cotton (2 skeins) that I had bought last year when I was attempting to make something for my friend's twin girls.  I had bought an off-white colour in anticipation for S (at that point I didn't know what I was having so I had to choose a gender neutral colour).  This pattern was quite easy to follow, but like any lace pattern, if you screw up it's horrible!

 
I also opted to finish off the edges with an i-cord trim.  This was my first time making/using an i-cord and it was a learning experience.  I ended up making the i-cords too long, so the edges of the garment were wavy.  And cotton does not block well, if at all - which is one of the reasons why I don't particularly like knitting with cotton.  But I must admit, besides the waviness, I do like the i-cord embellished edges. 

I knit the 12 month size, and in knitting it for an almost 8 month old, it sits pretty big on her.  But with all kids clothing, it's always better to size up.  S does like wearing it... but I think she enjoys chewing on the buttons even more :D 

Plus One

So, it's been awhile huh?  But my absence from my blog is not without merit :)  Some time after I got back from my vacation in April I found out I was expecting a little one :D  That's right - my family is about to add a plus one!

Unfortunately one of the side effects of pregnancy is baby brain - my brain has been absolute mush over the past few months.  Early on in my pregnancy baby brain really took a toll on me - so much so that I could not knit for the life of me!  My friend had twins back in August and I attempted to knit them gifts 3 times (the 3rd time was a charm!).  It was absolutely ridiculous!  I found I couldn't follow patterns properly, and I kept making mistakes!  It was horrible!  But since then I've gotten my knitting groove back and I'm well on my way :D  That is, until the carpel tunnel sets it - I'm not looking forward to that!

Over the past few months I was able to knit my little one a baby blanket, and as I mentioned previously, some baby gifts :)  My sister-in-law also had a little baby boy in August and I really wanted to knit him a hat to keep his little noggin warm during the winter months.  I found this cute Aviatrix hat pattern on Ravelry and fell in love with it.  The pattern looks hard, but once I got going it was actually not too bad!  I used Debbie Bliss Cashmerino yarn.

I loved knitting this hat so much I made it for my friend's twin girls.  And I also plan to knit one for my little one too :D

So I Have An Idea....

I found this really fun pattern for baby booties two weeks ago on Ravelry.com (they're adorable!), but I didn't get around to trying the pattern until last Friday morning. And when I say Friday morning, I mean 1am in the morning! I spent the week wining a dining a customer for work, and during dinner I had tea, which was a huge mistake. I couldn't sleep until 5am! So while tossing and turning, I started to toy around with the idea of selling my knitted goods online. I figure, why not make some money off of my hobby? It will help fund my knitting obsession :) And it got me thinking about that baby bootie pattern.

So I trudged downstairs and started to knit. I decided to modify the pattern a bit, so instead of two straps held together by buttons, I made it so it had one connected strap across.

They were pretty fun and easy to knit! It's definitely a lot easier than the other booties I've been knitting. Plus they take less time to knit!

Since I had this idea of selling the booties, I thought it would be good to get a few more colours. I headed over to Mary's Yarns (I'm becoming a regular! haha) and bought a few more fun colours.



Then the knitting madness began. I've made 4 pairs o far, and I've been working on figuring out how to set up a shop in Etsy. We'll see how this works out :)

More Baby Booties :)

As I mentioned in my previous post I spent this weekend knitting more baby booties. For the blue ones I was knitting, I realized I was running out of yarn while knitting the second bootie and I knew I wasn't going to finish them off. So I ended up knitting the bottoms with some remaining cream-colour yarn I had left over from the first ever booties I'd ever knit. I was a little nervous about how they would turn out, but it looks pretty good :)

For these sets, I didn't want to use a ribbon to tie around the ankle because the ribbon has to be removed whenever the booties need to be washed. I thought it would be nice if the tie was also made of washable yarn so it could all be washed together. I tried looking for some thick bulky yarn but I couldn't find any that wouldn't irritate a baby's skin (most bulky yarn is made from natural fibers, not these nice cashmere/wool blends).

Lynn from Mary's Yarns recommended that I twist together two pieces of yarn. And this is how you do it:

Take a piece of yarn (make sure you have about 3x the length you require).

Twist it the opposite direction that the treads are twisted in until the strands start to twist the opposite way.

Then slowly bring the two ends together so that the yarn strands re-twist around each other to form a thicker yarn.

I did this process twice to get the thickness that I wanted.

Babies Babies Everywhere!

I don't know about you, but I've been noticing a ton of pregnant ladies around recently. I went to a baby shower this weekend and I would say that I was one of maybe 3 girls there that wasn't either pregnant or have a child already. I was definitely a minority!

Since so many of my friends are preggers, I thought it would be fun to knit them some fun little gifts for their little ones. I thought I would try little baby booties. They're not too hard to knit, and you'll actually have a finished item after a few hours of knitting (which is nice!). I wanted to find a seamless bootie because I'm not a huge fan of stitching things together afterwards. I also wanted to find a pattern that allowed me to string a ribbion around the ankle, just because I think it's cute! So I hopped onto Ravelry.com and found exactly what I was looking for. You can find the pattern I used here.

Romni Wool was having a yarn sale, so Ed and I decided to make an adventure of it and venture into downtown Toronto on a Saturday afternoon. We ended up raiding the downstairs sale selection I ended up buying a ball of cream DK weight yarn, ball of blue fingering weight yarn and a ball of pink fingering weight yarn for knitting baby booties. There were no labels/I lost the labels on the balls of yarn so I can't even list that information! All I know is, it's for babies :) I also picked up some supplies for items I am planning to knit for Christmas gifts.

I started knitting with the cream fingering weight yarn. I followed the pattern exactly, using US6 (4mm) DPNs. The only thing I did different was the number of rows I knit for the top of the bootie (I didn't want to make the bootie too long).

When I knit with the blue fingering weight yarn, I used US3 (3.25mm) needles but I had to adjust the pattern to compensate for the smaller needles. This is when the fractions you learned in school come in handly! I will try to explain what I did (I hope this makes sense!!). This is where the information on the label comes in handy.

1) Look for the information that tells you how many stitches make up 1" (or a 10x10cm).

2) Based on the DK weight yarn, it requried 22 stitches to make up 10cm. Based on the fingering weight yarn, it required 27 stitches to make up 10cm. Use this ratio to calculate how many stitches you need for the fingering weight yarn. So (hooray for math!):

22    36

--- = ----

27      x

Calculate x (36*27/22 = 44.18)

3) This pattern calls for multiples of 4 (Because of the ribbing pattern for the cuff). Luckily for us, 44 is a multiple of 4, so we're good! If it wasn't a mulitple of 4, you can either round up or round down the number of stitches until the multiple that you need. This is why it is important to read through and understand the pattern if you're going to make adjustments.

So for the fingering weight, I casted on 44 stitches, knitted 25 rows of the stockinette stitch (k2, p2). The the foot shaping rows, I k27 for the set-up row. For the short rows:

*purl short rows: s1, p10, M1, turn.

*knit short rows: s1, k10, M1, turn.

Knit until 60 total stitches (or to whichever boot length you want).

For the bottom of the bootie, I had to adjust the pattern for the bottom so that:

*p5, p2tog, p16, p2tog, p5 (twice)

*k2tog, k24, k2tog (twice)

*p4, p2tog, p14, p2tog, p4 (twice)

*k2tog, k22, k2tog (twice)

*p3, p2tog, p12, p2tog, p3 (twice)

*k2tog, k20, k2tog (twice)

*p2, p2tog, p10, p2tog, p2 (twice)

*k2tog, k18, k2tog (twice)

Ok so these were not as easy to knit as I thought it was going to be. I screwed up a few times, and after unravelling my work twice (or maybe it was three... haha) I finally got a finished product!

And here are the finished results: