Baby Sweater II

I chose to knit this lovely little sweater for my nephew this Christmas. I blogged about a version of it before. I love the pattern; it's so simple. You pick up and knit the sleeves and collar, so there is no sewing together of the pieces. I think I was really drawn to the color changing technique in this pattern. It includes several more knit rows than usual, and that is always a plus in my book. (I am way faster at knitting than I am at purling.)

I you are interested in knitting this yourself, it's a pattern from f. pea and you can find it on her blog. And the best part is, I could use all sorts of remnants from the knitting basket to create a complete sweater for the little man. Sometimes, you just get lucky.

Poncho Twins

I had this crazy notion this year that I would knit about a hundred Christmas gifts. Ok, really, I thought I'd knit about sixteen (seriously, you don't have to remind me of how crazy this is). But when you get started in October, this is a little much, even if it does feel like you have plenty of time -- especially when you are still knitting projects for Etsy orders.

Nevertheless, I did manage to get about six gifts knit (and an amazing 3 more Etsy items) in that time frame, one of them being this huge and lovely poncho for my adorable sister. I had this inkling that she needed one after a weekend at the lake this fall when she was loath to return mine. She wore it practically the whole weekend - she may have even slept in it, I'm not sure.

So I asked (very stealthily -- like saying, if I did knit you a poncho....) what colors she might like, and then went to work. I love it almost as much as I love mine! And if I haven't said so before, I'll say right now that I LOVE Cascade 220 merino. There is nothing as wonderful for the price. Nothing. And of course, I love having what feels like tons of left over wool from this project. I've already churned out a really great basic scarf with some of it.

If you need the pattern for this fabulous (and insanely easy) poncho, you can find it in Odd Ball Knitting (which I happened to pick up at Half Price Books). It's the I-80 poncho. It calls for a lot of yarn, but I'd do it again in a heartbeat! I also think it'd be really cool with a bunch of different textrued yarns, but that would involve a LOT of swatch knitting which I am sure I would never do.

So there you are, two poncho girls in the new-fallen snow. We had a very merry Christmas, indeed.

Sew Cute Rocket

Since we are safely out of the gifting portion of the holiday season (at least in my family) I'll show you a couple of fun things a whipped up for Christmas this year. The first will be this little stuffed rocket that just happened into my studio. Along with a fabric order I placed this fall from Etsy, I received a fat quarter of this rocket ship fabric. (One of the things I love about Etsy is that sellers will often send little extras with your purchase!) I wasn't sure at first what I would do with it, but I knew that whatever became of it, it would go to my nephew Matthew who is ga-ga over any and all things space related.

Never having put a "stuffie" together before, I was seriously winging it. But I loved the end result. It was very close to the vision I originally had. And now I know a few things about making a 3-D object from fabric that I didn't know before! I would seriously appreciate any tips you have about stuffing the wings of something like this. The polyfil did not want to stay down in the points. Nevertheless, I was quite happy with this cute little rocket, for a cute little rocket man.

Merry Christmas Everyone

New Christmas Song to Love

I love Sarah Groves. She is absolutely honest about her faith and her feelings. I can so relate. She has a Christmas Album out with a fabulous song: Toy Packaging. If you haven't heard it, you really must. The song should play automatically when you read this but, just in case, you can download it from the link below. Enjoy!

Toy Packaging

It's Snowing

I awoke to snow dusting the ground this morning. It's so beautiful and peaceful. There is talk that we could (and I DO have my fingers crossed) get up to an inch today. I love the snow. And so do the neighbor kids. By this afternoon it'll be filled with bootprints from the boys in the neighborhood having a good romp thought our yard (which is just as heart-melting as seeing the snow fall); but right now it's smooth and spotless, quiet and still. Just what I need at this frantic time of year. And maybe, just maybe, we'll even be lucky enough to have snow on Christmas.

Gingerbread Tradition

This year we skipped the usual tradition of making gingerbread houses over Thanksgiving weekend. Mostly because I just forgot all about it. And perhaps it was for the best this year, as the kit I bought was a set of 5 miniature houses. (I can't stress this enough - to give you some perspective, the angel on the left there is about 7 inches tall.) When we opened them up a week or so later, we were confused. It seemed like we didn't have all the pieces. We did. Some of them were just the width of my finger. Yeah.

Now that all is said and done, they really are cute. But I had no idea how difficult they would be to assemble. Small does not equal easy. Nevertheless, here they are perched on our mantle. I've decided I really like them (but not enough to do it again next year).

Baby Wrap

I recently purchased (ok, I suppose it was this summer) a knitting book that has some really adorable projects in it -- and bonus! they are quick. One More Skein, by Leigh Radford

is just the place I happened to find this sweet little wrap I knit up for one of my sweet nieces. Here you can see the photo from the book:

How could you not want to knit that up immediately??? It's so easy and carefree and no other baby is going to have one! So I did. And here's the finished product before it was shipped out to that sweet little girl:

I used a Cascade Superwash in a pink/yellow colorway so it could be thrown in the wash as needed. I just hate to send anything to a baby that can't be cleaned easily. And I must admit, I love the cabled edge. I'd never done that before. I just might have to work that into a new scarf.

It's enough to make a girl want a baby of her own :)