Testing 1…2…3

At the beginning of Spring, I gave myself a wee pep talk about how much test knitting I’ve been doing lately and the importance to making sure I get my own knitting list done. It worked for, ooooh, about a week. And then, well I just couldn’t resist.  I signed up for two test knits on the same day, and my Alpaka Tunic got pushed back down the list a little more.  The end results have been worth it though…

The first is a gorgeous new babydoll dress pattern – it comes with two different options for the skirt and I tried the cable option.

It was such a gorgeous pattern I decided to make another one as a present for my friend’s baby’s birthday on the weekend.

Both are made from 100PureWool, in the Izcua colourway. Each one used one skein – you can see I used more trim on one that the other – The top on Miss 2 is a 2T, the smaller is a 12 months size. I adore this pattern and highly recommend it – simple but effective. It is called the Paige Babydoll, by Rachel Evans, and will hopefully be ready for release soon  – I’ll let you know!

And the third tester I knit was for someone a bit smaller – a new addition to the family you might say…

Meet Baby, or possibly Rose… Miss 4 hasn’t quite decided on a permanent name for her. Anyway, she is the latest addition to our ‘family’, a present for her recent birthday. Baby arrived with just one set of clothes, so I leapt at the opportunity to test Tikki’s dolly verision of the Cassia pattern, so that she could have a change of clothes!  Isn’t it sweet?  I’m sure Baby is delighted with this wee dress. It took just 50g of yarn for this small size doll (Baby stands 16 inches high), and it fits a treat. 

So now it’s back to the tunic for me… It’s been growing slowly but surely, and I’m hoping it will be done in another week. Of course, hoping doesn’t get it done… knitting does. So I’ve been working on it a little bit each day, and progress is being made. Promise!

Malabrigo March continues

I think it is baby season at the moment. I have friends – local and all over the country – who are expecting new additions at the moment. So, what better way to welcome a precious new babe than with a gift knit with love? 

37grams of silky Malabrigo loveliness. All knit up, blocked and ready to go.  Yep, another project is knit up from my stash, and while it didn’t make much of a dent in the stash, it was a complete joy to knit.
This is a newborn size Milo, a teeny, soft, and snugly vest knit from Malabrigo Silky Merino in colourway Dill. This was leftover from one of my Christmas gift knits, and seemed to be a bit too little for most projects. However, this seemed an ideal opportunity to use it up. I had a tad over 50 grams, so I have a teensy bit left to stash for contrasts if and when I buy more of this gorgeous yarn in the future.

Yep, there is something about knitting from stash that makes you plan what to stash next. There’s just no stopping some people!

FO: Spring Garden Tee

 Method: take one unfocused, supposed to be knitting Christmas presents knitter. Add some extra cheap but lovely yarn and a nice pattern, and a circular needle or two. Leave for a week or so.  Remove resulting garment from needles, sew in six ends  wash, dry in sunshine and try on small cute girl child.

Yes, I have a confession to make. I haven’t finished my Christmas knit list, but somehow found the time to try  out the lovely Never Not Knitting’s Spring Garden Tee.  I’ve had this pattern on my wish list for months now (since the Northern Summer I guess), and with the fine weather finally here, I just couldn’t resist casting on one for Miss 1. 

The yarn I used is a now discontinued Sirdar yarn called Indigo.  It is a DK 100% cotton yarn that was made in denim colours, and is designed to fade like denim.  It also is intended to shrink 10% on its first wash – thus this has had a proper wash before wearing, and I knitted it 10% longer than the pattern to accomodate the shrinkage.  This was possibly the score of the year for me price wise – I bought 4 balls at $1 each, and this top used a little over 2 balls.  Yes, this top cost less than $2.5o to knit (!).  They were in the clearance bin at a LYS, because they had faded a little in the sunlight, but not under the label. I think that this not overly noticeable and adds a little  bit of character to the top, and I think it should be fine after a few washes and wears if the yarn does what it’s designed to do.  I enjoyed knitting with this yarn and it feels quite silky to the touch, very different to other cottons I have worked with.

The pattern is knit all in one from the top down, although you do go back to pick up with neckline and sleeves to finish them off.  It was the first of Never Not Knitting’s patterns that I have bought and I found it to be beautifully presented, technically edited superbly, and a simple well designed knit. I love the simplicity of the design, the wee lace cap sleeves are such a cute detail, and I have to say that they fall beautifully, with the lace in exactly the right spot. I did have to size down the needles quite a lot to get gauge – I used 3.75mm for the body and 3.25mm for the edgings.  But the end result was worth it (I’d been hoping for a chunkier knit to interperse my small sock knitting with).

I didn’t time the photo session particularly well, so I will hope for some better pictures another day. Miss 1 recently had some immunisation shots and she is suffering the after effects, I got her munching a biscuit so I could take some! For now you will just have to trust me when I say the colour is amazing with her beautiful blue eyes.

I tried out a new technique when I was joining balls, and I was delighted with the result.  I used the “Double Knit in Join” from Knitting Help.com. I would have used the Russian join but the yarn was made of lightly twisted single plies, and I didn’t think this would work. This method was no extra work at all, and has come up great – you can barely tell where the ball changeovers are, despite there being a number of stitches worked with two strands at the crossover point.  I used this same join for the cotton in the market bag I finished recently too.I’m not sure what other methods of joins are popular with bamboo and cotton yarns of similar constructions, but am keen to hear your favourite techniques! I used this same join for the cotton in the market bag I finished recently too.

FO: Bloom

Miss 1 looks lovely in her new wee top. And so does Miss 3. (Yes, she was willing to try this on. Go figure.)

Oh and so does the newborn size dolly…

Amazing eh? I think I really confused my husband this afternoon taking these pictures of everyone in the same dress/top. But I just *had* to try out the amazing qualities of the “Bloom” that see it grow with your baby. This is the latest pattern from Aussie designer “Tikki”, and I was eagerly awaiting the pattern, having heard it came in multiple sizes and yarn weights – 4ply, 8ply and 10ply.  I had a ball of 4ply Wool Company yarn in Raspberry that I would be perfect. What I hadn’t realised was that each size has the same number of stitches exactly, it is just be changing needle size and gauge that the sizes varied. Clever, eh.  It  did leave me with a little problem though, as this size is meant to fit newborn to 12 months. But the pattern features Tikki’s daughter Lily who is nearly 4 wearing the 4 ply version, so I figured my petite nearly 17 month old would still get lots of wear out of this. And I think we now know just how much…

Yes, I think it might end up being first up best dressed around our place!

So what are the magic elements to this pattern? It is knit in the round top down, so no seaming 🙂 The bodice is 1×1 rib which looks so teensy tiny – you can see it doesn’t stretch at all on the newborn dolls. Then there is a lovely increase which sits beautifully over Miss 1’s budda belly, and stretches out flat across Miss 3’s chest.  Clever.  Then the skirt is worked straight in a lace pattern, before heading to a more detailed border. I started to worry about running out of yarn – I had maybe 2-3 metres left when I cast off.

While I enjoyed knitting this, it isn’t an idle knit once the rib is done – I needed to have a good amount of concentration for counting out the lace pattern. Of course I am not a natural lace knitter, so people who love lace will find this a complete doddle. And I cannot recommend this pattern highly enough when you consider it covers age newborn through to approximately 8 years. It would be terrific if you wanted to knit a gift for a girl whose measurements you don’t know, and you are guaranteed that the wearer will get lots of use from it.

Even if they *do* run away from the photoshoot.

Blogtober 16th: Testing, testing

I’ve been a very bad tester lately. I promised the lovely Crafty Wee Wifey that I’d knit this tester up for her a month or more ago now, but my selfish knitting has been getting in the way.  And that is this lovely wee knit? You might recognise it as a Spring Butterfly cardigan. I knit one back in March when she initially tested the pattern.  It is now being expanded to include more sizes, and I volunteered to knit whatever size she needed. I got picked for size 3 months, perfect for my friend’s new wee bundle.

I used Wool Company Avocado for the top, which is double stranded, and the co-ordinating Watermelon for the body of the cardigan.   With the addition of a couple of recycled buttons it was all complete.
This is such a super quick knit (She says, now), with all of the body easily knit up in one day in the snatches of knitting time I managed. The  frill was finished off this morning, all in all this would be  a brilliant gift knit for a new wee treasure.  Just lovely. The expanded pattern is due to be released soon.

Something Small

I am stunned (and delighted!) at the number of friends I have who are expecting new additions at the moment. Many aren’t due until next year,  and I am hoping to keep up with creating gifts for each of them. This wee vest is for a friend who is due somewhat sooner than that, and is winging its way to her house as I type.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yep, it’s another wee Milo, and I suspect I’ll be churning them out with regularity over the next wee while. I chose to do the aran cable on this one.

 

This is the 3 month size, and it used a paltry 66g of DK weight yarn. Fabulous! The yarn I used was Cleckheaton Country, an oatmeal sort of shade. I was gifted two balls of this yarn in a swap I did, and it was intended for dyeing. I cast this on fully intending to dip dye it when it was done, but I lost my nerve. It was so cute the colour it was. And as my friend didn’t find out the sex of her baby, I was worried that it might not suit if I used my purples, or my blues. Annnnyway, I held off on the dyes, and I think it’s super cute as it is.

FO for WIP

My beautiful baby turned one yesterday!

From this…

to this…

 

It has been a good year too – what a change to have a baby who sleeps during the day (but not so much at night). She has an amazing disposition, and – like many third children I suspect – just fits right on in…

We celebrated her first year with a smallish party at our place – the winter rain has set in here, so we didn’t want too many small people squished into our wee house. As it turned out, the sun came out and the kids all piled outside to enjoy swings and the trampoline.  Our wee lass was feeling a little under the weather but managed to party until the last guests left.

And as you can see, she wore neither of her babydoll dresses. After knitting the Milo for a pressie the other day, I decided a ball of red tekapo yarn would make a perfect for a Milo for little miss. Finished on the morning of her birthday ( I hid in the bedroom casting off just so it got done), I am really pleased with it – so much so that a really good FO pic will have to wait for another day as she’s wearing it in bed for her nap as I type.  I decided on the owl cable, which is really cute, but needs some buttons for eyes to really pop I think.

Her first birthday has caused us to reminsce about her arrival, and how lovely it was to welcome her into the world here at home.  What a wee blessing she is.

FO: Socks and more

I am loving all of this finishing! Another pair of socks are complete 🙂

These are the socks I began back in the last holidays when we went away visiting. The first sock wasn’t the biggest success ever, so it made it difficult to want to knit the second one. The pattern is Staccato Socks from Knitting  Socks with Handpainted Yarn. The pattern uses stripes of colour to utilise the waves the stitch pattern makes to its best advantage. I didn’t have stripes with me when I cast on, but maybe it I had it would have distracted from the unattractive way the sock seems to pull on the plain stocking stitch panel between the patterned panels. To rectify this I knit the second sock on a larger needle (2.25 for the first, 2.5 for the second). It seemed a little wrong to do so, but given the stripy socks I just knitted, I think I should get over the need to ‘match ‘ things, especially if I’m trying to match something ugly! I am much happier with the second sock!

These socks are knit from the toe up, and had an unusual gusset construction (well, it was new to me anyway!) but it resulted in a very well fitting foot. I’ve been finding socks knit from the toe up are always too long on me if I use the measurements provided. These were perfect. The heel is a slip stitch heel, which I really like the look of.

I enjoyed knitting with Vintage Purls yarn again – this colourway is JOY, exclusive to Joy Of Yarn. I knit a fairly short leg, so I have about 35 grams of this yarn left, enough for a pair of toddler socks anyway 🙂

Now, Nyree is hanging out for a picture of my latest FO, so it is squeezing in here too. This is a newly released pattern, Milo (Rav link). Written by the ever clever Tikki, I resisted buying it for, ohhh, 36 hours. This cute vest pattern has sizes from newborn through to 4 years, and is beautifully unisex. The perfect pattern for gift knitting! So, my first blast at the pattern was a 3 month size.

Knit from stashed yarn, this is Utiku DK Donkey. I usually like knitting with this yarn, but this small vest had 5 joins in the yarn! Shocking. Just as well it’s a cute colourway. I hope the wee recipient of this fits it 🙂

The pattern has 5 options for cables, I chose the ‘giant cable’ option which I like but it didn’t allow for many repeats in the length of the 3 month size vest. Nevertheless it’s cute I think, and I will be using this option again when I knit a bigger size.

I love the fact that this pattern will be able to be knit for my girls as well as newborn gifts. It’s such a quick and satisfying knit. Highly recommend this one 🙂

An UFO no longer

When I packed my projects for our holiday, I rather optimistically included this wee cardigan for DD2.  I had started it some months ago and did all of the body, but struck a problem with the sleeves. I tried magic looping them, and they looked awful. I tried them on flats, intending to seam them. Same result.  Finally I got out my 30cm 4mm Addis and the end result is much more pleasing.  And even better, despite a delay of around two months, it fits!  I have promised the leftover cotton to a friend for a project, so was inspired to finish it before we headed back home.

 

This is an improvised knit, from melding a couple of patterns together – a basic top down raglan, with the lace pattern from Juliet by those lovely folk at Zephyr Style.  I started with one pattern crunched some numbers to get a six month size, and made sure that the lace was even down the front – there are two repeats on each front and four on the back.  When it came time to do the armholes I picked up six stitches for each arm, to avoid any unsightly holes.  I knit this in the soft and lovely Bendigo Cotton (8ply) I bought a couple of years ago – I think this colour may have been deleted now, but it’s delightfully girly. (oh, and I made the dress too – just a simple pinafore in a cute paisley print, but that was done even before DD2 was born)

I finished it off with every baby’s favourite accessory – i-cords! Young DD2 just loves to chew on them. I figured they would withstand a bit of love better than a ribbon 😀

I think she seems pleased. Or maybe it was just chasing Mummy with the camera she liked 🙂