Knit Things Round-up

Long time, no see! It's been a wild few months over here, not near my sewing machine. My mom had a major health emergency that we dubbed The Nightmare Before Christmas, so I have been away from home helping her. She’s recovering well, though!  Here are a few things I've been working on…

Sewing Leftovers: Named Clothing Delia Beanies

This post is a long time coming... some of these hats were made right before Christmas, 2017!

Knitting: Bunny Hats

Now that I'm back in the land of winter, where knitwear is de rigueur... nay, essential... I have picked up my long-dormant knitting hobby again.

Makes in the Wild and Exciting News

Some exciting news!:

First, my blog's gotten a couple shout-outs recently... my Comox trunks for Tim played a part in the Thread Theory Comox Trunk parade and my Lisette Attache peplum blouse wrangled its way into a spot in Made by Rae's Spring Top Sewalong wrapup!  Yay!

Second, I am a pattern tester for a brand new pants pattern by the stylish Kelli over at True Bias... the Hudson pant (check out her preview on Instagram)!  I am so excited!  Can you tell by the number of exclamation points I have used so far in this post (5 thus far)?

And, the cherry on top, I was chosen to be part of the blog tour for the next Perfect Pattern Parcel, a great project supporting two worthy causes: independent sewing pattern designers and Donorschoose.org.  Check out the new PPP blog here.  More on that project in a few weeks!!


This is how I feel about all of this news:

"I'm somebody now!"
"Things are going to start happening to me now!"




OK, back to makes in the wild:  I just wanted to show you some of my makes on their new owners... they always look better photographed on the intended recipient than on a hanger!

Colleen looking super cute in her under-the-sea themed Polly tank:

A blurry pic of the girls in their matching Skater Dresses, deep in a post-Easter egg hunt/Frozen-induced stupor:

A closer view of Zoe in her Skater dress, layered over a long-sleeved tee:

Zoe adores her scarf hat thingy I knit her last year.  This is her picking out a Christmas tree (way back in December) while wearing it, but she also frequently just wears it around the house on her own accord, just for kicks, which cracks me up:

Zoe this Mother's Day wearing her plaid patchwork jumper:

Gwen Slouchy Beret

I needed a knitting project to keep me occupied during our recent trip to Cambodia... something small and portable, with an easy-to-follow pattern.  I've been wanting to make one of those slouchy, beret-style hats for a while now.  Not that I have much call for a hat here in Bangkok, but useful when traveling to chillier climes!

I poked around on Ravelry a bit and found this cute (and free!) pattern for a lacey, slouchy beret: the Gwen Slouchy Beret.  It worked with a yarn that I already had in my stash: the super soft and light Patons Silk Bamboo (thanks, Jamie!).

The pattern was super easy to follow, knitted up really quickly and I am very happy with the final result!  I like how you can wear it two different ways and it still looks good: sort of hanging off the back of your head or down over your ears. I also like that it took almost exactly one ball of the Silk Bamboo yarn.  I've got several balls of this yarn left in eggplant purple, peacock blue and more of the moss green.  Who wants a beret?

Ribbed Man Hat

When we were back in the U.S. around Christmas, we made a trip out to Tim's dad's place.  Heavy snow was predicted to for the area (and lived up to the weatherman's hype, as pictured above), but Tim was wildly unprepared, clothing-wise.  Somehow his winter coat made its way into storage instead of coming with us to Indonesia.  Ditto with Tim's winter hat and gloves.  Worried about being stuck in the snow, we stopped to buy Tim gloves and a hat, but were pretty unhappy with the quality of everything we saw and ended up buying a crappy hat (see hat above) that was not warm enough and got super stretched out.  I wish I had had time to make Tim a hat before the trip...

Thus, despite being wildly inappropriate for Indonesian weather (hot hot hot, humid), I made Tim a ribbed winter cap for his birthday using this free pattern.  A simple, ribbed, rolled brim hat, perfect for a dude, knit in a pretty greyish yarn speckled with blue, red, yellow and chartreuse, Cascade Yarns 128 Tweed.  

One slight problem I had:  I don't know if I just knit really tight, or if Tim and I both have abnormally large heads (it's a virtual planetoid!  it has its own weather system!), or both, but this hat is just large enough to cover our ears... there's no way the brim would roll and still cover our ears unless I added like another 2 or 3 inches in length.  Luckily the hat looks good unrolled, too, so no worries.

Ok, now we're going to cry ourselves to sleep tonight on our huge pillows.

Baby Set

Made this cute knit set for Baby Dos with yarn Jamie gave me for Christmas (Lily Sugar n' Cream in Butter Cream, which I think would be better named "Sherbet").  I started with the "Pretty Baby Sweater" pattern, which was interesting- top down, raglan style, but the methodology was a little different than other similar style sweaters since the sleeves were knit before the body.

I still had yarn leftover, so I knit a hat next, based on this pattern. Rather than just do seed stitch for the brim, I mimicked the pattern from the sweater and knit several rows of seed stitch followed by a knit two together, yarn over row.  Otherwise I followed the pattern for the number of stitches and the decreases, etc.

Finally, since there was yet again yarn left, I did some mittens, too.  I used this pattern, but rather than a ribbed band I did seed stitch and then the knit two together/yarn over row.  Also added a chain stitch connecting cord that can go through the sleeves of the sweater:

Cabletown

My first cable project and all went well! Cables: not as intimidating as I thought.  They just require a lot more attention than stockinette or garter stitch...

I liked this pattern, Declan's Hat.  My complaints are twofold, though:  first, there are some mistakes in the PDF pattern that are sorta mentioned on the Ravelry page, but only sorta.  Round 9 should read, I think, "k2, p3, 2/1 LPC, p3, 2/1 RPC, p3."  I definitely had to frog a half made hat when I realized that line had not 1, but 3 mistakes.  Secondly, I had some trouble with the instructions "cddp" at the top of each cable.  I tried looking up the term on the internet, but I'm still not sure I did it right.  In the end, everything looked pretty good, though!  I added a pom-pom to cover up some of the messiness at the top of the hat.

Hat is made in Berroco Comfort yarn.

Top Knot Baby Hat

Made this cute top knot baby hat for Mr. Ben and Erin this week.  I used some Jo-Ann Sensation Cuddle Muffin yarn leftover from the little sweater I crocheted a while back.  I don't think I realized that the yarn knitted up in this cute pattern... pretty cool!  Nice, simple pattern, too.

Sir Knits-a-Lot

 My latest knits:

Another Baby Sophisticate sweater, also known as the Grandpa or Old Man cardigan, this one for Baby Dos, knit in Lily Sugar n' Cream in Poppy with some buttons from the never-ending button walls of Toko Maju at Pasar Mayestik.

This super cute scarf-hat, based on this pattern.  I'm quite proud, this being my first knit-in-the-round project that required decreasing using the double-pointed needles.  Came out pretty cute!  One knitted in Lily Sugar n' Cream yarn in Violet Veil (phew, finally rid of this yarn- got 3 projects out of it, though!), one in Lily Sugar n' Cream in Poppy and one in Bernat Handicrafter in Love (for babies Izzy, Alex and Zoe, respectively).  I followed the pattern for the most part, but skipped the cable, as it is not centered on the scarves when you knit the larger size (weird) and it was just too much going on with the multi-colored yarn.

For the orange and pink ones, I kept the ribbing going all the way around the hat for several inches.  I added a pompom, like the one I put on Zoe's birthday hat, using this tutorial.   Also, as a side-note, I think that the largest size of the pattern may be a little off when it comes to the decreases.  You don't need to knit 3 stitches at the beginning and end of each decrease round... the stitch numbers are off.
 

This massive scarf/cowl/wrap thingy is made from some beautiful yarn that Jennifer gave me for my birthday last year, Cascade Magnum in Lake Chelan Heather, a nice teal color with an aura of bright green throughout.  I wanted to make this cowl I found via Ravelry, but didn't have circular needles big enough to handle this super fat yarn (my local craft store doesn't carry the tools to deal with heavy duty yarn like this), so I improvised and knit it flat.  This thing is like a blanket.  I love the texture of it, though- check out the close-up shot of the seed stitch:

I made Zoe some pink mittens (using this pattern) to match her hat, but forgot to take a photo. They came out a little bit big, but I like the pattern!

Finally, some baby legwarmers for Miss Zoe with the remainder of my pink Bernat Handicrafter yarn.  Followed this pattern:

Brimmed Baby Cap

Amy told me that she wished Baby Alex had some more orange colored clothing, as it's her favorite color... In order to remedy her situation I decided to use some orange yarn I had lying around  to make Alex something.  Initially, I had planned to make this cute little contrast shoulder vest, but sadly I discovered halfway through that the 2 balls of orange yarn I had left were not from the same dye lot, a fact that was readily apparent in the inadvertent ombre look the vest had going on.  Boo.

Enter this cute brimmed beanie, which used only half of the orange yarn I had.

I added turquoise contrast stripes and skipped the flower from the original pattern.  Pretty cute!  Hopefully it fits Alex!

 

Party Hat!

It's almost baby Zoe's 1st birthday (I cannot believe a year has passed that quickly!)... since I can't be there for the party (sniff, sniff), I thought I would send her something hand-made to wear while celebrating (and hopefully shoving cake in her face).

Party hat, y'all!

 

I used this ridiculously easy and quite cute pattern (although I added a few extra rows at the bottom to make it bigger).  I decided to stripe mine to use up random bits of yarn I had left over from other projects (all of it Lily Sugar n' Cream cotton yarn) and to give it some additional personality.

Finally, I topped it with a pom-pom made following this video tutorial.  I didn't trim my pom-pom because I liked the rough, Muppet-esque quality it had.

Lincoln helped, too, trying on the hat (somewhat begrudgingly... can you feel the virtual eye-roll?) at the various stages:

(Zoe, party hat is on the way.  Hopefully it makes it in time!!)

Even More Booties and Hats

This set is also for Baby Hill, for occasions in which his flashy rainbow accessories might not be appropriate...

Made with Lily Sugar n' Cream yarn from the same hat and boot patterns I've been using. 

Rainbow Baby Hat and Booties

Made this hat and booties combo for Baby Hill, who we just found out will be a boy (well, I made this before I knew it would be a boy, but he can still rock it out on days he's feeling sassy... I'll make him something a little bit more conservative, too.)

I love the look of the stripes- so cheerful and bright.  Plus, making these small stripes allows me to use up lots of scrap yarn left over from other projects. However, I can safely say that I do not enjoy the process of doing all these stripes.  It's all fun and games while I am crocheting, but at the end when it comes time to weave in the ends of the yarn, I am miserable.  Observe the absurdly large number of yarn ends I must weave it just on one little bootie:

 Bootie innards = not pretty

Hat was made based on this pattern, while booties were made based on this pattern that I've used before (although modified somewhat on the upper part to be taller).

Crochet Hats

When I first expressed an inkling of interest in learning how to knit and/or crochet, The Real Martha, as she is wont to do, immediately mailed me a package with a learn-to-knit kit and some inexpensive (read: cheap) yarn to practice with. She also brought me a boatload of '70s and '80s era acrylic yarn that she's had sitting around for years unused. Now that I have a little bit more confidence in my crocheting and knitting, I don't need quite so much practice yarn anymore, so I decided to put it to good use.

Using this series of tutorials for a basic spiral hat (the pattern provides a basic formula that can be modified to make several different styles of hat), I've made a couple hats out of the extra yarn with plans to donate them to a local homeless shelter/food bank in DC. The great thing about this pattern is that, since it's crocheted in a spiral rather than distinct rows, it avoids the seam issue I had when making previous crochet hats.

One with a thick ribbed cuff that folds up. I used a size J hook and worsted weight (medium weight/size 4) yarn. I ended up doing 6 or 7 rows of ribbing at the end to get a really wide cuff:


A couple basic beanies with no cuff:

Crochet Baby Hat with Flower

Using the same pattern as these cutie baby hats I made a few weeks ago, I crocheted this bright pink hat using Lily Sugar n' Cream yarn in Hot Pink. My seam was a little wonky still (better than the first couple hats, though!), so to cover it up, I made these little flowers and sewed them over the seam along with some pretty mother-of-pearl buttons that the Real Martha gave me. Pretty adorable...If you look closely, you'll notice that one of my flowers has 6 petals and one has 5 petals. Unseen in this photo is yet another flower I made that had 4 petals. I thought I was following the pattern for all of them... don't ask how I ended up with a different result every time. Trials and tribulations of the crochet newbie!