Very Hungry Caterpillar

I had been looking for an excuse to knit this for years, and then this April, it came - a Children's Book themed baby shower!

It was a pretty quick knit, and I'm very happy with it! It was nice to work with some thicker yarn (worsted held double) after having done socks for a few months.

I hope to eventually see the baby in it, though it was for a distant acquaintance, so I'm not sure I ever will.

We gifted it with a book and a rattle - I love the little kit it made!

Ravelry Project

Owen Luke - Quilt #3

In keeping with the other two quilts I made for Ellie and Caleb, I bring to you the completed version of Owen Luke's quilt!

This was quilted in the ditch, and I added a few extra quilting lines, such as a diamonds running down the blue border and the completed diamonds inside each red square (even if the blue diamond lines were missing).

Over all, I loved how this baby came out!

Pattern: Snowball Sampler from Pam and Nicky Lintott's "Jelly Roll Sampler Quilts," with an added 2' border for extra size.

Eliana's Baby Booties 2.0

Guess what I found in my desk drawer the other day?

Eliana's Baby Booties and Headband.

I doubted the booties would still fit the little munchkin, so I made her another pair! These ones have little bows instead of flowers, but they were too cute to pass up.

I opted not to make another headband, since I thought the old one would probably still fit her.

Below, you can see all three together, as they are currently in a package off to Texas!

Eleanor Louise - Second Quilt!

Here it is, my completed second quilt for the lovely Ellie, made from this top!

This was quilted in the ditch, and ended up being about 60x60", the same as the first quilt.

I used an off-brand jelly toll for the stars, and purchased an off-white background fabric, a blue backing, and a green binding.

Again, I made the label with an old Jelly Roll scrap.

Pattern: Star Sampler from Pam and Nicky Lintott's "Jelly Roll Sampler Quilts"

PS: Bonus points if you can find the mistake I fixed between the first post and this one.

Quilt Top #3 - Owen

A few weeks ago, you saw my first completed quilt.  Then, you saw a second quilt top, ready to be quilted.

Well, you'd be happy to know that I finished the quilting and am currently binding that quilt.  It should be up and at-em for you by next week.

In the mean time, I'm moving.  The good news: I might end up with a sewing "room."  The bad news?  I can't find anything.

You'll have to do this week with an update of my third quilt top, for one Owen, the second of that up-and-coming generation.

Here's the beauty!  Though it's not 60x60 like the other two, it has nearly the same square inch count, and I think it'll work anyway!

PS: Bonus points if you can find the mistake in the second quilt top! (I fixed it, don't worry).

Quilt Top #2 - Ellie

Two weeks ago, I posted about my first completed quilt for the newest addition to the Mister's family.  I also mentioned briefly in my post about the Sampler Hot Pad that I had accumulated two more quilt tops that I hadn't quilted yet.

Here's the funny thing.  I was so worried about catching up on all of my posts, since I was still posting Christmas gifts until March.  Well, I'm not exactly caught up yet, but I can't post any of my more recent completions, because they're for Christmas this year.  Ah, well.  I suppose that's the way it will have to be.  You'll hear about them in February!

In the mean time, I shall enlighten you on the second quilt top I made.

After making the quilt for Caleb, the newest addition, I realized that he's only the fourth kiddo in this new generation, and that if I hurry, I might be able to make three more before any new ones pop out!  I began with the oldest, and chose another 60x60 pattern with another Jelly Roll.  I had planned to have it done for her fourth birthday, but alas, it was not to be.  It's alright, though, because my next goal is to have all four completed for the big family Christmas this year.

Here's a photo of the quilt-top, freshly basted to the backing.  I chose a nice bright blue for the back to pull out the blue-tones in the front colors and to keep it from being overly girly.  Hopefully she likes it.  She's the only one who's really old enough to have an opinion!

I'm not sure yet if I'll be able to make a Jelly-Roll binding for this one as well, but if I can, I certainly will.

In the mean time, enjoy the pretty colors!

Baby Slippers (& Headband)

 Last week, I posted about the slippers I made for my lovely roommate when we first moved in.  Well, it's been almost two years since then, and right about now that lovely lady will be giving birth to her first baby, a little girl, and I can't wait to welcome her into the world.

Right now, Cindy lives quite far away, so I wanted to present her with something that would ship well, but also show love.  And then it hit me.

Of course.  Slippers!

After much deliberation, I decided on a baby-slipper crochet pattern that was vaguely similar to the one I had made for Momma two years before, and whipped it up so I could get it out in the mail.

But they were so tiny.  And small.  It needed something more.

After some more searching, I found a headband pattern that matched (enough).  After swapping out the flowers so they all matched, I packaged them up to ship off to the lovely new gal!

I hope she likes them!  And I hope they fit!  Everything always seems smaller than it should be when I make baby sizes...

Ravelry Project: Booties
Ravelry Project: Headband

Captain Cardie and Booties

I'll get back to the other class I took at stitches at a later date (basically, when I have a finished object to show you).  In the mean time, I do want to catch up on my other projects.

In case you haven't noticed, I've been perpetually two months behind.  This can be a great thing when I spend weeks working on a big project, and in cases like birthdays and Christmas, when I can't post the projects until a later date.  In fact, this whole back up is basically because I made so much for Christmas last year that those gifts were still getting posted at the end of February.  Right now, though, I'm a little frustrated by it.  I might keep the posts at twice a week even after the Sophie's Universe CAL is finished to compensate.

Said Book

Anyway, back to what I was saying.

Over Christmas, I got some lovely knitting pattern books from the Mister's parents, and one of them happened to be a baby book.  At first, Randall and I looked at each other, wondering if this was a hint, but we were quickly assured otherwise, and life as usual resumed.

I ended up knitting a couple things from this book when my co-worker went on maternity leave.  Having just returned from STITCHES, where I learned to knit continental (as a result of knitting with one yarn in each hand for my tam), I chose to force myself to knit the whole sweater continental, and the booties as well.

I'm pretty happy with how they turned out, and I now feel reasonably comfortable with continental knitting, which is a plus for sure.

The pattern was extremely confusing and poorly written, though.  I had to have some of the Stitchers help me figure it out.

I also used the Debbie Bliss yarn from STITCHES, so no new yarn purchased!  Win!

Ravelry Project: Sweater
Ravelry Project: Booties

Baby Buddy!

Two couples in my church are expecting babies in the fall, and we recently had a mini-baby-shower for the two couples combined.

I didn't know what exactly to do, but I knew they had both expressed appreciation for handmade items, so when I saw this as an example "one-skein-project" for a particular yarn in a bitty shop, I couldn't say no!

Here are the two buddies!  What do you think?

Ravelry Pattern
Ravelry Project: Purple
Ravelry Project: Yellow

My First Quilt Top

Quilting.  It's one of those things that I've always wanted to do and never gotten around to.

Until now.

My hubby's cousin is pregnant with her third child, and it's the first birth since I've been in the family.  I couldn't decide what to do.  Should I make a blanket?  A hat?  Booties?  I wasn't sure.

Baby Mitts!

A friend of mine at college is having twins!  We hosted a baby shower for her on the campus and I decided to make her some baby mitts!

Originally, the idea was to make a matching mitt, hat, and bootie set for each little baby, but since the shower was right at the edge of finals, I didn't even have time to finish the mitts!

However, they were finished a few days ago, and have become project two to be completed!

Here's the pattern I used: http://sunnyknits.livejournal.com/6797.html
The blog is in Russian, but there's an English version of the pattern in a link to the right of the picture.

I definitely enjoyed these mitts.  They're so adorable and fluffy!  If I were to do it again, I would make the k-cords thinner, though, because they keep bunching up in the mitts.

I also ended up having to use two different types of yarn to get colors that were neutral (she doesn't know the genders yet), so the cords were of course slightly different than their corresponding mitts, which may have contributed to the problem.

And there's project two!

Ravelry Pattern | Ravelry Project