Category: How Can A Baby Be A Surprise?

Twin Sweaters!

Finished! I still need to wash and block them, but they are done done done. Fritz and Sweetpea were happy to model, since I don’t have real babies in my house.
Project Details
Pattern: Buttoned Up Cardi
Yarn: Cotton Ease
Needles: 5.00 mm
For: Our neighbors have new twin granddaughters
Started/Finished: February 17, Finished today.
Modifications: the pattern calls for picking up stitches along the sides and knitting the sleeves down to the cuff. I knit them separately and sewed them in, since I think it looks neater. I also forgot to put in buttonholes on the first one, so I used snaps and just sewed the buttons on top. I made the second one the same.
What I Learned: Baby sweaters take longer than you think. It also helps if you don’t wait to start knitting until after the babies are born.
Pattern Rating: 5 Stars. It’s a very simple pattern, with only one minor error. After you pick up the stitches for the hood, you increase for a bit in the back center, then knit straight and do a three needle bind off. There is one extra stitch if you do the increases as directed. It was easy to fix.
NOW, I get to go cast on that pretty shawl I showed in the last post. I’ve been looking forward to that all week!

Seams!


I do love knitting, including sewing seams. I’d rather sew pieces together than go through all the crazy contortions that some patterns have you do to avoid them.
This is the first of two baby sweaters. Our neighbors have new twin granddaughters, and I dug through the Cotton Ease box* and found two bright colors to make sweaters for them. The first one is done, other than the seams, and I’m putting a little hood on it.

In the category of knitting screw ups, can anyone spot the mistake here?

How about now?
Yup, I forgot to put in the buttonholes. I discovered this after I had the shoulders seamed and started putting in the first sleeve. I am NOT reknitting to fix it. I’ll sew the buttons on as decoration, and put snaps in.

That’s the second color.

We’re at Wintergrass again this weekend. So far it’s been a blast, although we are really happy that our room at the Hyatt is on a “quiet floor”. I love the banjos, but not so much at 2 AM.

*Why yes, I have a whole box of Cotton Ease, in the original bright colors. They don’t make this stuff anymore, so my grand stash plan is working!

Fritz’s Baby Blanket

As promised, I’m finally getting around to posting a “Finished Project” update. I finished this right before we left on vacation in September, and then just forgot about posting.

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Project Details:

Pattern: Quill, by Jared Flood

Yarn:  Frolicking Feet sock yarn, Sapphire Blue

Needles: 3.75mm

Started: 4/29/16

Finished: 9/6/16

For: my grandnephew Fritz

Modifications: none

What I Learned: Babies sometimes get born early. Starting knitting now.

This was a well done pattern, instructions clear and straightforward. This would be pretty in a lace weight yarn as well.

And more photos.

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In other news, for some reason I’ve started to get blog comments emailed to me, at least sometimes. We’ll see.

Fritz!

Or,

Knit Faster, Lorette!

He's here! My grand nephew was born a few weeks early. Parents and baby are all fine.

His name is Fritz Samuel Meske. His grandpa, my brother, was named Samuel Fritz, after HIS grandfather. My baby brother Sam died in a house fire in 2001, but he is no doubt up in heaven beaming on this little boy and his parents.

He's adorable, right? He deserves a baby blanket!

I was right on track to finish this about 2 weeks from now. So we're now into marathon TV knitting. I have the body and border done, and “just” have the edging left to knit. I'm not quite half way done, I did one whole side of the edging yesterday. I think I can finish the rest this coming week. We're headed out of town for a few weeks in September, so the drop dead finish date has to be enough before that so I can get it blocked and mailed.

Back to knitting!

 

September 7th

Or,

Blazing Blue Behemoth

 

The pressure is on. This is for my soon-to-be-born great nephew, who is due to make his debut on September 7th.

I have 20 rows (lonnnng rows-there will be 600 stitches on the needle at that point) of the center square knit in the round, then 600 edging rows, averaging about 14 stitches per row.

Knit faster, Lorette!

Send whisky, I might need it.

 

Can You Guess?

There is a new baby addition to my extended family anticipated this fall. My nephew and his wife are “expecting”. In uncharacteristic fashion for me, I cast on as soon as they announced the sex of the baby. I am apparently trainable. Can you guess which variety of human it will be? The yarn is from Frolicking Fibers, the color is Sapphire. It can't get any bluer than that. The ultrasound better be accurate, is all I have to say. I'm NOT saying what this will be, but right now it's eleventy billion rows of garter stitch in fingering weight sock yarn. Please send whisky.

In other news, I'm still rocking the Peloton bike. I'm coming up on my 50th ride next week, probably Friday. It is not overstating things to say that this is changing my life. For the first time in decades I've found an exercise that I love enough to drag my sorry butt out of bed at 4:45 AM to ride before work. I did my first 60 minute ride yesterday, then got up at 5:15 today, yes on a Saturday not-work day, to ride along with the crazy friend who talked me into this. It was her 500th ride today. I lost some weight initially, it's since leveled off, but I've lost inches, and I'm much stronger already in only 2 months of riding most days of the week. I could not have done a 60 minute endurance ride two months ago.

Last but not least, I'll leave you with a Zoe photo. She has settled in well here, and surprisingly she and Will have become best buddies. She is still growing and gaining weight, I think she is going to be a big cat.

 

More Progress…

But I can’t show it to you!

Good grief. Another baby has done gone and snuck up on me. Another one of my nieces is apparently having a baby next week. Yes, I knew about this a long time ago. Yes, I actually did start a project for said baby. No, I’m not even close to finishing it. Does this sound familiar to anybody?

This of course means I have nothing to show you in the way of knitting. I have been working on it, and I will say that I’m more than half way done with the thing. Oh OK, I’ll show you a teaser.

Can you guess the sex of the baby?? 😉

Let’s just call this Electric Baby Blue for now. It’s more yarn out of my vintage Cotton Ease stash, which is slowly dwindling. For someone who really sort of hates knitting with cotton and/or acrylic yarn, this stuff just makes me happy, especially the old colors. The newest colors they have come out with are sort of promising, but we’ll see. They’re still nowhere near as bright as the vintage stuff.

We actually got something close to summer this weekend. It officially hit over 70 degrees here, though it’s supposed to get down into the low 50’s again tonight. I guess I shouldn’t complain. We don’t have 105 degree temps, no tornadoes, and no floods. And I’ve been really able to get my money’s worth out of my woolies this year!

I’m off to start dinner, since it’s 7PM and nobody else seems to be doing so. Have a great week!