Things for Bébé

Things are piling up! You know the booties and hat already but thought I made them for my future nephew--but I fooled you; they are for the Peanut (the blanket Green Leaves really is for him, though. I made my boy a different blanket... just keep reading!). The cardigan is my friend Sam's new pattern Greener Pastures, which I test knitted for her and which has just been released.

I really wanted to use Malabrigo Worsted, and I really wanted to use a variegated colorway, and I really really wanted to use Kaleidos, despite (or perhaps because of) the pinks and purples. So the cardigan may not have "boy" written all over it, but I think it'll be super cute over a blue onesie. I used just a tad over one skein and have plenty left over for the super cute Aviatrix hat.

To make up for the pinkish cardigan, I knitted the Peanut a very blue baby blanket.

It's Anne Hanson's Hourglass Throw, published by Brooklyn Tweed, and it is super duper übergorgeous. For the first time I tried Stonehedge Fiber Mill's Shepherd's Wool, and, gasp, after this I shan't return to Cascade 220. It is OMG-squishy and yummy and nom nom nom.

I knitted the blanket while watching plenty of British mysteries, but I can't recall a single plot. The pattern is cables and lace and different WS rows and... and demanding. Not difficult, just eyes-glued-to-the-chart demanding.

This, BTW, is the actual color (I just got Lightroom and am in the experimental phase... I go a bit overboard when it comes to color correction and sharpening... hopefully practice makes if not perfect than at least better):

I played with the pattern a bit to get a square, rather than rectangular, blankie; mods are noted here.

I can feel the Peanut kicking and punching all the time now; even Conrad felt him and almost jumped out of my lap. We're getting ready to meet him. :)

***

And speaking of Bébé, have you noticed the title Bringing Up Bébé in your bookstore? I thought only my mommy circles paid attention to this look-how-seemingly-cruelly-French-women-raise-their-kids book (apparently very differently from Americans, who, according to a recent Time article [complete with controversial cover photo], by and large follow Dr. Sears' philosophy of Attachment Parenting, by which mom never leaves baby's side), but it was mentioned in a very, very good article in the NY Review of Books. and now it's sitting on my night stand. I haven't read it yet; I started with a different book, also mentioned in the NYRoB article, which is an excellent read: should you have the slightest interest in evolutionary biology, the politics of parenting, feminism, the mommy/career debates, or are a mom, or have wondered about what the "maternal instinct" really is--and whether it exists--, I highly recommend anthropologist's Sarah Blaffer Hrdy's 1999 Mother Nature. Great read!

Enough about moms... Happy Father's Day!!

FO Parade

Hallelujah, the semester is over. It's been an exhausting one, this spring semester, with a teaching schedule that tied me to campus from 9 am till 8 pm four days a week, leaving me with very little time for my little one. And that sucked. (Luckily I was flexible in the afternoons and able to sneak in a few hours each day for play and cuddle time.) But we did have a fabulous spring break that we spent with the in-laws in Mississippi, and we also worked a family trip to Chicago around one of DH's conferences--so it wasn't all bad. Not that you know him, but if you did know Conrad, well, you wouldn't recognize him anymore. He's gotten big. And is incredibly talkative, both in German and English. He's awesomely amazing. And fabulously wonderful. And so on.

And now to business. I'm happy to report that after the initial post-baby knitting blues, my old knitting self emerged and has been busy (I'm still waiting for the emailing, blogging, telephoning, facebooking self to return. I've turned into a hermit. A hermit with a toddler).

Anyway, here it goes...:

1.
Let's begin with an entirely unflattering image of moi wearing Cecily Glowik MacDonald's Flyer Cap, one of my favorite hats in the great hat collection Weekend Hats.

Instead of a worsted weight yarn I used two strands of Malabrigo Arroyo (currently my very, very favorite yarn). Love the yarn, but the result is questionable, at least on my head. I think the hat would look better on a long-haired gal. Perhaps I'm hypercritical 'cause DH commented that I looked like I was wearing a condom. Yeah, well.

2.
This is an old FO... I finished it in January and sent it to Tia in Montana, who (almost) shares a birthday with Conrad.

Tia's mom made Conrad a fantastic little elephant in return, and she sent me homespun and -dyed yarn, and a homesewn project bag. Tia's mom is kinda awesome.

Anyway, the "birthday sheep" really is Susan B. Anderson's Lamb, published in Itty-Bitty Toys. I used different yarns and had to fiddle with the numbers to get the proportions right, and I omitted the straws that Anderson suggests using to stabilize the legs.

3.
After a season of cowls and other small objects (see above), a BIG project. I know!! Unbelievable!

This is Laura Chau's Amelia, a pattern I picked primarily because I had the yarn in my stash (Lorna's Laces... yummy yum). I modified the pattern slightly to make both body and sleeves longer, as well as to add buttons all the way down. Unfortunately I was delusional to believe that my pre-pregger chest measurements are still valid, and the cardi is, alas, on the small side. Pfff.

4.
A baby blanket, again??? Yes. This time it's my older brother my older brother's girlfriend who's expecting, and she wanted something green. Voilà, Green Leaves!

I linked the project to Jared Flood's Wool Leaves, although I stumbled across the leaf pattern in a stitch guide before discovering Flood's design, and made up my own. I love the result; it's such an easy and fast knit and uses only 3 skeins of Cascade 220. Yay!

5.
Another baby knit, because I had so much fun knitting the blanket... This is Lovinia's baby set. Lovinia is an elderly knitter who frequents "my" LYS, and one of the teachers there wrote up the pattern from her baby beret and booties. I used one skein of Shibui Sock and am totally in love with the outcome.

I have two more projects drying on blocking needles, and I'm really, really excited to start wearing them! And showing them off here tomorrow. :)

Iva's Dress & Cardigan

My contribution to the swap? Tora Froseth's Magda dress and Classic Elite Yarns' Provence Baby Cardigan.

I used Koigu KPPPM for Magda and Cascade Sierra for the cardigan; the buttons came from Berlin. I'll note exact mods and specs on my project page.

Little Iva looks gorgeous in her violet outfit! But then again, she always does. :)

(My apologies for keeping it so short today. I got a yucky sore throat and want to go to bed, sip hot milk with honey, and read a good book. Good night!!)

Swappin'

During the very early weeks of my pregnancy, before we told anyone for fear of jinxing it, I joined the Ravelry group "January 2011 Mommies," and in the past 18 months (which we spent not only drooling over each other's babies but also yakking about the not-so-savory aspects of pregnancy, the gritty details of birth, and the challenges of juggling motherhood, a career, and our changing relationships to our partner, our parents, and our friends) I have grown very, very fond of the thirty or so women who post there regularly. My "mommies," who are from around the US, Canada, and the UK, from Iceland and Uganda, are unbelievably knowledgable, resourceful, attentive, and kind. And--they are knitters. Knitters who love to swap stuff.

Yesterday's mail brought a package from JayJay. In it: Jennifer Lori's Moss Block Cardigan, which had been sitting in my queue forever, made of gorgeous Rowan Felted Tweed DK.

Conrad's favorite, though, isn't the cardigan but a cardboard book that he couldn't put down today:

Looks like he is planning a trip to California, doesn't it? Well, JayJay did mention that we should stop by her house if we plan on visiting Disneyland a few miles down the road. Since Conrad is making friends with Mickey already (also a present from JayJay), we might do so next summer.

JayJay: Thank you!! (Many thanks also for See's Candies, which were meant as a Californian treat for me, but which DH got his teeth into first, and now they are... gone. I know. He owes me, like, big time.)

Little pink Munchkin

I'm going to start with the most recent FO, since I can't trust my memory to recall all the things I knit the past six months. Not that there were that many, it's just that my memory has taken a turn for the worse. (Still pregnancy brain? Really?)

It's a baby project, no surprises here, but I made it not for Conrad but for little Edie, the now eight-week old daughter of my BFF. I believe Edie and Conrad are linked cosmically: My BFF called the day before Conrad's birth and left a message that she had news. Because of the time difference--my BFF met a Brit, married him, and is now lost to the UK, much to my dismay (although I am happy that she's happy, naturally)--I couldn't call her back but emailed her, saying I'd return her phone call the next day. Well, a couple of hours later I had to email her again and let her know that I would not return her phone call but be in the hospital instead. Anyway, it was a whole week later that I finally talked to her, and the news--you guessed it--was that she was pregnant with little Edie. Since then we've been planning the happy couple's wedding (Conrad & Edith, that does have a nice ring to it, doesn't it?).

Before I'm going all chatty on you I'll show you some pics of (my version of) Amy Swenson's Munchkin Blanket. The second I saw Amy's pattern on her blog I was, like, yay, I gotta make that, too bad Conrad's got two five blankets already.

I bought the yarn in March or April, long before my BFF knew the gender of her baby, alas, I knew it would be a girl. (Just as I knew my baby would be a girl and our friend Miranda's a boy. Now look at us, I got Conrad and Miranda's Valentina is soon turning two months. Ha.) At any rate, I was right about Edie, but I was lost in the mom-to-a-newborn universe (=utter chaos) and unable go to my LYS, so I ordered a bunch of Cascade 220 online. Bad mistake, since the two hues of pink and the two browns I had ordered didn't go together. So I ordered more pink and some off-white. And then I ordered even more pink, because the second shipment of pink wasn't to my heart's content either. Eventually, though, I got four colors that work. (There's a little nagging voice in my head that claims this still isn't a great color combination, but hey, I'll just ignore it.)

I can't really give any specs. I used a different yarn, ergo had a different gauge, which messed up the stitch count of the borders, so I modified the pattern slightly. That's about as detailed as I can recall things. However, I do remember that I loved knitting the blanket! It's worked in four triangles, each from the outside in, and the borders are added at the end. There aren't any seams but hundreds of picked up stitches. My favorite part: it's all garter stitch. I love garter stitch (which is why I bought EZ's Knit One Knit All--oh my, could I please, please have more time to knit? I adore some of those patterns. That, BTW, was the only knitting book purchase in the last ten months. It's so sad, I'm totally out of the knitting-world loop. Which fantastic books and patterns have I missed, tell me!).

Look at me, I can't keep my mouth shut (hands still?) once I start writing. However, I better stop. I'm in the middle of Christmas Photobook Madness. Everyone in the family is getting books with a gazillion of Conrad photos for Christmas, and putting together those photo books is about as time-consuming and frustrating as ironing multiple sets of sheets, three weeks' worth of button-down shirts, and 4.000 diapers, which is the other thing on this weekend's to-do list. (At least photo books tend to impress more than ironed laundry, that's their redeeming feature.)

One more Munchkin photo...

Sideways

Voilà: another little baby something!

I have very little to say about Judy's Grandmother's Baby Sweater (published in Greetings from Knit Café), except that at some point I was skeptical I'd like the result and then surprised myself by loving it. Slip stitch patterns do this to me.... they kill me in the process of making them but win my heart over as soon as I finish them and forget how many times I had to knit-tink-knit (I don't understand why I have difficulties with slipping stitches; I just do).

Really cool about this sweater is that it's reversible. The back (or is it the front?) looks like this:

I suppose the big bow has to sit on baby's belly unless it's tummy time; otherwise the back is too bulky to be comfortable. For the sake of comfort the designer moved the sleeve seams to the outside as not to irritate chubby cute baby arms.

Nifty!

The cardi is knitted from one side to the other, and the sleeves are added last.

Further specs:
Yarn: four skeins of Debbie Bliss Rialto in a shade of purple not adequately captured in any of the images
Needles: US #5
Size: 6 mo per pattern, but yarn/needle size substitution resulted in a smaller sweater, fitting perhaps a 3-4 mo old babe (that's what I'm hoping anyway)
Mods: I added a panel of garter stitch to the front (underneath the bow)

It took a surprisingly long time to finish the sweater, not because the pattern was difficult, but because I was distracted by some fabulous books. More about those later.

In other news: Today I broke my pinky toe.

Gifts!

Two updates, since I'm sure y'all are dying to know:
1. The Bean's EDD (estimated date of delivery) came and went--and nothing! (Which is quite common for first-timers, and except for the grandmothers in spe everyone's calm around here.)
2. I haven't made up my mind yet regarding the lace scarf, mainly because I'm still working on this itty bitty baby cardigan (more about that in a future post).

In lieu of grander news I thought I'd post some photos of gifts handcrafted for the Bean by other fibery folks.

Let's start with these adorable little fish booties that Minh made, which go very well with the summer-y fish onesie she gave us. (And, at least thematically, with the whale-shaped bathtub her husband sent.)

My husband's colleague's wife doesn't see us very often because she lives in California, but we like to go out for dinner whenever she's in town. I was super surprised when her present arrived:

Usually I'm not crazy about things crocheted, but I really love this blanket! I like it better than the one I made for the Bean, which is why hers is in the crib and mine in a drawer.

And finally, a couple of knitted goodies made by another pregnant knitter whom I met on Ravelry:

I have to ask her which yarn she used for the hat--it's heavenly soft! She also sent a gift for "mommy," a perfect little pouch that I've been using daily to keep my knitting tools organized:

In return I made this for my swap partner:

That's the only project for which I know the specs. It's the Knit Picks Little Bubbles Baby Set (sans booties), knitted with Knit Picks Simply Cotton Sport yarn. The knitting was a lot of fun, but weaving in the ends drove me bonkers (the hat alone had 46 ends, the cardi a few more).

And now I shall return to my current project and finish it. (I'm really close. But I've been really close twice before.)

Finnish and Finished

If only I weren't in such a rush I'd write a lengthy comment on Finland's maternity package that every new mom receives, in addition to a maternity grant. A-L linked to it, and after I forwarded the link far and wide everyone wants to move to Finland. If I were to write such comment I'd probably mention that, as a German who cares about education, I've been in awe of the Finnish education system since 2000, when the results of the PISA study showed that Germany lagged behind Finland, Europe's #1, by a huge margin, and that my high regard for Finnish schools has led to an interest in Scandinavian social welfare in general. By no means am I an expert, but there's something the Scandinavians are doing right where the rest of us fails.

Let's transition from Finnish to finished, as in, "finished objects" (very clever, ha ha, I know). Two of those I have for you today. First, Debbie Bliss's Carryboo, made of the eleven skeins of Cashmerino (knitted double-stranded, using #8 needles) that my mom sent:

It fits nicely into the stroller, size- and color-wise. The bunting opens up five inches or so on each side, and where the pattern calls for pretty ribbons to keep the front up, I think I'll use snaps instead. Although I have the most awesome sewing machine ever (graduation present from my MIL, who is a talented seamstress) I haven't had any time yet to learn even the basics of sewing, and therefore I won't be able to line the Carryboo, as requested per pattern. My other mods: I knitted in the round until the sides open, and I used seed stitch on both sides, not just one (the pattern calls for just one opening on the right side and instructs to knit seed stitch on that side only). Carryboo is currently soaking in warm soapy water, and hopefully the front will stay down once it has dried--I don't like how the seed stitch edge on the top flaps around.

Since I finished the bunting yesterday morning I needed a quick evening project and went for a simple beanie hat (pattern by Just Jussi, mods by LundenKnits: see my project page for details and proper credit).

Nothing special, really. I used some of the Madelinetosh Tosh DK that I had left over from the Baby Surprise Jacket I made over the summer.

On to the next project, which involves photo organization, not knitting. Every time I play with my photos, either in iPhoto or on Flickr, I mess up and some photos on the blog and/or Ravelrey disappear mysteriously. Bear with me if you encounter those nasty "photo currently unavailable" messages... and do share your awesome tips on how to avoid them!

What's In Your Insanity Closet?

I'm a sucker for fair aisle. I haven't knit but a pair of mittens and a hat using that technique, but whenever I imagine my knitting future a multitude of fair isle sweaters and cardigans pop into the picture. So when I saw Knit Picks' Dogwood Blossoms Sweater kit I had to have it. Seriously, isn't this purty (check the link for much better photos), especially since the kit costs less than eight trips to the espresso bar??!

And so today a big Knit Picks package arrived. In it were a standard letter-sized instruction booklet of twenty pages and lots of yarn:

Sooooo exciting, right? Which is why I ran to the Hubs. But instead of doing an enthusiasm dance, you know what he said? This:

"You better put this into the insanity closet."

Huh?! The only meaning I could deduce from this cryptic remark is that my wonderful husband thinks I'm crazy. Now, after reading the instructions I might agree that there's a little bit of truth to it, but Dude!, be a bit less discouraging!

In any event, I've been mulling over the concept of the "insanity closet" all day long. I think mine contains this other fair isle sweater kit that I bought last year, the yarn that I got to make Nancy Bush's Crown Prince Square Shawl, and possibly a small number of other perhaps-too-ambitious projects. *sigh*

Though I do think that I may be able to make this cardigan just in time for me to have lost the baby weight (don't ask, and I won't have to lie) so that it fits. I've decided that's going to be a year-long project (losing the weight, that is), and perhaps my knitting resolution for 2011 could be to finish one large fair isle project. (Either Dogwood Blossoms or the other one that I have, which technically isn't fair isle but a traditional Norwegian pattern--or is that all the same?). Hmmm... I have to think about it.

And while I do so I'm engaged in mindless knitting. In the most boring mindless knitting there is: stockinette stitch in the round. Once my mom found out that both my brother's girlfriend and I were pregnant she went on a Debbie Bliss shopping binge and got enough Baby Cashmerino to make two of these:

Now, she turned out to be rather busy this fall as well, and while she started the Carryboo for grandson #1 (baby Paul Alexander was born December 14, yay!), she neither finished that one nor started the second Carryboo. Instead she sent the yarn my way, and since Wednesday I've been knitting my fingers bloody to get it done in time. This is what I got so far:

Don't let the picture fool you; this thing is gigantic! At this point the bunting (which I knit in the round, not, like DB suggests, flat) could multipurpose as a strapless top for someone not-so-slim.

Oh... and you know what? Just as I was searching for the Carryboo link (see above) I came across pattern corrections: apparently the bunting is supposed to be much, much narrower! That makes perfect sense, but now it's too late to go back. I still have the upper back and hood to knit, but probably I won't bother lining the Carryboo (because I don't know what to do with fabric and needle).

I keep you posted. In the meantime, why don't you tell me what's in your insanity closet?

Here Are the Goodies

Let me begin with a photo to illustrate my previous point that in December I knit up a storm:

That's ten finished objects! (I had planned to blog yesterday, and make it a Ten on Tuesday post.... Instead I knitted some more.)

It's all baby clothes, and none of these little cutsies took a long time to knit. But before I show you the goodies, lemme tell you that finishing these little cutsies took roughly the same amount of time as knitting them. Between Christmas and New Year's I had to multipurpose our dining table as "finishing station":

Do note that my copy of Sharon Brant's Ultimate Knitting Bible is open to the page illustrating the mattress stitch. I confess without shame that I suck at finishing techniques (which is why some of the FOs didn't get finished until December, even though I began knitting them in October). I don't like to seam, I don't like to graft, I don't like to sew on buttons, I don't like to weave in ends, I don't like to make decorative i-cord loops (y'all see what I mean in a minute). My little knitting marathon taught me two lessons: (1) don't trust Debbie Bliss, (2) read ahead in a pattern for the magic phrase "button band," and if you don't come across it, think of a different pattern or make adjustments to the design.

Re: item (1): Theoretically I love Debbie Bliss. I totally agree with her (and all the other designers insisting on knitting flat and weaving pieces together at the end, rather than knitting in the round as much as possible and thus reduce or altogether avoid seaming) that many adult-sized garments have a much more flattering fit and drape more nicely when knit flat. For a cardigan on which one has worked for weeks, if not months, it doesn't matter that seaming flat pieces together takes an additional two four hours. Now, with a baby sweater the story is somewhat different. First of all, who cares about drape or a perfect shoulder fit, especially since babies outgrow their clothes in, like, three seconds? More importantly, aren't (bulky) seams on the inside a bit uncomfy for little ones? It was soooo frustrating to spend a day's worth of knitting time seaming together that little white sweater you see on the table. Seriously, a stockinette stitch sweater in four flat pieces??

But here it is, Debbie Bliss's Star Sweater:

(The model is my old baby doll. Please disregard the black smear on her right cheek: my techniques for applying mascara have improved over the years, I promise. Do, however, notice the very cool, black-and-white cloth diaper. Yup, we're going to use cloth. That's not out-dated but apparently super hip.)

Complaint (2) is less severe. In a second you'll see three cardis that all came without instructions how to fasten the front openings, leaving me to experiment, rather disappointingly, with snaps and hooks and the like. I prefer old-fashioned button bands, that's what I learned.

From top to bottom: Snug (Cascade Eco Wool), Ribbed Baby Jacket (Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran), and Peach Blossom Baby Jacket (Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino).

Snug in particular is a bit of a disaster, button-wise, and it needs some extra work. The pattern itself is awesome, and before I tried to come up with a way to close the fronts the cardi looked great:

The other two cardigans are held together by snaps; the i-cord thingies and the button are purely decorative.

I love the Peach Blossom Jacket so much I made a bonnet (Top Down Bonnet) and a pair of booties (Oh Baby! Baby Booties) to go with it, and I'm super happy with the set!

The booties are so darn cute, and so quick and easy to make, that I knit a second pair to go with the Norwegian Sweet Baby Cap (both made of Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino):

The Sweet Baby Cap is totally awesome, in fact, it's so awesome that I made it three times. But only to get the size right... the pattern is sized for a six month old baby, and since I was hoping to make a hospital hat, I reduced the number of stitches from 121 to 91, as suggested by other knitters, but the resulting hat turned out too small (I assume that babies have heads bigger than ten inches? This baby is supposed to be nine pounds at birth). So I tried 121 stitches on smaller needles, and that yielded too big a hat. Since I don't sleep very well at night and am usually up between 3 and 5 am, and since at this point I had memorized the pattern, I made the cap a third time and started with 103 stitches. The hat fits the doll, who's got a 16 inch noggin. I'm hopeful it will fit the Bean! And just in case the Bean's head is smallish, I made yet another hat, the Welcome to the World Newborn Hat (Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino):

You think this concludes today's show? One more, peeps!

That's an Owlie Sleep Sack (Malabrigo Worsted), and if you can't guess how to use it, this should give you an idea:

The doll is bigger than a newborn baby, and I'm hoping the sleep sack fits the Bean long enough for us to take a few pictures. Check out the Ravelry Owlie photo gallery for some very cute, very sleepy babies chillin' in their sleep sacks; really, it was some of these photos that made me decide to knit the sack, even though I'm a bit skeptical regarding its practical value.

If you think I'm tired of baby knits, think again! I had imagined that knitting for baby would be one of the greatest rewards of pregnancy. That my summer and fall kept me too busy to knit saddened me quite a bit, and now I want to make up for lost time. Lined up in my knitting queue are:

That's four more cardigans, a vest, a jumper, a hat, and, in the large bag in the foreground, enough yarn to make a double-stranded stroller insert/sleeping-bag type bunting thingy. Don't call me crazy. I'm fully aware that no baby needs this many clothes, not even if he's a January baby born in New England. His grandparents have sent so many clothes our way that the Bean really doesn't need any handknitted garments. But what the heck?! My only obligations these days are to take 45-minute walks, pop prenatal vitamins, and try to eat healthy food (ice-cream contains protein, right?). Other than that the midwife recommends that I put up my feet and relax. What better way to relax than knit?! And I'm knitting bigger sizes now... for next fall... and... and... and after all, my mom keeps sending skein after skein of Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino! Would you say no to that?! The only thing that eventually will get between me and those plastic bags is going into labor.