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. :)

FO: Conrad's stocking

Done! And it's gorgeous!

I bought the Knit Picks kit Hearthwarming Stockings that came with the pattern and enough yarn to make two stockings. The pattern gives many different colorwork charts, leaving the mixin' and matchin' up to you. I'm pleased with the outcome, and so is Conrad, it seems:

It looks pretty good next to its neighbors, doesn't it?

'Tis the season...

Christmas stockings are a first for me this year. I haven't had a stocking before, nor have I ever had a traditional American Christmas morning, despite having lived in the US for ten years. In the past DH and I opted for a German Christmas (the exchange of gifts--Bescherung--happened on Christmas Eve), although a very stripped down version: the few times that we were not visiting family over Christmas and spent it by ourselves we didn't even have a tree, since our old apartment was too small to fit one, and neither one of us owned any tree decoration.

This year will be different. The lure of a baby is irresistible, which is why we are hosting Christmas at our house for my parents and parents-in-law. It will be a German-American Christmas, with bits and pieces borrowed from both traditions. There will be goose and ham; the Vienna Sängerknaben and Bing Crosby; egg nog with and without alcohol; a real tree with fake lights; new pajamas and my great-grandma's Christmas pyramid. Most importantly, we'll do Bescherung on the 24th but also have stockings and stocking stuffers on the 25th.

Which brings me to today's picture.

I'm knitting Conrad a stocking. I asked my in-laws to mail their and DH's stockings, which they have done, and I'll have (cheap-ish) "souvenir" stockings for my parents that they can take home to Germany. But the Bean, the little Bean, he doesn't have a stocking yet! So I decided to knit him one. I started a few days ago and am almost halfway finished (I knitted a lot this afternoon, after I took the picture). I haven't done stranded knitting in a billion gazillion years--and it shows. The stitch definition leaves a lot to be desired, but I'm getting better, and perhaps--big question mark there!--I'll tackle the Insanity Closet project next year.

Back to the needles....

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!

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.