FO: Hershey

First up, I finally got a shot of Bean in her 4 month socks. Promptly at a day past 5 months. Ah well.

And now, for the FO...

Hershey
pattern: Star-Crossed Slouchy Beret by Natalie Larson (Ravlink)
yarn: Malabrigo Yarn Merino Worsted (100% merino wool) in 512 (Chestnut) - less than 1 skein
needles: US10 and US11

This was kind of a spur of the moment knit. I wanted to knit something quick and something for me (for a change). A beret is never a bad idea, and I had this yarn in the ol' stash, so voila!

And hey, guess who else just made one of these? Yes, my girl Margaux! I think this makes our twin knits count at three (so far)? It's a testament to this cute beret that it's good for both dull-n-straight and gorgeously curly hair. So go make yourself one- you can't go wrong!

Changing gears, I want to take a moment to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving. I am truly grateful for this blog and all that it has brought to my life, including you. Even though we don't post as often as we used to we really do appreciate you still taking the time to check in with us. So thank you, for being a part of our lives. I hope you have a wonderful holiday with your loved ones!

FO: 4 Month Socks

I've got a few FOs to show, but I'll spread 'em out, to keep things interesting. ;) First up are a pair of socks I recently knit for Bean. It's getting chillier, and her cotton socks seem insufficient, so I thought it only right that I knit her some *real* socks. :)

4 Month Socks
Pattern: Baby Socks by Bianca Boonstra (Ravlink)
Yarn: Koigu KPPPM (100% merino wool) - way less than 1 skein (leftovers from my Tiny Chicklets socks)
Needles: US1
Made for: Bean's feet

I LOVED knitting these! The colorway, first of all, makes me all kinds of happy. And I can't think of a more gratifying way to knit socks - these are so small, they knit up so quickly - no second sock syndrome here! Last but not least, if there's anything I love more than wee baby feet, it's wee baby feet in wee baby socks.

So. Tiny. What's not to love?

I can't wait to knit another pair!

DIY Halloween

My office has a great tradition of dressing up each year for Halloween...even when it doesn't fall on a work day. We usually get at least 60% to participate. And given we are an office of attorneys and legal staff, I say that's pretty good!

I've dressed up every year for the last nine (gulp) years. I'm a big fan of found costumes. I usually either raid my closet or B's closet, or incorporate something I have into my costume (like the year I used my graduation gown to be Harry Potter). I've also sewn costumes a couple times (like the year I came as a tea bag).

Anyway, this year (after a lot of deliberation - I decided on our costumes the week before), I decided to come as a Zookeeper from the San Diego Zoo. Only this zookeeper's had a rough time with it. I had planned to make Elliott the bear to my keeper, but B came up with the idea of making me the bear cub surrogate. (I still love the idea that it's someone's job to be 'mom' to a bear or a gorilla or a cheetah. So cool!)


For my costume, I added an old khaki work shirt to some green cargo pants and hiking shoes. B made me some awesome stickers to serve as zoo patches. Then I had fun 'beating myself up'. I drew red lines on the back of my shirt with a fabric pen and cut slices into the shirt to make a couple paw strikes. I put fake blood on some bandages and wrapped my head and my arms a couple times. We also had an old leg brace from when B broke his knee a few years ago, so I wore that and added some camo bandages...because if I really were a zookeeper, I'd wear camo bandages.


As for Elliott, I basted some homemade felt to the front of his brown jammies (mostly to cover the rock and roll dinosaurs on the front) and added some felt toe pads to the feet. Then I knit him a Teddy Hat (Rav link) from stash yarn. Elliott really needed a new hat for our San Diego winter, so this was a good two-purpose knit.

Although, how much Elliott will enjoy wearing a bear hat for the rest of the winter remains to be seen. See below for a couple notes (* and **) about this 'photo shoot'.

The hat pattern is really for an adult, but I knit it on smaller gauge yarn to make a smaller hat. I also knit the hat about an inch shorter than the pattern called for. All in all, on size 7 needles, I knit it with just under one ball of Knit Picks Main Line in Cocoa. I added the felt ear tufts to tie it into the bear suit.

And guess what!?! I won the contest for most original costume! This is the first year I've won anything, so my ribbon and smurf lunch bag prize was especially sweet ;)

Hope you all had a very happy (and safe) Halloween. I love seeing all your costumes!

* First up, the cute embroidered onesie is courtesy of Mamieknits. So cute!
** Second, right before I took this photo, Elliott, Jenny and I were getting settled on our blanket during one of our weekly visits to Balboa Park when a couple of strangely familiar faces began crossing the grass in front of me. It took a couple seconds for all my neurons to fire, but then low and behold, I realized it was Lolly and Kris! She stopped about the same time and we were both like - hey is that you? Talk about a small world and such a totally random encounter! They had spent the day at the zoo and, I have to say, I can't wait to see their pictures!

Modeled Shot: Blossom

It fits!

Hooray! :)

FO: Blossom

I started knitting this sweater for Bean when I was pregnant. She just turned 4 months old last week and I finally got around to finishing it.

Happy 4 months, sweetheart!

Okay, back to the sweater! My goal was to finish it...well, when she could still fit into it. I haven't tried it on her yet, but it will still fit, so yay! Given how crazy life has been over the last several months, I consider this a pretty big achievement. :)

Blossom
Pattern: Baby Sweater on Two Needles (February) by Elizabeth Zimmerman (Ravlink)
Yarn: Rowan Wool Cotton (50% merino wool, 50% cotton) in 943 (Flower) - 3 balls
Needles: US6

I decided to knit the sleeves in the round (I mean, why not?) and go with just 3 buttons at the top only. I was excited to find these little pearly buttons that had just a tinge of lavender/pink. Perfect!

I wanted to knit a special baby sweater for Bean (well, at least one!) and I think I succeeded. Then again, how can you go wrong with EZ? You can't! I'm looking forward to seeing her wear it this fall and winter, and I look forward to knitting her more sweaters in the future. :)

What do you think about that, little lady?

Three Months, One Post

I know posts around here have been few and far between as of late, but between diaper changes, feedings and other demanding duties of a couple new moms, I'm proud that we're still here to say 'hey' now and then. Thank you again to those who still stop in to see what we are up to. I'm still reading what you are up to and I do miss being a part of this community more. So in an effort to bring you up to date on what's been going on around my neck of the woods, I thought I'd share a few photos*.

Our summer was pretty much engulfed by what we are now referring to as 'the flood'. The short version: a woman two floors up broke her toilet and didn't tell anyone. The four units below took on the resulting water (hundreds of gallons, people)...which made our kitchen and bathroom look like a scene out of E.T.:

FOUR weeks later our place looked like this:

Needless to say this was a very stressful summer and it took two and a half months for us to get reimbursed from the insurance company. I still tense up whenever I think about it. But its over now and we don't talk about it much because it still hurts. (They paid me 1/2 the value of my damaged craft books because they were 'used'...despite the fact they could have been sitting on a store shelf...but again, we've moved on. Ugh.)

We also sold my old car (a very 'practical' two-seater Miata ;) and after lots of searching and too many used car salesmen later, ended up with my 'new to me' blue beauty:

Speaking of blue...after my previous musings about wanting some lace, but settling for knitting toys...I lost my toy knitting mojo. BUT, I found my lace mojo in the perfect lace pattern for me right now: Damson (Rav link).

I initially picked out this Moody Blues Cherry Tree Hill from my stash because it was one of the few hanks of sock yarn I had with *nearly* enough yardage. But I have become completely enthralled with the colors. It really is gorgeous yarn and it is showing off the pattern nicely as well. It was a perfect way to start off my vacation at the end of August, which focused heavily on starting a pretty little knitting project just for me and very little on actually going anywhere. (I refuse to call it a 'staycation'.)

Things have also turned a bit upside down in the baby department since Elliott decided to start crawling just after turning 7 months old.

This has been very exciting for us, but also a bit unnerving as we seeing our cramped quarters with a whole new set of eyes. Guys, we have stuff everywhere. So consequently we are in constant baby wrangling mode. Good thing we opted for the 'dirt is good for his immune system' philosophy or else we'd be in big trouble right now! ;)

Elliott is now a little over 8 months old and is really working hard at learning to cruise. He surprises us every day with something new. And generally entertains us to no end.

As for what's up next in the crafting department, I've got several projects mapped out for the next couple months, so hopefully I will have a little more to share here in the coming weeks. I am swimming in inspiration right now.

I daydream pretty much all day long about projects, everything from sewing to knitting to quilting to embroidery. I have plans!! Now the trick is making them a reality! With any luck (and hopefully enough yarn!) I'll be back soon to share a finished Damson.


*This summer, I also started a little photo project of my own. I'm taking a self portrait, a photo of Elliott and a photo of something else each week.

Grandma's Quilt, Part 1

I come from a long line of 'makers'. The women in my family have all had very special talents, whether is was sewing, quilting, crocheting, or painting. So I guess I come by my drive to create and make naturally. I am never without inspiration, but these days the time to act on that inspiration is few and far between. I think that's why it's fitting right now to apply my limited project time to something that honors my own history. Specifically, my grandma's quilt.

My maternal grandma is by far the grandmother I have known the best. And at 94, she continues to amaze us with her wit and sense of humor. Unfortunately, time had not been as kind to her hands and she had long ago been forced to put away her embroidery needle and floss. However, she had one project that she was unable to finish. A quilt comprised of embroidered blocks that each feature one of the 50 U.S. states. She had thought it was a shame no one in the family quilted, so this project was slated to be donated to her Church group for finishing. Many years ago I had told her that I would be interested in learning how to quilt so that I could help with the project. It's taken some time, but my mom and I have decided to finish the quilt for her for Christmas. We thought she would enjoy seeing it all put together and we hope that it can serve as some decoration in her new home, a lovely private board and care home run by the most wonderful people that may have ever walked this Earth.

In the last couple of weeks, my mom and I got out the quilt materials and took a look at what was there and what work was needed. My grandma had everything together, the pattern, the quilt blocks and the material she had picked out for the front borders and the back. It was so much fun to open up the pattern and see all of her notes.

The pattern envelope

You can tell from the recycled return address label that she had mailed away for the pattern. And from there, she used the pattern envelope to complete her yardage calculations. We looked all over for a date or something to age the start of this project. We know at least that she received the pattern while she was still living in her home in Salt Lake City...her home that I grew up visiting as a child.

Quilt layout and embroidery transfer

The quilt pattern itself is slated to be a queen size quilt of significant size to not only contain all fifty state blocks, but also a rather large embroidered map of the U.S. right in the middle. Each state block contains the embroidered state as well as its state flower, state bird, the year it entered the Union and the order it joined. Fortunately for my mom and I, she completed all of the embroidery work (save a couple unfinished numbers or unknotted state capitals here and there).

Finished block
PS the rooster is intentionally gray in honor of the revolutionary soldiers

It has also been very interesting to finish someone else's project and to decipher what she did compared to the pattern requirements. The first thing we noticed was that the blocks she embroidered are not the size called for in the pattern. She had arranged them to use as little fabric as possible and thus was planning for a somewhat smaller quilt. Since she really isn't in a position at this point to tell us why, it has been fun to guess. Was this a stash project and she was trying to only use the fabric she had on hand? Was she a conservationist and hated any potential fabric waste? Did she read the dimensions wrong? What I do know from reading all of your blogs all these years and from my own experience, there was surely a reason.

I'm currently leaning on the stash theory as there is one panel of blocks with a clearly different shade of backing fabric. I had originally thought it might have been due to age, but that panel is consistently the same color, rather than only on the top or some other gradient to account for exposure.

Sample of finished blocks

Now this isn't exactly a pattern I, or my mom for that matter, would normally pick out for ourselves. Its very 'intense' but sparse at the same time (because of the large white blocks and the large central US map). And frankly, it is rather huge. This kind of quilt also walks a fine line in the patriotic department. We ultimately decided that we didn't really need to follow the pattern to the t. Rather, I drew out a new layout of 60 blocks for the front, 50 states and 10 patterned blocks of fabric, and we decided to move the large US map to the back and piece it with the backing fabric. Finally, we also decided that the red fabric she had picked out for the front borders could use a little updating. So, with some sketchy yardage requirements and pattern notes, my mom and I headed for the fabric shop.

Next time: the new fabric and cutting 50 blocks.