Shamrock Cloths

I thought I’d share a few shamrock cloths that I’ve knit in time for you to knit one or all before St. Patrick’s day.

The first one is Lacy 4 Leaf Clover Dishcloth By Rachel van Schie, found here.

The next one is Knitted Shamrock Cloth by Rhonda White, found here.

This last one is a St. Patrick's Day Cloth by Kris Knits, found here.

I found another fun shamrock cloth that I’d like to try to make before Saturday.  It's the Tipsy Triangles Shamrock Cloth, found here, if you’d like to knit one up, too.

I’m working on a baby hat for a baby shower this Saturday, so that’s my top priority.  If I get it done on time, I’ll be making this Tipsy Triangles Shamrock Cloth for St. Patrick’s day.

Poppy Beanies

I have meant to sit down for some time and share the projects that I have made for Christmas gifts.  I decided to make this easier on me and you by showing each project in a separate post.

I made two poppy beanies for gifts this year.  The pattern is free with sign up for Knitting Daily and can be found here.  The pattern is to be knit flat and sewn together, but I modified mine to be knit in the round.  I don’t like stitching if I don’t have to.

If you are interested in knitting it in the round you can follow my notes in ravelry found here.

Because I knit stripes in the round I used the jogless stripes technique.  You can find several sites or youtube videos that explain jogless stripes.  I used the technique described here.  I think the stripes lined up quite well.

In January I also made another Poppy Beanie, but this time it was the solid version.

I’m thinking that I need to add a pink ribbon to the eyelet row to finish off this hat.

Life is Changing

It’s been so long since I posted!  This new school year has brought some changes for our family.  For the past two year, my youngest had been in a charter school that met once a week for the first 3 weeks of the month.  The rest of the time we were doing school work at home.  This continued to feel somewhat like I was homeschooling.  The next child up was in public school, then went into a different charter school.  Well this year, he has stayed in his charter school and my youngest has decided to venture into public school for her high school years.  There were many tears on my part with this decision.  She is very happy and doing quite well.  Yesterday, she started swimming with the swim team. This new schedule change has given me time to myself that I haven’t had in many years.

The end of September and beginning of October, I canned pear sauce and peach sauce (much like applesauce).  I made 42 quarts of pickles, and canned over 6 dozen pints of salsa – red, yellow, and green.

Now I am working on Christmas presents.  I am excited to share those projects after Christmas.

The biggest news in our family is that my parents became great grandparents last week.  My sister is now a grandma!

 

I thought I’d share the projects I made for this new little baby girl. 

I made a Sacque de Bebe from some LionBrand Homespun yarn I had in my stash.

With the leftover yarn I made her a hat to match sort of following the pattern Leaf Top Hat for Baby.

Making her look like a little eggplant!

I can’t wait to get pictures of the real baby in this!

While I visited my sister this summer, we bought some Alpaca/Acrylic blend yarn which I used to make a Rosy Cozy Baby Cocoon.  I thought it turned out quite elegant.

I used the Basic Newborn Baby Hat Pattern as a guide, repeating the trim of the cocoon to make a matching hat.

Again I’m patiently waiting pictures of a real baby in these outfits.

Cute Little Baby Outfit

My oldest daughter is friends with the cutest couple.  They are expecting their first baby in just a couple of weeks.  I am excited to share the outfit I have just made for their little baby boy.  This has been my first attempt at making clothes.  I’ve made scarves, dishcloths, hats, headbands and such, so this was a very brave attempt on my part.

The first part of the outfit that I tried was a pair of Kanoko Pants.  The pattern for these pants can be found here, on Ravelry.

These were the easiest pants ever.  There was no adjustment for the crotch.  I’m trying a new pants pattern now and am realizing how easy this pattern was.

Of course, I found a hat pattern that was inspired by the seed stitch pattern of the pants.  The Cute Noggin Baby Hat pattern can be found here.

Unfortunately, I managed to take 2 blurry photos of the hat, so this is the best I can show.

Next, I got very brave and ventured into a sweater.  I wanted to find a kimono type sweater to match the feel of the kanoko pants.  I found the Sachiko Sweater here.  I made a few adjustments on the sweater to help it match the other parts of the outfit.

So here’s the end result all together.

I can’t wait to give this away tomorrow!

I Won Something!!

The Monthly Dishcloth KAL group that I’m in has monthly birthday raffles.  Friday, the winner for the May Birthdays was announced and I was the winner!  I received the birthday package today!  Wow was that fast!  Here’s what I received -

Five gorgeous balls of cotton yarn.  Dark Purple Ombre, Brick Red, Sour Green Apple, Mar-Di-Gras, and Christmas Green.

Take another look at these wonderful colors -

I also received a little gift of stitch markers, check them out -

I am so excited, if you couldn’t tell from all the exclamation marks at the beginning of my post.

I would like to give a special thanks to Janet Nogle and any anothers responsible for making this possible.

Vine Lace Baby Hat

I’ve been making baby hats lately, and thought I’d share my favorite baby hat pattern found here.  It is from Knitting Daily, free to subscribe to, and has many other patterns that are free and many to buy, too.

I finished this hat Sunday morning at 10 just as I was needing to head to Choir Practice.  Because I wanted to give it away at church, I didn’t get to block it.  I just snapped a quick picture and left.

I gave it to a new mom at church and was able to get a picture of the hat on the baby.

This hat is made from Debbie Bliss baby cashmerino.  I love pampering a baby in cashmere!

This one I made a while ago in a lighter pink cashmerino.

I also made one for a baby using Paton’s Grace which is cotton in a lavender.

Baby Gifts

I started a couple of baby gifts for a friend at church back in August.  Her baby was born in November and I am now finished with the gift.  Both projects I got from books at the library.  The first is a baby blanket called “Cot Blanket” from the book Natural Knits for Babies and Moms by Louisa Harding

Here are close ups of the blocks.

I thought this would be a easy project for me because the squares were just like doing dishcloths. I got bored with it a bit and it got pushed to the side several times. I was not really excited about sewing all the blocks together. I think next time – if there is a next time – I might try stitching this blanket as one big project and the blocks done in intarsia.

Put them all together with a nice border and this is what you get!

I like the front of the end result!

I had to make a matching hat for this cute blanket, so I made a Rainbow Marley Hat from the book Itty-Bitty Hats by Susan Anderson.

She’s got some cute hats in this book!

Here’s the Rainbow Marley -

I’m excited to finally give these away tomorrow!