Knit Baby Gifts 2 : Little man cardigan

Another baby gift that I completed for a coworker last October was the Diamond Seed Baby Jacket from Interweave Knits. 

This pattern has the making of a true family heirloom. The pattern gets a little tedious by the end, but I am in love with the results. It's slick and classic looking.

Since I didn't know the gender of the baby, I knit this in Knitpicks Risatta in green and used red buttons. The yarn is spongy and soft, but still showed the pattern with good definition.

I've seen pictures of the gift recipient (a little boy) in the sweater, and he looks adorable! 

Knit Baby Gifts: Socktopus!

I've had a lot of friends and coworkers have babies recently, so I thought I'd show you the knit items I've given as gifts. This first post is one of my favorites - the Socktopus. I love this!

I made this entirely out of leftovers from prior projects, and couldn't stop working on it. It was just so cute that every time I finished a new leg I made my husband come and look at it. He's a very patient man :)

I think this is a great gift pattern because it's gender neutral (this purple guy was made for a baby girl, but a different color could easily work for a boy), and something that's definitely different than most of the other gifts expectant parents will receive.

Consistency

Well, I guess I could consider myself consistent - I'm consistently bad at posting consistently. It's too bad really, since I actually have a lot of pictures of cute knitted items to show. I've been on a lace kick recently, and produced some cute shawls. I am home alone the next two nights, and will try to get some pictures posted.

Adventures in Colorwork - and in Gauge

So it's time to get some photos on this blog, right? I thought I'd start with a recent finished object that represents a major success, and a major failure.



This was sweater was my first large scale color work, and the first time I had worked an entire sweater on US 3s. I'm very pleased with how both of those "firsts" turned out - the color work looks good and it wasn't nearly as painful as I thought it would be do work the entire sweater on such small needles.



On the negative side, I really got punished by not checking my gauge before starting. This finished product is at least a size or two too big. I love it so much that I will probably wear it anyway, but it is definitely a painful lesson to learn. So much work on tiny needles, just to have it fit poorly!

Produce vs. Use

I was walking to work today, and I realized that I was wearing 4 knit items: my sweater, socks, hat and scarf. That made me think that in the 6 or so years since I have become a serious (read:obsessive) knitter I have transitioned a little from a process knitter to a product knitter.

When I say that I used to be a process knitter, I was never the type of knitter who had to try the newest, harder technique. It was more that I just had to knit at all times, and wasn't too focused on what the output was. I'd knit things as something to do, or because a picture of the finished output looked good with little thought to if the item would look good on me. As I've gotten better as a knitter, I've begun to focus more on producing wearable finished items.

I now wear knit socks almost every day, and am finally wearing most of my knit sweaters. I find it really fun to wear my own products, and it pushes me to make even better looking and better fitting finished works!

Whew

Wow - I got engaged and then promptly fell off the face of the planet. Life got very busy and I forgot about this blog until I stumbled over my old posts today.

Two moves and a year and a half of marriage later, I think I'm ready to start again. One of the many nice parts of marriage is that now I have a (usually) willing photographer to document my craft adventures. He may even be making more of an appearance on this blog in the future...

But for now, I'm saying "Hello again!"

Hair flowers

I created a hair comb that I might wear on my wedding using a sprig of fake flowers and a plastic comb from Micheals. I literally threw it together in a minute or two, and I think it came out pretty well. Since I'm not set on how I'll wear my hair yet I'm not sure I'll end up using the hair flowers, but since it cost only a couple of dollars I won't feel bad if it is left out.

As always, I apologize for the badly taken photo, and I promise that my hair will look better than that on the big day.

Not crafty, but still exciting!

This weekend I'm going back to my hometown to do some more wedding planning activities. Tomorrow morning I have my first dress fitting, and I'm really excited! I know that the second fitting will be a better demonstration of what it will actually look like on me (hopefully the foot of extra fabric on the hem will be gone by then), but I'm still excited to get the process started. I really like my dress, but for some reason it's hard to picture it well in my head. Any opportunity to go see it again in person is a good thing.

We're also meeting with my pastor to begin the ceremony planning. I'm really looking forward to that because up until now almost all of our planning efforts have been around the reception. It will be good to spend some time focusing on what really counts - the actual wedding!

Bridesmaids jewelry

OK, so I finally have a wedding-related craft post for you. There have been a lot of wedding crafts, but I've only taken pictures of a few.

Today's items that I have pictures of are jewelry that I've made for my bridesmaids. I have three maids, but only two necklaces are done so far. They're not designed to match their dresses, but instead are intended to be everyday necklaces.




I hope the girls like them!