Knitting Baby Gifts

Oh, what fun I have been having this week knitting up some baby gifts for a friend who is pregnant.  I mean what's not great about knitting baby items?  They are small and quick to knit, they are so so cute and they are for a sweet little new babe.  Also, I used stash yarn for these projects making the experience even better.  As you can see I'm not quite finished with the stuffed Elephant who is presently armless and the sweater needs buttons, but that's all that's left to do - oh and maybe some booties as I can't seem to stop.

The yarn I used is some lovely natural grey angora from here, and the pale yellow is a mix of two strands:  Malabrigo Merino Lace in the butter colorway and Tilli Tomas Raw Silk Warmth which is now discontinued (on a cool aside note Ravelry used my picture of the yarn on that page.)  Funny thing is my friend who is having the baby gave me the silk yarn, so it seems only fitting to use it for a gift for her.  I'm really loving the grey/yellow combo, but I have used it before as you can see here.  I was hoping to make angora booties, but I ran out of that yarn while knitting the hat (which looks a bit big to me.)  On the other hand, I do have lots of the yellow silk and merino leftover.  Maybe I'll double/triple up the lace weight merino and make these or these.

The patterns I used were Elizabeth Zimmerman's Baby Surprise Sweater (which there is a great YouTube video series for), Sweet and Simple Baby Hat by Debbie Bodmer and Elephant Elijah by Ysolda Teague.  Both the sweater and hat are pretty simple, but the Elephant is not for the faint of heart.  There is lots of picking up stitches, directional make 1's and short rows.  The pattern is very clear and very well written, but this is not a knock out in a few hours project and you do need to pay attention most of the time.  I love the way it's shaping up though making all the effort worth it.  I'll finish the arms and give him some eyes today, get the sweater some buttons from my LYS tomorrow when I have a babysitter and give my friend the gifts on Friday when we go out for breakfast.  I love giving a gift right after I finish it when I'm still excited about the project so this is working out perfectly.  

Joining in with Nicole for Keep Calm and Craft On and Ginny for Yarn Along.

Shepard's Harvest and Mittens

- The Festival -

 

 

 

- The Goodies -

 

- The Results -

Ok, you made it through the pictures; now onto the text!  This past weekend was Minnesota's largest fiber festival Shepard's Harvest and needless to say I was very excited to go.  It was my first time attending and boy was it a wonderful experience.  It will definitely be an annual pilgrimage for me and my family.  There were beautiful alpacas, goats, sheep and of so soft bunnies (I could just kick myself for forgetting to take some pics of the angora rabbits they were so beautiful.  Sam held one too.)  There were hand knitters, machine knitters, spinners with drop spindles, spinners with spinning wheels (there was even one of these great wheels being demoed) basket makers, tons of vendors, lovely musicians and yummy not so good for you Fair food.  Lots of demos were happening all weekend: spinning, sheep dog herding, sheep and alpaca shearing and machine knitting to name a few.  Crafts were available too for those families so inclined as well as many, many classes (which you need to sign up for months in advance - note to self for next year.)   Ah, it was lovely.

My new friend Mary Lou of Angora Gardens even displayed some of my knitted bunny and cat children's toys (for which I use her yarns) with her fabulous angora products at the festival.  She did a little post about me too on her blog.  Here is a picture she took with one her baby angoras.  She titled it "Real or Imposter?"

She had bigger bunnies ready for adoption at the Fair and my son Sam was itching to take one of the black ones home.  We're considering it and may be making a farm visit to adopt one.

After perusing all the the many vendors I made a few purchases.  From Golden Meadow Alpacas from Lewis Minnesota I bought 5 sport weight skeins of natural colored alpaca yarn.  My original intent was to find Shetland yarn to make this Kate Davies hat which requires 9 different shades, but alas no Shetland was to be found.  So, I "made do", if you can call this beautiful alpaca yarn making do, with only 5 shades of 100% alpaca yarn (I wanted more colors but the price of full skeins multiplied by 9 was a bit too cost prohibitive for me.)  Then to satisfy my spinning urge I purchased 2 buttery soft balls of angora and alpaca roving from Three Sisters Farm and Fiber from Winona Minnesota.  There was quite a lot of alpaca at the festival, which makes me think they must be well suited to our crazy climate of freezing winters and hot humid summers.

Of course upon arriving home I quickly abandoned my current knitting project to knit with these new yarns.  Such a fickle woman am I.  I tried stranded mittens for the first time using this Knitting Traditions pattern.  It calls for eight colors so I had to modify it a bit, but I don't think using only 5 colors detracted one bit from the outcome.  I'm very pleased with the results to say the least.  Although I did pull my strands a bit tight in places, even with knitting them inside out to keep them loose, the blocking seems to have eased the yarn tension sufficiently.  The only bummer is the thumb is a tad bit short, but still wearable.  I was suspicious it would be (I have long thumbs), but then it seemed like it was going to be ok, but then it wasn't.  Trust your intuition Ann!  I'm hopeful that the yarn will stretch a bit with use.  I know I could always undo the thumb and add more rounds, but that sounds too daunting to do with stranded knitting so I'm just going to leave it as is.  Now to get going on the second mitten, then maybe a matching Scottish tam and cowl?  Hmm...so much for summer tops.

Joining in with Nicole for Keep Calm and Craft On and Ginny for Yarn Along.

New Pattern - Wee Bunny Rabbits

I'm excited to share with you a new knitting pattern I wrote for a sweet stuffed bunny toy.  It's called Wee Bunny Rabbits and will be available for sale in a few weeks (in time for your Easter knitting perhaps?)  You may remember this post I wrote about searching for the perfect bunny knitting pattern, and at the time it was just what I wanted, but now I think I have an even better one.  This time around I wanted more prominent legs with a body shape that was more true to life.  It is a pattern for an intermediate knitter as it is knit on double pointed needles and has lots of short rows, but I think the end results are well worth the effort.  You can see more photos and read about them here.

I am knitting them using Angora Garden lovely angora yarns in Winter White, Cocoa Bean and Winter Gray colors.  There will also be a softer gray and light fawn available after I receive my new yarn in the post (don't you just love getting yarn in the mail?  It's my favorite!)  The bunnies have the same handspun 100% angora pom pom tails as my older version did and oh are they soft!  Along with releasing the pattern I hope to release some kits for these delightful animals that would include angora yarn, wool stuffing, pom pom tail and embroidery floss.  All you would need to provide are double pointed needles, scissors, a yarn darning needle and an embroidery needle.  You'll be able to request what color bunny as well as the eye and nose color.  What do you think?  I've always wanted to make kits for my shop and if these do well I'll try assembling kits for my Gnome Family, Teether and Rattles. 

Joining in with Nicole for Keep Calm Craft On.

Finished Object - That Yellow Hat

My son Sam "modeling" for me and sharing his blueberry stained mouth and tongue.

It occurred to me I never showed you pictures of my finished yellow handspun hat.  My first photos of the hat that I shot in December were deemed too serious by a friend of mine so retook them today.  Since it's subzero Fahrenheit here on this January day I only opened the front door for a mere moment to get some natural light, but did not open the storm door or step outside - brrr!  This way I can show you the Honey Cowl I knit to match the hat, and even though it's far brighter and overtakes the hat a bit I'm very happy with the pair.  Now all I need to knit are some matching mittens!  I'd like to make them lined or double knit with the same angora yarn I lined the brim of the hat with for extra warmth.  Any pattern ideas or suggestions? 

The hat pattern I used was called Michele and can be found here.  I started with a provisional cast on knit using the angora yarn for the inner lining and when it was long enough to cover my whole ear I switched to the handspun yarn, knit and one row then purled the next row so the brim would fold easily.  After the lining and the outer sections matched in length, I undid my provisional cast on placing the now "live" stitches on another circular knitting needle and knit the two sections together.  Then I simply followed the pattern as written for the subtle slip stitch rib design.  I'm very pleased overall and most importantly this hat is super warm!  Angora is considered about seven times as warm as wool due to the hollow core of the fiber.  This local Minnesota business makes wonderful angora yarn which I use to knit my stuffed bunny toys.  She also has angora/wool roving which I used as one of the plies in the handspun yarn.  One of these days I will get my own angora rabbits, ah the waiting.  

I hope all of your in the northern climes are staying warm!

Joining in with Nicole for Keep Calm and Craft On.