Whoops, I did it again

So after all the months of catch-up blogging I did...I let the blogging slide again and now I have more catching up to do. Typical me! (Le sigh.)

First piece of news: I finished the baby blanket for my brother's friend and was super, super-pleased with how it came out, and the parents-to-be loved it. Hooray! I also submitted it to a magazine, where it's currently awaiting a verdict. Hopefully the pattern will be coming to a publication near you sometime in the not-so-distant future.

Also, I finished the tuxedo cardigan for my co-worker's boy twin. Here are the two pieces together so you can get the full impact of the adorbs:

I wrapped them up and handed them off this week to another co-worker who will be swinging by her place hopefully this weekend. The twins, incidentally, were born recently, and seem super-healthy: one of them was more than 6lbs at birth and the other more than 7, which is amazing! I've seen pictures and they are very adorable.

In other baby news, my husband's cousin had another grandchild very recently, so I whipped up a few things and sent them off:

That's the bonnet and booties from my "Darling" layette set of patterns.

But perhaps my greatest achievement recently was the cardigan for my oldest daughter.

You may recall that last time I wrote, I was going to order sock yarn in the same colourway as the worsted I started with, and if the dyelots were similar I would just double up the sock yarn. Alas, the dyelots were markedly different: the sock yarn was just greener and lighter enough to be noticeable. 

But then I got a design inspiration for some socks, and needed to order some more yarn to get the specific colours I was going for, so I ended up having to make another Knit Picks order. What the heck, I thought, why not try ordering sport weight yarn in the same colourway as the original worsted for DD1's cardigan? The gauge won't be exactly right, but I can fudge that if the dyelot is a good match.

Well, the order came, and the colour was the worst match of all. Way too blue. (FML.)

But then I looked at all the colours I had, and thought...what if I combined the sock weight and the sport weight dyelots? Would the blueness of one combine with the lightness and greenness of the other to approximate the dyelot of the original? I tried it and discovered that I had a very close match. Not so close that I could do a straight substitution - I still had to work the doubled-up yarn in every few rows - and the sport/sock combination is a bit thicker than the worsted by itself...but it worked, which was what I was really going for.

It appears to be her new favourite garment because she wears it A LOT.

But the sickening irony? When I washed it, the sleeves expanded and became too long. (Seriously, FML.)

More catching up in my next post!

Moving forward

I can't quite believe it, but I'm caught up on my project blogging! Actually caught up! (This may not sound like much of an accomplishment, but it actually took me an entire year so I'm pretty darn thrilled to be able to move forward with new stuff when the new stuff happens.)

In celebration, I am, appropriately, going to talk about what I have been working on recently. Firstly, there's my oldest daughter's cabled cardigan. I've started sewing it together in earnest, and so far it's looking very nice - I tried it on her, and the fit is great with room to grow.

The only problem is that I'm still bummed I didn't have enough yarn to make full-length sleeves, because honestly, as much as she might say that she's okay with three-quarters, the whole point of making this thing was so she could have complete, cozy, warm, handknit-with-love coverage of everything from her neck to her hips. She should have full-length sleeves, dammit! However, since KnitPicks isn't getting any more of this yarn in this colour in until April, that seemed impossible.

Until I realised that I could use the same trick I used for a cardigan for DD3 a few years ago, and get some of their sock yarn in the same colour, and simply double it up! So I've ordered a single 50g ball and shall cross my fingers that a) this, doubled, will give me juuuust enough yardage for the full sleeves; b) the doubled sock yarn creates the same thickness of fabric as the worsted when done up in stocking stitch; and c) the dyelot isn't ridiculously off what I've already got. My order should arrive this week, so WE SHALL SEE. (I also took advantage of their sale on some Barbara Walker stitch dictionaries. I'm very excited about this order!) Yes, it'll suck knitting the two sleeves all over again, but my kid is worth it and she will look dynamite in this garment, I just know it.

I also started designing a few baby blankets. One of my cousins and his wife are expecting their second baby, so I am once again combining motifs from their ethnic heritages to make something (hopefully) awesome. As well, my brother's best friend (who has been super-supportive of my brother through some tough times) and his wife are expecting after a really, really long and difficult time of trying. So I thought it would be nice if I could make them something special. This second blanket is actually already on the needles and I'm quite happy with how it's turning out. I'm not quite sure where to submit this design once it's done, but I'll figure something out. (I've got so many baby blanket patterns now that I'm actually thinking of bundling them all up into a collection.)

And lastly - a FO! (Yes, those do happen around here occasionally.) I finished the sweater dress for the girl baby twin for my co-worker.

It's not quite as long as I wanted, but when you run out of yarn there's not much you can do. I tried really, really hard to find more of this yarn. I looked in the stash, in the project storage boxes all over the house, and even asked the children if they had any of it hiding out in their rooms. I got really excited when DD2 said yes and handed me a big ball of what looked like the same stuff - but sadly, when I got the two colours side by side they were obviously very different. I did find a few grams of some yarn that was exactly the same colour, but four-ply instead of three-ply. I also found a box full of emergency handknit baby gifts that included a very sweet vest-and-tam set made out of the same yarn, but I just couldn't bring myself to cannibalize it. (Plus, DD1 made the most pathetic hurt-puppy face when I suggested the idea out loud.) Lastly, I mulled over the idea of seeing if I could buy some more, but DH squashed that right away by asking, "Wasn't this supposed to be a stashbuster project?"

So...it's the length you see above, and it's still quite long for a sweater, and it looks adorable and sweet, and I'm pleased. (I did end up using the four-ply yarn at the very end where you can't notice, just to get another two rounds into it.)

Next to do: the matching tuxedo cardigan!

Non-Christmas gifties

I do a lot of gift knitting, and not just for Christmas. Other occasions come up throughout the year that make me want to break out the needles.

A classic one is the arrival (or impending arrival) of new babies. Especially co-workers. It is always a lot of fun to choose patterns for wee ones. So when I got word that one of my co-workers was expecting twins, well! What an opportunity for knitted fun!

My first plan was to make a set of Duffle Coats, by Zoë Mellor. This is an adorable and cosy coat that's been in my queue for ages, and it doesn't hurt that it's from a book called "Double Knits: Pairs of Patterns for Babies and Toddlers". My plan was to knit two coats in two different colours, but then to trade the colours for the sleeves and hood so that you would know they were part of a set (e.g. a blue coat with grey sleeves and hood; and a grey coat with blue sleeves and hood). I found some good acrylic/wool blends in the stash, in grey and blue, and got going:

Grey not pictured because, well, I haven't taken a picture of it

Unfortunately, although I thought the grey was aran weight, it turned out to be chunky, and not only were the two fabrics obviously very different in terms of feel and drape, but there was no way I was going to have enough yardage in the grey.

And then the mum said that they'd found out the sexes of the babies and knew they were having a boy and a girl. So that gave me a brand-new inspiration! I am therefore making a cardigan that looks like a tuxedo for the boy, and a dress for the girl. They're both coming along really well and I think they look adorable:

(Not pictured: first sleeve. Which is actually too long, I think, and I'll probably redo it with more frequent increases.)

(It's actually further along than this; I've started on the bottom edging. Also, I ran out of yarn, but fortunately my mom had given me some leftover sportweight from KnitPicks that she'd used for a cardigan for DD1 that is an almost perfect match. That's getting used for the bottom edge. I'm hoping like heck that it's not too obvious a colour difference.)

The tuxedo cardigan is L'il Tux for Baby by Judy Lamb, and the dress is Glockenblume, by Helga Torres.

And then about two weeks ago, I found out that one of my new co-workers (new thanks to our recent re-org) is also expecting! Fast forward to this week, when I had a meeting with my new team (all of whom have their cubicles near this expectant father), and asked casually when the baby was due. The answer: ANY DAY NOW. Oh, and today I found out that the work shower will be tomorrow.

Why don't people tell me these things?!?

Fortunately, I happened to have, kicking around the house, an almost-complete vest that I made as a prototype when I was working out yardage requirements for my Wuv pattern. And it's green, which is perfect, because nobody in the office knows if the baby's going to be a boy or a girl. (Except the future dad. And he's not telling; I strongly suspect this is because he doesn't want to receive gender-stereotypical gifts. Smart guy.) Two buttons and a bunch of sewn-in ends later, and we have...

Another event that gets my fingers itchy to start new projects is a birthday. My youngest turned three this past August, and about a week or two out from the big day, she confided in me that she was absolutely certain that she would be getting a rainbow for her birthday. I tried to tell her that, y'know, everybody's bought the gifts already and it's very possible that a rainbow is not one of them, but she was adamant. She would be getting a rainbow.

Okaaaaay, so she's getting a rainbow, I guess.

Pattern is I Can Knit a Rainbow, by Clare Doornbos. (Thank heavens for Knitty.)

And then, DD1 got an invitation to her best friend's birthday party. Unfortunately, despite her close friendship with this girl, she absolutely could not tell me any ideas for what we could get her as a gift. "What does she like?" I asked. "I dunno..." came the answer. Finally, with just a day and a half before the party, I threw up my hands and decided to knit something, because from talking with this friend, I knew, at least, that she was a big fan of my knitting. I used my own Flutterby Tam pattern and managed to crank it out and block and dry it in time for the party on the Sunday afternoon:

The friend was apparently very appreciative and has since worn to school it a lot. In fact, I know she's been wearing it this week specifically because it accidentally came back to our house in DD1's backpack a few nights ago. :)

Anyhoo...

So when DD1 came home at the beginning of the winter holidays with a generous surprise Christmas gift from this friend, and a request from her for something else knitted by me, I thought, oh, fine, what the heck. The new winter Knitty had just come out and I was itching to find an excuse to make Ashley Knowlton's Drogo reversible slippers anyway:

DD1 says her friend loves them. Yay!

And finally, sometimes I don't need a gift-giving occasion. Sometimes I just want to make someone something. That someone is usually one of my children.

For DD3, this week I finished Sophie Missgraindesel's Gilet noeud noeud:

And for DD1, I'm working some serious yarn-conserving magic to make her Chocolate Passion from DROPS:

(I'm actually way farther along than this; back, fronts, and sleeves are actually all done, I'm just in the process of sewing it all together.)

I made substantial mods to this one - to see what they were, you can check out my insanely extensive project notes.

Future giftie projects include a few things for DD2, including a cardigan and slippers at her request (and to her specifications, naturally). Oh, and something truly epic for my cousin, who has just announced that his wife is expecting their second child. (SQUEEEEEE!!!)