Don't they just?

I've got two new baby knits planned for wee one on the way, both inspired by knits from grandmas. The first is a copy of a baby sweater that fellow Knitsmith and baby bumper, Johanna, wore as a baby that was knit for her by her great grandmother.

click for larger pic

Isn't it just lovely? The lace pattern is the same as the one from the lace baby sweater in Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitter's Almanac, but I really like the raglan yoke in stockinette and the hemmed edges on this one better than EZ's more rounded garter stitch version. Ooooh, I love this sweater! And best of all, Johanna had the old vintage knitting book that her Großmutter used to knit the pattern!

Isn't Johanna the sweetest to loan me pattern and sweater so I can make one for wee one?!

I picked up some Snuggly DK in "cream" (although it's looking kinda pale yellow to me now), because washable acrylic seemed so right for this sort of grandma sweater. The pattern, which is very well written by the way, calls for sleeves to be knitted first, then the body in one piece up to the armholes and finally the yoke. The sleeves have made for really nice knitting. The lace pattern is simple but oh so pretty and the pieces are so tiny they're going super fast.

While I was getting started on this grandma knit, a package came from my mother-in-law in Germany. She included some new German knitting mags and a pair of tiny baby socks knitted once upon a time by hubby's Oma. She used to knit socks for the whole family (even using that old knitting machine I found one year in the attic!).

These socks have so much charm - the garter stitch flap and green crochet edging are really special. Don't you think I have to make a little sweater and bonnet to match these adorable little socks?

And speaking of grandma knitting and Elizabeth Zimmerman, checking out MamaK's posts over on the baby bumpers blog have got me wanting to make some EZ baby items. Have you seen the adorable Tomten she made for her little one? I dare you to check that out and not start knitting one right away!

Since I can't quite get up early enough in the morning to shower before I have to drop the boys off at school, I've started wearing all my fun knit hats to cover my bed head. I'm trying to avoide the ucky not-showered mom image by being cool funky hat mom. It's working so far, but after two months, the other mothers have seen almost all of my funky hats! I need more!

To keep me in funky hats all winter long, I picked up a couple of kits at Rhinebeck. First, the Lily Chapeau from Morehouse Merino. I loved the look of this hat and found a nice brown/pinky purple combination that I couldn't resist.

Unfortunately it's coming out small. Grrrrr. I thought it was just me until I really did the math and discovered that following the pattern, the brim of the hat is only 17" around and the body like 20". Doesn't the picture make it look like it should be a poofy hat? Well, I want it poofy. I need funky here! So I'll be ripping out the above and starting again with an extra 21 stitches (yes, the pattern is a 21-stitch repeat, aaaaahhhh!).

In the meantime, I can get started on Jamie Harmon's angora mystery hat. This one won't be too small! With two layers of big, fluffy angora, it'll be plenty big and plenty funky.

I picked out white and pink and bought a little extra to make a cute funky baby hat for wee one too. She won't have bed head but bald head to worry about. Like (funky) mother, like (funky) daughter.

Großmutter's sweater is almost done! All I want to do is knit this sweater. It got slower when I hit all those body stitches and then joined in the sleeves for the yoke, but I can't stop.

I just can't help it, I've gotta have a close up of this one

And as I knit I keep planning more little sweaters for wee one. Like this one or this one. or maybe another one of these Großmutter sweaters.

Obviously my web host has been having some internet problems over the last several days. Sometimes I'm here, sometimes I'm not. For those of you who CAN see me now, here's an update on the baby bump. And just for fun, a direct comparison to the baby bump at week 22 six years ago when I was pregnant with the twins.

 
look I even have the same sweater and background to photograph

No wonder I feel like I'm not looking pregnant yet - I'm definitely smaller than last time. And can you believe it, I had just started knitting!

The stars have aligned to actually allow me to make some progress (finally!) on one of the for-friends baby sweaters I've had on the needles since the spring! I've started taking these much-neglected projects with me for playground knitting. Yes, playground knitting in Boston in November. This is turning out to be like the BEST Fall I've ever experienced here in Boston - it's 55 degrees out today! We are still going to the playground every afternoon after school and have only been rained out a couple of days since school started. And since my design projects require so much more attention (and decision-making and tweaking and fussing), I simply can't work on them while watching the boys as well. So thanks to good weather and active boys, we're one sleeve closer to a finished hugs and kisses sweater.

A little girl came up to me on the playground while I was working on the sleeve the other day and she was so into it. Often little girls walk by me slowly while I'm knitting and stare while pretending to be on their way to play something. Some will sort of forget themselves, and really stop and stare for full minutes at a time. But this girl started asking me all these questions about exactly what I was knitting and how I was doing it. She wanted to know about crossing cables and which one I was doing (the "x" or the "o"). She wasn't that old, so I didn't get too technical with my answers, but then she brought over her own knitting bag! She was working on a garter stitch scarf for her sister and explained that she was 7 and had been knitting since she was 5. She knew her stuff too. She had straight needles and immediately asked me about my circulars. I was still keeping things simple and just said the cable helped keep the two needles together so I wouldn't lose one. But she immediately asked if I couldn't knit something in a circle with a needle like that. Oh, yeah, that too. Smart girl!

Is it okay that now I'm more looking forward to meeting up with her on the playground than some of the other mommies?

Nope, no more babies on the way, but the design projects are multiplying!

Artyarns Supermerino for a design for Kerrie's upcoming book

Malabrigo Angora for....

something cabley and red that I'm just finishing up

Sorry, that's all you can see for now. And now back to work for me!

as always, check the project archive for pattern info

The vintage Großmutter sweater is all done! I simply adore it - it's just so sweet. I had the ribbon in my stash for some knitting project I wanted to make for myself a couple of years ago. It's much better put to use here in wee one's coming-home-from-hospital sweater.

click for the close-up view

When I was taking the picture, S first wanted to clarify that he wasn't going to try this knit on. "No, no, honey, I won't make you try this one on." Then he asked if the baby was going to have pants. I told him not to worry, we'd go buy some pants, and B jumped in to remind us that "girls like pants that are big and open on the bottom - like a skirt." Then B went to make a hat for the baby.

Doesn't it look just like a hat that Lola (from Charlie and Lola) would wear?! I love it! I think I'm going to have to knit one like this for wee one. From her big brother B.

what's under this blanket thing?

This weekend I had the great pleasure of presenting fellow Knitsmith, Johanna, with a "Circle of Friends" baby blanket (from Last Minute Knitted Gifts), knit for her by about 15 of her knitter friends. It was so amazing to be a part of this project!

It all started out with Dani and I picking out the yarn (Manos Cotton Stria) in the bestest, brightest girl colors ever. (We waited until right after Johanna found out the sex of the baby to get started with the planning!) We made up kits for each of the seven strips with instructions and just the right amount of yarn and sent them out to everyone. It was so exciting to hear that one knitter was done and sending the kit on to another and then to start receiving the finished strips back from everyone.

After about two months (so not so "last minute" actually!), I had all the strips and was able to finally lay them out and see how the entire blanket was going to look. Despite problems with 15 knitters each trying to get the same gauge and cotton being the stretchy fiber that it is, it looked awesome! Something about how those colors line up on the diagonal really catches the eye and keeps you from noticing any irregularities caused by having had 15 different sets of hands work on the thing.

A couple nights of seaming and it was ready for gifting. Oh boy, oh boy!

Johanna likes it - hooray! And here's the blanket with baby tadpole. It's the perfect size!

I would definitely recommend this project to any group of friends (or single friend) wanting to make a gift for someone. It was super easy to knit (garter stitch strips with color changes to create the look of squares) and easy to seam (mattress stitch, whipstitch - I think this thing would look good no matter how you seamed it!). It's great for a big group of knitters even if they don't all have the same skill level or get the exact same gauge, and it's a breeze for the few seamers at the end, since seaming strips is way better than seaming individual squares. It ain't exactly last minute, but it is a really special knitted gift. Here's hoping tadpole agrees!

With my funky hat in time out for coming out too small, I've moved on to making funky baby hats.

I love this "cotton children's hat" pattern from Last Minute Knitted Gifts (note: see my post about the small error in this pattern) and had some Berroco Celtic in a pretty pink and brown colorway leftover from knitting up the store's sample swatch. So I put the two together and now wee one will have the sweetest little hat ever (for her sure to be bald head!).

More funky baby hats are in the works, including that Lola hat designed by B.

I've scoured my stash and managed to come up with yarn to recreate the hat that B designed for wee one on the way! I couldn't get over how much the hat looked like a hat that Lola from Charlie and Lola would wear. And Lola looks so cute all the time, I couldn't help but go searching for the yarn to make it. And, heh, heh, because my stash is obscenely large, I found everything I needed.

Here's the rundown: red - Frog Tree Merino; purple: Anny Blatt Merinos; gray - NatureSpun Sport; brown: uuuh, maybe Elsebeth Lavold Chunky AL?; orange - Classic Elite Princess; yellow - Cascade 220 Superwash; black - Classic Elite Bazic; green: Nashua Julia; blue: Manos del Uruguay. The gauges are a bit different but the colors are so perfect that I've gotta make it work. This is going to be fun!

After seaming the circle of friends blanket, I'm on a little seaming jones. I perused the current projects and found the hugs and kisses sweater in need of some seaming.

Body together and one sleeve in. Ahh, that felt good.

So, what are you seaming today?

I've got a little bit of sock yarn in the stash (little as in I'd have to grow like fifty more feet to ever need that many socks). The real problem (that's not a real problem is it?) is that a lot of my favorite skeins of sock yarn are in colors that I love, but am not sure I would actually wear that often. Um, mostly because I have yet to acquire the entirely pink wardrobe that would match all the pink sock yarn I've bought!

Apparently when I buy sock yarn, I turn into something like this woman who was on the Dog Whisperer and wears all pink, lives in an entirely pink house and painted her dog pink (check out the video clip - it's like they're living in my sock yarn stash!).

I'm thinking that all this pink sock yarn would be great on a little baby girl though. But since wee one on the way doesn't have fifty pairs of feet either, I'm thinking sweaters. I'm on the hunt for little baby sweater patterns that I can make with about 400 meters of fingering weight yarn. I'm not really in love with the sweater patterns that are specifically written for sock yarn (like "the" Opal baby sweater). I may make one of those, but I'm really looking for pretty, simply constructed sweaters that would be fabulous in a lovely variegated yarn (more like the first baby sweater I knit for wee one). Any suggestions??

Instead of knitting, I've been looking at Sexiest Man Alive photos all weekend (not of George, mostly Johnny and Jake) and reading celebrity gossip headlines online.

And speaking of The Office's John Krasinski being chosen as one of the sexiest men alive, what was up with Pam in the last episode saying that her mother knit this sweater for her?!

Um, does her mother work in a factory for Anthropologie?

Another year older means another winter coat. But luckily, the boys' favorite colors are still the same so the new coats match the kool aid caps I made last year.

And they still love them! B is going to bring his for show and tell. Awwww.

After seeing Tara's pixie hat on the baby bumpers blog, I wanted to make one for wee one on the way. I grabbed Erika Knight's Knitting for Two book at the store and found the most awesome yarn for the hat, Colinette's new "easy care" (read washable!), hand-dyed wool, Cadenza. This yarn is so cool! It's got really awesome colors.

I used a little Debbie Bliss Merino DK I had in red for the edging and the i-cords and Dani helped out by making a couple of her trademarked "kick-ass pompoms" for me ('cause I suck at making pompoms).

I had lots of extra yarn left over (seriously, a Colinette yarn with decent yardage, a good price and that's easy care - wow!), so I've got little thumbless baby mitts in the works!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Whew, long time, no see, and very little knitting! And I mean very little.

Like wee little mittens to match wee one's funky pixie hat. Can you imagine the teeny tiny hands that are going to fit in there? I followed the thumbless baby "bold banded mittens" pattern in Zoe Mellor's Adorable Knits for Tots, since they're, well, adorable.

Like the hat, the mitten pattern was very clear and it looks awesome in that fabulous Cadenza yarn from Colinette. And I've still got yarn left from that one hank! I feel a strange desire to add little pompoms to the mitten cuffs or maybe to the top of the hat. You can't really have too many funky pompoms can you?

Up next, me catching up on life after a crazy, hectic holiday weekend, and a Bee's Knees sock yarn sweater for wee one!

I finished the last of the x's and o's on the hugs and kisses baby sweater! I'm happy to have the finish line in sight finally, especially as this is officially the first of my holiday knit gifts and it'll be nice to cross that first one off the list. But I'm kind of missing it already. It's been such a sweet little knitting companion in my extra time at the playground or in the doctor's waiting room. But soon it'll be companion to another little sweetie.

Mmmmmmmwah!

Yup, it's the beginnings of a Bee's Knees Knits sweater pattern in my pink/brown Trekking yarn, just like so many of you suggested I make in my sock yarn sweater post last week!

After lots of help from the queen bee herself (thanks, Holli!), I decided to make Candace first for wee-one-on-the-way to wear when she's still small. And I just happened to have some Shelridge Farm Soft Touch Ultra in a natural color (from Rhinebeck, of course) that'll be perfect for the back and the edgings.

So far the pattern is awesome! My only problem is that, for some reason, I was convinced from the picture that the edgings were all reverse stockinette stitch. They're not really, but once I got it in my head, I decided I really wanted it that way, so I changed the first sock yarn row to flip the edging. And unfortunately I'm not in love with the color sequence that's starting the bottom of the sweater. I want to see more of that dark chocolate brown! So I'm going to call the above half front panel a swatch and will reknit the first front panel starting at a different point in the sock yarn's color sequence.

Let the socky sweatery goodness begin!