Vivien's Layette

I had scheduled a few vacation days mid November to chill and get a jump start on my Christmas shopping/knitted gift knit time.  Since I was going to be off from work, I wanted to pay my friend a visit who had a preemie baby in September.  You know what that means??  I needed a homemade gift, pronto!

 

I had crocheted a few baby blankets:

• Bata Blanket - Finish
• Bata Blanket #2

But did not have the time to crochet up a baby blanket so I chose a baby layette.  The pattern was a free pattern I found on Ravelry by Linda and here is her blog: http://clickertyclick.blogspot.com/.  Very crafty gal!

 

I chose Cherub DK Multi by Cascade Yarns in Rainbow Sherbert (55% Nylon/45% Acrylic).  This yarn to so soft and was a pleasure to work with.  One skein worked up this newborn baby layette.  I used a size 4 circular needle.

 

This yarn is so sweet!

 

I followed the pattern to the T.  I could have made it a bit longer, but it all worked out in the end.

 

 

This sweater had raglan sleeves (sleeves that are worked with no seams) and I am in love with raglan sleeves!  You leave the stitches live at a certain point you simply place them back on the needle and knit in the round to complete them.  So simple!!

 

 

The sweater design had eyelets as the pattern.  Nice and simple = fast knit.  No time for fancy-smancy lace design right now!

 

 

Stitches are live, so I placed them back on the same 40" long circ needle  and I finished the sleeves using the Magic Loop technique.

 

 

The hat was way too small.  I will make another hat for her at a later date.  The sweater did fit:

 

 

So cute and little!

 

 

I posted this pic of me holding Vivien on Facebook and everyone thought that I was a natural and/or thought that this was my baby or I should be having one!  Ha!  I like other people's baby's...I'm good!

 

After I fed her a bottle, she fell right to sleep in this position.  No boppy needed after the feeding.  I'm glad that Vivien is healthy and doing well and (on the side, am happy that the sweater fit).

 

Until next time, Baby Vivien!

 

Circus Cowl

Back in Oct, 2012, my local yarn shop (LYS), Brandon Yarn Boutique, had a "yarn tasting."  This yarn tasting was all Cascade Yarn yarns. I had only knitted with this brand once before and was eager to try the others.  They had long tables set up and acrylic square plates set up like a place setting.  Each plate had a different yarn ball on it with a pair of knitting needles (crochet hooks were available, as well) .  This way you can knit or crochet a small swatch to test each yarn.  What a great idea!

I bought a few hanks:

Cascade Yarn Luna Paints (Cotton)

Cascade Yarn Eco Duo (Alpaca/Wool)

Cascade Yarn Heritage (Wool/Nylon)

The project I used Cascade Yarn on before was the Pima Pullover where I used Ultra Pima cotton yarn. Very nice cotton, so soft, not stiff at all.

While at the yarn tasting, I won a door prize!  This is what was in my prize bag:

Cherub DK (Nylon/Acrylic)

Cherub DK (Nylon/Acrylic)

The prize bag had those two skeins of yarn and a pattern for a child's hat.  Cool!

My first project from the yarn tasting yarns, I'm calling Circus Cowl.  I used the first pic above's orange/pink hank of yarn.  It is a crazy mix of colors that I could not resist.  The colors remind me of the circus with all the multicolored flags. 

I decided to knit a cowl that has criss-cross stitches.  I found this free pattern on Ravelry called 3-Hour Cowl.  It came from the blog Malcolm and Marcus.  It was a great project to knit while vegging on the couch watching TV.  It took me a bit longer than 3 hours, but I did make it a bit longer than the pattern.

Here it is done:

It's hard to take a picture so you can have a real appreciation for the vivid colors in this yarn.  It really is fantastic how the colors change when they are very different.

Of course, I have to make a babushka out of it:

It is cozy and the fact that it is cotton, makes it non-itch against the skin.

It is summer-like weather out today, so I won't be wearing it for long, but in the "chill" of the morning, sure, why not.  If my morning tea does not wake me up, then the colors certainly will.

I have promised myself that once this project was finished that I would take the rest of January off of knitting, at a minimum.  Well, I finished this last weekend, Jan 4th and this weekend, I was totally missing picking up my needles while we watched TV.  I'm not sure how long this no-knitting is going to last.