Cashmere Baby Cardigan

Because every new mother wants a hand wash only cardigan, right?

This cashmere yarn was too lovely not to use though. I got it from the Johnsons of Elgin shop, in Elgin. They bundle up some odds and ends into yarn packs and sell them off in their factory shop. I chose this one because the largest ball was of a size to make something useful. Most of the others had three balls of the same size.

This is the third time I have made this pattern, the Sunnyside Cardigan. I keep coming back to it because I love the one piece knitting of it, and the cable/lace pattern is very effective at showing off some stitches, while keeping the pattern quite simple. I made the smallest size, because I didn't know how much yarn I would have, and it is very small. I have enough yarn left to make a stripe pattern using this blue plus the cream, in a larger size. I just have to think about the stripe placement. And I would probably skip the cables and keep the design plain.

I forgot to reduce the stitches through the sleeves, so they have come out too bell shaped. Sorry.

Cardigan is now blocked and ready to post back to Scotland as a baby gift. (Hand wash only!)

Cabled Baby Jacket

From a high of 25 items knitted or crochet in 2015, my output has declined dramatically. At the end of May, I have completed two things, one of which took up most of 2016 being knitted. This cardigan/jacket is the only thing I have started and finished in 2017.

Baby gifts are a worthy knit though. This one took me two months, but they are relatively quick, very satisfying and often well received too.

I really like this Rowan Tweed, now discontinued, which I bought on sale in 2011, knowing it would be great for boy-baby gifts. This pattern took about 2.5 balls, and I still have 1.5 left.

The pattern is Trellis, linked on Ravelry here, and I got the bamboo buttons from The Button Lady in Hampstead Antiques Market.

Nursery Quilt

 

I’m usually pretty resolute that two children is just right, but I admit that this quilt caused me to waver! But my lovely sister has given us a nephew so off to Australia it goes. I must say, she has got some of my best stuff – aren’t I kind?

A few things converged and inspired me to make this quilt: 
 - Devon’s lovely Wonky Log Cabin Quilt and tutorial on Miss Make
 - Fabric gifts from my MIL this Christmas
 - Making my first quilt block
 - A visit from my parents who could transport finished object back to Australia

I went through my stash and pulled out everything that is quilting cotton. It had to be a unisex design, so I discounted anything pink and/or girly immediately.

These fabrics are quite sentimental to me, all in different ways. There are a lot of them and they all have a story for me.

Quilt Top

The centre squares: animal pictures. These are perfect for a nursery. I had saved an Ikea pillowcase, which came with a duvet cover. I liked the cute animal print and knew it would come in useful one day. I never used it because my girls didn’t use pillows in their cots.
Reds: red spot (very special, my first fabric purchase and E’s favourite dress, also used multiple times afterwards), red apples (child’s dress), plain red (so useful!)
Blues: navy pin dot, 3 blue shirt scraps (all my quilts will have some shirt or other in them, due to my lifetime supply of salvaged shirts)
Oranges: owls (too cute!), orange on orange (I’m learning so fast how important it is to have plains in a quilt)
Greens: lime squiggles (really bright and fun), green flowers (the biggest outlier here so tried not to use it too much), eau de nil plain (gorgeous quality – I’m supposed to be making napkins, but I could spare a few centimeters)
Brown: almost didn’t make the “cut”, but I’m glad it’s there, it adds depth and texture.

I had SO MUCH FUN doing a lucky dip with the fabric selection! I had my centre squares (which were not square) laid out, and my fabric strips in a massive pile. I closed my eyes and rummaged for every single piece. Then I had to attach it to the next square. I gave myself one veto for each turn, in case the match was awful. I also made another concession and allowed myself to use up any shorter strips early on, while the blocks were small. I didn’t want to be left with a lot of short sections which wouldn’t fit later on.

I just loved watching the blocks forming before my eyes and watching them change as they got larger. I do confess to having a couple of favourites: the little hedgehog with the blues and browns, and the monkey with the orange and navy (picture below).

Devon’s tutorial is really easy to follow, and she is an excellent writer, who makes it a lot of fun. I did waste a bit of fabric though. The quantities required were massive, and I would cut down in future. I cut slightly less than specified, mainly because I had a lot of scraps, or Fat Quarters, not full width fabrics as specified. I still had lots left over.

Quilt Back

I pieced the leftovers into stripes for the quilt back and used them up that way. I like how it ties the two together, but it is not flat: those long, straight seams let me down.

I am delighted with how the top and the back turned out. I am really happy with my fabric choices, it is a fun quilt to look at, it was fun to make.

I cut out on day 1, pieced most of the top on day 2 and finished up on day 3. Backing took about the same amount of time.

Batting

I ordered the batting via eBay and chose 80% cotton, 20% polyester. When it arrived, I was disappointed by how thin it was. 100% polyester batting has much more loft, but as a beginner, I wanted to work with cotton. As it is going to be used in Australia, the warmth is not so important, and it is pretty heavy. But it is worth noting that this is not soft enough to use as a playmat on a hard floor.

Basting

I was quite unaware of the need to baste a quilt, until I looked up tutorials on all kinds of basting, including specialty-tools-to-buy-to-close-the-curved-safety-pins. My goodness! I'm not in that league. I decided to hand stitch a long, straight stitch as basting. I started in the centre, did one along the width (to 9 o'clock then to 3 o'clock), then a lengthways one (to 12 o'clock to to 6 o'clock), then radiating out lengthways from there. Each row of thread was pretty fast, but there were quite a lot, so it did take a while. I'm sure they weren't all perfectly formed stitches, but the did the job and held the 3 layers together for the quilting.

Quilting

I was very undecided about how to quilt this. I loved the top so much, that I didn't want to "spoil" it with stitches. In the end, I went with wide spaced wavy lines, believing they would be very forgiving  of any mistakes. It was the right choice: the wavy lines don't compete with the geometric shapes of the log cabin squares and my stitching was off - mainly due to the weight of the quilt dragging on the machine, which made the stitch length shorter in places, and the waves turn oddly. I deliberately avoided keeping them uniform. Some are long and sweeping, some wiggly, some both, and I didn't measure the distance between them. I picked a low stress quilt top and I wanted a low stress quilting method for my first effort!

Binding

My first thought for binding fabric was the lime green squiggles that I used for the back. But I wasn't sure if I had enough left, and big sis also wanted a skirt out of the scraps. So I considered plain navy too. I really like how the dark binding on Devon's quilt gives a strong border, and really sets off the colours. But the green is bright and fun, so I went with that. I used this tutorial from iCandy Handmade. When I sewed the binding to the back, it came out very wavy. For the second half of the binding, I pulled the binding tight agains the edges of the batting and it was much better. That means there is only 1/4 inch showing from the front, and closer to 3/4 at the back. In future, I would sew the binding on just under 1/2 inch from the edge of the quilt so that the front and back binding widths were the same, with no wavy edges. You can see the difference in the picture above. That's one of my favourite blocks, the orange and navy monkey block.

Washing

Nothing to report here. The batting and the thread didn't shrink as much as I expected, maybe because my quilting stitches were not that close together. I had washed all of the fabrics that went into the top and the back, so I didn't expect any changes there.

I'm trying to work out how long this quilt took. It was a great way to get my sewing mojo back after Christmas. I started it mid- January and finished mid-Feb. I didn't work on any other sewing projects at the same time. The piecing was fast but there were a lot of different elements to contend with after that, and the hand stitching for the binding took some time.

I must say, I loved this project! From start to finish, it was fun and interesting. I loved working with colourful fabrics, and not having to worry about fit or fastenings. I don't think I have been converted to quilt making, but a quilt here and there is a good thing.

I had to wait for the baby before I could post this...

Maile Baby Cardigan

A baby gift made from my stashed-for-girl-babies-yarn. I used the pattern Maile Sweater, because I like the lace on the raglan and the sweet flowers around the hem. It only comes in one size, so I just went ahead and knitted that. My DK weight yarn, Rowan Pure Wool, had it come out at least a 6 month size. That suits me just perfectly since I only cast on after the girl was born.

Baby Knits

There's been a lot of knitting happening around here recently. Partly due to the Rugby World Cup, partly due to the darkening Autumn evenings and partly due to being unmotivated by my current sewing project. But Christmas is coming, so I'd better get on and finish the sewing so I can move on through my queue.

I am really pleased with how this baby cardigan turned out. It is the Sunnyside Baby Cardigan which comes in two versions and four sizes. I made the cable version which is more unisex and used the newborn size.

I have made this pattern before, where I made the lace version in a 3-6 month. This yarn is DK weight so I made the smallest size. I estimate it has come out at about a 6 month size. But, as Elizabeth Zimmerman puts it so beautifully, "knitting stretches and babies vary" so the finished size is not that big of a deal. The only variation I made was to continue the row of purl stitches beyond the cables and down the sides of the body.

I used exactly two full balls of yarn, Rowan Cashsoft DK, which is a discontinued yarn that I got on sale in 2011. I got it knowing it would be a good baby-gift-knitting yarn. The colour is a faint, eau de nil green, but in some lights looks quite creamy and almost oatmeal. The softness is lovely and Rowan does a good job of copying Debbie Bliss Cashmerino at a slightly lower price.

I got the bamboo buttons from The Button Lady, a tiny stall in Hampstead.

I finished in the nick of time - the intended recipient was born today!

Christmas Booties

A novelty knit from the yarn attached to a magazine.

I almost didn't bother but there is always a baby in the tummy in my family and including them in the Christmas gift giving is fun, so I went ahead and knitted these up.

Bonus: I've never tried socks before so these were a great sock-trial. I quite enjoyed it, the little heel was fun and I even used the proper Kitchener stitch for binding off the second one.

The pattern is actually very poor. The cuff is knitted separately and then seamed on to the sock. Really, it should be incorporated into the design. Perhaps they were trying to make it easy for beginners. The cuffs curled up completely and because they are acrylic, blocking made no difference. Once they were sewn on, the curl flattened slightly, but not much. I don't know of a satisfactory fix for that, other than knitting with wool.

Regardless, the baby is being included in our Christmas celebrations. 

Merry Christmas!

Seatbelt Pad

Who is enjoying Series 2 of the Great British Sewing Bee? I am! I love Sewing Bee and it was last year's show that got me back into sewing, after 19 years. Geez, I feel old!

I don't normally sew while I watch television, but a little sewalong was definitely in order. I got on with making a seatbelt pad for the second little darling. Her sister has had one since birth but this child needs one too: she is out of the 5-point harness and using the seatbelt in the usual way. Even with a booster seat, it rubs right up against their necks.

I chose her favourite fabric, she told me this weekend that this dress is her favourite. As I always strive for customer satisfaction, I took that as my cue to use up the last of it.

I used Craftiness is Not Optional's tutorial for a seatbelt cover. I didn't follow her dimensions because I already had a working model that I could copy direct. I did do her quilting and binding. I couldn't figure out how to get the binding sewn down on the back. It was beautiful at the front but it didn't turn over nicely. So I improvised and got this as my result.

Guess what? The little darling doesn't want it. She wants Sammy Seatbelt.

Thank goodness first little darling wants it instead. Phew!

Sunnyside Baby Cardigan

I love knitting baby gifts - yes, I have turned into "that lady"!  I tell myself I'm giving hip / cool / funky baby gifts because I am using strong colours and nice yarn. Hey, it works for me!

This yarn is Dream in Color, Smooshy, which I have really enjoyed working with. It felt a little scratchy when I was winding it off the skein (I'm not the only one who hangs it off her own neck, am I?) but it felt soft when I was working with it, and when it was knitted up. Fingers crossed, baby won't find it itchy.

My Ravelry notes are here.  The pattern is Sunnyside Baby Cardigan and it was great to work with. I really like how they have created a cable detail and then given a version to create out of lace. I chose the lace but I think I might make the cable if I make this again. I had not tried a picot edge before but it looked great. A little bit of work, but not difficult, and a lot of wow factor for the effort.

February Toddler Cardigan

More knitwear today!

This was intended for a birthday present for my daughter, but I realised, about 3/4 of the way through, that it wasn't going to be large enough for a 4 year old.  I put it aside and cast on for the Ocean Waves Cardigan instead.

If I wanted it for my kiddo, I should rip this out and size up, but I went ahead and finished it and I think it is probably a 2 year size.  I just have to decide which toddler to give it to.  Since I don't have one handy, I can't photograph this on a model so the floor will have to do.

The yarn is Araucania Ranco Solid (Ravelry link) which I really enjoyed working with.  I love the colour and it has not felted or pilled while I was working with it.  I realise that it may not be the ideal yarn for a toddler, or a lace garment but, so far, it looks great.  Semi-solid yarns look fantastic with this lace pattern. (I think semi-solid yarns look fantastic, in general!)

The pattern is the Elizabeth Zimmerman, February Baby cardigan. Much loved by knitters, this is now my third iteration of this pattern, and it definitely won't be my last.  It is easy to master, knits fast, looks impressive, can be done with less than one skein and has almost no seams. It is my go-to pattern for baby gifts. I so want to make the matching bonnet, but I haven't seen a baby in a bonnet since the 1970s.

I made covered buttons using one particular shade of butterfly from the birthday dress. I am going to use covered buttons again, I think they look fantastic and are a great way to use a much loved fabric again, even if you only have the smallest scraps left over.

(The colour of the yarn is much prettier than this photo, I had to shade it to show off the buttons.)

Now I just have to decide which of my sisters or friends is most likely to hand wash their toddler garments...!