Toys

We keep a small basket of toys in the living room for Eliza to play with. It doesn't hold much, so it's easy for me to keep the toys picked up and away from the dogs when she isn't playing, and I can rotate things in and out to keep her interest. She loves to pull them all out, one by one, and play with them. This can keep her entertained for quite a while. I especially love it when she pulls out a book and 'reads' it.



This morning, she finally got a new addition to the basket that's been hanging out in my "on the needles" sidebar for way too long. I knit this bunny and felted it early in my pregnancy, and he's been hanging out in the knitting basket waiting for a face and stuffing since.



Isn't he a dandy? I actually made all of those toys that aren't in the basket: Goldilocks, the patchwork ball, the puzzle ball, and the cloth book. I'm not sure what to take out in order to make room for Mr. Bunny. She loves the bear and both of the dolls.

She also likes to make a move on Mommy's toys every now and then.



Someday, little one.

Pixie

As much as I love Eliza's Cubba Hat, it seems to be getting a bit small. And I liked that she had a blue/purple hat and a pink/orange hat, so one or the other matched any given outfit. So I flipped through my Vintage Baby Knits book (because I want to knit just about everything in that book) last week and cast on for the Stella Pixie Hat.

What a great little knit! Looking at it, I expected it to be shaped with decreases or short rows, but it's not. When you knit it up, it looks like this:


The "ribbing" on the top isn't really ribbing at all, it's purl welts. Because if you knit vertical rows of knits and purls, the purls recede, but if you knit horizontal rows of knits and purls, the knits recede. And these horizontal rows of knits and purls pull in, just like ribbing, only in the other direction. So you knit this rectangle with no shaping at all, just taking advantage of the nature of knits and purls, and then you fold it in half and graft the top. Voila! Hat. I am such a sucker for clever patterns.

Except when I folded mine in half, I didn't have the same number of stitches on each side. It's always something with me, isn't it? So I went looking and found my problem:

An error in the stitch pattern. Lesson: don't knit this pattern in semi-darkness.

What to do? That blip threw off the pattern for the whole left side of the hat. Should I rip? Of course not. I pulled it off the needles and dropped a whole section of stitches. I probably didn't have to drop even as many as I did, but I figured it would be more of a pain to keep track of exactly which stitches I had to drop how far, so I just pulled the needles out and started pulling.


Yet another reason to love double pointed needles.


Coming right along.


Oops, missed one.


Almost done. (And the munchkin woke up.)


Where I should have been an hour ago.


Grafting.


And, hat!

Now let's try it on.

Heh.

Side view:

See what I mean about the purl welts?

She didn't need the added height of a button band to fasten it, so I crocheted a quick chain and wove it through the cast on edge for a tie. I had some tension issues from the surgery, but a quick bath and run through the dryer (yarn is Cherry Tree Hill Supersock, so no worries about felting), it's mostly evened out.

Happy Halloween!

Cisco Hat by Berroco
My handspun Corriedale, "New Day" by Spunky Eclectic



Maybe a little big for this year, but I think she can make it work.

Down to the wire

While I was waiting on new yarn for more longies, I picked up this scarf that I started last year. I remember I started it because I wanted to make something from Nancy Bush's then new lace book. I had two balls of Kidsilk Haze, and I figured I'd just make the scarf as long as I could with that much.



When I picked it back up, I was surprised to find that I was further along than I had remembered. For some reason I thought I remembered figuring that I could get 23 repeats into the scarf with the yarn I had. But that was a year ago, and my memory is sometimes very faulty (and also my math), so I disregarded that and knit until it looked like I had about enough yarn for the top edging, which was 24 repeats. Except of course I didn't have enough for the top edging. So I picked out the (sticky mohair) cast off on the bottom edging and ripped back a few rows, cast off again, knit a few more rows on the top edging to even it up, and cast off again. And I still barely had enough to get it done. I was literally cutting yarn tails off the dangling ends and splicing them into my cast off, and I still had to knit the last two stitches together to barely have enough to finish. I've never been so happy to throw something in a water bath and call it done.


Triinu Scarf, Nancy Bush, "Knitted Lace of Estonia"
Kidsilk Haze, Fern
US3 needles

Thankfully, the fuzzy mohair hides the many ends. I think it turned out lovely. And it's just the right length.

KnitaLongies

You know how you start knitting something and you just can't stop? At this point in the Longies Knitalong, we're supposed to be working on short rows and gussets. The timeline is slow going, because a lot of participants are new knitters and all have small children. I've knit three pair.


This pair, in Peace Fleece "Moscow Magic Pink", I knit in the medium size. The fit is about perfect, which means they'll be too small before long. In fact, the length is better with the cuff turned down. So for the rest I moved up to the large size and knit a 1.5" cuff that I can turn up for now.


Peace Fleece "Violet Vyehchyeerom"

I put the third pair ("Georgia Rose") on her today and thought we'd go for a walk and get some cute pictures, so I put her in the stroller instead of the carrier like I usually do so I could carry the camera around my neck.



She wasn't too impressed. We walked to the park and saw some geese.



She wasn't too impressed with that, either.



Life's tough when you're teething. Or maybe she just wants some mittens.

I think I can finish three more pair of longies before the knitalong is over, and then I'll make her a jacket from the leftovers. (Who needs to do housework when you can knit?) The yarn just came in the mail today!