Blankets Warm Your Heart

My co-worker is having a little boy in August of this year. Several of us from work are throwing a baby shower for her on May 27th (this coming Sunday). I have been collecting clothes from the ARC stores, so much so that I have two large bags full to the top with clothes. I have outfits for several different periods of time, 0-3 months, 3-6 months, 6-9 months, 12 months, 18th month and even one for 24 months. I have another bag full of blankets, baby medicine, diaper rash cream, and several other things. There is yet another box full of books, ranging from super easy to more detail and classic.

Once I found out she was pregnant and what she was having I started a baby blanket. She told me the colors of they want are blue, green, and light brown. I found the perfect yarn for just those colors.

I started it about a month and a half ago. Very easy pattern too.

You cast on 3 stitches and then every time after that you increase by one stitch, which you do as a yarn over as the second stitch. You keep increasing until you feel its wide enough. I used 10 1/2 inch needles with this project because the Homespun yarn is rather chunky and it would show the pattern better with bigger needles. I used stick needles until it got too wide and then I switched to circular needles. I continued to increase the stitches for several more inches.

Once you feel that the blanket is wide enough you can start decreasing. You decrease by stitching the first two stitches together, then do the yard over like when you were increasing, and then stitch two more stitches together. Took me about a month of actually working on the blanket to finish it. Its square, but it can be used to wrap the baby up diagonal. It does fold up nicely though.

The nice by-product of using the ombre Homespun yarn is that it creates stripes. Its just a random extra bonus.

Turned out pretty nice though. I do good work. Don't you think? =)

Knitted Baby Blanket

Its always a joy having friends who are just as thrilled about being creative as they are about getting creative things from others. Also nice that they share the same love and slight obsession.

My friend Sarah kindly took some pictures of the finished baby blanket I gave to her and River for Christmas. As I said after the New Year I was slacking during the last few months. This resulted in forgetting to take several pictures of completed projects. This blanket was one such slight of mind.

As stated in the previous entries, this was actually meant to be a baby shower gift, but seeing as I missed that by several months I figured Christmas would have to do! I was only about half way done when River was born. Thankfully I was a might quicker at finishing the rest than I was at the first half.

This was, what I consider anyway, big knitting project. Its all garter stitch so nothing fancy. I used 3 balls of yarn, but I decided to make the 1st and last be the same dye lot and the 2nd to be a different one. You can see a clear difference and I was actually hoping for that particular look.

 If I remember correctly its 99 cast on stitches making it fairly longer width wise than length, but I thought it would be better that way for wrapping her up.

Over all it has a nice flow to it with the different dye lot in the middle. I did such a good job on it. I didn't mess even once. I was rather proud of myself. This project actually inspired me to start learning new things about knitting.

My next project is going to be doing squares of several different knits in several shades of green and gray and then piece them together for an afghan. It will allow me to practice and it will be a good addition to my Irish theme for my living room. (Once I get my own place again... I can't wait for the economy to pick up!!!)

Added bonus is its made with anti-pill yarn, so when washed it won't ball up like other acrylics will. I wanted to do it in alpaca wool, but I wasn't too sure if River would be allergic or not, so went with the safe bet.

Never ending baby blanket

One of my friends was going to have a baby and she wanted it to be a surprise, so she wanted general items. This is rather hard to do now days. It seems the world is content to deal with boy or girl and nothing inbetween. Since I am a lover of all things thrift I went to the ARC stores and got her about 10 items that would be great for a boy or girl. I wanted to add a little something personal to the gifts, so I started knitting a baby blanket.

Now I started knitting about a year ago and I have done mostly scarves for myself and one for a friend (which I believe I posted on here). I recently tried a jacket for my new cousin Liam and it turned out pretty well, but it took me 6 months because I'm still new at it. This blanket has taken me WAY longer and its only about half way finished! I wasn't able to give it to her at the shower, so I had planned to give it to her when they baby was born, which has already happened. (She had a little girl.) SO my NEW plan is to give it to them at Christmas. (Christ almighty it better be done by then!)

Now at the time I started this no one knew what she was having, so I picked what I thought was a very general stripe yarn. I thought it would be good for a boy and still fit a girl. Ironically now that I look at it I think it fits a girl more, but hey who cares cause she had one! (thank you!)

I have already gone through one ball of yarn and about half way through the second one. I have a third in my knitting bag, so I seriously hope that is all I need. Originally when I started this I thought I would only need two (not a good thought on my part), but I went with smaller needles so I screwed myself a little there. The yarn I picked is still available at several stores, but the dye lot is not the same, so the ball I'm on now is the wrong dye lot. I figure if its in the middle it will look more like I planned it to be a slightly different shade. The bottom and top part are the same dye lot, so I should be ok to make it work out.

(you can see Stue lying next to me ready to attach any stray yarn... which I oh so love... NOT)

The first ball made great stripes, but the second one seems to be making misplaced stripes. I must have done it differently when I started the first one, but I honestly don't remember doing anything special. At this point I will chalk it up to it being the middle section and it just gets to be a bit odd. I will have to work harder on the last one to make it be more striped again.



I work on it for about 30 minutes to an hour each morning before work. Some nights I work on it to help me relax and sleep. On my days off I still work on it in the morning, but thats about it. I tend to work on other projects, as I currently have several going. I love how I do that to myself. Silly me!



Warm Booties... UGG style

My mom found this cool pattern for knitted UGG style booties. Its a very easy pattern too. (Please ignore the paper she printed it on, as she did so at the hospital and its prescription paper.) Mom found this pattern on Knitting On The Net.

For those who would like an original size version, let me know and I will email it to you.

Aren't they just soo cute? I can't wait to try them out. I'm currently in the process of starting to make a knitted blanket for my friend who is expecting. I am very slow going with it, because I like to bounce from project to project.