Fair Isle Cardigan

This pattern comes from Debbie Bliss' book but I modified the construction to take advantage of Elizabeth Zimmermann's seamless in-the-round technique. I also lengthened the body by an inch based on a suggestion I got on Ravelry. The sweater's made entirely of leftover cotton scraps, mostly Saucy Sport by Reynolds, and was a great stashbuster! I loved knitting the sweater in the round, but I did get some scary raveling when I cut up the front (my machine-stitching needed to be even tighter, apparently) and I found that EZ's joining technique left me with bunchy underarms, even though I swear I followed her EPS carefully. The matching hat features a pompon.

Grande Onesie Finale

As I near Week 39, it is time to decorate every last onesie. I continued with my animal from earlier, using penguins, giraffes and polar bears from Animal Paper Chains and a dove I found on the internet. The ribbon between the giraffes comes from RetroDepot. I attempted a freezer paper stencil (see the polar bears) but was unhappy with the coverage of the fabric paint I used (cheap Tulip brand from JoAnn's).


Then I completed a little Jewish series as well, with the help of printable fabric. This features a "shabbat shalom" onesie welcoming the Sabbath, a onesie with the biblical verse "for this child I have prayed" with a coordinating hat, and a third onesie with the verse "You fashioned me in my mother's belly." Unfortunately, layering the printed Hebrew on top of the under fabric required two layers of fusing and made the resulting onesies very stiff. Something to improve upon...

Baby's First Suit

This was a fun project: a matching outfit made from purple narrow-wale corduroy and striped Guatemalan fabric (purchased several years ago in Panajachel on Lake Atitlan). Although all the styling details (collar, pockets & flaps, tab closures, knee patches) were a bit tedious, they definitely make the design. Now, the big question: can a boy baby wear a purple suit???

Baby Pants

I am having a lot of fun with this easy pattern for baby pants. The only trick was figuring out how to get the knee patches nice and round. I stole a tip from quilters as follows: I created a cardboard template the size of the finished patch, basted around the raw edge of the patch fabric, pulled the threads tight around the template, and then pressed the edges into place and removed the template. I really hope these pants will fit over a baby diaper smoothly.

Vacation = Creation

I have spent some (though, regrettably, not ALL!) of my vacation sewing. Here are three lightweight swaddling blankets, all in seersucker Indian cotton with homemade seambinding. I particularly like the non-baby-colored one in rust and khaki, so it got an extra-special tag.

I also made three sleepsacks out of cotton knit. Unfortunately, JoAnn's has a very poor selection of cotton knit and I just could not find the strength to place another online order. You can see that I have abandoned being gender-neutral and instead just embraced "boy" and "girl" motifs for Petit Loup! Trucks, daisies, cherries, whatever! I like the design of the matching hat but found that in the overly-stretchy waffle knits, the hats got too big very fast. One may not fit the baby until it's walking! Alas, the center sack was hastily cut out, yielding upside-down apples on the front. Shabby, shabby Miss Mama!

Tomten Near-Happiness

Ah, the frustration when you knit a pattern again and like it less. I have to admit that I prefer the Tomtens I knit for Caleb and Eytan to the one I just finished for my own Petit Loup. At least I finally had enough yarn to make the hood, and managed to use up all the leftover purple yarn I'd stashed for almost a decade. I used a lighter-weight separating zipper and found that made for a smoother front opening, too. So maybe it's not all bad!

More Baby Things

Here's another romper, this time in sock monkeys from Portsmouth (and more Kaffe shot cotton facing & pocket). Also, two onesies saved from boringness at Carter's - first, with a little batik appliqué (and more shot cotton - it's everywhere!) and next, with two paisley penguins (leftovers from sunny frames quilt). Don't you just love half-days at school? I am a much better seamstress in daylight.

Onesie Fiesta!

Here are the latest onesies on the block. The first two are converted Christmas items from Old Navy's sale bin; the third is embellished with leftover Martha Nagley fabric (see the veggie romper in previous post); the last is a fabric scrap of some boisterous rooster fabric that caught my eye at JoAnn's (usually I hate that place but I have to admit this fabric really jumped out at me). The remaining roosters will be made into at least one more baby garment...

Veggie Romper

I bought this fun Martha Nagley (i.e. Rowan) fabric at Portsmouth Fabric Company and followed an easy baby pattern (Simplicity 3808) to make this romper in size 1-3 months. While the fabric is a bit thin to withstand heavy wear, it was just too cute to pass up! The pocket and facing are Fassett shot cotton. I hope the tiny star buttons will be functional. Clearly, they are adorable!

Swaddling Blankets

This trio of flannel blankets was inspired by Hannah's, and informed by some directions in Last-Minute Patchwork Gifts. I bought a Clover tapemaker which I found useful after some experimentation. My tips for this tool: stitch the tape in two steps, first by seaming it open, then by seaming it shut. In between these steps, trim your first seam to reduce the tape's bulk! I could not get good results by just wedging the blanket edge into the folded tape, personally.

Onesie

The Reprodepot blog inspired me to start appliquéing oneses. After a very confusing trip to Carter's and Target, where I discovered that nearly all baby clothes are pink or blue and *already* have tacky and/or sexist decorations on their fronts, I found a few acceptable options to bring home - sadly, most of these are yellow. I made this one by cutting out the elephant with a stencil from my animal paper chains book (an old favorite for card-making), adhering it with Steam-a-Seam 2 (which I'd read about on some other baby craft blog), and then stitching around the edges with zigzag stitch (challenging but doable - the key is to stay on the appliqué at ALL times). This is a very fun, satisfying way to use up fabric scraps (for example, those I generated in my recent quilt-making fit). I can't wait to attack the Christmas onesies we got at Old Navy and turn them in secular, year-round garments!

Pull raglan

I knit this basic raglan pullover (#1 for petit loup) from La Droguerie's book Les bébés toute l'année. It is a treasure trove of adorable French baby goodness! The yarn is leftover wool that I bought more than ten years ago in northern France. I have a beautiful cabled turtleneck for myself out of it already, and since there's still some left, I'll have to make a hat and booties to finish it off completely. The sweater turned out rather somber so I added the owl appliqué to make it cheerier. Then I knit a matching hat with pompon and a pair of booties. The booties have quite a strange shape, rather like platform booties!

Sweetheart Pullover

This sweater (#2 for petit loup) was a recycling experiment, to see if I could combine leftover blue-grey-purple yarns into one colorway, and my red-orange yarns into another, and follow a traditional two-color pattern (sweetheart pullover from Falick and Nicholas' Knitting for Baby. The result is a somewhat too-stretchy sweater that recalls the history of many, many baby sweaters that came before it. My husband suggested, after the fact, that I make the heart orange - which would have been lovely. Another smart idea that I didn't get in time would be to knit this sweater in the round, thus saving much weaving in of ends. Two months later, I knit a hat to match. I especially like the tricolor pompon, who waves precariously atop a little "stalk" à la Dr. Seuss.

Fassett B&W Frames Quilt

This is my second go at this pattern. Here I used Fassett shot cottons in blues and greens (not at all my usual palette, and a very fun departure) for the centers and border edge; and batiked black & white abstracts (from Portsmouth Fabric Company) for the outer squares. I particularly enjoyed randomly piecing the shot cottons to create a multicolored border:
The finished quilt measures 45" square and features thin cotton batting. I thought it'd be easier to machine quilt through thin batting, but found it just as challenging as with my previous attempt...every time two quilted seams meet, there's an icky bubble! I designed this quilt to complement our emerging nursery and its black n' white theme, which we hope will be easily understood by infant eyes:

Fassett Sunny Frames Crib Quilt

I modified this quilt to include only 12 squares so that it would be crib sized. I used Fassett shot cottons for the center squares and backing and a variety of other fabrics from my LFS for the frames. The quilting is all by machine, mostly stitch-in-the-ditch plus diamonds in the center of each square to hold down the batting.

February baby sweater

I just finished my Zimmermann February baby sweater in Bliss cotton/angora (which I do not recommend, by the way). The yarn bled a lot during blocking (see evidence on my label at neck) but otherwise looks good. I am happy with the pearl buttons and managed to squeeze a bit more length out of the sweater while washing it, thus making up for the lack of yarn at the end of the project!

Update, October 2009:
Izzi is wearing this sweater at about six months old! Hooray for gift recipients of hand-knits who forward pics to the knitter.

Tomten happiness

Another Elizabeth Zimmermann Tomten jacket - happiness! This took 5 skeins of Cleckheaton Country 8 Ply (at a cost of about $22) and I used every last shred of yarn. Someday I *will* buy enough to knit the hood for this jacket, I swear! Like last time around, I really enjoyed adding the patterned ribbon to the inside as a way to cover the icky zipper edge. This week I'll send this sweater off to baby Caleb, who probably won't be big enough for it for several months.