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.

Bliss kimono

I am rather suspicious of Debbie Bliss patterns (see double-breasted pullovers 1 & 2), though I still make them because they are cute, simple, and hip. The yarn for this kimono has been around forever - the pink was something I made into a sweater for myself long ago and hated, and the brown trim remains from a vest I made for an evil boyfriend who preceded my husband by at least a couple relationships. So, this was a stash-buster. I am not a big fan of the blocking process (all that waiting...) but this sweater really fell into place as a result: it developed a whole new soft texture and even appearance in the process, and the bottom edging finally lay straight after I pinned it to the towel as it dried. I couldn't bear to knit the ties (Directions: knit 6 stitches for 18 inches - agh! This is where I find Bliss truly lame) so I sewed on some flowery ribbon instead. I don't like the way knitted fabric ties, anyways.

Aran pullover

Nikhil does a lovely job modeling this pattern from Falick & Nicholas' Knitting for Baby! I knit this with four balls of Jaeger Baby Merino DK in a pleasing shade of pumpkin-y orange. A matching seed stitch cap accompanies it. His mom loved the color orange when we were roommates in college so I'm hoping it will appeal to her, too.

EZ Norwegian Mittens

I made these mittens for my sister for Christmas. What an ordeal! I used the extremely vague directions found in Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitter's Almanac, which required a lot of creative extrapolation and guesswork. Mitten #1 thus took four weeks, while Mitten #2 took only one. I used leftover Jamieson & Smith shetland yarn which knit up at 9 st./inch (about one skein of each color). The mittens came out too long from wrist to thumb (they look almost like socks or legwarmers), but I still like the intricacy of the pattern and the lacy cuff (which I took from a Knitty pattern called Tiffany).

Kashmiri cap

I knit this cap after meeting my friend's daughter Anika for the first time. She is such a sweetey and she needed a hat that matched her winter coat! This cap is based on the earflap cap in Knitting for Baby and is made of various wool scraps. Its name comes from Anika's grandparents because the hat reminds them of the hats of Kashmir.

Zimmermann tomten

I made this tomten from The Opinionated Knitter. It's for another Summer 2007 baby, Eytan Yarden (notice a theme with the names?). I used leftovers from the capuchon Aztèque, which was satisfying and challenging (I had less than a yard left at the very end!). I am especially proud of how nicely the zipper lays down and how I lined the zipper edge with polka dotted ribbon on the inside:

Zimmermann grown-up hat

In my second Zimmermann experiment from The Opinionated Knitter, I made the Very Warm Hat. I used the hexagon pattern from Barbara Walker's A Treasury of Knitting Patterns. The background color is a Kureyon yarn and the foreground is Reynolds Lite-Lopi (itch, itch!).

Zimmermann pillbox

My great friend Hannah gave me The Opinionated Knitter for my birthday last year. Here's the first project I made from it, out of scrap yarn.

Capuchon Aztèque

Here's the lovely capuchon Aztèque (pre-buttons) from des bébés toute l'année again. I made this out of wool for the newest baby on the block, Eytan Shlomo. My mommy friends tell me that a hood is far superior to a hat, so I am going to experiment more with hoodies. Thanks to momma Sara for sending along this picture of Eytan posing in his new outfit!

Harvard Square Cardigan

This cardigan comes from Knitting for Baby (Falick & Nicholas). I knit it for Anika Shah, whose momma had a thing for orange back in college.

Ah la fraise!

This is the Ah la fraise! cardigan sweater from my Des bébés toute l'année...à la drogerie book. The leaves around the neck do not lay flat, at all, but I love the rest of this sweater, especially the ladybug buttons. It's 100% wool and has been sent off to little Miss Ingrid Laurison!

La colombe

This is la colombe from Des bébés toute l'année à la droguerie, a fabulous French knitting book from the fabulous French craft store La Droguerie. I knit it out of cotton for Nora, who lives in Pessac. Again, I can see that my intarsia skills are not yet up to par.

Sweetheart pullover

This is the Sweetheart pullover and Earflap hat from Knitting for Baby (Falick & Nicholas). My intarsia skills are still pretty lame but I like the stripes that I added. I knit this in 2005 for Dan and Laura's daughter. It's Baby Cashmerino so it's supersoft.

Double-breasted jacket II

The second time around, the double-breasted Bliss jacket was less of a disaster. I knit this in 2005 for Esther Dansinger. The buttons, with little Scottie dogs, are an hommage to the Dansingers' late dog Mac.

Double-breasted jacket

I knit this in cotton from Debbie Bliss' The Baby Knits Book during the summer of 2005. As you may notice, this sweater is much too wide! Although I knit it for baby Amos upstairs, it is now condemned to adorn his shapeless teddy bear due to its extreme girth. Tant pis!