52 in 52 #26

Huggy Bear Hat, Jaeger Baby Merino DK

52 in 52 Project #24

Rambling Rows Jacket, Cascade 220, Berroco Geode, Shepherds Wool

52 in 52 Project #20

Same cardi as #18, just bigger

Week #23 and I've only finished project #20.  Obviously I've got to pick up the pace a bit...

The Saga of the Sweater

Years ago, 2007 probably, when I first started knitting again, I bought Lion Brand Pound of Love in four different colors.  I wasn't really confident about my knitting skills and I wasn't ready to make a big investment in yarn.  I still have lots of this yarn in my stash although the cream color is about gone.

In May of 2008 when my mother was very ill, I traveled to Vermont to be with my sister as we sat by my mother's bedside in the hospital.  I packed the cream (antique white?) Pound of Love in my suitcase.  As my mother slipped away, my sister and I sat together knitting.  It was a way to be present and to pass the time. I take great comfort that we were able to do this.  The nurses stopped in often, both to check on my mother and on our knitting progress.  This is the second sweater I completed during the five day vigil. 

Fast forward to the winter of 2008/2009.  DH and I became snowbirds and rented a condo in Crystal River, FL.  The condo community has a wonderful craft group.  I made a number of knitted items while I was there.  And, I brought along some finished objects to show the group.

Two occurences came together just as I was ready to head back north.  One of the women in the group was expecting a grandchild.  Said grandchild was to be born in Uzbekistan.  The condo community was planning an auction event to raise money to decorate the clubhouse.  At the last craft group meeting, I offered the sweater I had knit the previous May as an auction donation.  It was gratefully accepted.

Many months later I learned that the prospective grandmother had bid on and won the sweater at the auction.  She and her husband traveled to Uzbekistan to visit their new grandchild and took the sweater with them.  It was well received.

DH and I are back in Crystal River again this winter and I am enjoying the craft group and other activities.  I even got to meet the young lady pictured above when she and her parents visited a few weeks ago.  She no longer fits in the sweater because she's grown so much.

Today her grandmother sent me a photo of this darling baby wearing the sweater I lovingly knit as my mother slipped away.  Beginnings and endings.  I guess that's what life is about.  I have tears right now but I'm not sad.  In a way, there is a connection between my mother, who loved babies, and this adorable little one who lives on the other side of the world. 

More Baby Sweaters and Etsy

I finished the first project of 2010 today, a colorful baby jacket based on a pattern by fpea.  I've made this pattern before, using Lockhart wool and Cascade Ecological Wool.  This time I've used Cascade Jewel Hand Dyed and Cascade 220.  It gives the sweater a completely different look. 

I dug around in my button stash and came up with two shiny metal buttons.  I'm not sure if they're pewter but they seem to work just right with the sweater.  Here's a close up.

I've listed this for sale on my etsy site.  I donate all the proceeds from my baby sweater sales to The First Unitarian Society of Plainfield, NJ.

I'm alive and well

Wow! It's been a long time.  I'm alive and well, just very busy.

I've been doing a lot of baby sweater knitting and have sold a number of them.  There was a Holiday Craft Fair at FUSP and along with selling three sweaters, I took orders for two more that must be finished by Christmas.  I worked feverishly this past week.  One is finished except for the buttons and the other is really coming along.  I don't have any photos to post at this time.  I'll get some up when I can photograph the finished projects, which has to be this coming Monday.  I am in Florida and the recipient is in NJ.  If I don't get to the post office by Monday I'll be toast.

We spent the last week cruising the Caribbean.  The trip was sponsored by The Nation magazine and there were many panels, lectures and ad hoc discussions.  Dinner table assignments were rotated each night and we got to meet a lot of interesting people from all over the US as well as a couple from Great Britain.  Howard Dean was along as well as Calvin Trillin and many of The Nation's regular writers.  Holland America always does a good job with the food and accommodations.  Since there is a major snow storm hitting the east coast from Washington, DC to Boston, we're very happy to be staying on in sunny Florida.  We're going to spend a few days exploring the Everglades and then meander up to Crystal River to take possession of the condo.  Right now the weather is sunny and 66 degrees. 

I'm going to sign off now because I have to get back to my knitting.

More Baby Sweaters and Etsy

Well, I've finished another baby sweater. This one is based on the Organic Guernsey by Fawn Pea. I've made it from wool yarn (Brunswick Germantown Worsted) that was gifted to me by a member of my church. I've researched it and it must be quite old. The mill, Brunswick Mills in Pickens, South Carolina, is long defunct. The yarn itself is in excellent condition and is springy and wooly in a pleasant way. It has flecks of green in it that don't show up too well in this photo. In keeping with the age of the wool, I've used buttons I purchased from the vintage button booth at the NJ Sheep Breeders Festival.
Here's a shot of the entire sweater.

So, you ask, what am I going to do with all of these baby sweaters? I no longer have a baby in the family small enough to wear any of them. The answer is I've opened an etsy shop. For those of you not in the knitting/handmade items world, etsy is a web site created to allow people to sell handmade and vintage items. You can see the site here: www.etsy.com and you can see my shop here: www.adoptionmswknits.etsy.com. In the meantime, six of the sweaters have been taken by a fellow knitter to sell at the craft fair to be held Thursday at her place of employment. That's tomorrow.

Since many these sweaters were made using copyrighted patterns, some of which explicitly forbade the commercial use of the pattern or the finished object, I will be donating any proceeds from their sale to The First Unitarian Society of Plainfield.

Selling items on etsy not only requires knitting skills. I'm going to have to work on my photography skills as well. Taking a good picture is really important to allow buyers to see the quality of the work. It will be a good experience for me as I really haven't mastered much more than "point and shoot" with our latest camera, a Nikon D40 SLR.

Another Project Finished

Baby's First Jacket, made from Regia Sock Yarn bought at Knit and Knibble in Tampa, FL. I got the buttons at The Custom Shop in Kennebunk, ME. I'm working on a second version of this pattern using Classic Elite Alpaca Sock.

Busy, busy, busy

I've been working on a number of baby items to use up stash. I took lots of yarn on vacation with me and started one project after another. I've finished a few and am continuing to work on others. It's been very gratifying.

The first completed sweater was my version of Fawn Pea's Super Natural Stripes. Mine is not natural in color or in yarn. It's three shades of Caron Simply Soft. I finished it while we were in the Adirondacks and donated it to the auction for the Adirondack Scholarship Foundation. I'm told the final bid was $25. I hope someone's baby enjoys it.


Next I used more Caron Simply Soft (can you tell I have a lot of it in my stash?) to make my third version of Reynolds Cardigan for Baby. This is a lovely little pattern, knit from the bottom up all in one piece so there is very little seaming. I love the lacy detail around the yoke.


I made another soaker out of left over yarn from the Oriental Lily Dress. I love the color combination. I plan to use it as a sample at the 15th Annual NJ Sheep and Fiber Festival on September 12 and 13. A knitting friend has reserved a booth and invited other group members to display their work. I've put together a portfolio of soaker and skirty photos and will see if there is any demand for custom work.

This is another Fawn Pea pattern called Mossy Jacket. I've made it with Lockhart yarn and accented it with Cascade Ecological Wool. This was another easy knit, from the top down. It's a heavier weight than the other sweaters and would make a nice gift for a baby to wear in the winter.

This one is from the pattern, Kindred Knits Yoked Cardi. I made some modifications including knitting the button band right into the jacket rather than adding it later and turned the finished jacket in side out. I decided the handpainted yarn looked too busy with the ribs on the right side. I also shortened the sleeves for two reasons. I was concerned I would run out of yarn and in the six month size I think the sleeves are too wide the way the pattern is written. I think it would look very cute over a little long sleeve turtleneck, don't you?

I've got three others in process. Two are knit in sock yarn which makes for slower going and the third is Fawn Pea's Organic Guernsey made in very old worsted wool that was gifted to me by a fellow member of FUSP. I'll post photos of them as soon as they are finished.

One Down, Eight to Go

One project finished, the smallest one, therefore the quickest. If you've read my previous post, you've seen there are eight other projects that fall into the UFO category.
Now that the sweater for little Gizmo is finished, I'm zeroing in on the Oriental Lily Dress for Linny. I'd like it to be finished before I go to Cali at the end of July.
I think it's too early to judge whether I'm on the road to recovery from acute startitis, don't you?

Package for Perry

Camo Longies Finished
Originally uploaded by rallaronson

Perry has grown and needs longer longies. Another member of my UCNJ Crafts group had some hand dyed yarn she no longer wanted. I was grateful to have it. I combined it with a skein and a half of Waterlily by Classic Elite in the leaf colorway (left over from the February Lady Sweater project) and created a pair of longies for Perry.

They are a bit more purple and bit less blue than the photo depicts. I don't know why the camera has such a hard time making the blues and purples true.

In the package I also included a pair of shorties, also made from stash yarn. I had some hand painted yarn and some Shepherd's Wool, both in blue. I just had enough to make a pair of extra large shorties using the Pimp my Longies pattern by Jenny NZ.



Now I'll need to make a few things for Linny...

Progress Report

I've been very productive the last day or so. I'm posting some progress pictures to give you an idea of what I've accomplished.

The yarn arrived on Saturday for the skirty for Linny and I got right to work. It now has a ruffle based on the feather and fan pattern. It required a repeat of 17 stitches so I increased four stitches around the base of the skirt and then launched into two repeats of the pattern. I like the effect. I've finished the I-cord tie string and I'm ready to bind off one leg opening. One more leg opening to make ribbing for and this is a done deal.

Mr. Greenjeans now has a completed button band with one button hole at the top of the cable section of the body. I've tried it on and it's a bit tight but I think with aggressive blocking it will stretch a bit. If I had it to do over again, I wouldn't switch to the smaller needle to do the cables. I would have done the entire sweater on size 8 needles. I'm about to start the cable section of the right sleeve. And, I have to complete the left sleeve but I feel on track to complete these two items by the time my craft group meets on Thursday.

Things I learned at summer camp

I've been doing a lot of knitting over the past few weeks and actually have quite a few finished objects. What's been interesting is how I've been able to use a number of the techniques I learned at knitting camp in New Hampshire. I concentrated on courses about finishing because it's something I find quite challenging. And, there is nothing more frustrating that working on a project for weeks and then not have it come together properly.


February Lady Sweater

This was a long slog. I made two attempts at this project with a yarn called Marco Polo but the gauge was not right. While I was at knitting camp, my sister and I made a side trip to Patternworks and I saw this yarn, Waterlily by Classic Elite, on sale. I bought nine skeins thinking it would be enough. Well...I ran out of yarn. A call to Patternworks revealed they had no skeins left in Leaf. I finally tracked some down at WEBS but it wasn't the same dye lot. I was nearly finished with the second sleeve so I knit one row of the old yarn and two rows of the new for a few pattern repeats. I can see that one sleeve is slightly, and I mean slightly, different, but if I don't point it out to anyone... Now it's a matter of waiting for weather cool enough to wear it.

Soakers

While I was out in California visiting the twins, my DIL asked me if I could make some soakers for the babies. She and my son are committed to using cloth diapers as well as recycling and reducing their carbon footprint. Apparently knitted diaper covers made with wool are very absorbant and much better for babies' skin than plastic pants.

I did some research on ravelry and found a really cute pattern by Heather Johnson for a soaker and what she calls a skirty. It was with this project that I had to call on the skills I learned at camp including the crochet cast on, life lines, I-cord, Lily Chin's improved yarn over buttonholes, picking up stitches and the picot bind off. It was a real feeling of accomplishment to take on and finish projects I would have rejected in the past because they called for a complicated knitting skill.

I'm almost finished with a skirty for Linny and will post photos soon.