one

My baby turned one last Friday. It hardly seems possible that a year has past since this amazing sweet boy came into our lives. For the occasion, cake was made and devoured, friends came over to play, and owl-themed party favors were made.

I knit these tiny owls and put them on hair clips for the little girls and pins for the little boys.

I originally intended to make small versions of these as well, but in an especially enlightened moment I came up with the idea of making little owl bean bags instead. These are filled with organic popcorn and I will definitely be making more of them. I think Levi needs a set of 5 for tossing!

dodie's mittens

This is another pair of May mittens, but this time I made them in October! Consequently I used more autumnal colors than my last pair of springy mittens. I made these for my mother-in-law for her birthday, which was back in October, but I just gave them to her this Thanksgiving. She is one of my few readers, so I thought I'd hold off on posting them until they were gifted.

Again I used Noro silk garden. I'm still not sure about Noro yarns...once again I had to split out several of the colors from the skein because I thought they were ugly and clashing. I am happy with the colors that remained though. The bright blues remind me of my mother-in-law (I don't know why!) and the oranges and browns are a touch of my preferred colors. Once again, an enjoyable pattern and a pretty final result!

hibiscus

It has been a couple weeks since I have knit anything. I guess I needed a little break after the flurry of knitting I've done recently. During my knitting lull, I did manage to finish a spinning project. This skein of yarn is merino & soysilk and is soft and lustrous and gorgeous. The roving was dyed by the talented Pigeonroof Studios. It is part of their "luminosity project," which I was a little obsessed with for a while (and still am, but I am taking a break from buying spinning fiber). The colors are really deep and intense and I love yarn that has subtle variegations but is mostly a solid color.

I generally don't wear much pink and I'm racking my brain trying to figure out what I should knit with this very pink yarn. It really is beautiful though, with all the different shades of pink, and I have enough yarn (the skein is about 4 ounces, 457 yards) for a scarf or shawl or other medium-sized project. When I was pregnant with Levi, I went through a major pink phase as some weird response to finding out I was having a boy. Maybe I should hold onto this skein in case I find myself in a similar situation one of these days!

ishbel

I've never had a triangular shawl before, but somewhere along the line three shawl patterns ended up on my "must knit" list. I like that small shawls can be worn like scarves and that they usually only take one skein of yarn. This shawl pattern is Ishbel, and I made it with a skein of green Malabrigo lace that I have had for a while. I had started knitting a scarf with it, but hadn't knit a single stitch on that scarf in over 2 years, so it was ripped out in favor of this project.

I have to say (now that I have my first triangular shawl) that I actually prefer the triangle shape to the typical long rectangular scarf. For some reason, to me it seems more versatile. My favorite things about this particular shawl are the scalloped edge and the amazing yarn. It is so soft and fine and I love the subtle variegations in the yarn. It feels really light around my neck and I didn't want to take it off after photographing it today, even though it was 60 degrees outside.

This was a really great fun pattern, a little addictive (my family did a lot of groaning as I ignored them to work on this one), and I'm really happy with the outcome. There is definitely more shawl knitting on my schedule for this winter!

simple blue hat

It is so funny trying to photograph a baby because you never know what you are going to get. For my last post, I had a very cooperative little boy who basically just sat in the grass and smiled at the camera. This time, when I tried to photograph this little blue hat, I literally chased Levi around the house for at least a half hour. He was moving around so quickly, and I was determined to not use a flash, so most of the dozens of pictures I took were just blue blurs. Somehow though, I got some seriously adorable pictures of Levi (check out the drool in that above picture!) that show off the blue hat quite well!

It is a very simple hat, scaled down from this pattern (yeah, I know, I even managed to get a basic hat pattern from Jared Flood), but it is a gorgeous turquoise blue, which is perfect for my little blue-eyed boy. The yarn is the super soft Malabrigo Worsted in color Touareg. Once again, I purposely knit it on the big side, with hopes that he can wear it next winter too.

little cobblestone

I finally knit my baby boy a new wool sweater. This is the Cobblestone Pullover, yet another Jared Flood design. I'm not going to lie and say that this is the last of his designs that you'll be seeing from me - I think 4 of my next 6 projects are his patterns. A little obsessive maybe, but I really like his designs and they suit my style of knitting very well.

I have had the magazine with this sweater pattern for a couple years now, as I have been planning to knit this sweater for Adam. Other knitters have scaled the pattern down for children, and that (along with the fact that I happened to have a few balls of random tweedy yarn laying around) inspired me to knit this for Levi.

One really great thing about the sweater is that it will definitely fit him for at least another winter, if not two, and he can wear it now with the sleeves rolled up by about 2 inches. This was my goal - a longer-lived sweater for Levi. I got really sad putting all his tiny newborn handknits from last winter into storage, and was determined to knit something with a little more staying power. I really love this little sweater - it was super fun and easy to knit (all in one piece = no seaming = wonderful!), and it looks really cute on little Levi. Hopefully I'll get around to knitting this pattern for Adam, and then the two of them can be adorably matching in their cobblestones.

quincy

I love this hat so much it almost makes up for the fact that our fall weather didn't last very long this year before cold wintery temperatures kicked in. At least I can wear wool every day! I knit this hat from the pattern book "Made in Brooklyn" by Jared Flood. I almost never buy pattern books, but this one has about 4 patterns that I seriously want to knit (or maybe I just want to wear) right this very second. And because they are designed by Jared Flood, I really couldn't resist buying this book - his designs are so elegant and usually involve very little seaming, which is the kind of knitting I love.

This is the Quincy hat, which I knit in Classic Elite Ariosa. It is a super soft blend of merino and cashmere and is pretty bulky, so it knits up really fast. The hat pattern is amazing. You basically just knit a long garter stitch band, twist it, sew the ends together, and then pick up stitches for the top of the hat. Super easy, but brilliant...and I love wearing it. Oh yeah...and did you notice the lack of handknits on my poor cold baby? That is being remedied...stay tuned!