Pumpkin socks

fun little weekend knits

Project Pumpkin Pants

It started out as a skein of plain Aryan wool. I poured a dash of vinegar into the bathroom sink, then added orange flavored kool-aid (1 packet unsweetened) and enough water to cover the whole skein. It resulted in a very pale orange yarn. Then I repeated the process using 1 packet of black cherry flavored kool-aid, and this helped to darken the orange a bit more.  After it dried I had a nice variegated peachy orange color.    And now we have a new pair of longies for the baby.   The longies are knit in the round from the top down. The body of the pants were knit on circular needles, and then the legs were knit on double point needles.

Lime for the fall

 Just finished knitting this last night and got the dress sewn up this afternoon.

The sleeves should shrink up a bit after it's washed, but they are a bit longer then I'd intended. Oh well...

I'm not even going to bother with a headband...she won't wear them anyhow.

Two down, one to go

I didn't think I'd have enough fabric, but I've got a plan to eek out one more dress from this lot, so that my three girls will have matching dresses. It would have been nice if I'd finished this at the begining of Spring....but before fall will be fantastic too!

The goal now, is to finish the third dress someone's birthday at the end of this month. "just keep knitting, just keep knitting...knitting, knitting..."

Here's the second dress.

It's been a long time

...but I managed to finish a dress for my littlest girl. I've cast another dress top onto the knitting needles...and hope to have that one done in a month.

As I sat down to sew, I realized I hadn't really put my sewing corner into order. I usually require four large push pins to anchor the skirt to the bodice. I couldn't find the stuffed animal, a green Loch Ness Monster toy I got years ago on a trip to Scotland, which I now use as a pin cushion. But luckily, the former owner of this home left behind a sewing machine inside a table, along with all their sewing things. So I used her little pin cushion and her teeny tiny pins. They did the trick, but I was sure glad to find Nessie later, because larger pins work best.

At least someone is knitting

A month ago I had to...scoff with me for a minute...buy a couple dresses for my baby, because she had grown out of most of her clothes and I hadn't found time to make some for her. A few days ago I cast on a dress top. I plan to make it into a V-neck with cap sleeves to go with some peach floral fabric in my stash.

I used to be able to crank these out in a few days...a week tops! What's happened to me? You can see why it took me over ten minutes to complete a single row this afternoon (as I sat in the car awaiting the older kids to be done with their class). This child is very hands on and HAS to touch everything she sees!

These days go by so quickly, so I'm not sad at all that I haven't much time to knit.

Another New dress

Inspired by some of the things I tried with the baptismal dress, I made a new dress for my oldest daughter...who has nearly grown out of all the dresses I've made for her. She's pretty tall and slender, so I needed to try something different. This is a mock turtle neck top with 3/4 length sleeves. I added cuff ruffles, a seed stitch texture, and a eyelet pattern to allow me to insert the decorative ribbon on the bodice. You're looking at nearly three months of work here, over three skeins of yarn, a spool of ribbon, and two yards of fabric. But I'm much happier with how this "big girl" dress turned out than any other I've ever tried before. Hopefully, the dresses will just keep getting better and better. Already I have ideas of what I can do to improve next time.

Baby's Alpaca Sweater

I started this about 20 days ago...that's a long time for me...and long time in the life of a quickly growing baby. But it's still big enough for my little one.

The yarn came from an impulsive purchase at a local shop. It's 100% alpaca wool, and just looked so chocolate and pinkilicious! I had to make my princess something girly with this.

Pouch Sling

I thought I really needed one of these... and I love how it turned out. However, the baby has not let me put her into it (without crying) so it's failed to gain her approval.

This pouch is double layered with cotton sateen fabric, and wool flannel. I thought it would be great for winter time baby wearing. Oh well.

Old project, new model

This sweater finally has a model to fit it. The wool longies I made four years ago for her sister and I'm glad I hung onto them. Not terribly girly, but it's warm and cozy!

Recycle that sweater

I realized that my girls did not have many pants today...because it got really cold at my house today. Yeah! Bring out the wool and heavy blankets, hot coco, wool lined slippers.

I turned my husbands discarded sweater into a pair of sweater pants for one girl and had enough left over to make a skirt and matching hat for the other girl.

I found really good instructions for making pants like this at:

www.greenkitchen.com/blog/2008/09/sweater-sleeve-kid-pants-tutorial.html

However, I must confess I made my pants before finding this site.

Fancy Nancy Dress

This dress was finished a while ago and was her birthday present. Yesterday, the girls came down stairs and had dolled all up. So I decided it was a serendipitous time to get a photo of this dress...as I'd not yet done so.

My eldest girl delighted in helping to stage the props and model's accessories. Thanks to our new greener surroundings, we got some quaint shots...and I love not having to incorporate rocks into my pictures anymore.

While it wasn't my intension per say, I realized this dress looks something like a dress you might see in the Fancy Nancy stories. It's just full of tacky frills.

Say it ain't so!

I got this far...nearly finished with this dress top before I realized that the sleeve lengths were not symmetrical. I had failed to cast on 10 stitches in one of the sleeves (a little over an inch difference)...and continued working all the way up and over the neck, and completed the sleeves before I realized that one sleeve was shorter than the other. UGH! There's no way to fix this other than to tear it out and start over.

A couple weeks ago I had a gal contact me looking to get me to make her a couple dresses. I turned down the order because of all I've go going right now. But, after this little debacle I'm more glad I didn't take on any paying customers right now, because I could only afford to make this severe of a mistake with my own kid's clothes. I'd be so much more devastated if I'd just had to tear out a week's worth of work for a waiting customer.

Which brings me to confess the real heart of why I've been shying away from custom orders this past year...I can't take the stress. I'd much rather just make a dress and find it a good home then try and create on demand. It's so much easier that way...though I do realize I might end up with an incredibly adorable dress that nobody wants that way. My little stash of pre-made dresses usually wind up as gifts, eventually.

Baptism Gown

There you have it...all done.

Teach your children well

Each of my children spent some time having knitting lessons as part of their art program last year. It would be such a shame if I am unable to pass along the knitting skills I've achieved to my own children. Lately, though only my youngest is interested in continuing her studies under my instruction. Today, she crawled into my lap and insisted she wanted to "do some knitting." She tossed the yarn over each stitch for me for about 3/4 of a round before she was satisfied that she's practiced sufficiently. Sure, it slows my progress down a bit, but I'm more than happy to let her help one the easy rows (which require only the knit stitch anyhow).

Right now I'm working on a very special project for our new baby. I'll only give you an in-side-out preview of my work thus far. I'm working on the skirt utilizing some lace and cable patterns.

After that...

I decided to just make an ugly side seam. Though when you flip it on the fleece side, it doesn't really look all that bad, given the nature of fleece.

And while it's not entirely prefect, this car seat cover is done and our car seat is ready for use again.

Okay...now what

I need to have my infant car seat ready for midwife inspection this week. I noticed our roundabout cover was a bit shabby and decided I'd try and make a new one. So I sketched a pattern out and have gotten this far. I'd intended to make this a reversible cover (print on one side, fleece on the other). However, I'm not sure how to make the edges smooth on both sides. So it might turn out one side is pretty and the other isn't so nice...unless I can think of something else.

On the brink of trying something new

I'm deviating from my original plan with this knit...all of a sudden I was hit with the inspiration to try something new with the sleeves of this dress. This is another birthday present for my soon-to-be four year old.

Merino Angora Sweater

This sweater is hand knit from yarn I spun myself. It's the first fruits of my first fleece purchase...which I bought, washed, carded, and processed almost a year ago. I've not finished the spinning of the entire fleece, but I'm very tempted to drag out the wool box today and do a bit of spinning so I can work with more yarn. Then again, I'm a realist and I don't think I quite have time for spinning right now. So just admiring the fruits of my hard work might have to suffice for today.

This little girls is getting this sweater for her birthday in a couple weeks. It's not a surprise, but she's very happy with the turn out non-the-less.

Most importantly, "it's not an itchy sweater...it's a soft sweater." Praise the Lord!

How I find time to get my work done

Set a good example of what diligent working should look like and the kids will hopefully follow suit.

So here I am knitting while one child works on phonics and the other works on math.

And I'm getting to knit! Win, win for everyone!