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At the beginning of December good friends of ours welcomed their second baby girl to the family. With the total insanity that was my “4th Quarter” (look at me using the business lingo….) my personal work and gifts really suffered. (As a side note, I plan on doing all of my Christmas stuff in August this year and not committing to getting anything other than work done from Oct-Dec. That should work, right?) So sadly I didn’t get their gift finished until the middle of January. Luckily they are lovely people and were very understanding.

I love baby sweaters, but I always worry that babies grow so quickly and thus don’t get much wear out of them. So I decided to make a little baby shrug instead, figuring that would fit for at least a year or so.

shrug 3

Sorry, no modeled shot. There are some really cute ones on the Ravelry link though!
Pattern: Victorian Lace Baby Shrug
Yarn: Skacel HiKoo in 009
Needles: US 5

I really liked the little lace pattern on this one.

shrug 1

It was challenging enough to be interesting but easy enough to memorize after a repeat or two.

The yarn is amazing to work with, and perfect for baby stuff. Really soft, but not pilly at all.

I also wanted to make baby N a quilt, as I had made one for her sister and it got tons of use (thanks J and M for that by the way – I love seeing things I have made get USED!)

babyquilt 1

babyquilt 2babyquilt 3

I roughly used this tutorial, but I added a large border as I just didn’t feel like it was large enough.

I used two small charm packs for this one (of course I have already managed to forget what line of fabric they were from, duh) and kona ash for the sashing. The border and backing are both from Hope Valley, and the binding is a DS for Joanns. I used my new favourite quilting pattern on this one, called Signature.

 

I hope that baby N enjoys both the quilt and the shrug! Although realistically, she is not likely to remember the shrug. Congrats again J and M!

For my local friends and customers, I will be out at Mosaic Yarn Shop (Roanoke) tomorrow night for their knit night, with all my goodies in tow! The trunk show will run from 5pm-8pm, and there will be snacks and tons of knitting. I will have my rolls, box bags, tote bags and needle hangers there for your perusal. If there is anything else you would like to have a look at please let me know and I will bring it!

Deets:

What: KSC Designs Trunk Show
Where: Mosaic Yarn Shop, Roanoke Location, 3117 Franklin Road, Piccadilly Square
When: 5pm- 8pm
Contact: You can call the shop at 540-685-2285

Hope to see you there!

Of the yarn variety only. No surprises here! My friends A + B will be welcoming a little boy into the world in the next few weeks, so I decided to knit up a little present for them. When I was at TNNA earlier this year I met Cid Hanscom at the Skacel booth when she was signing her book – Purl the Little Knit Girl. Of course I fell in love with how adorable the whole thing is. You knit the little doll, an outfit for the doll, a home for the doll and a hat for the baby. Genius! I picked up some yarn from my LYS and got to work knitting up a little boy version.

Is that not the cutest pattern ever? And you know what? The actually pattern is BRILLIANT. It is so well written, the shaping is amazing (seriously, there were points when I just had to trust Cid because I had no idea what was going to come of some of the directions) and the finishing instructions are perfect too. I mean, he has a nose! And ears! And eyebrows! And a belly button for goodness sake!

And of course, bum cheeks (with rouge!)

The absolute killer for me though was the thumbs. Thumbs people!

Dying. Once the wee doll was knit up, I started in on his little pea outfit.

A perfectly shaped little hat and jumper. I think I might have squeaked when I finished it. After the outfit came his little felted home.

Oh hi there! I almost kept him for myself. I really did. I might have to knit myself a little studio mascot or something.

Once all the doll parts were finish, I made a baby hat to go with it. The one that came with the book was sort of a hood, which I knew would not be mama’s style, so I went with the good old standby umbilical cord hat.

I am glad I can finally blog/IG about this one, because I so wanted to do it while I was working on it. But now that the gift has been given, blog it is.

Good luck A+B, I know you guys are going to be wonderful parents!

I have to say that my knitting has slowed down significantly this summer. I have just had so many sewing/weaving/cross stitch/house projects on the go that it has just been put on the back burner a bit. But with the cooler weather starting to show it’s face, with lovely evenings and cool damp mornings, I am getting ready to pick up my needles again. It had been a while since I had updated my Knits page, but that is all done now. I do keep my Ravelry page pretty well up to date, but for some reason I often forget to post on the blog.

While I have been slower on the knitting, I did get bit by the shawl bug this summer. The first one I completed was a Travelling Woman shawl.

It’s done in my first ball of Madelinetosh yarn (sock), in the seawash colourway. It is quite wearable and saw some use earlier in the summer. Before it was 8 million degrees every. day.

I found the perfect pair of earrings to match, which was a bonus. :)

The other shawl I finished was a basic Sunlight Shawl out of my first ball of Socks that Rock (gifted to me by a lovely friend). This one didn’t stay in my possession though, it went off to my bff missbedora.

The colour just reminded me of her the whole time I was knitting it. And I thought she could use some sunlight (even though the colour is the total opposite of sunlight).

The last shawl is one that is currently in progress – Piper’s Journey. It was supposed to be a Ravellenic Games entry, but with traveling most of the 16 days the games were on I didn’t get it finished. But I am ready to pick it up again, and it shouldn’t take long to finish. It’s good to use up some long marinating stash on this one – and of course 100% silk is pretty nice to work with.

So that’s where I am in the knitting front. Has anyone else been doing shawls this summer? Or one particular type of project?

I went on a bit of a knitting spree a couple of weeks ago, and I needed something simple to knit while we traveled to Charlotte for the weekend. I had this great cashmere blend in the stash that I knew needed to be around my neck. I didn’t have a lot of yarn though, so I picked out a cowl pattern.

Pattern: Thermis
Yarn: Filatura Di Crosa Tweedy Cashmere
Needles: US 7

My gauge was a little bigger than the pattern called for, so I got somewhere between the small and large size. It was a simple, well written pattern that was perfect for a car ride.

It’s too bad this yarn is discontinued. It is really soft, but not pilly at all (at least not yet) and it was easy to work with. There is a small seam on the inside where the button band is, and the yarn didn’t pull apart or fray. I am guessing it was probably discontinued due to price. I think the little 50g ball had an $11 tag on it. I bought it from a friend, so it was much more cost effective.

Another scarf/cowl/neck item to add to the ever growing pile. I have been using a sweater cubby like this one to hold them all, and I am starting to outgrow it. I think I have a problem.