Little Cardigan for Little Miss

Now that our little girl is here (born August 30!), I can finally put some of my recent tiny knits into the laundry rotation. This cardigan, Vertebrae, is almost shrug-like in the sense that it wraps the arms and back but leaves the front of the chest open. I think the design is ingenious because when my daughter spits up, only her onesie is in the line of fire.

This was the newborn size, but my gauge was off a little and I still only used one skein of sock yarn. This gorgeous orange-pink-red is Knit Picks self-striping yarn, Felici, which is released in limited-time colorways. This colorway, Matador, had been sitting in my stash for about two years. I love having a little sweater for my daughter that isn't cotton candy pink.

It's a Wrap

I've been working on smaller projects lately, things that don't get too hot on my lap in this ridiculous weather and don't take too long so I'll be ready for the Ravellenic Games, which begin July 27th. 

I finished this triangular shawl a few weeks ago. It's the Kumara Wrap, a free pattern from Classic Elite yarns. I used two skeins of Cascade 220 Superwash. It blocked very well, and the shawl is squishy 1x1 rib. The fringe took a while but was very worth the effort. I really like this shawl, but I have a friend who just is this color blue, so I may gift it away.

Another free pattern, Grayson, used less than one skein in each color of Palette, which is a nice fingering-weight wool that comes in a staggering number of colorways. It uses a very ingenious method of casting on stitches at the edge (where the yellow is later knit), thus making it completely unnecessary to pick up stitches to knit the border. I'm not entirely in love with the yellow. I think a darker yellow, one with more brown or orange in it, would have looked more harmonious.

When working the stripes, I always brought the new color under the old color, and this made a very neat little spiral/spine up the edge of the knitting: very tidy looking!

Currently on the needles is another shawl, Quaking Aspen. . . 

Chroma Chroma

When I saw the pattern for the Chroma Stocking Cap on Ravelry, I knew I would knit it. Furthermore, I knew I would knit it in Knit Picks Chroma. And, because I'm cheap, I knew I would knit it in whichever colors were on sale. 

So, here it is: Chroma in Pool Party (blue-green-yellow) and North Woods (green-yellow-orange-brown). Because both colorways rely heavily on a blueish green and a greenish yellow, I had to do a little "editing." If both skeins were coming up on the same color at the same time, I snipped out the offending color from one skein and rejoined my yarn.

This was a very well-written pattern with a good tutorial for jogless stripes. My only modifications were using a tubular cast-on method (beautiful!) and adding a tassel, because this hat was just begging to have one. Also, it was a great way to use up some of the yarn that I cut out earlier to make more eye-pleasing stripes.

Thick Stripes Cowl

Four skeins of clearance-priced Lion Brand Alpine Wool somehow jumped into my basket about six months ago. I thought about knitting hats and mittens with them, but during a Christmas-shopping trip I saw some great chunky, soft cowls and decided to see just how far those four skeins would take me:

This was super simple to knit, and made me especially glad that I had bought a 40-inch cable for my interchangeable needle set. More details on my Ravelry project page.

Little Mustard Seed

A friend of mine from my brief stint as a middle-school teacher is having her first baby in September. She and her husband decided to keep the gender a surprise, which I would never be able to do, so I decided to knit her a sweater in gender-neutral Golden Heather and Marshmallow Simply Cotton. I really like this yarn, particularly the worsted weight, because it's organic, machine wash- and dryable, and softer than your average cotton yarn. It does lose about 10% of length after machine washing and drying, by my estimates, but as long as you take that into account when knitting. . . no problem!

The pattern is Little Coffee Bean, yet another wonderful free download available from a Raveler. I really liked the pattern: clear, well written, and very easy for an intermediate to experienced knitter. If I was knitting this specifically for a boy, though, I would swap out the yarnover increases for M1L and M1R increases that didn't produce eyelets.

This just might be my new go-to baby gift pattern, since it only took 200 grams of worsted weight.

Striped Raglan Sweater

I've spent the last three weeks knitting a sweater for my 2-year-old. Due to his age and proclivity for messes, and my general dislike of handwashing, I used a superwash DK wool. I had a little bit of dark green left over from my ice cream cozy, so I added some stripes to keep it interesting. It's a percentage sweater. I used Elizabeth Zimmermann's wonderful book, Knitting Without Tears, and tried a tubular bind-off method for the first time. I can't say enough about the percentage method: you get exactly the sweater you want, and as EZ promises, you get it without shedding any tears.