They're by lalylala designs and there's a whole series of them. I'd like to get one of these under my belt before nugget is born so I can hopefully make a whole fleet of them.
Enough of that pie in the sky knitting stuff. Let's get down to brass tacks. I made a trip to Shall We Knit? at the beginning of the month to buy yarn for baby soaker pants, knitted pants, and also to support my hexipuff addiction:
Mostly Sirdar Snuggly (with a Wendy Peter Pan thrown in for colour variation) for some baby pants:
The ol' standby, Cascade 220, for diaper covers:
And a little something pretty for me, some Madeline Tosh Light Unicorn Tails for hexipuffs:
I whipped up my first diaper cover in a couple nights of knitting. This will be an easy and mindless knit to plug away at.
These are Milo Soakers by Kristen Rengren from Vintage Baby Knits. They are knit flat and then sewn at the side seams. Easy peasy, and a very satisfying little knit. I have enough leftover from this green pair to hopefully combine it with another colour for a striped one.
What do you think, blue and red for one and yellow and green for another? I'm trying to keep the colour combinations as baby gender neutral as possible. I chose bright primary colours instead of blah and boring "baby" pastels. One, because they're more fun for me to knit, and two, because they are meant to soak up "liquid", which we all know is not bottled spring water. I can only imagine how disgusting a light-coloured pair of these would be after one wearing. Gross.
I have to hunt around for lanolin to lanolize these puppies. That will be a fun adventure, I'm sure it will be sticky or greasy too. I'll bring you along for the ride when I get to that point.
I also made some baby pants. As of this morning, I bound off that second leg and grafted the crotch hole. I still need to weave in all the ends from my colour changes and stitch on the monster face.
The red mouth on the bum is soon to be a monster face, with eyes and teeth and everything! These are Das Monster by Hronn Jonsdottir, to fit a baby who is 9-18 months. I have no concept of baby sizes, so I will present these to Tam Tam and she can put them on nugget when s/he is the right size for them.
These were a quick knit too, nice and mindless once you got passed the monster mouth. I totally have enough yarn in each colour to make another one. A friend of mine from college just announced that she's expecting a baby in August, and I think she would really love these. She might get a pair too.
Aside from finishing up these projects, I'm getting back in to spinning. The speaker at the Guild meeting on Tuesday was telling us all about natural dyes for yarn, which she happens to use almost exclusively on her own hand spun yarns. When she passed around sample of her yarns, it tickled the spinning itch inside me and I immediately went home and dug out my wheel for a little action.
I haven't touched my wheel in almost two years, ever since we moved and my flyer got knocked against something and a piece of it snapped off. It was still hanging on by a tread, so I very gingerly clued it back in place this week, and it worked like a charm! To be extra safe, I also contacted Gemini Fibres (they're north of Toronto, I've seen them many times at the KW Knitters Fair as a vendor) to ask if a replacement piece can be ordered. My wheel is my mom's, which she purchased in the 80's. It's an Ashford wheel, but the ones Ashford sells now aren't a perfect match (the closest one looks to be the Ashford Traveller). I sent a picture of my flyer to the kind folks at Gemini and told them all I know so they can hopefully make a recommendation.
In the meantime, I spun some yarn yesterday! I took a 50g hank of roving that I bought on a knitting field trip years ago and finally turned it into something.
I spun it, plied it, niddy noddy'ed it, washed it, and hung it to dry (weighted down by a Star Wars coffee mug).
Isn't it pretty!?!?
I think this may get turned into some delicate and pretty fingerless mitts for Tam Tam. She loves pink more than life itself.
And also while I was at the Guild meeting, I borrowed a book for my next project. Doesn't everyone need a knitted cat? Spoiler: these may or may not be your Christmas gift from me.
Did you know yesterday was Pi Day? I made butter tarts to celebrate. You better hurry up and ask for one, they're getting all cold and eaten.
