Me and my Stella

Last evening Chris and I braved the sweltering heat to take some FO shots of my recently finished Nanook. It was almost 30 degrees out there and I'm parading around in jeans and a cashmere blend sweater. The crazy things we do for knitting! 

At the end of our shoot Chris snapped a few close ups of me and Stella, and they just might be the best shots he's ever taken of us. Look at how bright her big brown eyes are! I love these. 

Nanook FO post coming son! 

Frisbee

Since my knitting didn't seem to be particularly cooperative this week we decided that an evening of playing frisbee was in order. 

It's hard to say who had more fun, both Stella and Chris were completely tuckered out by the end of it. 

Hope you're having a great weekend!

Pretty New Toys

While shopping for my *almost here* new niece or nephew I spotted a very cool toy. It's more of a pretty objext than a toy, though maybe it's really fun for babies to play with, for me, it's just really fun to look at!

Just a bunch of beautifully colourful wooden balls on a string. I've been admiring it all week. It's such a nice change from all the loud plastic toys I've been seeing. So simple. 

Ever since we brought Stella home with us I've kept my eyes open for whippet paraphernalia. I don't plan on having whippet art and whippet statues all over the house, but one nice whippet bookend does the job nicely. It's been very hard to find just the right thing, greyhound stuff is easier to come across, but finding something that was as soft and pretty as Stella has been tough. This guy is definitely more muscular than our petite girl, but he's still pretty. :)

I love my new Stella bookend. 

Sheep! and Oh Stella...

I've admired this Sheep Yoke Cardigan pattern for a while now and the other day, while routing around in my non-TFA stash I stumbled upon the perfect yarn for this project. I'm not sure why I initially bought this bag of Dale of Norway Falk yarn, but I have a few skeins of grey and several contrasting pastels, including blue, green and yellow, a perfect match for this pattern! It feels so good to use up stash yarn! My non-TFA stash isn't huge, I've given away most of what I don't love. My stash doesn't weigh on me very heavily (I know that some knitters have major stash anxiety! I get it, but I don't have it) nevertheless I'm still happy to put a few skeins of languishing yarn to good use. I have enough of all of these colours left to make a second cardigan, and I think that someday I just might. 

I used 2 strands of a mystery mohair yarn that I also found tucked away in the stash to knit the sheep, the extra fuzziness just makes me so happy! I rarely add embroidery to my knits, I have a vague recollection of having embroidered a stem onto an apple on a baby cardigan years ago... But after embroidering the faces and feet onto these sheep I'm a total convert. This sweater went from "oh, sweet" (above) to "OMG s h e e p !!! This is the cutest thing I've ever seen!" with the addition of the embroidery (below). 

This sweater is probably somewhere in the size 6 months range, I think I'm going to stash it away and save it for my brothers baby who is due in July and will be roughly the right size around Christmas. 

Remember this wee little number I knit last year?

It was a sample knit of my Sunnyside Baby Cardigan that I knit in the Moss colourway that has since been discontinued. Since I can't use it as a sample anymore I washed and re-blocked it, thinking that I'd probably give it to my brother (he's going to have one very well knitted-for baby!) After a soak I lay the sweater down in my office in front of the baseboard heater to dry, and of course of all places to park her behind Stella chose to sit squarely on top of the sweater to gaze out the window. Picture me walking into the room, seeing her sitting there and sighing: "Oh Stella..."  

Silly fun

Chris and I were working hard trying to get a few FO shots of some of my recent projects. Things were getting a little too serious, luckily Stella was there to lighten the mood. Honestly, I think that these are probably some of the best shots of the day, too bad you can't see the FO! I've got to find a way to work her into my photographs more, she really helps me to relax and act natural. 

More details on the FO's coming soon!

Stella's Dino Wee Balaclava!

I was so inspired by the TFA Tuesday post featuring Pauline's awesome Dino Wee Balaclava that I went ahead and cast on for my own version and used her great notes to add the dino spikes. Though Stella makes an awesome model, this hat is actually a gift for my little cousin. 

I knit mine in Olive with Lemongrass spikes and it definitely looks very dinosaury to me, perfect for a 3 year old boy. 

Am I the only one who finds these photo's of Stella absolutely hilarious!? She's so used to wearing sweaters in the cooler months that she wasn't phased in the least when I put this balaclava on her. She totally cracks me up. She makes my day. 

My dog is my BFF

In the town near my cottage there is a really cool second hand clothing store that can be a lot of fun to visit on rainy days. My cousin is a pro at finding rare gems in the bins of clothing. She seems to have passed on her gift for thrift to her daughter, because this summer 5 year old Abby found not one, but TWO t-shirts that proudly have written across the front: My dog is my BFF! I love it! I wish I had a shirt that said that. 

But since I don't, I'll settle for a matching handspun dog sweater/hat combo. ;)

Stella hasn't gotten a new sweater since I knit her a beautiful cabled aran for our engagement photo-shoot almost two years ago. Amazingly, that sweater still looks terrific. Even though its been covered in mud and thrown into the washer and dryer many, many times the Green Label Aran weight yarn really holds up! She was even sprayed by a skunk in that sweater... Thank goodness the smell washed out.

Her fall 2011 sweater was knit using one skein of Green Label in Midnight, and one giant skein of hanspun. I used the leftover of both yarns to make myself the matching hat (using Grammy's pattern of course).  Now we're totally ready for the cool fall weather.

Ravelry project page here.