Blank Canvas Baby Sweater

Thank you so much to everyone who left me feedback about what they'd like to see on the blog. I think that the general consensus is that I should blog about whatever I feel like sharing, and that definitely works for me! It will certainly remain mostly knitting, because that's what I spend the most time on, but I'll feel better blogging a bit more randomly knowing that you guys support me!

Have I mentioned that my inner circle of friends and family is experiencing a serious baby boom? Five of my nearest and dearest are expecting their first bundles of joy in the coming months (including my very own brother!!! First baby in the family, we're so excited!) So, obviously, I've been doing my part to make sure that these babies all come into the world with no shortage of wooly wardrobe options! I've been knitting baby gear like crazy, and I'm loving it. I've said it before and I'll say it again, knitting for babies ranks very high on my list of favorite types of knitting. The projects are usually so quick and so adorable! I've completed several baby knits that I haven't been able to blog about yet because the recipients haven't received them yet. 

This is a little number I've been working on that I'm calling the "Blank Canvas Baby Sweater". The construction is based on a favorite little sweater that my mom had for my siblings and I when we were infants. It's a simple tube up to the armholes, then continues straight up for the front and back. The neckline is left wide open so it fits easily over giant baby heads and fastens shut with buttons (or leave it  un-fastened if your baby favours a boatneck look.) This pattern is such a simple shape that it got me thinking about how cute it would look with some fancy colourwork. I've cast on for a second Blank Canvas sweater, this time using a 4 seasons hat kit! I'm working on the sleeve now and I should have this one finished very soon. I can't wait to block this guy, blocking colourwork makes all the difference in the world!

I got so excited about how great this project is for using up leftover fingering weight yarn that even though I'm not finished my Spring sweater yet, I immediately dove into the stash and picked out a sweet palette of pastels to start on a third sweater right away. This one will be simple stripes again. Two of the colourways I'm using (the one that I've cast on with and the pastel rainbow ball in the center back) are so old that I think I dyed them with kool-aid when I first started experimenting with dyeing. Crazy! 

I have no idea who I'm going to give these sweaters to, I have no shortage of possible recipients! For now, I'll just keep knitting baby items and pick recipients later. 

Oh! Have you all popped over to Julie's blog to enter the giveaway? There are 2 skeins of TFA Yellow Label DK up for grabs! You've got until midnight tonight to enter.

Have a great weekend!

Lilia's Christmas knits

I have a reputation for giving my poor little sister Lilia terrible Christmas gifts. I always mean well, but somehow I've managed to give her a weird IOU gift on more than one occasion. I think that the worst offense was the year that I wrapped up a pair of my mom's old jeans and gave them to her along with an IOU to turn the jeans into a purse. The worst part is that I never did end up making her that purse, so mom jeans were all that 13 year old Lilia got from me that year. We laugh about it a lot now, but she certainly didn't think that it was funny at the time. 

As I was wrapping up her gift this year (well, last year I guess, Christmas 2011) I worried that I had fallen into the same old trap. I gave her a Windward Slouch (which I new she would like) a pair of Grammy's mitts that coordinated with the hat (which I also knew she would like) and this is the part that could have gotten me in hot water... I gave her a custom Dipped Infinity Scarf kit that worked with both the hat and the mitts. I know, you're all thinking I'm crazy because a scarf kit is an awesome gift, but considering our history and how badly received gifts that require assembly usually are, I had reason to doubt it. I knew that she would like the colours and the scarf, but worried that maybe she would have preferred to receive a finished scarf rather than just the supplies to make one herself.  Luckily for us all, she loved it. She's a very good knitter, but doesn't have as much free knitting time as I do (she's in med school, she's a very busy girl). She cast on for the scarf on Christmas and was finished before the end of the holidays. Phew! She's been wearing her full set of winter accessories ever since and looks fantastic!

Colours (view them all here)

Hat: teal.

Mitts: teal, seabreeze, lemongrass.

Scarf: teal, midnight, deep sea, peacock, seabreeze, spearmint, lemongrass, buttercup.

So, I know what you're all thinking: "It's Tuesday! Where's TFA Tuesday?" well, I'm giving it a break for a while (again!). There are certainly no shortage of awesome knits in TFA yarns, and you can peruse to your heart's content over on Ravelry. But I need to reclaim my Tuesdays. I know it seems selfish, but sometimes I have other things that I want to blog about, but I can't because I have to stick to the "schedule", which is silly. I love blogging, and when I started, it wasn't exclusively for TFA, it was just my little space where I shared the fun, crafty, colourful things that I felt like sharing. I don't like feeling like I have to blog certain things on certain days, I like freedom.

Having said that, is there anything that you guys would love to see on my blog that I'm not sharing? More posts, less posts, more WIP's, more behind the scenes, more colours, less knitting/more life... I'd love to know what you think.

ps: Happy Valentine's day!

Tulips

Chris does all the grocery shopping. When I do it I always spend way more money then necessary and come home with all kinds of stuff that we don't need. Pretty stuff, silly stuff, mostly treats and snacks, I have no self control. Case in point, yesterday I popped out to buy the fixin's for a caesar salad and came home with a pre-valentine's day gift to myself. This little bouquet of tulips. So simple, so pretty. My coffee table is perpetually overflowing with knitting paraphernalia, books, magazines, patterns, notions, wip's, needles... it's a mess. These lovely tulips help to distract from the chaos! 

Gold

So, I'm kind of confused. All my life I went about my business thinking that my favorite colour was blue and pretty high up on my list of least favorite colours was yellow. I don't hate yellow, I love how it looks paired with blue! But it's definitely not a colour that I'm drawn to or typically chose for myself. So how have I managed to amass such a collection of knits done in Gold? Gold is in the yellow family right? And I love it. I would even say that I'm drawn to it. When selecting a colourway for a new project Gold often ends up right at the top of my list of good options... I think it all started last fall when I bought a new pair of shoes, one thing led to another and the next thing I knew, I was a yellow person!

Strada Headband & a question

I test knit Julie's Strada Headband pattern, and clearly this is the worlds cutest headband. I'm crazy for the bow! It's just such a perfect, quintessential bow shape. The next time I need a bow to adorn a project (and I'm starting to think that it's a mistake that more of my projects don't have bows) I'm going to be using this pattern. 

I knit mine with just under half a skein of TFA Yellow Label DK Weight yarn in the Atlantic colourway. This was a really quick and effective knit, great for leftover yarn and the perfect knitted gift. Yay Julie!

Ravelry project page here.

On another note, I spent an afternoon dyeing one of a kind colourways for the Etsy shop last week. Most were snatched up over the weekend, but there are still a few of my personal faves available. 

What yarn weight/bases are you guys mostly looking for in the One of a Kind Etsy shop? A little bit of everything? Mostly sock yarns? Sweater quantities of Aran and DK? I really enjoyed my afternoon of dyeing without any rules and plan on doing it more often, but I'd love to hear what you all think!

January TFA KAL Wrap Up: The Final FOs!

6 different groups. 94 participants. 54 FOs before midnight on January 31st. It was an amazing month filled with gorgeous projects and really inspiring knitting and crochet! Here are some of the FOs:

Highlanddancer's Mariette Shawl:                                                  pipperdo's Autumn Sunset:

janineny2001's Silk Dove shawl:                                           Peanutshell's Fiddlehead Mittens:

 Tashabear's Malachite Butterfly socks:         ekd's Seabreeze and Jewel Jane cardigans:
 kpolland's Asteroidea hat:                                               ocean1120's Meret Beret:

pfong001's Julissa pullover and Autumn Four Seasons Hat:

MeadowyRavine's Sunnyside Cardigan:                           sleepyinsomniac's My Vampire Boyfriend Socks:

mdcim's What About Bloom in Blue hat:      hotcheese's Blathnat socks:

danimily's Atlantic Pembroke:                                        Elfsknitting's  Savannah Hats:

CarlaBeeCreation's First Sweater, Canadian Royals, January 1st Cowl:


susara's January Frost and Asteroidea:

moonjumper's Olive Tabby: debbieknits5000's Wispi:

ireneta's January Passion and Fallberry mitts:

tmr714's Sweetheart Socks:                      GreenBeanString's Aquarium Pomatomus socks:

nittenpurlin's Stormy Cable Cardi:                               Rosehiver's Water for the Elephant socks:

Huntersma's Cabled Canuck:                                      Viki's 2012 Mystery Socks:

letstry's Royal Rock Island :                       haynescd's Autumn Hat:


BlueberryHill's Midnight Evening Cardigan:

Thanks everyone for a really fun KAL!! It was so amazing seeing everyone's knits in progress and amazing FOs. You guys rock!

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!

Club - January 2012

The 2012 edition of the TFA Year in Colour Club has officially launched! The first installment of Club kits have all gone out and (I think) all been received! We have a lot more members this year then last, but I managed to get all the kits out on schedule thanks to lots of help from mom. We kicked off the year with something a little bit different for me, a brown colourway I've called Truffle. I think that most people associate TFA with bright colours, lots of blue, so doing something a bit more subdued and earthy hopefully surprised (and delighted!) a few members. Don't worry, there will surely be some brights and probably even a blue colourway sent out sometime this year, but for January, I chose to do something different. 

The accompanying pattern, designed by Hannah Fettig, is the Flying in Formation scarf. Simple and beautiful with a nice dose of texture, exactly what we've come to expect from Hannah. This first shipment also included a bonus tote bag which I'm quite excited about. I'll share a photo in a separate blog post, today it's all about the yarn and pattern!

This photo doesn't quite capture the true colour of the skein, it's darker and more purple/less red in real life.

It's not too late to sign up for the Club! Sign up now and receive your January Club kit with the next shipment in March. 

Stripes

For a while now I've had this idea for a little layering piece I'd like to knit. I had been planning on doing it in a solid, but then I got the urge to cast on immediately, didn't have enough of the colourway I wanted in stock and would have to dye more. Because I'm impatient and couldn't wait for the yarn to be dyed and dried before casting on, and since this whole thing happened hot off of the heels of my new awesome srappy socks, I decided to do it in stripes! This time I was more deliberate with my choice of colours. I still tried to keep it random-ish, but also balanced.

The thing that I always find when knitting gorgeous stripes like this is that the wrong side of the fabric looks just as good as the right side. I'm always tempted to throw a wrench into the whole operation and go ahead and call the inside the outside. This time I actually did it! FO photo's coming soon, as well as the pattern for this "little layering number". I'm obsessed.