Grey and Black Baby Hat

I've held off on sharing this little project because it was a gift, but now that it's been given to the new parents I can share this cute grey and black baby hat!

I had some odd amounts of grey and black yarn in my stash, and I've discovered that baby projects are the best way to use up those small leftovers! I borrowed the book 60 Quick Baby Knits from the library, and used one of the patterns to make this hat. It's made from yarn that I'm 90% sure is wool, though I lost the wrapper to it ages ago.

This is actually my first project doing circular knitting. My awesome in-laws got me a nice new set of knitting needles for Chanukah, so I've been experimenting with trying out new techniques. I'm a little hooked on circular knitting though, so there will likely be more little hats in my future!

Knitted Baby Blanket

One of my BFFs from childhood (we can never remember exactly when we met, we've been like sisters for that long!) recently had an adorable baby boy. When she got pregnant, I started knitting this blanket, but as always I underestimated how long it would take me to finish the project and baby was born before I was done. BUT I finally had it done in time to meet him for the first time, so I think it's still a win! Here's the finished product:

The pattern is from Bernat, the "Knit Blanket" you'll find on their Baby Coordinates yarn. It was a fairly simple repeating pattern, and I made it a little different by using two colors of yarn in varying stripe widths rather than single color like it was in the pattern. It's a bigger baby blanket, so baby will be able to use it well into childhood.

Since this project was so big, I'm not doing as many handmade holiday gifts as I often do. What handmade gifts are you working on now?

Rocket Ship Baby Gifts

Last weekend I went to a friend's baby shower. Since both she and her husband are aerospace engineers, when I found this adorable rocket ship fabric I knew I had to make something special for their baby with it! Here are all of the baby items I made with it:

The trickiest was the bib, since I made that from scratch, while the other gifts were just embellished. I used the rocket ship fabric for the back, and some sturdy upcycled denim for the front -- with a rocket sunburst embellishment of course!

The onesies were fairly simple -- I just bought a pack of white onesies and used iron on paper to get the rocket ship and star on. Since my iron on paper is pretty old, I did have to do some stitching around the edges of each piece so that it will hold up. I like how it looks with the red stitching, but I'm glad I started with the iron on paper since that made it much easier than a million pins!

One of the easiest ways to personalize a baby present without going crazy is by adding a strip of fabric to a receiving blanket. I couldn't find plain white ones at Target, and wasn't willing to drive all over just for a simple receiving blanket, but I thought these light blue stripes would look nice with the space fabric. They also made it easy for me to make sure I was stitching in straight lines!

To add the strip of fabric, I measured a piece 3.5 inches wide, and 2 inches longer than the blanket. This gave me room to tuck the raw ends inside and have a clean look.

I pinned the strip, right side down, to the blanket following the lines that were already there. Then I sewed it on, and ironed it right side out. I then ironed the ends and the top hem in, so I could topstich those.

I went back over all of the edges with a decorative stitch to jazz it all up. In all, I'd say this blanket project only took about 20 minutes from start to finish.

And I still have some more rocket ship fabric left -- I wonder what the rest will become?

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Felt Fruit - Handmade Holiday Gifts

Sean's family has quite a few kids, and we always like to get each kid a small gift for Christmas. This year, in keeping with my goal of handmade gifts, I sewed a bunch of felt fruit for the two toddlers.

I made up bananas, lemons, apples and watermelon slices (one for each kid). I also made a carry sack, which served as both a gift bag and as a place to put away their play food.

I used a pattern from McCall's (this one) so I can't take credit for the fruit design. I will say that, while the watermelon and banana were fairly simple, the lemon and apple didn't turn out quite how I hoped. The pattern talked about adding floral wire stems though, something I didn't want to do for toddlers, so maybe that's part of the problem. Oh well, I still think it was a success, and I do look forward to making more for the next little one in the family!

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TARDIS Scarf - Handmade Holiday Gifts

I already shared the simple Sharks scarf that I made for Sean's sister Sarah. Today I want to show you the Doctor Who TARDIS scarf that I made for his sister Amber.

I wanted to do a classy tone-on-tone TARDIS pattern. I didn't find anything that was what I wanted online, so I used graph paper to figure out the pattern myself. Then I did a sample in some scrap yarn to make sure my pattern worked the way I wanted it to...

And then I finally started the actual scarf in some lovely blue yarn! I went back over the pattern after it was blocked and embroidered the outline and details in silver - just a bit of pop to make the design stand out.

Unfortunately, as this was my first try at blocking a scarf, it didn't turn out perfectly. So I took the scarf back after we opened gifts so that I can finish it up the way I want it to look! (Amber didn't mind, she knows I can be a perfectionist about my creations...plus she go so much other Doctor Who stuff that she won't miss the scarf for an extra week or so of fixing it up!)

If you want to make this great TARDIS scarf for yourself or another Whovian, here is the pattern I developed:

Cast on 35 stitches
Knit one row, purl one row; continue alternating knit and purl rows until you have the base you want (I did 10 rows)
K5, P25, K5
P5, K25, P5

{K7, P3, K7, P1, K7, P3, K7
P7, K3, P7, K1, P7, K3, P7
*K7, P3, K1, P5, K1, P1, K1, P5, K1, P3, K7
P7, K3, P1, K5, P1, K1, P1, K5, P1, K3, P7* repeat this set of two rows 2 more times}

go back to the beginning of the {__} and do the whole section three more times

K7, P3, K7, P1, K7, P3, K7
P7, K3, P7, K1, P7, K3, P7

K7, P21, K7
P7, K21, P7
K9, P17, K9

P10, K15, P10
K10, P15, K10

P16, K3, P16
K16, P3, K16
P16, K3, P16
K16, P3, K16

Purl one row
Knit one row

continue alternating knit and purl rows until the scarf is almost the length you want, then repeat the TARDIS directions in reverse

Does that make sense? This is the first pattern I've ever created so please let me know if anything about these directions is confusing!

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Sharks Scarf - Handmade Holiday Gifts

I hope everyone has had a wonderful holiday! Now that all the gifts have been given, I want to share some of the homemade gifts I gave this year.

First, an awesome San Jose Sharks scarf I made for Sean's sister Sarah. Sean was kind enough to model it for me before Christmas!

This was inspired by the "team colors" yarn I saw at Joanne Fabrics. Sadly, the Sharks colors of teal, black and white were not one of the pre-made yarn options. Instead, I picked up a skein of teal and some skeins of black & grey, and knitted them together to make a multi-colored, extra thick scarf perfect for those freezing ice rinks.

Since I was knitting with two strands of yarn at once, I kept the pattern simple and just did the whole scarf in garter stitch (that means just knit-knit-knit, nothing fancy). Then I added some fun tassels at the ends. I had just enough teal -- I started to run out as I did the tassels! So the tassels alternate grey/black with teal, or just grey/black.

This was a fun, simple project. My favorite kind of project for de-stressing after a busy day!

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Handmade Holiday Gifts: A Preview

Back in July, Sean and I decided we wanted to strive for a minimal waste holiday. Fewer gifts that come with excessive packaging; more handmade gifts; using recyclable or reusable materials for wrapping. Well, now that it's only a week and a half until Chanukah, it's looking like fewer handmade gifts than we hoped. But, we have been able to make some good choices regarding packaging so I'm still pleased with how we're reducing our waste this holiday season.

Just in case any gift recipients read my blog, I won't post any pictures of full gifts until after they are given (whether it's given at Chanukah or Christmas). But, here's a preview of what I've been making:
 

I'm looking forward to sharing all of my handmade holiday gifts after Christmas!

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Quick Baby Gifts

I recently picked up knitting again, and since I had a baby shower coming up for a friend I decided to tackle a baby sweater vest as my first project. I picked up this free crafting sheet at Michael's to try out. My original plan was to make the vest using the 6 month directions, but I accidentally misread the needle size and used the millimeter size rather than the US needle size. But, following the 6 month directions using smaller needles ended up making a newborn size sweater, so it worked out!

Since the newborn vest didn't use as much yarn as the original directions called for, I used the rest to make another (using the correct needle size!) for my cousin's kid as a Christmas present. (Yes, it's already time for holiday planning! Chanukah is extra early this year, starting the night before Thanksgiving, so it's never too early to start planning for gifts.)

Here's a picture of the two finished products, one newborn and one roughly 12 month size:

The directions were very easy to follow, and it makes a cute and snug little baby vest!

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