Water Lilies Baby Blanket

I recently knitted this baby blanket for a new arrival.

It was quite time-consuming to knit.  It was knitted in various different balls of double knitting yarn which was 100% acrylic so it will be easy to wash. 

It is really a smaller version of the English Adventure Throw that I knitted previously.  I am calling it Water Lilies because it consists of large flat circular shapes – some of which are pale pink like water lilies.

I originally intended to add an edge all around the blanket – but in the end I just added an edge to the shapes that didn’t have one.

As well as the blanket I also knitted this little jacket – using my usual baby jacket pattern which I have used many times before.

It is a simple design and ideal for boys or girls.  Because of its simplicity – it is ideal for very patterned or multi-coloured yarn like this.

A Few Baby Clothes

 

I have made a few baby clothes – to go with the miniature throw that I wrote about last month.  I have made a multi-coloured jacket which is supposed to fit a baby of about 3 months.

 

When I knit something like this – I think of the Agatha Christie comment: “two sleeves, both the same, very boring” – because of course – these 2 sleeves were different – so not so boring!

I have also made a little red set of a jacket, a hat and some mittens.

 

This set is much smaller and is intended for a more recently born baby.   The hat may be useful for a bit longer than a couple of weeks – but I expect the baby will quickly grow out of the jacket.   The jacket is a pattern from Knit Now magazine and the hat and mittens are from a Stylecraft pattern.  They are all double knitting acrylic – so they will be easy to wash.

I have now started thinking about knitting Christmas presents – although this morning I have gone back to the large modular knitted throw and told myself – I should finish it before I start anything else.  I have cast on another square – so hopefully I will get it finished in the next few weeks.

Garter Stitch Jacket by Debbie Bliss

Last weekend I was knitting a few patchwork squares and I decided that I wanted to knit a pink one – but I didn’t want to waste the ball – so I started knitting a small baby coat.  I thought I will knit a little coat and then use the left over yarn for a patchwork square.  This is the coat.

It is very easy.  I seem to be making a habit of knitting easy garter stitch items – but knitting doesn’t have to be complicated.

This pattern came from Knitting magazine and is dated July 2010 (so I have had it a while).  You knit all the pieces and then join them together at the armholes – knitting the top part as one piece.  Now I have done a pink one – I suppose I ought to do a blue one as well.  I expect I will be able to find some suitable yarn – but I have now started knitting another shawl using some of the yarn I got for Christmas.  I would like to knit the items I intended – when I chose the yarn – then I can use the left over yarn for some other projects that I have in my head.

So much yarn – so little time!!

Baby Surprise Jacket

Every knitter probably has a bucket list of things they would like to knit if they had more time or more skill.  Ever since I had heard about Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Baby Surprise Jacket I have wanted to knit one.

In 2016 Cully Swansen published a book called The Complete Surprise which includes a step-by-step pattern for the Baby Surprise Jacket and lots of variations.

I had this book for Christmas in 2018 and added the Baby Surprise Jacket to my list of things to knit one day.  Towards the end of last year – I started to knit one but soon realised that I did not have enough yarn – so I unravelled it and used the yarn to knit a different baby’s jacket.  However I did go to my local yarn store and buy 2 balls of multi-coloured yarn for another attempt.

Last week I decided to have another go at the Baby Surprise Jacket.  This is the jacket as it appeared when I was knitting it – blindly following the instructions.

This is what it looks like now it is finished.

I am not sure that I would have chosen green buttons - but I have got green buttons.  They don’t look too bad.  Also I think when I folded the knitting I have got the wrong side outwards but I thought it looked the better side of the two.  

The only seams in this pattern are along the top of the sleeves – so it is ideal for those of us who hate sewing up (probably everyone) – and I also like the fact that you knit button-holes on both sides of the front and then sew buttons over one side.  This eliminates a problem I often have of how to space the buttons and where to sew them so that they line up with the button-holes.

Now I have finished this little jacket – I am hoping that I will be able to finish several other partly finished items that I have found.  Several of them I had forgotten about completely.

Yellow Marble Baby’s Coat

If you have read my previous post then you might be expecting to see the beginnings of another shawl, but I while I was knitting the Purple Fade shawl – I was also knitting this little baby coat.

Like a lot of knitters – I am raiding my stash both of yarn and patterns.  I have had the yarn for several years.  It is James C Brett’s Baby Marble Double Knitting which is 100% acrylic.  It is good for knitting baby coats as it is interesting as well as practical.  I had bought it to knit a plain coat for a baby of unknown gender.  I think I did use one ball, but I had one left and I found this pattern in my stash.

It has no date on it and says it comes from Yours magazine.  I think I got it from my mother.  I ripped out the pattern before the magazine got thrown away.  I have always loved the feather and fan or old shale pattern.  I know that there is a difference but I can’t remember what it is.  I like the combination of holes and decreases.

While I have been knitting other things over the last few weeks – I have been thinking more about my Everything I Ever Knitted project.  I am going to get back to it.  It is still going on in the background.  

One of the first things I ever knitted was a long-line waistcoat in feather and fan stitch but I have also knitted several multi-yarn throws that involved this stitch.  It is the movement within the rows which makes the stitch idea to use when you are trying to mix yarns or colours (or both).

Almost Running Out of Yarn

After taking out the sleeves several times and agonising over whether I had enough yarn – I finally finished this little cardigan.

The following photo shows how much yarn I had left when I had finished.  

Before I started the project – I had one 100g ball of yarn.  That would have been fine for a small baby coat, but I had used some of it to make a hat so it was not a full ball.  I looked at it trying to decide if there was enough.  Originally I intended to knit the cardigan with short sleeves, but I always think if it is cold enough to wear a cardigan then you need to have your arms covered.

I have been knitting this little coat for months.  I am not exactly sure when I started it but I know it has been on a few train journeys – so it isn’t recently.

One of the benefits of having to stay at home is that you don’t need portable projects – you can go for the multi-yarn project which needs to have all the yarns laid out.  I have started working on my brick bag – more about this tomorrow.

Favourite Patterns

It was entirely a coincidence that when I went to the last Knitting and Crochet Guild meeting – where the topic was “Favourite Things” – that I was knitting one of my favourite patterns.  It is an old 1980s pattern for a baby jacket which was published by Littlewoods.

The original was a fair-isle pattern but it can be knitted in any way.  I have done stripes and checks as well as using multi-coloured yarn.  When I decided to knit a couple of baby coats for the Oxford Baby Bank – it was obvious that I would choose to use my version of this pattern.

I have knitted this one in Stylecraft Tweedy and I am now working on a second one using Stylecraft Special for Babies.

During the meeting we discussed things that could be knitted to raise money for the Guild.  Babies coats are something that are easy to knit; can be sold fairly cheaply and that people like to buy as a gift for a new baby.  Bootees were also suggested as well as little hats and gloves.  These are all popular for the same reasons.

Duck Feet

After months of struggling – I have finally finished the duck feet that my work colleague requested for her baby. 

When she asked me if I could knit her some duck feet – I said – “yes” – I mean - how hard can it be?!  I downloaded the pattern.  It is  a design by Jeny Staiman and has very comprehensive instructions.  The question is – what do they mean?!  I think the pattern is actually very good – the problem is that I am not a sock knitter so most of it is written in a foreign language.  If you are a sock knitter – you will think it is OK.

Having said that I found the pattern hard and the duck feet have taken me months to knit – I have managed to knit them.   I don’t think I knitted them exactly correctly – but it is close enough.

I am now back to knitting something much more to my taste – a modular knitted cardigan – which I started last December.  When I have finished that – it will have taken even longer than the duck feet – not because it is difficult – but because I have been knitting other things and haven’t touched it at all since last December.

Denim Baby Jacket

Although this is a little jacket that I have knitted recently for a relatively new baby – it fits well with the theme of retro knitting.  I have knitted lots of little jackets over the years.

This jacket is knitted using some old yarn from my stash.  It is Sirdar Denim Tweed DK.  It is 60% acrylic, 25% cotton and 15% wool.  It feels like soft cotton.  It is not stiff like yarn which is only made of cotton.

I have used it before for babies’ jackets but normally I use a blue shade.  I have also used it in the past with blue and cream to make Denim Union Jack tea cosies.  

It was quite hard to find buttons which looked right.  Many were the wrong shade of red.  It is amazing how many shades of red that there are.

While I was watching the snooker I finally finished the Creative Cables Throw – I will show you a photo of that next week.  I have also started knitting a jumper using Rowan Moordale.  It is my third Martin Storey project in a row.

Happy Birthday – Maud Tabron Blog

I think it is almost 5 years since I started knitting this blog.  I wasn’t sure – I had to look back and see what I wrote last year!  At this time I normally do a review of the year and this year I am going to start with a photo of me taken last week by Karen Draisey of Oxford Yarn Store.

The photo is not supposed to be of me – it is the jumper that is important.  This is the jumper that I started last October and only got around to finishing in January.  It is from the Noro Kureyon – The 30^th Anniversary Collection – Wicker Lace Pullover by Yoko Hatta.  The original has short sleeves – I lengthened them – increasing one st at the beginning and end of the row on row 5 of the 8 row pattern.  On the sleeves, I have done 4½ more repeats of the pattern than the original.  I used Noro Kureyon and West Yorkshire Yarn Spinners Retreat.

Last year was dominated by my World War 1 Memorial Quilt which took up a lot of time.  It took up a lot of time knitting it, but also travelling around with it.  Everyone said nice things about it.  It appeared in 4 publications – Knitting magazine, Family Tree magazine, Slipknot and the Rowan newsletter.

I am sure I knitted other things last year – I remember knitting lots of More Tea Vicar tea cosies for All the Fun of the Fair.  They seemed to be more in demand than the previous year.

What else?  I have just had a look through my photos to jog my memory.  I knitted 2 coats for little ones – one blue for a newborn and one with a cat on for a little girl.

I knitted several shawls and shawlettes including one for my aunt’s 80^th birthday.

I knitted 2 throws for Oxford Yarn Store but I only have photo of one of them.  Like the Creative Cables throw – both are from Martin Storey’s Afghan Knits book.

I also knitted a pink Noro jumper and finished the year with a Christmas wreathe.

So looking back on it – I did quite a bit of knitting.  I also started several things which I hope to finish in the next few months including the Creative Cables Throw, a Patricia Werner modular knitting jacket and a Marie Wallin fair-isle cardigan.  There are still plenty of half-finished projects left from the year before to get back to as well.

Cats I have Knitted

This post is a brief interlude in the description of the progress of the WW1 Memorial Quilt.  A few weeks ago I managed to finish the little cardigan that I was knitting.  This small garment seemed to take ages.  I am not completely happy with the finished result – in places my tension was terrible (I am not showing you that bit!).

The brief for this project was a cardigan with a cat on it – and I decided to base the design on the family cat who is called Cheeky.  I read somewhere that there are over 900 different breeds of dog.  I don’t think there are that many breeds of cat but it seems to me that no two cats look alike.   Unlike dogs they are mostly a similar size and shape but their markings can be totally different.

I have knitted a cat previously – I knitted Bob the famous Street Cat.  The photograph below was taken by Tina Clark who is a fan of Bob and the owner of Cheeky.

As with black and white cats – no two ginger ones seem to look the same either.   I remember when I was choosing yarn for this project – I couldn’t find the right shades of orange.  In that respect a black and white cat is easier.

I am often working on several items or garments at the same time and if I wrote posts about what I was knitting today – they would be very disjointed – well more disjointed than usual – so I try to gather my thoughts on one item at a time.  The downside of this approach is that I forget the problems.  I know when I knitted the black and white cat – I had drawn the face out on graph paper but then I knitted something else!  Graph paper is all very well for a general outline but then I find it easier to design on the needles.  I am trying not to do this with my Memorial Quilt but sometimes I still do.

Jacket for a Baby Boy

I have finished knitting this little blue jacket for a baby that is due in April.

I meant to use a published pattern and I tried but in the end I changed most of it.  It was an old magazine pattern from 2007.  I had kept it because I liked the look of it and I thought it might do for a baby boy.

The smallest size is for 0-6months.  This would be OK but you are told to cast on 58sts for the Back.  Now I usually do around 50sts for 0-3 months.  I didn’t want to make something huge that the mother will have forgotten about by the time the baby fits it, so I reduced the number of stitches to 50. This meant I had to change the fronts and the decreasing on the raglans as well.

I have forgotten to mention that I used 3.75mm needles instead of the stated 4mm.  So I used different yarn, different needles and a different amount of stitches and a different number of rows – so it is only the general appearance of the design that is the same as the original.

I also think there may be mistakes in the pattern – for example the button bands suggest that you only rib 2 rows and then repeat those 2 rows once more.  However the photo clearly shows a much wider band with 8 or 9 rows.  I did neither and settled on 7 rows!  I wish I could find a pattern that I could just knit.  Perhaps I should have done my usual one – I have knitted it so many times that I do what I did before – it is nothing like the original published pattern- but it works.

I still haven’t finished the pink cat cardigan that I am knitting.  I have knitted all the boring bits but now I need to do the bit with the cat on.  I need to sit at home an concentrate on it – I couldn’t travel around with it – like I could the blue jacket – that is why this has got done first.  I do hope to get the pink cardigan finished this week so I can get back to my Memorial Quilt.

A Cat Cardigan

I offered to make a cardigan with a cat on for the 4 year-old niece of a friend of mine.  I thought it would be appropriate to use her cat as inspiration, so I asked for some photos.  This is Cheeky sitting on the draining board.

As you can see this cat has very distinctive facial markings.  I hope I can do something similar in yarn.  So far I have knitted the front which has very little cat on it.

The cat is on one front and its tail goes around the neck and the end appears on the other front.  My friend had trouble getting the cat to sit still and some of the more blurred photos show him in almost the correct position –so that I can see how the white and black appears on his back.  The design is loosely based on an old pattern that I have got with a cat in the pocket of a cardigan, but that only includes the head, paws and tail of the cat – and looks a bit odd.  I have decided to include more of the cat.

I haven’t got much knitting done over Christmas but I have knitted quite a lot of one of the sleeves because that was fairly easy to do.  I need to be fresh and alert when I tackle the cat so I probably won’t get on to that until next week.

A Second Baby Jacket in James C Brett’s Baby Marble

I have now finished knitting a little baby jacket using James C Brett’s Baby Marble double knit yarn – this shade is BM19.  It is white and yellow and seems “spring-like”.  I am looking ahead! 

I used the same pattern as I knitted earlier in the year – from the Peter Pan booklet.  However this is a larger size – for  3-6 months.  I still managed to knit the whole jacket from one 100g ball. 

I am now knitting a third baby jacket in the same yarn.  This time I am using moss stitch because I find that I can get a better tension with this.  I was not completely happy with the stocking stitch of the yellow jacket .   However when I looked at the photograph – I see that the pattern of the model version was not perfect either.

Baby Marble Jacket

I have finished this baby jacket.  It only took just over a week to complete.  It is for a baby called Imogen who was born last weekend.  It is not very small – so it should still fit her!

I like this yarn so much that I have gone out and bought some more for another baby jacket that I have said I would make for a little girl in Australia.  She will be about 4 months old when she receives it – so I have bought 2 balls to make sure I have enough.  I think I will try one of the other patterns in the Peter Pan booklet -  Babies in Cream.

I like this type of yarn – it does not form a pattern and you have to make some decisions about how to use it.  For example I wanted to fronts to be completely different.  If you are not careful  - the fronts can not quite match and it can look as if you have made a mistake.

I am still knitting a scarf as an easy portable project but I have just started another modular knitted garment.  This time it is intended to be a Jacket to wear at work for Christmas – so I had better get on with it.

Another Baby’s Jacket

I have just started knitting another baby’s jacket.  It is urgent because the baby is due this week.

The yarn is James C Brett’s Baby Marble double knit which is 100% acrylic – in shade BM24.  It is mainly pink and yellow but it has a little bit of blue as well.  I chose it to make the knitting more interesting.

The same applies to the pattern which is from a Peter Pan booklet called Babies in Cream.  This booklet contains lots of little jackets, jumpers and hats for babies and children up to age 7. 

I chose this particular design because I liked the “rib” pattern.