Done: Striped Gift Wrap Sweater, Bonnet and Mitts

Yeah, so, partial bedrest is apparently really good for knitting productivity, because I have knit more finished objects in the last month alone than maybe the entire last year, mostly while lounging sideways on the couch watching Marvel: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Black Mirror and Parks & Recreation with the husband.

Above is the latest finished knit set for Baby Torchwood, and I think it's my favorite so far. Because, well: stripes! Plus I love the kimono-style closure and contrast bands.

The basics:

Patterns: The Gift Wrap Sweater and Gift Wrap Bonnet by Carina Spencer (purchased as the Gift Wrap Collection ebook set as I originally intended to make the Gift Wrap Romper but didn't have enough yarn)... plus the free Wee Baby Newborn Mitts pattern by Christine Vogel.

Yarn: 3 colors (4 balls total) of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran yarn, a lovely, squishy, soft and washable merino wool/microfiber/cashmere blend. I bought these on impulse while shopping for buttons at one of my favorite local Brooklyn yarn stores, La Casita Yarn Shop Café. They didn't have enough of the blue for an entire sweater (just two balls), but these three colors seemed harmonious, and rather TARDISy/Whovian to me. I had a few little bits left over when the sweater and hat were done, so decided to squeeze out a pair of matching thumbless mittens as well.

Needles: The Gift Wrap patterns recommends size 8 and 6 needles, but I got gauge with sizes 4 and 3 for the sweater, and 4 and 2 for the hat. (I knit super loosely, though.) I used size 4 and 2 on the mitts.

Size: I made the 6-month size in the sweater, toddler size in the hat, and although the mitts are supposed to be newborn size, I used aran weight instead of DK weight, so they're more 6-month or toddler-size. I do think baby will be able to wear all the coordinating pieces at once.

Notions: The 3/4" buttons (sewed on INCREDIBLY tightly and securely, please don't worry!) were an Etsy find, just $2.55 for a pack of 50 in various iridescent shades from SkeeterBitz.

Raveled: Sweater, bonnet and mitts.

I am embarrassed to say I spent hours agonizing over my online button search, as I'm used to being able to stroll over to Pacific or M&J in the Garment District, dig through some nicely color-coded displays and drawers and actually pair them with the sweater... online button shopping is way less intuitive. (Plus I didn't feel comfortable buying vintage plastic buttons, cute and cheap as they might be, for fear they might contain formaldehyde.)

The sweater took about two weeks of sporadic knitting, and the hat and mitts were both done in less than a day each.

The sweater pattern has striped and non-striped options, as well as a contrast band. It's super simple to make, knit all in one piece from the top down, and the sleeves picked up later. I didn't have quite enough gray to stripe the sleeves, but I think the solid sleeves are a nice "design feature."

Similarly, I didn't have quite enough yarn to make the mitts match, so decided to go for, er, deliberate asymmetry:

There is nothing easier than thumbless mitts, really. Babies don't need thumbs on their mittens, and I had made these before for Z when she was a baby:

I do hope you're not all getting super sick of baby stuff around here... I really do plan to sew grown-up lady clothes again once my waist returns, but I don't really know yet what size I'm going to end up, and there is no point in making maternity clothes at 38 weeks along, now is there?

Last-Minute Baby Sewing Binge (Before Being Stuck in Bed) — With Tools and Robots!

Up until last week, the only item I had actually finished for Baby Wood was a single pair of Better Than Booties baby socks (the green ones shown above, Raveled here). Then I looked through my stash of newborn and tiny baby items and completely panicked, because I have almost NO gender-neutral clothes for tiny babies (what if we have a boy?!), and very few warm winter clothes (Z was a summer baby).

I made a thrifting expedition and scored 15 cute little second-hand gender-neutral baby things for $26, but dressing baby in store-bought clothes isn't as SPECIAL or FUN as putting him/her in something me-made, now is it?

So I ramped up my baby knitting queue... and last Sunday, while the four-year-old was visiting her grandparents, I went on a bit of a mad sewing binge, tracing, cutting and sewing seven little itty bitty baby garments in one day--more than I've sewn in one day ever, and more than I've sewn for months total. AND all the fabric and patterns had been in my stash at least four years, or were secondhand, so—SCORE FOR STASHBUSTING and CUTTING UP OLD CLOTHES TO MAKE NEW ONES.

Mainly, I wanted to make some cute, snuggly, special baby outfits for the new one to wear home from the birthing center.

Set #1: Orange overload: A little cotton kimono knit top with contrast ribbed bands and cuffs in an orange tool-themed print with matching pants and hat, plus an orange merino wool side-buttoning cardigan and little wool booties (in progress).

• The kimono top and pants are from the wonderful New Conceptions Baby Essentials layette sewing pattern set. Kimono tops are great for pulling over big wobbly newborn heads, and I love that the sleeves and pants are finished with cuffs instead of hems—I highly recommend this easy and versatile pattern. The main fabric is a soft cotton interlock with a tool pattern I bought ages ago from the Fabric Fairy, and the navy and orange ribbing were from a Sew Baby ribbing color assortment. I made the newborn size, and sewed everything but the top hem and the pants waistband on the serger.
• The super-simple hat pattern is part of Kwik Sew 2433, another great knit baby clothes layette pattern for rompers, jumpsuits, hats and booties.
• The side-buttoning cardigan is the Beyond Puerperium cardigan pattern, a fun and simple raglan sweater (the newborn-size Puerperium is free, but I bought the version with more size and yarn weight options). The yarn is Malabrigo Rios in the color "Glazed Carrot", a soft, washable, squishy worsted-weight merino yarn. (Cardigan raveled here with full details).
• The in-progress booties are knit from the free Gansey Booties pattern in the same yarn, and I have an earflap hat in progress (the free Aviatrix hat pattern) as well to finish off the ball.

I just love the tool pattern on this fabric—perfect for a little girl or boy from a family of makers, crafters and builders!

And aren't these buttons pretty? I do not want to talk about how much they cost, but I got them at La Casita Yarn Shop Café, an awesome local Brooklyn yarn store:

Next up:

Set #2: Gray and red and blue with a robot: Another knit baby set, plus a red cabled cashmere cardigan hoodie.

• The kimono top and pants and hat are from the same patterns as set #1. The main fabric is a super-soft cotton/rayon rib knit I cut out of a top from a giant bag of second-hand maternity clothes I bought for a song from a local mom (I have plenty of things to wear for the next 6-8 weeks, don't worry). Immediately after it was done I decided it was too boring and needed an appliqué—my husband suggested a robot would be just the thing, and I think he was right.
• The red cashmere cardigan hoodie is my TNT baby hoodie from Kwik Sew's Sewing For Baby—this is my fourth version. I cut it from a super-soft designer thrift-store sweater that had some stains and snags. The best part was I didn't have to attach any sleeve cuffs or bottom waistband—I just cut the pattern to include the original ribbing. I stabilized the front facings with bright turquoise petersham ribbon from Pacific Trimming and applied blue snaps from Sew Baby. I was going to put an appliqué on this piece too, but decided it didn't really need one.

Don't you love a pretty piece of petersham or grosgrain in a sweater? (And no, I haven't finished applying the inside snaps yet).

Here was the original sweater... there is something SO satisfying about cutting up ruined garments to make pretty new ones, isn't there? Not to mention that cashmere knits can cost $60-$175 a yard if you can even FIND them or that new cashmere baby sweaters run $100-$300... whereas this one came to less than $5 in materials:

Here's the robot appliqué in progress—it's just a scrap of bright turqoise ponté, applied with fusible webbing, then stitched down around the edges by machine:

The eyes and heart I embroidered by hand. Which is something I'm really into lately:

And that's good, because yesterday my midwife ordered me onto scheduling resting (basically part-time bedrest) due to some severe swelling in my legs and feet and other assorted reasons. I need to spend half my days in bed lying on my left side, and minimize time standing/sitting. So... I sense a lot of embroidery and knitting in the next weeks, and not so much the sewing machine.

Anyone else been through this? The thought of lying down so much is driving me crazy... I'm a doer and a maker and I've got a demanding full-time job to do and a four-year-old to chase around! And my apartment is so NOT baby-ready, and I know I'll be too exhausted once baby actually arrives to do much of anything but nurse and sleep (when I can).

Bonus photo: my four-year-old came with me to the yarn store to buy the buttons for the orange cardigan, and she insisted we had to make a list first to remember we needed 6 buttons:

Delancey Try-On: Too Snug or Just Right?

Chevrons and stripes both rank high on my crafterly happiness list and this cleverly-constructed sweater has been a joy to knit so far. The big question, though—does it actually fit me?

Pattern: Delancey Cardigan. You may recall that the Delancey cardigan by Alexis Winslow was the winner of my indecisive "Sweater Girl Showdown 2013." Here was my original concept sketch:

Ravelry link with all details: Here.

Yarn: Knit Picks Merino Style (discontinued) in various colors from the stash. A lovely DK-weight merino that I had lying around. Sadly I lost one of the colors I was using midway through (left it on a subway or airplane during a business trip) so you can see that the stripe pattern on the top back is gray/periwinkle/gray instead of gray/periwinkle/purple. Oops!

Size: 33" bust. The biggest challenge was deciding what size to knit—the 33" finished bust or the 36" finished bust. I have a 38.5" bust and 29.5" waist but I like my cardigans snug, with at least 2-3" of negative ease at bust and waist (see my old post on sweater fitting for more on this).

BUT because of the clever chevron pattern, there is no waist shaping here—the bust and waist are the same size. So if I went with the 36" bust, the waist might have been quite baggy. I wrote to the designer and she gave me some fantastic advice—based on my preferences and yarn she suggested I try the 33", as the bias fabric makes the cardigan quite stretchy.

So readers, what do you think so far? The back looks perfect to me (see top) but the bust area seems to be pulling away to the side (note that I've only knitted one of the side fronts, the other isn't done yet):

And the side "seams" aren't really straight when I pin the cardigan shut in front:

That said, there is going to be a button band and shawl collar in front which will add a little extra front width.

My verdict: Keep going and hope for the best. I think with a little blocking and the bands/collar, it'll be just perfect, and it may loosen up a little with a handwash and wear, too.

Speed notes: I swear I haven't been knitting MORE often than I did last year but I must be knitting FASTER. Not only is my Delancey more than half done, I just finished a baby cardigan for a friend two days ago. AND I just started on a Tulip for my niece-to-be yesterday and I'm already down to the chest:

Hello, my name is Mikhaela and I am a cardigan knitting (and wearing) addict.

I think my new speed is from switching away from plastic to metal needles. I had some serious repetitive stress injury issues with my hands back in 2008 and had switched to using plastic and sometimes wooden needles... and they are just MUCH SLOWER. This year I decided to switch back to metal but just be careful—to knit in small chunks and stop if my hands start bothering me even the slightest.

So, what do you think—too tight or just right?

P.S. By the way, if you're interested in making the Delancey yourself, there was a Ravelry knit-along last year with accompanying blog posts on the Sweatshop of Love. It also comes in a plus-sized version (up to a 58" bust).

P.P.S. In case you're wondering why both Z and I are prancing around in black bike-short-esque things, we were about to go for a family bike ride. We went down to Brooklyn Bridge Park and rode the carousel four times until I got motion sick and had to let my husband take her around for the fifth ride. Phew!

Unusually Unselfish Knitting: Baby Surprise Jacket II

There's nothing like a hot summer day to snuggle your baby in a ... really warm wool jacket. Er.

Anyway, I knit this little garter-stitch cardigan for a friend who had a baby boy last week — she's bringing him over this evening and I can't wait to meet him! I'm hoping it's big enough that he can wear it in the fall.

This is the first time I have EVER made anything more serious than a hat for someone ELSE's baby, but said baby's mom is a knitter herself, so I know she'll appreciate it in the way only a fellow maker-of-garments-that-take-forever-and-ever-to-make can.

The pattern: Elizabeth Zimmerman's famous Baby Surprise Jacket from Knitting Workshop. I knit with a worsted yarn in hopes of achieving a 3-6 month size for this fall/winter.

The yarn: Classic Elite Liberty Wool, a fabulous soft squishy self-striping washable wool, purchased on my birthday trip to the Hub Mills yarn store.

The buttons: High-quality blue buttons from Pacific Trimming (at least, they LOOK really nice and for 75 cents each, they must be high quality, right?)

Time taken: A month (but I was knitting and making lots of other things at the same time).

The exhaustive Ravelry details: Here.

This jacket is known as the surprise jacket because while you are knitting it, it looks like an amorphous blob of yarn nonsense...

And then you do some origami magic and seam up the shoulders, and surprise! It's a jacket. I actually made one for Z three years ago when I wasn't nearly as confident a knitter... and totally left off the buttons and buttonholes. Oops!

Back then I kept getting confused by the cryptic pattern and looking up reviews and notes... this time it was a breeze and a great way to relax on the family camping cabin vacation we took in the Poconos last week:

In sum: pure baby sweater happiness!

In other cardigan current issues, I'm still knitting the fantastic chevroned Delancey cardigan for myself (try-on photos soon)... but I have another urgent unselfish baby sweater to make first, as I'm attending a baby shower in just a month to celebrate the impending arrival of my niece-to-be!

I bought the unisex #4 color kit for the Dream in Color Classy Tulip Sweater in blues and greens from Eat.Sleep.Knit:

Luckily my niece-to-be will reside in Maine, so she'll have an endless need for warm wooly things!

So—what was the last thing YOU made for someone else (and not you or your immediate household?)

Sweater Girl Success: Finished Chartreuse Georgina Cardigan!

My spring green Georgina cabled & lace cardigan is finally done, just in time for spring!

My original "Sweater Girl Showdown Sketch":

My original sketch, from... um... a year ago. See my "sweater girl showdown" post for more on each of these patterns. My goal was to make a very fitted, curve-hugging little lacy cardigan with a bit of negative ease—nothing baggy or shapeless like my last cardigan disaster!

The details:

• The pattern: Georgina Cardigan by Alexis Winslow aka Knit Darling. This pattern is beautifully designed and was a dream to knit: lots of easy-to-memorize but fun and different types of lace and cables and shaping to keep my interest, all knit together or picked up (no after-the-fact seaming). However it was NOT an easy knit (I consider myself relatively advanced and I still made a few mistakes and had to pay very close attention), and I wouldn't recommend it as a first-ever sweater pattern, unless you REALLY like a challenge. I made the smallest size, which was 2-3 inches smaller than my actual full bust measurement—just right to create a fitted look!
• The yarn: Swans Island Hand-Dyed Merino Organic Worsted in Spring Green (3.5 skeins). Soft as a cloud, with just enough hand-dyed variegation for interest, but not enough to compete with the beautiful lace or eyelet cables. Swans Island is a super-cool little eco-friendly yarn and blanket company based in Maine, and they have excellent customer service: when I realized I was short a skein for my last sleeve, they immediately offered to call around to all their retail shops to help me locate one in the right dye lot (Purl Soho had one left—phew!).
• The full Ravelry project details. Yes, it took me a year to finish, but whatever. The designer notes it only took her a week and a half—but I knit like a knitting snail (I have to to preserve my wrists from carpal tunnel redux).

It looks cute buttoned:

Or un-buttoned:

And from the lacy little back, too:

And don't you love vintage buttons? I got these "West German Radiant Buttons" at La Casita yarn shop in Brooklyn (one of three yarn shops in walking distance of my apartment... which makes me either spoiled, or just at constant risk of unnecessary yarn adoption):

I finished the sweater while lying in bed recovering from my surgery—all it needed were some ends woven in and the buttons, and... DONE! (No, I haven't blocked it. It fits so well I'm afraid to mess with that. I will at some point). It was the only bright spot in a really rough painful post-surgery week — I'm getting a lot better, but still have some really bad days — and I got lots of compliments on it at work Monday.

And sorry about the goofy "holding the curtain as a backdrop" photos, but I was too weak/ill to go outside last weekend and had to make do in some very low cloudy lighting. BUT WHATEVER. SWEATER LOVE. I think I need to go snuggle with my sweater now...

What's your latest happy make?

Chartreuse Cardigan Progress + Blue Ombré Overload Socks!

Rough as it's been around here lately—with no sewing going on to speak of—I've been stealing bits and odds and moments to knit, mostly on my subway commute. And somehow all those moments have finally added up to... most of my chartreuse organic merino Georgina cardigan! (full Ravelry details here).

Here's the back (I'm so into the lace, maybe I should just walk backwards so people can admire it more directly). It looked SO teeny-tiny while I was knitting that many people asked if I was making another toddler sweater... so I'm REALLY glad it actually fits.

Oh, and here's the original sketch for reference, back when I was still dithering over my color choices:

So... the fit is great... the organic hand-dyed merino is soft as a cloud... the design is awesome... BUT... I may not actually have enough yarn left for full sleeves. So—how do you all think this will look with cap sleeves? (There is no budget for an additional skein, though I WILL allow myself to buy proper buttons).

Oh, and if you're wondering why I'm wearing my ombré polka dot dress for these photos, it's because I thought it'd be funny to photograph my ombré dress with my finished blue ombré Waving Lace socks (from yarn grad-dyed by me ages ago):

Though honestly... you'll never actually catch me wearing socks with a dressy dress. I pretty much wear them with pants or SOMETIMES with casual skirts.

They've actually been done for weeks now, but I didn't feel like doing a wool-sock photo shoot in 90-degree heat... here's a sharper look:

I swear the gradation is much more obvious in real life!

Next up in knitting—I think I'll tackle some colorwork. I really need some pretty winter gloves... or there are these cute striped convertible mittens (i.e. the tops flip off to reveal fingerless gloves) from an old issue of Vogue Knitting I know I have lying around somewhere...

How are your fall knitting and sewing plans coming along?

Blocking Magic: From Too-Tight to Just-Right (Cardigan Progress)

The sad, tiny sweater upper back of lost hope--or is it?

A few weeks ago, I was starting to lose all shrunken cardigan hope. I had made decent progress in my odd moments on my lacy chartreuse Georgina sweater... but after the third time a coworker politely asked me at lunchtime if I was making another sweater for my daughter, I began to worry.

Before starting the sweater I had carefully knit and blocked swatches in both plain knitting and lace to make sure I was getting Perfect Gauge, and I had followed the directions exactly. Yet when I held out the piece that should cover my shoulders and back, well... it did look rather toddler-sized.

Enter the magic of blocking.

I had always heard about this mystical wooly transformation, in which lace knitting enters a gentle magic bath and emerges damp and slightly smelling of sheep and stuck with carefully placed pins to expand to its full glorious potential.

But while I've dutifully blocked everything I've knit, it never really seemed all that science-fictionally spectacular before. Sure I'd give my knits a gentle bath in tepid water and Eucalan, roll them in a towel to remove excess water, pin them to desired size until dry... and they always came out a bit neater and prettier, and maybe a bit bigger or smaller as desired (or not). THE END.

I'm guessing this is because everything I'd knit before was either not all that lacy, or wasn't lacy AND made of non-superwash-treated wool. Because when I finally got up the nerve to block my Georgina to match the ambitiously stretched out blocking diagram...

OK, maybe you can't tell at all here, but it grew by over three inches in each direction. CARDIGAN CRISIS AVERTED--for now.

So: for those of you who knit--have you been successful, or largely disappointed, in your blocking attempts?

Cardigan Conundrum: Which Color? (NOT Chartreuse Again)

So if you didn't already guess, the winner of my Sweater Girl Showdown: Shrunken Cardigan Edition was Brooklyn-based knit designer Alexis Winslow's lovely Georgina!

Oh, and if you haven't already ogled the pattern on Knit Darling, check out the fancy lace back view:

Source: knitdarling.com via Mikhaela on Pinterest

I've already purchased the pattern on Ravelry, and now I am left with the problem of yarn and color choice. My initial thought was chartreuse, because I am OBSESSED with chartreuse cardigans... I have one in wool, one in silk, and one in cashmere--plus a UFO sewn one in doubleknit--and I probably wear them more than any other sweaters I own, as evidenced in these three garment photos from my pregnant days:

But perhaps I need to branch out a bit, color-wise. I'm leaning towards periwinkle or blue, though I do have a soft spot for bright pink--like chartreuse, it seems to go with everything in my wardrobe! Check it out--I'm wearing pink AND chartreuse in both of these photos from 2007 (the one directly below is by Márta Fodor):

The two non-chartreuse cardigans I wear most often are this old thrifted red wrap cardi shown here in 2006 (when I still took photos in my bathroom with the mirror):

Speaking of ancient bathroom photos--I didn't even crop my laundry bag out of this one! Cashmere chartreuse cardi I still wear all the time, shown with my me-made blue wool tweed skirt:

And here's my trusty thrifted periwinkle cashmere cabled cardigan, which looks way better in real life now (and fits much better now that I'm not pregnant):

OK, enough already. I'm also self-debating over yarns and fibers. I don't know if I want to use a solid color yarn (to better show off the fancy lace and ribbing and eyelets and suchlike) or a subtly variegated semi-solid yarn... most of the yarns I was ogling were semi-solids but really, I think this might do best in a solid.

Anyway, this is the fun part, right? Now I get to go to my local yarn shops and feel up the squishy wooly wares and dither back and forth and... for as long as the toddler will tolerate, anyway.

You might have noticed I'm not even CONSIDERING a neutral color, because I find that I almost never wear the few neutral cardigans I own. That's just me, though--if your favorite sweater is gray or black or brown, I salute you and your yarny neutrality!

>So, fellow sweater girls (and boys?)--what's your go-to cardigan color?

P.S. In the meantime, I'm making socks (Ravelry project details here)! From yarn I dyed myself (ages ago), in a lovely super-bright ombre blue. In the Waving Lace pattern by Evelyn A. Clark from Favorite Socks, which looks super-complex but is really easy to follow/memorize:

P.P.S. Guys, I was ALMOST up to 200 followers... I was at 199... and then I suddenly dropped back to 198! Maybe I offended a die-hard sewist with all this knitting talk? (not that I care!)

P.P.P.S. Happy Easter and/or Passover! (We'll be doing both here).