Baby Knits, Baby Knits, Baby Knits

I have three friends who are having babies this year. Two are going to be second time moms, and the other is having her first girl. After the barrage of holiday knits, I had debated between making booties and making my go to bib and burp cloth combo. I decided on doing some easy knitting and chose the old standby. I'm actually starting to run low on my Lily Sugar n Cream stash from the great Rag Shop sale of '07. I really like this yarn (and keep my fingers crossed that they will someday launch on organic cotton version). It's easy to knit with, my fingers don't get too dry and the colors are fun. The first set of bibs are in the Summer Splash colorway, and the two sets of burp cloths are in Ecru, Pastel Delights and Landscape. For the Pastel Delights and Landscape ones, I made the pattern shorter because one ball of yarn only gets you to about 50 rows instead of 61 or 62. It still falls over the shoulder well enough to serve its purpose (or so I hope). The last two bibs are made in the Peach colorway from some gifted Bernat Gloucester Sport. A friend had originally bought the yarn for a sweater, but abandoned the project and gifted me with the remains when she saw me knitting baby items last summer. I like the Peach colorway and the yarn was smooth and easy to work with.

This weekend, I'll be venturing to my LYS on Sunday for their Super Bowl Sale. I've got to get some more T-pins for blocking and the creator of Black Bunny Fibers and author of Knitting Socks with Handpainted Yarn, Carol Sulcoski, will be doing a book signing. Hopefully, I keep the spending limited to the amount of yarn that I have used up this month. Wish me luck!!

-B

Static Be Gone!

I officially stopped using dryer sheets about 7 years ago. I figured that the excess waste can't be good for the environment and I didn't know what chemicals were on the commercial sheets. So, for years, I've existing without anything in my dryer except the clothes or towels being dried. This worked fine until we moved into the "House of Static" this summer. The laundry room does not have heat, and that is what causes the static. Suffice to say, when I leave the house, I always double check for any stray socks clinging to my pant leg. Over on Ravelry, I'm in the Live Simply and Green Craft groups and I decided to search to see if anyone had any static solutions. I happened upon this pattern for Felted Dryer Balls. I headed over to Joann Fabrics to get some inexpensive Patons Classic Wool in Paprika, New Olive and Blue Denim and set to felting. The result were these:



These are the three smaller ones. I have three larger ones too for a total of six. I must say that while not all of the static is gone, it is significantly diminished. We also have the pleasure of playing "Find the Balls" when we pull stuff out of the dryer. I've got some baby knits blocking and drying, so as they settle up over the next few days, I'll post the results.

I've also been lucky enough to find a great group of gals in town to knit with on Tuesday nights. I'll be taking the Clapotis that I am making for my sister with me this week. We meet at a coffeeshop downtown, so I get the pleasure of knitting, talking and having hot chocolate all in one evening.

-B

Yes, I've been doing some knitting

Despite the evidence to the contrary, I've actually been knitting. Since the summer, I've made a bunch of dish clothes with a star motif, but never remembered to take a picture before giving them away. I also re-did the white scribbling in hopes of using up more of the yarn, but that didn't work out. Instead I gave the left over yarn and a freshly made pair of homemade needles to my friend A's niece over Christmas and started teaching her to make her own mini scribbling. I also managed to make 1 sock from the jaywalker pattern that S gave me. Even with a few mistakes in it, I'm happy with the results. It's not a hard pattern, but it took longer than expected and missing a bunch of decrease rounds because I didn't read the pattern carefully didn't help.

I don't know when I'll have time to start/finish the other sock, since I'm going to be pretty busy at work the next couple of months. Maybe at the same time I get around to watching this season of 24, given that I'm already 4 hours behind.

Maybe if I find the energy, I'll post the picture of the 1 sock.

-E