Indigo Mouse

I think I mentioned in my last post about the baby boom in my family recently and that I was working on another quilt for another cousin’s baby. Well, this is that quilt. I finished sewing the binding in the car on the four hour drive to meet the little one, so it was unwashed and unwrapped. The good news is that it was immediately used and loved all July 4th weekend. The other good news is that my aunt has beautiful gardens, so the photoshoot for the quilt was a delight.

This baby quilt was particularly special because it was for a cousin I am very close with who had been having difficulty conceiving. Just when she had given up, along came Anya. (Don’t you just love that name?) My cousin and I grew up playing “fairy princess” together, so when I saw this Princess and the Pea fabric from Far Far Away by Heather Ross, I knew it was perfect. The hard part was hunting down the coordinates. I had to order from 3 different online shops to get enough fabric for the quilt. The colors weren’t my favorite in the collection, but the other palettes were all sold out from this popular group. The pinks and oranges have grown on me though, and it was nice to be forced outside of my usual color palette.

The material is a double gauze, which I found to be annoying to work with because of its stretchy, raveling nature, but so worth it because it is just butter soft and light as a cloud.

This is the most freeform quilt I have ever done. At first I started out by making a carefully planned sketch, utilizing the fabric amounts I had and coming up with something very boxy, similar to the last baby quilt I showed. Then when it came time to cut up the fantastic fabric, I just couldn’t force it into boxes. The princess print was so very vertical that I decided to just cut it into long strips, and then inbetween those strips I chose to mimic the look of the stacked mattresses by sewing strips of the coordinates together and cutting them into columns. All of the cuts were made freehand without a ruler for a casual, wavy look that imitates the prints.

I found some cotton backing at the last minute at JoAnn’s, and I inserted an extra mattress strip into it. I just love it!

Shortly after I finished this quilt, I discovered that Heather Ross just released Far Far Away 2. Not to be left hunting down the colors I wanted this time, I immediately snatched up a fat quarter pack from an Etsy shop.

So gorgeous! This time the fabric is on linen, instead of double gauze, so I’m a little bummed about that. The double gauze was wonderful for baby quilts. The linen is a bit thick and rough, so I’m not sure yet what I will use this for. I am definitely open to suggestions!

It’s slow sewing in these parts lately. My cousins are multiplying faster than I can make baby gifts, and I’ve also been taking on some projects for work. Add to this the fact that Alice will no longer tolerate playing on her own while I sew for any solid amount of time, and it’s a recipe for non-productivity. I made Alice her own crafting area in my craft room, thanks to a $7 end table from IKEA, and she does like to color and play with my pattern weights, but that generally only buys about 15 minutes, tops.

So when I show you this finished baby quilt for my cousin’s new baby girl, it really is a huge accomplishment. The baby is now over 2 months old, but I finished the top before she was born. That counts for something, right?

The quilt is made from a linen/cotton blend in three solid colors mixed with a variety of fun prints. I had wanted to do something with a linen blend to try it out. I like the look, but the linen raveled really easily, and it’s a bit thick for a baby quilt. I think of this more as a mat they’ll lay on the floor, rather than a snuggly quilt. It should hold up to repeated washings well though.

The pattern is one I made up, inspired by other patterns I’d seen. I really like blocks on point, and I found it to be quite fun.

The back has a little pieced charm, and the quilting is squares that mimic the blocks. I did something different with the binding this time by sheer accident. I mitered the corners in a weird way, so that it wanted to completely fold to the back with none showing on the front. I rather like it because it means the front is very clean and modern looking.

This baby quilt (yet unnamed) is very orderly and structured feeling, which is funny because I’ve finished the top for another cousin’s baby that is the complete opposite. I hope to finish that quilt one day as well.

Oh, and I just thought I’d mention that these photos were taken with the shutter speed at three seconds and they’re still dark. Rainiest late spring ever.

I desperately want more short sleeve layering sweaters in my wardrobe, and yet I cannot seem to find the right pattern.* I thought I had found it with the Bramblewood Vest from Notions, but after starting the vest three times, and working on it through much travel knitting time, I have nothing to show for it but a pile of frogged yarn. First I started the vest and totally mis-read the directions. I realized my mistake after a few days of knitting, frogged and restarted. Then I realized that if I were flying out of the country (which I was for a business trip), I would need to use wooden needle tips instead of nickel. Of course, I could only find size 8 wood tips, not size 7, but I thought, “meh, I’ll start over again, the size 7 version was looking too small anyway.” So, yeah. Turns out I should have stuck to the 7s. When I got home from my trip, I had a vest that was knit to the waist and decided to take the opportunity to try it on. It’s huge. Like 4 inches of positive ease, which is not what one wants in a vest. Here’s a photo of my 2nd and 3rd tries on the pattern.

Nice cabling, right? I’m particularly proud in the fact that I forgot my cable needle, so I made do with a Q-Tip. (I know there’s a method to cabling without a cable needle, but I have never had the opportunity to practice that, and it’s not something that can be looked up mid-flight.)

Anyway, I would be perfectly willing to restart the pattern for a 4th time, except I’m not thrilled with the raglan style increases and little sleeve caps. It just doesn’t look quite right to me for a vest.

There are three bits of good news to this sad tale:
1. The yarn holds up well to frogging–it’s Knit Picks Simply Cotton Heathered, which I had never used before. It doesn’t hurt my hands either.
2. I love the color–Reindeer Heather. It will be a good matching piece for my wardrobe.
3. Interweave Knits Summer issue has just come out, and it’s brimming with great short sleeve options.

I’m going to try the Ambrosia Cardigan.

Wish me luck.

*I would happily buy vests in the store, rather than knit them, but clothing manufacturers seem to have decided that women only want vests with faux shirts attached. Yes, I have considered cutting the faux shirt off, but I haven’t resorted to that yet.

When I started knitting the Elvira dress for Alice, I wasn’t planning on it being her Easter dress, but it just kind of worked out that way. I finished the dress a week before we left to go visit my family, and much to my chagrin, it was pouring rain and cold on Easter, so a wool dress with layers underneath was perfect. These photos were taken in the brief moment of dry weather Easter morning.

She wasn’t actually hunting eggs, but she did love running around outside, and the eggs were fascinating too. She enjoyed opening them and closing them again. My mom and I put nuts and mini chocolate chips inside the eggs, and she is a definitely chocolate fiend–true to my own heart.

The dress fits her nicely as a dress now, and it will still fit her as a shirt/tunic as she grows. I made the 2T size.

I just love the eyelet pattern on the neck, and the button closure at the back. It was very easy to get this dress on and off, as it is quite stretchy. When I washed and blocked the dress after I finished knitting, the lace opened up nicely, and the feel became buttery soft. I knit the Stroll Tonal yarn (Queen Anne color) with size 4 needles, so it is nice and loose and drapey.

It was a definite hit!

The amount of ambivalence I feel about fall is equaled by the sheer enthusiasm I feel for spring, so needless to say I’m a pretty happy camper lately. Despite the fact that it’s pouring rain today and I’ve been fighting a miserable cold for a week, my mood is downright chipper. I am especially looking forward to Easter. As a non-religious person, Easter for me has always been about brightly colored eggs, candy, flowers, and seeing relatives (I enjoy a large extended family). Now that Alice is a tot, I can’t wait to watch her hunt for Easter eggs in an adorable spring dress with her 2nd cousins.

Speaking of Alice, I guess it’s been a while since I posted an update. Let’s see…she’s running around like crazy, she just got her first molar (9th tooth), and she can respond to requests to say what a doggy, kitty and cow say (”uh uh”, “aaaaah”, and “ummmmm” respectively). Here’s what she looks like now–yes, grabbing at the camera or my glasses or both:

Anyway, back to spring. What better way to celebrate than the completion of a new hand bag…

…getting an order of fabric in the mail…

…and seeing that the new Stroll Tonal yarn is now available!

Unfortunately, that’s all the blogging time I have, so I can’t give much in the way of details. I hope you’re enjoying your spring as well!