Toddler Pillow

My mom isn't able to sew any more so she gave me her sewing machine. My own was 30 years old and past its prime. The new-to-me one is a joy to use. It's not fancy, but it does more than my old basic one did, and more efficiently at that.

One of my first projects was to make my granddaughter two little pillowcases for the small, thin, toddler pillow I picked up at Ikea.

Kaylen loves her new pillow. When she first got it her mommy heard her fussing in the middle of the night (baby monitor --- great invention!), then there was a little gasp of recognition, a bit of rustling, a contented, exaggerated sigh, and she was back to sleep.

Could a sewing project be more appreciated?

Upper Fraser Valley Knitters

Yesterday was the second meeting of the Upper Fraser Valley Knitters. After sending out a meeting reminder the previous day I was a little concerned when a large number of emails came in from members saying they couldn't be there due to other commitments.

I thought I would be sitting there all alone in a great big meeting room so I invited (okay, begged) my daughter to come even though she didn't have a babysitter for Kaylen. Officially children are not allowed at the meetings (unless they are old enough to be knitting), but I felt this one time was an exception.

After a while ladies started to trickle in, a few of them stopping by on their lunch hour from work. Eventually we had 8 members and one little pint sized "visitor" present. We chatted, knitted, and passed around our latest finished creations.

The next meeting won't be until September when everyone is back from vacations and summer commitments.

Excuses

Okay, okay. So this photo of an old, old finished project (the wall quilt is almost 20 years old!) Is just an excuse to get my cute little granddaughter's photo on my blog.


And speaking of excuses, a quick comment about the recent lack of Masters Monday posts.

• I've been very busy organizing a knitter's group in my area.
• I HAVE done a bit of work on the requirements each week but it hasn't been knitting or worthy of a photo.....(answering questions, researching techniques).
• I've had a migraine headache on both of the missed Masters Mondays (no, really!)
• I've been sidetracked trying to finish a sweater I shouldn't have started in the first place.

Good news though. I bought yarn for the Master Knitter's Level II vest today.

Masters Monday 2.12

Okay, so this Masters Monday is happening late on a Tuesday night, but it is still happening.

This is Swatch 15 - cable of choice.

The basic stitch pattern is #4.9 from "The Harmony Guide to Aran Knitting".

The actual knitting and pattern writing was all completed on schedule, as planned, I only fell behind in the photography and blogging department. I'm blaming the demands of the long, Easter weekend. I mean if you could spend time with this little muffin rather than sit at the computer blogging about knitting a swatch, wouldn't you?

That's what I thought.

Kaylen has a little slide show of her first Easter egg painting experience up on her blog if you are interested.

Portrait Ornament

Many, many years ago (has it been 23 already!) I made a few ornaments similar to this one.


Featuring pictures of my 3 little ones they immediately became my favorite ornaments of all time. Year after year I put them in prominent locations on the Christmas tree. As the children grew older (they are all adults now) I loved to reminisce of Christmas from so long ago.

Last year I sorted the ornaments and carefully stored the portrait ornaments away where they would be "safe". I had put them in a sealed container with an aluminum bottom. I guess some kind of a chemical reaction, (or perhaps the lack of circulating air?) caused them considerable damage. The pictures are fine, but the crocheted part turned all brown and ugly. I'll have to redo them some time.

The ones I made this year are for pictures of our first grandchild on her very first Christmas. Very special indeed.

And Baby's Makes Three

With the end of November fast approaching the crunch was on and I had to concentrate on getting our granddaughter's stocking completed in time for her family's December 1 st decorating spree.

Kaylen's stocking will join those that I made for her Mommy and Daddy last year.

I still have a liner to do for Kaylen's stocking, but that won't be needed until Christmas Eve. The liners are something I make up myself to protect the more labour intensive and easily damaged appliqued stocking. They are not part of the Mary Maxim kits.

Wee Vest

This project went so quickly from speculation to finished project that I never even took WIP pictures, or mentioned it here on the blog.

Kristy wanted a few warm vests for Kaylen to wear in the winter months. Using the measurements from Kaylen's store bought vest I quickly whipped up a pattern on Sweater Wizard and Kristy went home and knit one up in just a couple of days. It looked so cute that I couldn't resist adding to Kaylen's wardrobe myself.

I dug through my stash and found some pretty chenille given to me by a friend. A day and a half later the custom fit vest was off the needles and taking a test trip through the washer and dryer. Chenille can be a little finicky and if the vest was going to fall apart when subjected to the normal care a baby's clothing must go through then I wanted to find out about before it was given as a gift.

It survived. It fits. And I think it looks darn cute --- even when delivered late at night and tried on over pajamas.

Christmas Slippers

With a wee visitor as inspiration I got the needles a clackin' yesterday,

and by late evening had a spur of the moment gift ready for Christmas.

When my own children were small this was my favourite slipper pattern. They stayed on toddlers' feet better than most. It's a pattern by "Bouquet", #388 "Children's Slippers".

Happy Halloween!

Fewer and fewer children seem to come trick-or-treating these days. This is my favorite little costumed cutie, dressed up as a rag doll.



Better pictures of the whole costume can be seen on her own blog.


Too bad she's too young for a candy treat. She did get a yummy Farley's biscuit though.



The bib she is wearing is 47 years old, it was mine when I was a baby.

Mary Jane and Bobbi

This were a quick little knit. A gift for my granddaughter.



Starting with a pattern I made for my own kids many, many years ago, I improvised a great deal to come up with the Mary Janes and Bobbi Socks idea.

Porch With A Swing

When I said I wanted a porch with a swing, this wasn't quite what I had in mind.


I'm sure Kaylen will love it though. Grandma's baby doll is just taking it for a test drive while we wait for Kaylen to recover from a cold so she can come for a visit.

Anouk Interrupts

I don't really like to have more than one project on the go at any one time, and I really don't want to set my Honeybee shawl aside, even for a few days, but Anouk insists it must be knit first.



I'd tell Anouk to wait its' turn and to quit butting in and being so rude, but I'm afraid it is right. For a few days anyway, I'll have to give Anouk some attention. A deadline is looming.



Kris, have you started on your part?

Twinkle, Twinkle Little Toe

With the application of numerous sparkly little beads and sequins, the toe to Kaylen's Christmas stocking is now complete.



Next step is several rather intricate snowflakes --- embroidered, beaded, sequined, backed, stuffed and dangling!

But not tonight. I haven't met my self imposed daily knitting deadline yet. I'm trying to stick to knitting 20 rows of the Honeybee Stole every day.

~

101 Projects

Ever since getting my invite to Ravelry I've been gradually working on adding all my old projects. I'm up to 101 now and still have more to go. My daughter got her much anticipated invite yesterday and is loading up her projects too. If you are a Ravelry member why not stop by and link to her as a "friend"? She goes by "Kristo".

Do you think Ravelry will still be going strong when my granddaughter learns to knit? I do.

Ugly and Cute

Nasty, matted, pink mill ends, spun quickly and with no finesse in and effort to just get it over with, and then plyed against itself and/or with another single that was also unloved. This kind of toil gets you a pile of ugly yarn in varying thicknesses.



Overdye it to improve the colour and you get ----

--- well, you get yarn that is still darn ugly, but maybe slightly improved.



Oh, maybe I should just forget the ugly yarn pictures and send you over to my granddaughter Kaylen's blog to see a slideshow of her first swimming lessons.

Starting the Third

I've started on our granddaughter Kaylen's Christmas stocking. What you see is already several evenings' work. Each of the little sequins in the background are sewn on individually, starting and stopping the thread at each location rather than travelling along the back from one spot to the next. I like to keep the back of my work as neat as possible.



If you are interested, her Mommy and Daddy's stockings, done last year, can be seen here.

~

Little Swinger Gets an Idea

Sweet Little Cupcake

She's back. My sweet little granddaughter was away on her very first "vacation". She has posted some cute pictures on her blog.

While she was away she wore one of the little cupcake hats I have made.



Apparently it was a big hit with people waiting in the long ferry lines. Even the little children recognized it as a "cupcake".



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Gorilla Bouncer

Today we bought and installed a Jolly Jumper for our granddaughter Kaylen, (aka "Gorilla").



Turns out that Jolly Jumpers are great entertainment --- for the adults as well as the baby.

Action video HERE.

EZ's BSJ

A gift for Kaylen. The Baby Surprise Jacket from "The Opinionated Knitter", a compilation of newsletters written by Elizabeth Zimmerman from 1958 through 1968.



The sweater is supposed to be "the right size for a 1-year-old, or older", but even though I got perfect gauge, I think it will fit Kaylen when she is about 6 months old. Yup. Right in the heat of the summer. *sigh* I suppose that makes it a good thing that the hat likely won't fit at the same time? It looks quite large even though I used Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's advice on hat sizes. (from the sections "Typical Head Sizes" and "Head Rules and Exceptions" in her book "Knitting Rules"). If we fold up that first, lower red stripe it looks more like it might fit a human being under 5 years old. Maybe Kaylen can wear it some time next winter --- long after she has outgrown the sweater.