Monday, November 13, 2006

FO sure!

Yesterday I posted about a project I was working on but had yet to show pictures for. Now that it's done, I'm ready to reveal the results. There is one more part of this 3-piece ensemble that I have yet to do (a pair of longies in the natural color, I think), but I'm not really into waiting until that's done to show you all the photos.

Without further ado, here they are:

Ruby (left) models the hat, while Magnus (right) models the Raglan Sweater


Okay...so the top pic is a little, well....creepy. Considering that I have no true life models to wear these items, I thought the dolls made the next best choice. None of the dolls in this house wear clothes, normally, so this photo shoot was something different for them. All the dolls in this house also look like they need their mommies (well, daddies in this case) to give them a firm scrubbing, but they seemed do the trick for tonight. The hat is adapted from a free pattern available at Little Turtle Knits. I have made the tie-top hat, and it was totally cute, but I like the plain snug-fitted hat better on newborns. Both hat and sweater were knit with Mission Falls 1824 Wool (lurve, lurve, lurve it!), which is a 100% merino superwash (a must for baby knits that will get lots of wear, I hope) and is so soft and plush when knit up. The hat used just under half a skein of natural, and the sweater took 2 1/3 skeins of basil color. The color is closest in hue to the top picture. At almost $7.00 a 85-yard skein, it's not inexpensive yarn, though, so I reserve it for special knits or for knits that will be close to sensitive skin. I used size 8 needles (dpns for the hat and circulars for the sweater, though it was knit flat and seamed...but I bet I could modify the pattern easily to totally knit it in the round) for both projects.

The sweater pattern is the Raglan Sweater from Debbie Bliss's the baby knits book, which I also love. I'm sorta in love with Debbie Bliss in general (all except that most of her books are lacking in the schematic drawing department which occasionally makes construction a challenge), as her patterns are very classic, simple, and fun. Most of the patterns from this book call for "aran" weight yarn (gauge of 18 st and 24 rows), which is what most of my stash is, so it makes for an easy choice when I get a bug to make a gift for someone's baby.

I did not alter the pattern in any way, and I made the smallest size for this sweater (0-3 mos). I think it is actually pretty spot on for size when comparing it to some of the other newborn gear that I have laying around. Debbie's patterns also tend to be a bit on the roomy size, and I was afraid this might be the same, but not so.

I would definitely make this one again, and there's another sweater from the same book that I'd like to do for baby girl if I get the chance before she arrives. Both hat and sweater were cast on yesterday, and I finished seaming the sweater just a little while ago, so they are super fast projects. Oh, how I love instant gratification!

These two items are for a friend's baby who is due the same day mine is, and I hope she likes them. I think they turned out pretty well.

1 comment:

Sourire11 said...

very, very cute! that green is a great color.... and yeah for instant knitting gratification!