coming soon to a friday near you...

The baby cardigan I've been working on is done, and it looks marvelous if I do say so myself. I love how the simple colorwork makes it look so fancy, and most of all I love that these pretty little vintage buttons I've been saving have finally found a home. Hooray! They added just the right touch. I can't wait to see the Little Pea wearing it this fall.

I've already made up a matching hat and written up the pattern, and as soon as I get a chance to do a photo shoot, I'll be posting it for a Free Pattern Friday very soon - in time for some fun fall knitting.

I'm really looking forward to sharing this pattern with you, especially since it's been ages since I posted a free pattern here. It's made with one of my favorite yarns, Blue Sky Alpacas Skinny Dyed, which has got to have the best colorways of any organic cotton out there.

Now I'm looking for some other fall knitting projects, despite the fact that I've got a lovely orphaned Komet and a half-knitted toy sloth looking mournfully at me out of the knitting basket. I need to go trawl the internets and see what's new for this season. What are y'all working on? Next on my list is a little Hansigurumi seahorse, which is going to get a rattle inside for you-know-who.

bootie love

I just discovered that I love goofy Gramma booties!

Check these out! They came in a box of hand-me-downs, so I have no idea who made them, but they are awesome. I hadn't realized that I loved funky pom-pom booties until on a whim I put them on my kid. Dear God! Why had no one warned me of the cuteness??? And how lucky were we to score them in a hand-me-down box??

The overwhelming wave of cute-induced excitement got me wondering about where to find some good Gramma-bootie patterns on the internets. A year or two ago I knitted a bunch of sophisticated, classy, non-pom-pommed booties and posted my reviews of the free patterns here. Alas, those were the days before I had nummy little baby feet in the house in need of such garments. I believed that the simple, clean lines of a Mary-Jane style bootie were what one would want to see on one's well-dressed child. Ha! Bring on the pom-poms!

Actually, the main qualification for a good bootie is that they actually stay on. This automatically disqualifies Mary-Jane style booties, ballet slipper booties, and many other classy booties from consideration, and renders whatever I said in that previous review post basically worthless. It also explains why so many bootie patterns have names like "Stay-On Baby Booties," "Won't Slip Baby Booties," and "Guaranteed to Never Fall Off Or Your Money Back Baby Booties." Now I understand.

I think the booties above were made with Grandmother Owl's Really Good Booties pattern, (which is free on the webs), with pom-poms added. Friends with new babies, be forewarned: I will hereby be adding pom-poms or other such nonsense to every bootie I knit from now on! And to anyone who I ever knitted a classy Mary-Jane bootie for, my apologies. I didn't know.

Also, will I ever post a picture of any part of my child other than her feet? What's up with that? OK, next time - hands!

a quick hello

Peeping out to say hello!



I am pleased to report that there is a little knitting underway here, however slowly. I'm designing a sweet little baby cardigan (what else?) with Blue Sky Alpacas Skinny Dyed. After my fun with color knitting earlier this spring, I really wanted to put one of these stitch patterns to use in a little sweater. I like how it's coming out, and this will definitely be appearing as a Free Pattern Friday some time in the near future.

There hasn't been much time for gardening, let alone cooking, but I am really happy that I was able to make a batch of jam this week from the delicious figs on our fig tree. The tree is having a banner year this year, and it was really disturbing me to watch out the window as squirrels and mockingbirds gobbled up all the ripe figs. I can see the tree from the rocking chair where I nurse the baby - it was driving me nuts! Now that I've had a chance to gobble some of them up myself, I don't begrudge the varmints their share anymore.

Last random bit in this hello post: I have a post up today on Sew Green about my struggles with green babyhood. I'd love to hear about some of your strategies!

diaper ado

One of the few things I managed to finish knitting before the Little Pea came along was a set of 6 wrap-style knitted diaper covers (the purpley-pink one above is one of my favorites).

Unfortunately, put into practice I discovered that this particular design is not particularly, uh, reliable in the poop containment arena. Oh well. The things you learn when the fantasy baby actually becomes reality...

However, I do plan to knit some pull-up style soakers and give those a try, and if (when!) her daytime naps ever stretch out sufficiently I might also try sewing some from felted sweaters á la the Artful Parent (I am so in love with all Jean's fun projects).

Anyhow, this post was really just to say that over on Sew Green I have a post up today as part of a continuing discussion on cloth v. disposable diapers. Here is Lisa's earlier post on the subject.

Once I've had a chance to test-drive a few different hand-made soakers, I hope to post a review here. In the mean time though, it's factory-made diaper covers for us. *sigh* Can't make everything yourself, I guess.