Baby Love

I've been working on culling my stash of old projects. Either they are getting done or are getting out of line, you know?

Long ago I spotted this very cute baby t-shirt at the Target dollar spot. Cute gift idea with a little something else, I thought. The clearance price of $0.25 decided it for me.

Soon after, I picked up a ball of Patons Astra (A for 100% acrylic) that I thought almost exactly matched the stripes in the heart (and was also on clearance). Once I got home, I realized that all of the baby sock patterns that I had were sock weight and this was worsed. I didn't want to make a hat because I didn't think that a baby would wear a hat with a t-shirt. And frankly, I was too lazy to figure out a solution. So, it got pushed to the bottom of the bin.

Finally, I got hold of a pattern in the right gauge and out came the yarn. Desperate to avoid the fair isle mittens that are torturing me, I knocked out two little socks in no time. They were so fun to knit and I was so taken with the wrong side with all the fun stripes. So instead of returning to the mittens, I designed a fun hat that showed the wrong side and would use up more yarn. Here is Big Baby modeling the ensemble. She's a newborn size and I aas aiming for 3 mo. size, so I think I got pretty close.



For the hat, I cast on 68 sts and knit 1 inch of 2x2 rib. I then increased to 70 sts and knit for a total height of about 3 3/4 inches before decreasing. For the decreases, I repeated P8, p2tog for the first row, purled a row, repeated p7, p2tog, then purled a row, etc. until the p1, p2tog; and p2tog which were done without plain purl rows between to make a flatter top. Love how it came out.



When I was thinking of making the "wrong" side show I wasn't interested in purling all of it, so I made the hat inside out with knit rows, then did the decreases in purl. I like how the decreases show up a little more on the crown.



The socks are knit like a tube sock with pointed toes. Would probably look even better on a real baby.

Not a bad effort to preserve my 25 cent investment. Now, really, I'm heading back to the mittens.

Dirt Knitting

Christmas knitting is finally finished!

Here are the convertible fingerless gloves/mittens for my Dad:



And the socks for my Mom (two - a whole pair!):



And while I was on a roll, I knocked out another Kim's Hat from Last Minute Knitted Gifts out of the spare Christmas knitting Manos for my husband:



It fits nice and tight, just what he wanted and it a reverse color-way of his brother's Dirt Hat. I couldn't help notice that there is a drab colorway going on in my current knitting projects. In fact, this hat matches the mud that is half of our front yard.




Mud is everywhere as the garage continues to limp along toward completion. It is everywhere and on everything. It shouldn't be a surprise that it has invaded my knitting.



And see that skein of Lion Suede - another dirt-colored project. I hope I can cast out all the mud and dirt out of my house when I cast off with this last dirt knitting project.