A great sadness

There has been a knitting death that many of you were probably already aware of - magknits.com is no more.

The editors published a letter to explain their exit, which cannot be blamed.

As the home to famed patterns like Jaywalkers, I had always enjoyed their contribution and always looked forward to each new month's issue. I hope that all the treasures that were contained in their archives find safe homes, especially since a lot of those things are still in my ravelry queue (selfish thoughts). If you hear of anyone who needs a digital home to republish, I would be happy to give them some space here.

Oh, Baby!

I have nested. Hello baby - the nest is ready. C'mon child; let's be here already.

I have already shown you a couple of things that I had completed - a wee baby surprise and a tychus cap. Here are a couple more caps in combos of ribs and purls. Do you see the rocket pop inspiration? I made them to coordinate with my
interpretation of Lesley Stanfield's Icelandic Jacket. The knitted body is a solution to my crochet count having been off when I finished working the yoke (a 16 stitch error discovered after a front, a sleeve, and the back were crocheted). The yarn is some stashed Sirdar Snuggly with the crocheted bit done on a D-hook and the knitted bit on a US4.
The buttons are hard to see but too cute regardless - blue fish and white tugboats alternating.


I have been on a top down rampage in all things sweater related. I improvised this little split neck top while I was teaching a class on Top Down Sweater knitting to have an example to work on while my students busily worked away at adult size garments. The green and cream is worked in Encore Worsted. I had tons of loaded bobbins left from an intarsia project that I didn't want to go to waste. So, left over proportions determined the patterning of this garment. The quad colored version to the right is worked in Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran. It was sized up a little in the cast on and has a couple more increases in the yoke; now, that I invested in another ball of the blue, I am going to add another stripe sequence to the body to make having sized it up width wise make sense (babies get longer faster than they get wider). You can see the sleeve kryptonite at work on this item, per usual.


What is that? A bird? A plane? A strangely shaped receiving blanket? Nope. It's another baby surprise. It just needs its shoulder seams and buttons sewn up. I am probably going to wait till Dante is closer to needing it so that it can remain a magic trick at the store to explain the concept of the pattern. The yarn here is again Encore plus some TLC in my favorite colorway, Surf and Turf. It is easily sized up by being worked in worsted weight on US8. Waiting to see if we will need more sleeve length by the time that the body fits also keeps me from sewing up those two lasts seams. No excuses for not having done the button sewing though.


This blanket out of stashed Homespun is hopefully something that Dante will snuggle prodly in since it goes onto a very short list of yarny blankets completed by these hands. I think that it may only be the second ever. I never did finish Xander's started nearly 8 years ago. I think that one is even lost and gone to the sands of time. Not to say that my children will go cold; they are blessed enough to receive quilts and yarned blankets from loved ones. Xander received something that would never ever come off my short attention spanned needles - an adult size seed stitched blanket in sport weight.


Baby D is lucky enough to have received two gorgeous blankets from good friends Charlie and Kate. Charlie, my coworker, made him this, gorgeous and still masculine, yellow lace number in any mother's favortie yarn (at least, this mother's favortie) - Encore. Kate, a woman who has only been knitting and crocheting for about 6 months, hooked him this aborable giant grany square cuddler that happens to coordinate very nicely with both the bassinette and the stroller. Wish he would get here so that he could enjoy these generous spoils with me.

There is one more gifted knit that I want to share with you but it is packed in the hospital bag so you will have to wait to see 'em on his little tootsies.

In the end, I didn't really need to wait for the bassinette to photograph those things; it simply made for an awkward setting. Oh well.

Next time, I will show you some of the UFOs that await the babe.

Obsession Continued

I have been knitting on this baby almost constantly - at least constantly during the hours that I can stay awake (which are morphing more and more toward ungodly hours). This project and an unreasonable amount of napping is all that is keeping me sane as I impatiently wait for the wee one to arrive already. (I am still two weeks away from my due date but he is also full term as of this last Friday). Anywho, I finished the body yesterday afternoon and went right into my first steeking of a thing so that I could try it on as I knit the sleeves.

I wanted a reminder about where to place the stitching lines, so I went on a google quest for quick pictoral. It seems that I chose the quickest and dirtiest plan for involving steeks; the first two pages of links all showed work that had more than 4 stitches set aside and all favored crocheted steeks rather than machine sewn steeks. C'est la vie. This way works and it would be too late to be a-changin now.

I did do the attached i-cord edging already, before continuing on my sleeves. I'll show you that and some finished sleeves asap.