The Very Hungry Caterpillar

I'll definitely be making a pair of these for my newbie due in January.  Girl or boy, it'll be PERFECT!  Thanks for the inspiration mama!

Introducing Livvy!

This is my beautiful new niece! She was born just yesterday and I guess my sister had to try on her going home outfit to make sure it would fit since she was just a little smaller than expected; 6lbs 15oz and 18" long. I think she's so sweet! And has the most perfect mouth a baby's ever had. Of course, I made the ladybug skirty :)

Spring is HERE!!

I cannot express how much I hate winter, and how much I LOVE SPRING!!! So I was pretty excited when my sister needed a shower gift and said I could do whatever I want to do. My tulips started pushing through the soil last week, so this is what I did. I love it! It's in Berroco Ultra Alpaca except for the yellow which is Di'Ve Zenith merino wool.

Owie's Monkey Pants!

My sister Michelle has been bugging me about these for MONTHS.  Since I only reserve Sundays for knitting for family and friends, it took much longer than my projects normally do after they get on the needles. I'm so very pleased with how they came out, and I'm so happy they went to my sweet nephew so I can visit them all the time!! :)  Thanks for the inspiration Shelly!! You inspired me to make some of the cutest longies on the planet! And yes, they're made with my very favorite Berroco Ultra Alpaca, the DK version.

And because he's mine and he's SO DARN CUTE, here's Lucas modeling Owie's pants. He LOVED them and didn't want to take them off!

My Favorite Super Hero!!!

Anson LOVES to pretend. He loves to be other people. He's hardly ever himself!  He loves to be Woody and make Lucas be Buzz. He loves to be Spiderman, Mr. Incredible, and even Maxwell Smart! (yes... he LOVES the old TV series Get Smart which we have on DVD. He borrows Daddy's suit coats and shoes and stomps around calling Lucas either 99 or Chief and talking into his shoe!) But of course, he loves being Superman most of all. He used to want to go to school dressed in his Superman costume, which of course I didn't want him to do. I let him take it in his back pack a couple of times, but he always came home in it so that wasn't working.  Finally I decided to make him an acceptable alternative. I'm extremely pleased with how it came out, and so is he  :). It's knit in Cascade 220 sport weight,which is a very nice and inexpensive wool that's held up to the abuse of a 5 year old and his 3 year old brother, and it's very comfortable to wear, or so he tells me. It's so gratifying to make something for my own son.  He's totally my super hero.

Unfortunately he hasn't let me take his picture in it yet! So here's his cousin Jack, who's not nearly as camera shy.

Candy Shoppe!

These are the softest, squishiest, most hug-able pair of longies I've ever made. After I bound them off, I carried them around over my shoulder for a while just because they're so soft!!! Unfortunately, the yarn they're made out of (well... the light pink and yellow anyway, which is the softest yarn EVER,especially in terms of squishiness) is discontinued, so it'll get harder and harder to find. It's 100% Merino wool, but is shrink resistant.  It'll still felt if you REALLY try HARD, but for the most part it's washing machine safe. I washed and dried a swatch of it with my towels to see what would happen, and it did shrink just a little bit... after washing AND drying on hot.  Weirdly, the stitches didn't felt, just the yarn, so there was perfect stitch definition,but the yarn itself was felted. I'd love to work with it again.

And seriously, how cute are these!

The mama I made these for was having a really hard time visualizing the colors together so I decided to knit a mini pair of longies to show what some of the colors would look like together. As you can see, they look NOTHING like the finished product, but they're still really cute, so I decided to finish them off and offer them to the mama as a pair of doll pants :).  We tried them on Anson's Buzz Lightyear and they fit like a dream!

Addy also decided she wanted to model these ones, and they're just about a perfect fit, except the rise is kinda short on her. She's such  a petite little thing. I totally lub her.

Boy Monster Hat

This is the big brother of the girlie monster hat.  Unfortunately big brother had a horrible cold and wouldn't cooperate for a picture.  I should have gotten one of this on my nephew Jack.  He wanted to keep it SO BAD.  I know what to do for him for Christmas now!

Girly Monster Hat

Look! Isn't she about the cutest thing EVER?!?! Thanks to Lauren for letting me borrow this adorable pic of her baby in this hat :) Yeah... gotta get me a girl! Only I'm pretty darn sure I'll never have one with those pretty brown eyes.

Ella the Elephant BLOOMERS :)

Hoot-Hoot Skirty

This was inspired by this hat. The more I look at it, the more I like it. It's made from washable yarns as the mama who ordered this uses AIO's and pockets (cloth diapers that don't need a cover) and didn't want to have to worry about accidentally putting it in the washer or dryer. The main colors are in Berroco Vintage, which is about 40% wool, and the rest acrylic and nylon I think. It's VERY soft, and even though the label says to lay flat to dry, I put a swatch through the dryer and it came out just beautiful. The other colors are a variety of superwash wools from Karabella, Tahki, and Dale of Norway.


 Addy decided she wanted to model for me today and didn't care that these are too small! She really likes the little flowers....

Owlie BLOOMERS!

K.. now I have a new favorite. I can't wait until I get pics from my brother of these on my niece. They're SO CUTE! I love the bloomer style! I used this pattern. Yes, I could have made up my own, but I thought it would be kinda fun to learn some new techniques, and this one has a different crotch than I've worked before which I quite like. I'll definitely be using it again. The bloomers are knit in Berroco Ultra Alpaca with Plymouth Superwash Merino (blue) and Cascade 220 (green) trim. So soft and pretty! I really need a girl I think.

If you don't have a ravelry account, you should get one! I don't know if you can view that link without an account, but it's FREE and totally worth it if you're into knitting/crochet, even if you're only into shopping for it.

Here's our gorgeous little Rosie.  It doesn't show off the bloomers all that well... but MAN is she cute or WHAT?! :)  I totally have the most charming nieces in the world.

Sushi and Elmo

 These sushi longies turned out TOTALLY different from what I thought they would. Just goes to show, sometimes things really do have a life of their own.  They were going to have just a row of sushi on the bum, but then I came across some really cute cartoon sushi, and I couldn't resist the inspiration!  These made me giggle as I was making them :). They're made from mostly Berroco Ultra Alpaca, but the green, orange, black and white are either Cascade 220 or Plymouth Galway

.Is there really anything to say about Elmo? Every kid who's seen them so far has wanted to wear them. Both of my boys took turns "trying them on" and my niece wouldn't take them off. She really likes longies. I went to my sister's to have her take some pictures for me and Addy modeled my peace sign longies, but really, as soon as I walked in the door she only had eyes for Elmo.  The white outside the black does NOT show as much in real life.

Peace!

I actually love these so much that I really don't want to send them off. Just the colors make me want to keep them! The peace sign is knit in bulky Gaia in the Talulah colorway by Lollytree Yarns. I only had a little scrap of it that Mrs Lollytree sent me along with some adorable stitch markers and some white Cestari that I used to make the Hello Kitty shorties. I love this colorway so much that I really MUST get some for my own use. Seriously, I think I need a hat and scarf for myself out of it. Not only is the colorway scrumptious, the yarn is so soft and squishy!

I started the legs with totally different colors and decided I didn't like it at all. They needed to match the Talulah better. So I ripped them out and went through my scraps again and tried to match the colors as closely as possible. The burgundy color is one I dyed myself and apparently didn't set it well enough because it bled on the blue and yellow (curses!). I tried to get it out, hoping my trick from the Lost in the Woods longies would work, but alas, that was a one time deal. In the process of trying to get out the dye transfer, the longies felted a little so I was afraid that changing those few stripes would be impossible and I'd have to knit them all over again. Fortunately, that wasn't the case. It's pretty hard to tell which stripes I re-knit now unless you know what you're looking for, and that' s just fine with me!

For the stripes on the legs, I used a random stripe generator on Biscuits and Jam.com. Coolest knitting tool EVER.

Details of remaining color transfer. GRR!!! Must remember to lanolize with vinegar.

Here's the little girl who ended up with them. I wanna squish her cheeks. I seriously gotta get me a little gir!!!

Ella the Elephant

This is an extremely popular fabric, and very hard to find. Just trying to find decent PICTURES to try to copy it was very difficult. I'm very pleased with how they turned out, and I hope the mama is too.

Cutest thing I've EVER MADE!

Yes... this is definitely the cutest thing I've ever made. I think the monkeys will remain my favorite forever. This one was made holding three strands of lace weight alpaca together. The marled brown is actually 2 different browns and a natural. This is one of those that I'm sad to see go. However, I'm pretty sure I have enough of the yarn left to make myself one... if I ever have another baby and if that baby happens to be a girl. *Sigh* Making baby stuff sure makes for baby hunger.

Girly Sock Monkey's