60 Quick Baby Knits

60 Quick Baby Knits: Blankets, Booties, Sweaters & More in Cascade 220 Superwash

This book sure does have a little bit of everything!  With 60 amazingly adorable projects, I cannot touch on them all.  I am going to point out what I consider to be the highlights of the collection:

• #2: Sheep Hat - This is the pattern that got me to request the book from the library.  The wooliness of the sheep is created by a trinity stitch, and the sheep head and tail are knit separately and then attached.  This is amazingly cute, and something I know I'll need to knit in the future.  
• #3: Sporty Cardigan - This is a a simple unisex striped cardigan, but it is so darling and classic that it deserves mention here.  
• #5: Fan Stitch Blanket - A beautiful ginkgo leave shaped fan pattern over a baby blanket.
• #13: Textured Stripes Hat - An earflap for your toddler is fun, but I never thought about mixing stripes and a checkerboard ribbing before.  This is still a really simple pattern, but it gives the finished garment some nice dimension. 
• #17: Flowered Jumper - I happen to love little knit dresses.  This has some very simple colorwork to create little flowers and sripes at the top and bottom of the dress.  The vibrant colors are part of what really make it sing.
• #26: Boatneck Pullover - What a darling little cabled sweater!  This would work for every day or as a dress up sweater for your little guy.  
• #35: Porcupine Blanket - This is too cute to being describing.  The stripped baby blanket has little procupines walking on 3 of the stripes.  This almost deserves to be decoration!  The porcupines are set up with Intasia and the using french knots they are made "spiney"
• #53: Tiny Tux - Who isn't a sucker for a baby in a little tuxido?  Well this faux cardigan has a white shirt, black vest and red bow tie!  To die for.  
• #60: Bobble Beanie - I love colorwork baby hats.  This has some intersting cables, diagonal colowrok stripes, bobbles and checkerboard.  This would knit up so fast and would be great to use up any yarns you have laying around.  If the book weren't due back at the library right now, I would cast on immediately!  

I know that this is a book produced by a yarn company, but I happen to love the concept that all of the projects in the book can be knit out of the same yarn.  It would make a great gift for a knitter with an assortment of amazing worsted weight colors.  

This is not a great book for beginners because there are no "how to knit" instructions, but with the internet I'm not sure how many people go to books to learn nowadays anyway.  Many of the patterns are appropriate for beginners who know how to do the basic stitches.  I love the tabs to make it easy to open.  

Arm Knit Cowl - Finished in Under 1 Hour!

When I came across Simply Maggie's video and blog post on arm knitting, I loved her amazing idea for a fantastic chunky cowl.  (If you want to purchase one of these cowls, she has some for sale.)  The problem is that while there are tips to make your own infinity cowl (holding 2 yarns together, cast on 12 stitches) there is very little other pattern information.  I decided to write down what I did when I made my own arm knit cowl so that it can be easier for others to make their own.

 

The video is fantastic because it shows you how to cast on, and knit both forwards and backwards... With extra tips to orient things correctly and use your arms rather than knitting needles.

It is really good that this project takes under an hour to knit up, because it is hard to set aside your knitting while your arms are the needles.  What should you do if you really do need to step away?  Transfer the stitches onto a random needle and gently set aside.

Materials

• 120 yards (60 yards held double) of Super Bulky Yarn.  The yarns in this sample were Lion Brand Wool-Ease Thick & Quick in Denim (Blue) and Black.   (Each ball of yarn comes with 106 yards, so there is plenty for this project.)  My Cowl Weighs 185 g.  
• Needles - You don't need needles, you're using your arms!  Depending on the size of your forearms
• Notions - You may want a yarn needle for weaving the ends of the cowl together, but the holes are big enough that you can use your fingers. 
• Finished Size - ~13" x 42" Flat (before sewing the ends together.)  

I arm knit a little differently from Maggie, but I think her video is really good so I provided links to the relevant parts of the video below.  Maggie knits by holding the working yarn in the hand belonging to the arm you are knitting off of.  I prefer to put my hand through the loop I am to knit and then pull the yarn through, much like using knitting needles.   Therefore, I put the terms for the stitch you are making in terms of knitting terms (i.e. knitting forwards and knitting backwards.)

Pattern Instructions

• Cast On 12 stitches to you right arm holding two strands of the super bulky yarn together.  (0:16 of the video)
  
  
• Row 1: Knit 12 stitches backwards (from Right arm to Left Arm.)  Take care to see the Knit Stitches facing towards you.  You may need to fiddle with the technique a bit to find what works best for you to create untwisted knit stitches.  (2:17 of the video)  
• Row 2: Knit 12 stitches forwards (from left arm to right arm.) Again, take care to keep your knit stitches untwisted.   (4:05 of the video)
• Repeat these two rows 10 more times (for 22 rounds total) ending on Row 2, or until the scarf wraps around your neck twice comfortably.  
• Bind off loosely.  (6:27 in the video)  At the point the piece should measure (ROUGHLY - when laid out on wooden floor) 13" x 42"  (The gauge is so loose that you can easily pull it longer or wider, so these measurements are very rough.)
  
  
• Because this is a stockinette fabric with a right side and a wrong side, we are not going to make a mobius (or infinity) cowl.  To sew it together, fold it so the RS fabric is on the inside without any twists.  Sew the Cast on edge to the bind off edge.
  
  
• Weave in any remaining loose ends.  With a gauge this loose, weaving in ends securely may be hard.  I knotted them very well and then cut the ends.  
• Wrap your new cowl around you neck twice and feel super cozy!  Marvel at the fact that this took you under an hour to put together.  

Oh, and it really did take about 30 minutes to knit this cowl.  Maybe I would be faster the second time around because I'm not taking notes while I'm knitting!  Time yourself and tell me how long it took you to create in the comments below.  

Thank you Maggie for this amazing inspiration!

This knitting instructions were written by ChemKnits for your personal or charity use.  Inspiration for this pattern came from the Simply Maggie's "How to Arm Knit" Video. You are not to distribute or sell this pattern without the permission of ChemKnits. © 2013 www.ChemKnits.com  

Wonderful Gift

 

A few weeks ago, I received the most wonderful gift.  I starting a thread on Ravelry asking spinners about their favorite fiber to work with.  Since I am purchasing most of my spinning fiber online, I wanted to get recommendations of reputable sources and not get stuck using the same fiber type over and over.   I met an amazing local spinner who put a bag of different fibers together so I could practice.  

I am completely blown away by this gift.  Not online is there unknown wool (the ? bag), but there is Merino, Rayon, Cotton, Alpaca, Dog (breed unknown but I'm guessing Samoyed), Llama and Montadale.  The spinner selected natural colors because she saw that I like to dye yarn.  I will never be able to thank her enough for her generosity!

I am so excited to expand my spinning skills.  I hope that I will be in a position someday where I can help other new spinners get started! 

Single Breed Yarns

Karia from Kouture Crochet is currently Kickstarting a line of handspun single sheep breed yarns.  Her plan is to make more than 24 yarns available, each spun out of the wool from a single breed of sheep!  Karia sent me some samples to help me out with a dyeing experiment I've been wanting to try: How well do different types of wool take up dye?

Karia provided me with handspun 2-ply Wesleydale, Devon and Texel in addition to some single ply Merino.

All of the samples took up dye beautifully.  It is a little hard to see from the picture, but of the 10 samples, the Commercial Peruvian Highland wool took up the most color (or at least is the most blue green because it started out as a pure white rather than ecru.)  The handspun breeds that took the most color are the Devon, Texel and ? Wool.  The Acrylic/Nylon/Wool Blend has a color that is very different from the rest, even though it didn't appear very yellow compared to the rest at the beginning.  Maybe this is just the way that nylon takes up food coloring...  Finally, I am excited to see that you can also dye non-conventional animal fibers (i.e. Dog) with this method. 

 

I learned something else from this dyeing experiment.  This is something that I've noticed in the past, but haven't payed to much attention to... Hot water fluffs up yarn.  A lot.  This made all of the hand spun yarns open up and be bouncy and beautiful.  I've been worried about over twisting in some of my own handspun yarns, maybe I should try giving them a hot water bath.  (I know that some people soak the yarns in hot water and smack them to set the twist... maybe this is what I need to do rather than just wet and dry on the niddy noddy.)  Please let me know if you have any insight to this!  

I am really impressed by Kouture Crochet's inspiration to create single breed yarns.  I am trying to spin as many types of wools as I can myself so I can figure out what I like to work with the best.  This is a great opportunity for knitters, crocheters and other types of fiber crafters to learn about different breeds of sheep.  Make sure you check out her Handspun Single Sheep Breed Yarns Kickstarter Project! 

Do Pre-Mixed Tulip Tie Dye Kit Dyes last months?

The Tulip Tie Dye Kit recommends that you use the dye 45 min after mixing, but I had some pre-mixed dyes sitting in my kitchen for over 6 months.  When I didn't use up the dyes during my first yarn tie dyeing excursion, I couldn't bring myself to dispose of the extra dyes.   I kept meaning to use them, but time was just slipping away.  I finally realized that this would give me an opportunity to test out the manufacturer instructions that the dyes should be used within 45 min of mixing.  Do you think that they would still work to dye a vibrant yarn?

 

I have many other dyeing experiments in my queue, but do you have anything you would like to see me try?  I love suggestions!  

Santiago Yarn Shops

I spent New Years in Santiago visiting some friends (some of the biggest ChemKnits supporters!)  We spent a lot of time exploring Santiago and some nearby beach twos, but we also took some time to explore the street of yarn shops in Downtown Santiago.  

The only thing I knew about the yarn district was from a blog post: "A WHOLE street ... yarn shops (Rosas)."  I assumed that this meant the street was called Rosas, but I wasn't entirely sure.  This is why I've included the picture of the map we used of the city with where I found the shops AND a Google Map so you can get directions for your own shopping purposes. 

 

Each shop has an impressive window display outside with the prices of the yarn listed.  This is the best place to actually look at the selection because you can see more of the labels up close.  Inside the store, all of the yarn is located behind the counter.  You have to ask to touch and the shop attendants select any balls you want to purchase.  Describing different colors in Spanish was pretty hard, especially when there were multiple shades of each color!  I am thankful that my girlfriends were there to help me with the Spanish and with my color selections.

After you make your selections, the attendant creates a receipt with the total cost.  You bring this receipt to the cashier to pay, and then you get another receipt which you use to pick up a bag with your yarn.  In total, I spent around $13500 Pesos (~$28.50 USD) in three different shops for 7 balls of yarn including some 100% alpaca.  I did not select the cheapest yarns that were available (the stores contain a LOT of acrylic) but I got some stunning thick and thin wools (made in Chile), some hand dyed cotton (Dyed in Chile), 100% alpaca (Peruvian) and a novelty ribbon yarn.  If I could have touched the yarns, or at least inspect them closer, I may have come away with more.  

Another concept that was difficult to communicate was the concept of yardage.  Many of the yarns do not indicate how many yards there are in a ball which makes it very difficult to estimate how much you will need for a project.  I had to just guess and hope for the best when making my selections.  

I did find a little yarn at some of the markets, but some of the skeins were way to big to be practical for me to bring home.  There was even (expensive) hand dyed cotton yarn in a shop at the airport!  The markets mostly sold finished crafts, there were a lot of (tempting) woven goods and even more knit hats and scarves.

I was trying to be really efficient with my shopping, but in the whole process I forgot to take more pictures of the street and the shops themselves!   A blog post in Portuguese (shared with me after I returned) has some amazing pictures of Chilean yarn shops and the hand knit items found in many of the markets.

The entire trip was so amazing.   It took some time for me to feel confident in my Spanish, but by the cab ride home I was happily chatting along.  What made the trip amazing was not just the location (or the yarn!) but the fact that I got to travel with 5 of my best friends in the entire world.  I feel so lucky and this was an amazing way to start the New Year!  

Spinning Broken Purple

If you follow me on Facebook or Ravelry, you would know that I was given a spinning wheel for Christmas. This wheel happened to arrive on my birthday, which resulted in a lot of excitement and screaming.  As soon as the wheel showed up on my doorstep, I knew that I needed to have some special fiber to dye for my first project on the wheel.  (I did run to my local yarn store to get some roving to test the wheel, but I needed a proper first project.

The following video, Breaking Wilton's Violet Food Coloring on Handpainted Roving, is a little more giddy and unplanned than most of my video tutorials.  I hope it will give you a sense of the excitement and process that I go through when I do not have much planned for my dyeing.  (Normally I would have edited a lot of the footage out, but I wanted to preserve the feeling I had on my birthday!)

The Kromski Fantasia spinning wheel comes with an attached Lazy Kate, so I knew I could try something I'd never attempted before: Plying yarn.  I had no idea how to best do this, so I split the fiber (down the whole length of the roving) into two 48 g parts.  (I did not get this on my first try, there was an extra section that I needed to pull out to even things out.)

After spinning my first few yards of this.. I have to say WOW.  There is a such a difference between this WOTA fiber that I dyed myself and the random roving I got at the store.  Maybe I learned something in my test run (making me glad I got fiber I didn't care about to start out with...) or maybe there is just a big difference in the quality of the fiber.   Either way, this is now going smoothly and I am loving every minute of it.

Looks like I am spinning near lace weight singles!!!!!  These look incredible, as good as anything I've spun on my drop spindle.  (Not PERFECT, but really smooth.) I was starting to feel regrets about my decision to ply this yarn, but then I realized something.  This yarn was really easy to dye, the colorway is not very complicated.  I can replicate (not exactly, but closely) this colorway and make it as a single ply yarn later.  What better project to try to ply than my first?  Plying won't "ruin" it... it will give it more character and I may love it even more.  (Or, I will discover that I hate plying and that I never want to try it ever again.)

Clockwise clockwise clockwise.  It is much easier to remember to spin a wheel clockwise than it was to remember to spin the spindle that direction.  Now as I've finished spinning 100g of singles (which I didn't finish the day I set up the wheel, but I could have if we hadn't gone out to dinner!), it is time to start plying  Counterclockwise counterclockwise counterclockwise.

I made sure to put both spindles on the wheel with the big side down (the same side that was towards the back of the wheel.)  I figured it was important to be consistent.  With the leader, I checked there was still uptake if I threaded the orface the same way I did for spinning but with the wheel going in the other direction (it worked!)

I'm not sure if this is how You're supposed to start, but I tied the two singles in a knot with the leader.

While plying (which is much easier than i thought  - i realized I wanted to know how big my singles really were, so I got out the WPI tool.  These singles are around 20+ dpi (the part I checked was some thicker portion.) so it is definitely fingering weight.  I do not know why the WPI tool has different definitions for WPI than Ravelry (which has fignering at 14 wpi...)

I am glad that I am spinning fine yarn, but am also that I did not quite achieve lace weight at my first try with the slowest whorl.  I want there to be something to aim towards!

My ply isn't the most even, but that is also because my singles aren't the most even.  I will learn!  It still looks like great handmade yarn.

As I neared the end of my plying, I started to be concerned that there would be a lot more yards on one spindle than the other.  I ended up with extra on one, but it wasn't anywhere near as bad as I feared. (I will weigh this later.)  I put a knot at the end because I wasn't quite sure how I was supposed to end it.

What do spinners do with their extra of a single ply?  I'm thinking I'll use it for a hexipuff!  The plying only took a few hours to finish.  Wahoo!

THIS IS SO MUCH FASTER THAN A DROP SPINDLE!  At some points, I felt that I could be going faster (Especially with the plying),  I love the lazy kate that comes with the wheel.  This is so much easier to wind on to a niddy noddy.  I am ecstatic that there were no breaks in the yarn during plying, which means that there are no knots!

90 g skein.  18 WPI.   120 wraps * 4 ft/wrap = 480 ft = 160 yards.  I am not sure what to make with the yarn.  I love it and it looks stunning in a skein, but there isn't quite enough for it to show it off as a cowl.  I'm thinking about making a few small projects with it to commemorate my first ever plyed yarn.

Remaining single ply - 17 wraps --> 22 yards extra.  This is enough for a hexipuff.


Finished 12/16/2012