Thanks for stopping by my knitting world!

Thanks for stopping by my knitting world! Although it’s been awhile since I’ve blogged here, I’m still knitting up a storm and have also picked up a few new crafts. I’m now blogging with my friend and business partner at  embeshop.com/blog and would love for you to join me over there.

Toddler girly girl

As you can see I made this frilly girly girl dress for my daughter around Christmas time and am finally finding time to post about it! I had actually finished most of it around October but left the finishing off for a few months.

The details: It’s a top-down raglan with button closure on the left side. There are two layers of ruffles at the bottom. I had mis-calculated and made it too wide and added i-cord ties to the back to help cinch it in a little. The needles: size 11us. The yarn: Caron one pound in navy.

Observations from a non-knitter

Found this on Ravelry, posted by Padgee… and just had to share.

If only all husbands/boyfriends were this observant!

If you’re a Ravelr, you can join the conversation here.

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I am not a knitter. I joined Ravelry to see where my girlfriend spends her time on the internet lol. In the 10 or so months that she’s been knitting I’ve been secretly/overtly observing and documenting this crazy thing called yarn and what it does to people. These things I know to be true.

1. Yarn is NOT string and should not be referred to as such.
2. Knitting needles are not sticks,stix, or styx.
3. Casting on is NOT a fishing metaphor.
4. Yarn comes in different weights, colors, styles. Kind of like drugs.
5. People dye their own yarn with varying degrees of success.
6. Knitting is taken everywhere. No exceptions are to be made.
7. Fun fur is frowned on bye “real” knitters.
8. “Lemme just finish this round” is a lot like me saying “Lemme just finish this round of video games” fair enough
9. A collection of yarn is a “stash” much like drugs.
10. Yarn barf is actually a thing.
11. Ravelry has a weird economy of bartering. Yarn can be exchanged for other goods not related to yarn. ????? Weird.
12. There are knitting groups, where other like minded knitters knit together and (this part is an assumption) talk about how knitters should rule the world.
13. Do NOT sit on or around yarn left on the sofa. This will cause knitter in the other room to jump up and rescue said ball of yarn from your evil ass.
14. Thank goodness there are no shows about knitting on Primetime TV.
15. Stitch markers are NOT earrings.
16. Lots of knitters have kittehs. You know who also had them? Witches.
17. If I want something, “Did you want to go to the yarn store?” are the first words out of my mouth.
18. Yarn stores are populated by alpha knitters. Some stores are better than others. Michaels is not a suitable substitute for a yarn store.
19. The needles that are attached with wire to each other, do not make good nunchuks.
20. Kitteh won’t chase a ball of yarn no matter how many balls you throw at his head.

These things I know to be true.

Batman chart

You may remember this hat I made for my nephew last Christmas.

Today I finally converted the chart into a digital file to share!

Batman Chart

Well, hello there!

So sorry it’s been awhile since posting. I could very easily say that the  baby (now 9 months!) has been keeping me very busy but that’s not 100% true. While she keeps me busy for most of the day, my free time has been overtaken by the urge to become an entrepranuer. During a playdate with a friend we kind of came up with the idea of starting a shop to sell hand knit, crochet and sewn items for babies. The idea became a reality a short 2 (or was it 3?) months later and we opened embeshop.com.

We sell the goods through etsy but our website has info about us, our products and a blog… which is where I’ve been the last few months. We talk about everything from knitting to cooking to everyday life. We just recently added a craft tip of the week. Hope you’ll join me over there! (I’ll still be here every now and then when I have non embe knits to share!)

Here are a few of our items…

Twinkle sweater, baby sized!

Starting my baby on a fashion kick early I wanted to find a cute, girly and modern sweater to knit. After looking through countless baby patterns I ended up looking through Twinkles Weekend Knits and knew I had found the sweater. The Cloudburst Cardigan.

The conversion was very easy. I used smaller needles and followed the pattern for the large. To get the right length for the arms and body I measured one of my daughters sweaters. The sleeves were made to 5.5 inches before attaching to the body. The body was made to 6.5 inches before attaching the arms. I did fudge a little at the top because I forgot about the buttons and the short rows (even after the pattern insisted I read through the whole instructions for the yolk).

After trying it on my daughter I removed the ruffle. It just got in the way and looked puffy. If I were to make it again I would probably use size 11 needles (I think it turned out a little too stiff), follow the medium or small size and add an inch or two to the width of the bottom half (to cover the baby belly a little bit more).

The sweater is supposed to be garter side out but I really like the detail of the raglan decreases.

Pattern: Cloudburst Cardigan from Twinkles Weekend Knits

Needle: Size 9

Yarn: Caron one  pound

Keeping The Little Toes Warm

More booties. Can’t resist making them for her little feet! This pattern is super easy and super fast to make. I’m really resisting the urge to make some in all the colors of the rainbow.

The black ones I double stranded the yarn because it wasn’t worsted weight. I also made the starting chain 10 instead of 8 and added one stitch to each side to extend the length. For the strap instead of row 7 I worked row 6 again because I had a hard time trying to work into the chain/strap.

The best part about these booties is that they actually stay on my girls feet!

Pattern: Fake Mary Janes

Yarn: Black Pair – Red heart soft. Multi colored pair – Sugar n Cream Ombre.

Hook: Size I

Holy Cow Batman!

I thought it only fitting that both nephews had hats of the superheros they love. (Nephew #1 got this Transformers hat.) This idea for a Batman hat has been bouncing around in my head for quite some time, but due to my pregnancy and then arrival of the little one I wasn’t able to make any progress. With nephew #2’s birthday coming up I decided to get a move on it!

Like the Transformers hat this one is double knitted. I used provisional CO to do the ribbing since I dislike the double knit CO method of holding both strands together (I know there are other types of CO but I didn’t want to research…). I knit the rib twice as long as I wanted so that I could fold it in half and then picked-up the stitches from the provisional CO in between the live stitches. The stitches from the CO were used for the inside of the hat while the live stitches were for the outside.

For the chart I printed out the batman logo and placed it behind graph paper and traced. Hopefully I can transfer that to a file and post it in my patterns page soon.

Here is the backside of the black side of the hat. I opted not to put “Batman” on the backside of the yellow side. Just the thought of it brought back terrible memories of the For The Horde scarf.

For the hat pattern itself I used the Kim’s Hat pattern in Last Minute Knitted Gifts. I made the woman sized hat on size 7 needles. This pattern is my go to for hats. The variations are great and it’s easy to remember. Because it was double knit my gauge was a bit too loose. This should fit him for a few years!

I’m not sure what happened on this side for the circle around the logo. The stitches seem all off…

Pattern: Kim’s Hat from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. Double knitted with my own charts. Which I finally made digital and posted.

Needle: Size 7

Yarn: Caron simply soft

Flower Power

During a trip to Seattle a few years ago we stopped by a few baby stores because my friend and cousin were both pregnant and I fell in love with the Blabla dolls! I even wrote about them here. They’re just so colorful and cuddly.

So for my daughters first Christmas I wanted to buy her one, but my husband said “You can make that! It’ll be more special.” I remembered the Kate doll from Knitty and had been meaning to make one and used that as my starting point.

The body is basically the same except for I added a few decreases from the body to neck and then added increases from the neck to head to make the separation more defined. I opted not to add legs and shortened the arms.

At first I was going to add a flower to the belly but decided on a bird because my daughters Vietnamese name translates to Nightingale.   I cut out pieces of fabric and hand stitched it to the body.

Pattern:  Modified version of Kate by Jess Hutchison from Knitty Winter 05 edition.

Yarn: Bits of leftovers. Mostly acryllic.

Red Riding Booties

And the booties to match…

The only part I had problems with was the cuff. I mis-read the repeat portion but was able to sort it out from a thread on Ravelry. Turns out the cuff is made using short rows.

Since all types of booties and socks fall off my baby’s feet easily I added a tie-string. My girl has big feet (oh how she takes after her mom!) so the 6-9 months fit her pretty well at 3 months.

Pattern: Garn Studio Drops baby pattern 16-1

Size made: 6-9 months

Yarn: Caron One Pound

Needle size: 10.5 dpn