Sunday, November 9, 2008

Turtle Love

I seem to have acquired quite a bit of green yarn so while digging through my stash, I decided to take another stab at modifying the Turtle Butt into a pair of longies. The first pair I made were too small to fit around chubby legs and so they are waiting in my pile to frog and repair. In the meantime, I started a new pair in very "turtley" colors.

The variegated is Cascade 200 Hand Paint in Forest and the solid green is called Palm, also by Cascade. This time, I'm fairly confident that the legs will have a lot more room. Of course, while I was working on the pants, I thought maybe he should have a sweater to go with them and what goes with Turtle legs, but a turtle sweater........
All the patterns that I found called for DK weight or they had raglans, or something wasn't what I wanted, so in the end I came up with my own. I used the measurements for an 18 month size and just did the math myself. I wanted a placket in the back to make it easier to get on and off and I just happened to have these turtle buttons.

The lighting wasn't very good for this picture as it doesn't look anything like the true color and I'm not so sure that the butons really match, but they are on the backside, so I decided to use them anyway. The sweater is knitted with Cascade Superwash as I wanted it to be easy to launder. I charted the turtle myself and embroidered the shell with Cascade Heritage sock yarn. Oh yes, sock yarn:
There HAD to be socks to match the pants. Cascade makes this yarn in the Forest color just like the 220 wool. It was the first time I've used this yarn and I just love it. The socks are so nice and soft and the yarn holds up really well to frogging as I ended up ripping out this pair a couple of times. I wasn't happy with the proportions I was using and since I didn't have a pattern for these either, it took a couple of tries. I made a second version, which I actually like better, but I gave them away before I took a picture! Here's the sweater and pants together. Cute, eh?
I just love the striped longies that I've seen posted on Ravelry, so I decided to make a coordinating pair with this whole turtle theme.

Hmmm, there is a definite trend here with the Cascade yarn. Cascade 220 wool, Cascade 220 Superwash wool, Cascade Heritage sock.....I wonder if the company is hiring?

3 comments:

  1. HI Elaine, the Turtle pants/shirt are adorable. Do you have any of the green yarn left? I was thinking, maybe you could make a matching bib.

    I knit the Tweetie bib in Lt. Grape for my ds' gf who's pregnant with my second grandchild. She loves purple, so I'm knitting a cone of cloths for her. I adjusted the Tweetie bib and made a matching burpcloth.

    I also knit a green truck bib and started the matching washcloth for Johnny.

    Thanks for the great bib patterns.

    HUGS
    Susan

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  2. Oh my gosh, those are sooo cute!!! Turtle Power!!! What a wonderful pattern you created. I know it will be loved very much :).

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  3. These are just to cut. What a wonderful job! Those are sure to be saved and passed down!

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