Who says I'm crabby?

I don't want to jinx anything, but I think that we might actually have a summer after all!  It's been so cold here in New England for so long, it didn't look like we'd even have a spring, but it seems to be changing.  In that spirit, I decided to add another water themed cloth that I named "I'm a Little Crabby!)

I knit it up using Hobby Lobby's I Love This Cotton! in aqua. I really enjoyed working with this yarn. It's so soft, although I did have to drop down a couple of needle sizes to get the design to pop. It would make a great facecloth or a blanket square.

The bib is knitted up in my old standby Peaches & Cream. It's a good choice for bibs and holds up to repeated washing. At least that's what I've been told. Unfortunately for me, all of my grandkids are well past the age for bibs!

The cloth uses the same stitch width and row height as my other "water" cloths. I wanted them to be the same size in case anyone wanted to use them together.

 

I might have missed one or two, but I think this covers it!

The pdf patterns are in the sidebar to the right. The bib is also here and the cloth is here.  As always, if you find any errors, I'd appreciate it if you'd let me know, although I have knit this crab several times! I did a second version as well with skinny legs, but decided I like the original better!  I hope you do too!

Sweet Blankets

Now here's a couple of really sweet blankets that I'd like to share with you, especially since it's Valentine's Day! A fellow knitter on Ravelry, Ellen, shared these with me and I thought you'd all enjoy seeing them too!  She knit them for charity and they're destined for a NICU.

 First, she used my bunny patterns (A Tail of Two Bunnies and Hippity Hop) and combined them with my Heartbeat pattern. She used Caron's Simply Soft Solids and used U.S. size 5 or 3.75mm needles.

Her second blanket used my "water" themed squares and she aptly named it "Water Babies".  I have to confess that I just love this one!

The blankets are naturally small, since they're intended for preemies.  Each blanket measures about 17" X 23".  Both blankets look a bit gray, but they're light blue and country blue.

Aren't they darling?  I'm so flattered that Ellen wanted to use my designs. If you're on Ravelry, be sure to tell her how much you like them too.  Ellen uses "melk" as her Ravelry name and I know she'd love to hear from you!  

Thank you Ellen for giving me permission to share your beautiful work!

Happy New Year!

I had intended to actually post this on New Year's, but life got in the way and so I'm only a couple of days late. I hope this isn't a sign of how this year is going to go!

You'll have to trust me when I tell you that this pattern looks nicer in person than the photographs suggest.  For some reason, my new camera doesn't like taking close up photos. I can't tell you how many pictures I snapped trying to get a true likeness. I was at the point that I debated whether or not to even post it! What I should have done, is begged my good friend, Denise, to do a test knit and then use her photos! She's an amazing knitter and always gets great pictures of her projects!  In any event, here's my latest design.  A happy little mutt!

 This cloth has the same number of stitches and height as the majority of my cloths. I try to keep them pretty consistent so they could be used together for blankets or whatever.  You can see what I mean about not getting a good picture.  So frustrating!

 The pdf for the bib and the cloth are in the sidebar, as usual, or you can click here for the bib and here for the cloth.

If  you knit this fella, I hope that you'll post a picture on Ravelry. I love seeing all of your projects!  Happy New Year!!

Unicorns!

Well, if it's October, it must be time for my annual birthday pattern! I know I haven't posted in quite awhile, so if anyone is still reading this blog, I apologize for the long absence. I've been super busy working on knitting hats for the babies at my local hospital.  I also "volunteered" to knit mittens for a Christmas fund raising event for our Historical Society. Actually, my husband asked me if I'd do "something" to help out, so I chose mittens. I'll post some pictures of them in another post, if you'd like to see some. I love knitting mittens.  Well, I did, but after 26 pair, I'm a little burned out.  In any event, back to my birthday post. I was struggling with what to make, when a Ravelry friend asked me if I had a unicorn. I don't do special requests, as it would be impossible to please everyone.  As I've said many times before, I just do these for fun and I'm happy to share. I never intended this to be a job and I'm not an artist by any stretch of the imagination! The idea of a unicorn appealed to me though and I gave it a whirl.

I think my granddaughter would like this one.  She's way too old for bibs, but she likes to take the washcloths and use them as blankets for her stuffed animals!

I'd post a picture of the bib, but for some reason, every time I try, it comes up sideways!

The links to the patterns are in the sidebar, or you can click here for the bib, or here for the cloth. Note that they are listed as "Baby Unicorn" in the "updated" files.

Many thanks to LouLou for test knitting the pattern.  Such a luxury for me!  I hope you all enjoy my birthday present to you.

I'm back!

Just when you thought you'd never hear from me again, here I am with a new pattern! This has been sitting next to me for awhile, but with summer fast approaching, it was time to get it done! I was so fortunate that my old friend and amazing knitter, Denise, offered to test knit for me. She even let me use her picture, since it came out so nice. For some reason, my new camera doesn't take particularly good close up shots.

A baby octopus to add to my "water" collection! Now, for those of you who feel the need to point out that this baby only has six legs, let me assure you that he does, in fact, have eight. The other two are merely behind him lending him support and stability!

The pdf files are available in the right hand sidebar under "Updated Bibs" and "Updated Cloths". Or you can click here for the bib and here for the cloth.

Hope you enjoy it and have a safe and happy summer!

One Fat Cat

Today is my birthday and so, in keeping with tradition, I'm happy to present a new pattern as a gift to all my readers! I was working on this design when my granddaughter spotted it. She has a little stuffed kitten, named "Purple Kitty" which she takes with her everywhere. She was very excited and wanted me to name the cloth after her kitten. I was all set to do just that, but every time I looked at it, all I could think was "that is one fat cat"! I'm sorry to disappoint Ruthie, but that's what I decided to go with for a name. This guy really is one fat, but happy cat! Doesn't he look like he just ate a bowl of cream?

This is the first time that I've used Hobby Lobby's yarn "I Love This Cotton!" There are tons of bibs on Ravelry that have been knitted with this yarn and I wanted to try it myself. It is much softer than the Peaches & Creme I usually use, however, I don't think it would be as absorbent for a bib. The P&C makes a much firmer fabric. It would be really nice for a face cloth though. Of course, this is just my opinion. Unfortunately for me, I don't have any babies around to conduct an experiment!

I'm having difficulty uploading a picture of the cloth. For some reason, it keeps turning upside down! You can see that I do have a cloth though and the pdf files are in the sidebar. Hopefully, when I post the cloth on Ravelry, it will be right side up!

I hope you'll enjoy the pattern.  Many thanks to my great knitting buddy and friend, Tunie, who helped me test knit. Her "purple kitty" is actually green! Watch for it to show up in her projects page.

Hope everyone is enjoying their Fall.  The leaves here in my corner of New England are just gorgeous.  A lovely month to celebrate a birthday!

Where do all these babies come from?

Wow, I can't believe it's been so long since I last posted. I've been knitting up a storm all summer long and I never find the time to post. As I've told you, I knit the baby hats for my local hospital and, at first, it was just a relaxing little adventure.  It's a very small hospital and if they had ten babies a month, they were busy. Well, it seems like they have a new female ob-gyn doctor who's attracting new moms like crazy.  Over the summer, I've had to knit more than eighty hats! That's right, eighty! Just since the middle of August, I've knit forty two and they need another twenty for October! I'm a little burnt out on baby hats and I'm ready to move on, but I did make the commitment, so I'll keep it up.  In the meantime, I thought maybe you'd like to see a few that I've done!

One of my favorite hats for the boys, is this cute car hat.

Just to be different, I did this other version:

Looks a little more like a Fall or Winter hat, don't you think? I try to keep the hats seasonal, so of course, I had to knit the famous Pumpkin Hat:

This is her ribbed version and apparently, is one of the favorites with the nurses! The fathers, however, all go right for the football hats. I posted the directions for these on my blog a couple of years ago  The link to the directions is here.

I did knit a couple of "girly" hats as well.  This is my latest:

It's just a my basic beanie pattern with a seed stitch band, but check out that flower!  I've been working on my crochet skills and took a class on Craftsy.  It still takes me awhile to make a flower, but I'm starting to get a bit faster! 

I also couldn't resist including a couple of super hero hats:

I knit a beanie and then duplicate stitched the logo. I found free charts that worked great.  Superman is here and the Batman logo is here. The only change I made to the Batman chart was to add an extra stitch on each side of the first and last row. It just made it a bit more symmetrical.

Finally, I thought I'd make a Halloween hat, just in case they have a baby born that day:

I striped it to look like candy corn and I crocheted the little cat!  I found the pattern for the cat on YouTube here. I had to make it with finer yarn (Cotton Classic Lite) and a smaller hook in order to reduce it to a usable size, but I think it came out okay!  

Now, look for a new dishcloth and bib pattern from me this Sunday. It's my annual birthday pattern! My granddaughter inspired it and I hope you'll like it!