Salute Hats (27 & 28/52)

Big Salute &Mini Salute
Pattern: Salute, by Kate Oates
Yarn: Knit Picks Stroll Tonal, in Kindling & Pacific, ~370 & ~144yards
Needles: 4.5mm
Dates: October 18, 2014 to October 20, 2014

Two more projects crossed off! Not a lot of mods on this one. For both hats, the yarn is held doubled and the back brim is doubled, with a slip stitch for a turning edge in the center. For the Big Salute, on the front brim I knit 2 extra stockinette stitch rows, and added an additional set of w&t rows to make the brim just a little longer, as well as picked up stitches along the entire front band. I also used a double layer of Pelion 71 fused to itself for the interior of the brim, which will make it less pointy/sharp. For the Mini Salute, I added an additional set of w&t rows to make the brim just a little longer, as well as picked up stitches along the entire front band.

(The red version was made many years ago, and is just so very comfy to wear)

Mini Salute

Big Salute

A family of Salute Hats

More Dyed Onesies (26/52)

Dates: October 12, 2014 to October 14, 2014

I have hit the half way point, and it’s not even December yet! The most recent project was dying the remaining onesies that we plan to us-again, I used dylon, and figured out a good process for rinsing them.

1. Follow the directions on the dylon packet, using the hottest water your hands can stand, because you are going to have to mix by hand for 15 minutes-since you’ll have gloves on, it can be a bit hotter than you think.

2. After getting rid of the excess water, put the whole thing in the wash to rinse first with a cold water rinse, then a hot water rinse.

3. Lastly, run it through hot one more time with a bit of detergent & about 3ml of synthrapol. The synthrapol helps to set the dye, and it works quite nicely.

I followed these steps for everything but the brown onesies-for those, I wanted to see if I could save a step, and put the synthrapol in the first rinse. This was the only batch that came out spotty. So. The above directions seem to work really, really well.

I’m planning to buy another packet of the brown dye in my next Amazon order and redye this set, as out of 15 different dye batches, this is the only one that ended up splotchy, and it was also the only one where I changed the rinsing protocol at all.

Before:

After:

Splotchy Brown:

Planned Projects for the Kid

This post is mainly to serve as a reminder of things I really want to make for the kid before it arrives, but keep slipping my mind:

1. Yoda Hat-because every baby needs one.
2. Dwarven battle bonnet, so we can be Those People, and the kid can have a matching hat to go with ours when we see the last Hobbit movie.
3. Cadet caps for G. and the kid, so we have a set of normal matching hats finished 10/20
4. An Ewok hood, because New England is cold!
5. Beatrix Potter quilt, but this one is less pressing as the kid can’t really use it for at least a year or so.

Hoot Cardigan & Hat (21 & 22/52)

Hoot Cardigan
Pattern: Hoot Cardigan, by Brenna Kotar
Yarn: Knit Picks Shine Worsted in Currant, ~281 yards
Needles: 4.5mm
Dates: August 16, 2014 to September 26, 2014

Modifications

1. I’m slipping the first stitch purl wise at the beginning of each row to make a neat chain selvedge edge.
2. I’ve moved the buttonhole one stitch in towards the sweater, and I’m purling the 3rd & 4th stitches together after the yarn over.
3. As others have noted, there are too many stitches if you do the cast on edge as written. For the last three stitches, I knit all three together to have the appropriate number of stitches.
4. I’m doing one more column of owls centered on the back of the sweater.
5. Sleeves are being decreased 2 stitches every fourth row.

Hoot Hat
Pattern: Simple Garter Brim Baby Hat, by Kelly Rocherelle
Yarn: Knit Picks Shine Worsted in Currant, ~78 yards
Needles: 4.5mm
Dates: September 27, 2014

Modifications

1. Cast on 72 stitches to make 6-12 mos, to match the hat.
2. Using the owl cable pattern to make one owl on the side of the hat.
3. Cast on 108 stitches using the double cast on, and ktog, k1 to get down to the 72 stitches. Makes a nice stretchy cast on edge for a tiny baby head.

The First Appliquéd Onesie (19/52)

Decorated Onesies
Pattern: Onesie Party, by BeauTiedAffair
Dates: September 21, 2014

This one is the prototype to display at the baby shower-I needed to know how difficult this was going to be to do, and I wanted pictures to walk the guests, most of whom had never done anything like this before, through the various steps.

1. I started with one of my previously dyed onesies, and looked through the many designs I had to choose from. I ended up going with a rather adorable whale. All of the fabrics had previously been washed and ironed, and I was using Steam-a-Seam Lite as my fusible appliqué, as I have really liked how it worked with the various quilts I have made over the years.

2. I traced the design onto my fusible appliqué:

3. Then, I cut out around the design based on which pieces would be going on which fabrics:

4. And then I reminded myself that the appliqué needed to be fused to the WRONG side of the fabric. This may seem obvious to many, but when working with batiks, as I do on the quilts, there generally isn’t a right or wrong side…so it doesn’t really matter. But with this type of fabric, there is.

5. I made sure to iron the design onto the corner for the colors I didn’t care about placement, so I could use the rest of the fabric later, but I took some time on where to place the whale, so that the flower on the fabric would work as its eye.

6. Then, I carefully cut out around all of the designs, peeled off the backing, and started playing with the placement on the onesie. I tried to place them above waist height, as I know the kidlet will be frequently wearing garments on its lower half, and I want the whole design to be seen.

7. After I was happy with the placement of all the pieces (and I moved them around several times before I was actually happy!), I ironed the whole thing in place:

8. In order for these onesies to survive actually being on a baby, the fusible appliqué material needs to be sewn down, so I pulled out my trusty Viking Rose, used the blanket stitch, and very, very slowly outlined all of the shapes on the onesie:

9. The final product, serving as a sample at the shower:

10. A preview of what’s to come-all of these onesies have since been decorated & are ready for me to appliqué! I’m thinking about counting each size group as one project, as there are 30 of them, and I want to see progress!

Tiny Binic (20/52)

Tiny Binic
Pattern: Binic, by Solenn Couix-Loarer
Yarn: Knit Picks Felici, in Spring Mix, ~358 yards
Needles: 3.25 & 3.75mm
Dates: August 30, 2014 to September 16, 2014

This was a very, very quick knit, and were I to do it again, I would finagle a way to do it top down, to make it easier to lengthen as the kidlet grows taller.

I used a 3.25mm needle for the ribbing, and a 3.75mm for the body. I’m aiming for a 6-9 mos size, as the last pattern I made for the kid (in a 6-9 mos size) actually came out more like 18 mos.

Mystic Vortex (25/52)

Mystic Vortex, Clue 1
Pattern: Mystic Vortex, by Anna Dalvo
Yarn: Fiber Optic Paintbox Gradient Merino Laceweight, in Damson to Gold, ~ 88 yards
Needles: 3.5 mm Dates: October 10, 2014 to October 13, 2014

I needed a ‘me’ project to get me going again, so I signed up for a mystery knit along using some stash yarn. I love knitting circular shawls, so I have few doubts that I’ll be able to finish this one. It knit up very quickly, and I would have had it finished Friday if I had been able to stay awake longer…

Clue 1, all color 1/15

And I know I’m officially missing about six projects…suffice to say, they are finished but not typed up, and one is going to my November Mommy’s Group swap partner, so I don’t want to post pictures until she sees it.