It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a...

...fuzzy manta ray?



The knitting portion of the Baby Surprise Jacket for Trina's due-in-November baby has been finished. See the colored stitch markers in the jacket?



Just match up the colored markers to get this:



There are only two seams to sew: from green markers to pink ones, from blue markers to orange ones. After that, add a round of single crochet around the neck and a set of tiny buttons down the front. Then block it and ... Voilà! The Baby Surprise Jacket, designed by knitting (or engineering?) genius Elizabeth Zimmermann.

Things To Do...

I need to make house-warming gifts for two friends. I'm thinking "doily" for each, but I haven't got a particular pattern in mind. And I need to make something for a birthday swap.

And I have to finish sweaters for the twins. (Due 1 September, but they arrived very early...25 May.)

And a sweater for Tony and Ali's baby. (Due 4 September.)

And a co-worker is pregnant. (She's due 21 November.)


ETA (26 May 2008): And my cousin Shari is expecting. This will be her seventh. (She's due in January.)

My camera stinks!

At least, for anything like a detail shot.

This is the "detail shot" of a doily I just finished:



The color is much more accurate on this photo:





I've been working on a baby sweater. The pattern was fine until it got to the sleeve. The first problem with the pattern's sleeve had to do with the instructions for the cuff. Babies are not noted for keeping those fingers tucked in when you're trying to get a sleeve over their hands, so you really don't want the sleeve cuff to be super-tiny and tight. I fixed that, then worked the sleeve to the row specified for the 0-6 months size. I kept staring at that sleeve, thinking, "No way." But what do I know about baby clothes?

So I went to Target and bought a baby's one-piece sleep outfit in 6-months size. Granted, this might be the high range of the 6-months' size, and sleep outfits are looser and longer-limbed than sweaters need to be, but I think there's a problem with my knitted sweater:



I think I'm gonna need at least one more pattern repeat in there... (And I'm knitting right on target for gauge, so that's not my problem.)


And I've started a sweater for my mother for Mother's Day. Actually, I've started the swatch, which is not quite the same as having started the sweater. ;)

Craft-y Stuff

I finished the red booties for Havefaith1's godson's baby. (The red is less orange than what you see in the photo.) The baby will be a Christmas baby, so there are two sets of ribbons in the booties. After the holidays, the parents can pull out the green ribbons and have red booties with white ribbons.



I finished the doily for Caro (my sister's mother-in-law). I've got to remember that certain doilies are not recommended for the spatially challenged--10-point doilies, just for starters. The doily is in cream-colored thread and measures just over 12 inches.



I've bought a bit of yarn lately. First, there's the yarn I bought for dog sweaters. Here are the dogs--with their sweaters-to-be.



Here's the Misti International "Pretty in Pink" and the Kraemer Silk and Sterling.



And I got some garnet DMC Cebelia for a fancy doily for my sister and her husband's next anniversary (their 30th in June). The pattern specified two balls of white, 400 yards per ball. I doubt the doily will use all that; it'll just need something more than 400 yards. But since the Cebelia balls are 282 yards each, I ordered three balls. (The color is off in these photographs.) The pattern is a really unsual design, and I'm looking forward to that one.



And I bought some yarn for my Secret Santa on Ravelry, and made a doily for her, too. The yarn is Malabrigo Merino Kettle-Dyed Worsted Weight in the Verde colorway. The doily pattern is "Audrey." The doily measures nearly 20 inches.

Baby booties

Another set of booties for the baby of my friend Libby:



I'm hoping to get a better picture of them tomorrow, in better light. The flash flared back from them, so the stitches are hard to see. The booties are a pale, creamy yellow.

Yellow Sneakers

I've finished one set of baby booties for my friend Libby.



On to the second pair...

Baby Afghan...

The baby afghan I made for a friend's grandbaby-to-be has arrived safely at her house (thank you, USPS).

The fancy doily I made back in May was from a pineapple-pattern called "Exquisite," and I made the doily in cream-colored thread. I had already picked a cream-colored yarn for the baby afghan, and I stumbled on a pineapple-pattern for an afghan named "Exquisite"--it seemed meant-to-be:

This project is cursed...

In the past few days, I've finished up a baby afghan and a shawl (pictures later). I've gone back to working on the accursed greyhound table runner. I have 12 rows to go (plus the edging), and I haven't omitted any of the border checkerboard blocks. And, near as I can tell, I haven't misplaced any of the blocks, either. Fingers crossed, but it looks like third time might be the charm.

(Actually, it took three tries before I worked out a shawl I liked: this one isn't triangular, but is just a nice, long rectangle. But it seems to be taking multiple tries before I can get things to work out, lately.)


Oh, honestly! Talk about an accursed project: I took a break in typing this to take Sam and Jacey outside. When we came back in, Sam darted ahead to sniff around where I'd been working to see if I'd left anything for him to eat. (I hadn't.) When I came back into the living room, he jumped down from where he'd been on the sofa (he knows better than to sniff around at that end of the sofa) and ran back across the room so he could look all innocent...and he hooked the damned crochet thread with his collar and unraveled nearly half of the most recent, carefully counted row.

Originally posted: 24th-Jul-2007 12:12 am

Baby Afghans

I got a lot of crocheting done today. The MartiP grandbaby afghan will be heading to Charleston as soon as I get some pictures. And I've started an afghan for my cousin Shari's baby. The afghan for Shari's baby will be the fifth baby afghan I've made this year.

Yarns from Georgia (lots of photos)

A fellow greyhound owner has had her first baby, a girl named Lauren Avery S. This afghan, in a pattern called "Spiderweb," is for her.


Closeup


MartiP's son is going to be a father. And this afghan is in the works--about 35 percent done.


Closeup


I posted a while back about the bedspread/afghan I intend to make, based on a log cabin quilt pattern tile. This is the bed the afghan is intended for.



(Picture Sam sleeping right where he is, with me clinging to the side of the bed, and Jacey hanging on at the foot. Oh, and I Photoshop'd out my bad housekeeping. {*grin*})

The yarn for the afghan/bedspread has arrived:


Sam's pissed that he lost his spot on the bed to a bunch of yarn (that I won't let him play with).


There are more pictures in my Yarns set on Flickr. Also, details about yarns and patterns are in the captions on Flickr.

Ripples Afghan

I finished the afghan for KA, my salon manager, who is expecting her second daughter next month. I gave her the afghan just over a week ago, but I'm only now getting around to posting pictures.

Afghan for KA (approximately 34 inches by 50 inches)

Afghan for KA

I've started the third afghan of the year--yellow, this time--for a local greyhound owner expecting her first child.

Ripples Afghan

The baby afghan for KA (my manager) is about 40 inches long. The original instructions called for 52 inches; I'm just going to go until I run out of yarn (I'm nearly finished with the third of four skeins I bought), so it should be longer than 52 inches when finished.

Squares Afghan

I went for a visit at my old store and delivered the afghan to my former coworker there. She's expecting her first child (due 4 October).





The afghan is about 46 x 35 inches (1.16 m x .889 m); each square is about 5.5 inches (almost 14 cm).

Of course, the manager at my new store's grooming salon is pregnant (expecting a girl in May)...and a greyhound-owning buddy is expecting her first child, too. I'm really hoping to get all the afghan-making done before warm weather sets in. You don't want a lapful of yarn when the weather's warm.

Squares Afghan

A groomer (CC) at the Woodstock store has learned she's pregnant. I've started crocheting a baby afghan for her. The afghan takes 48 squares; I did the first 8 last night while I watched William Holden get killed (The Bridge on the River Kwai)...and get killed again (Sunset Boulevard). Poor guy had a bad night...