The rest of the 2008 knitting.

My cousin had a baby boy in August 2008, named Marcel. This was my Christmas to him.I am calling this the Om Baby Sweater. Why?On the back, I put the Om Symbol (also known as Aum) on it. My cousin is very into Yoga. She can't live without it. She told me that she often chants her Yoga Mantras to Marcel because she doesn't know any lullabies or children's songs. It turns out that he loves it.I used Sublime Yarns Extra Fine Merino Wool DK for the sweater and had a little bit leftover. It's a really nice yarn with some interesting stitch definition. I used the leftover to make the sweater portion of Henry the Bear from Unusual Toys for you to Knit and Enjoy by Jess Hutchison. I have renamed him Marcel the Bear.My cousin's husband was very impressed with the craftmanship of the bear. He said that the eyes were on straight and that everything was equidistant to each other. I was beaming with pride when he said that. My cousin recently told me that the sweater fits very well, way better than the store bought ones she has bought for little Marcel. Isn't that nice to hear?

Pattern: Henry the Bear from Unusual Toys for you to Knit and Enjoy by Jess Hutchison. The sweater is my own raglan sweater pattern. I incorporated the Om Symbol into the back as I was knitting. The symbol is a free dishcloth pattern that I found online, here is the link.
Needles: US 6 / 4.0 mm for the bear. US 4 / 3.5 mm and US 6 / 4.0 mm for the sweater.
Yarn: 3 balls of Sublime Yarns Extra Fine Merino Wool DK in the color Green 0019, the rest of the bear is made with Caron Simply Soft in the color Bone.
Size: Sweater is 6-9 month size

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Now, I can tally up everything I knit in 2008. 35 items! I can't believe that I was able to knit 5 baby blankets, 2 of them were for Melody and the rest were gifts. Actually, I am amazed I knit anything at all. As some of you remember, Melody had a rough beginning with a bad case of colic. I still shudder when I look back.

On the sewing front, I made 12 items. 2 of them were baby quilts, one for Melody and the other was a gift. A lot of the sewing was mainly Quilt Blocks for my online quilting bee group, Common Threads.

Sadly, I noticed that out of all the things that I made last year, only one thing was for myself. It's the Rainbow Moebius and that was a test knit. I will have to remedy that this year.

Baby Knits from Christmas 2008

I am finally getting around to posting about some of the baby knits I made for last Christmas. I forgot about some of them and the others I couldn't show until they were gifted. I debated whether to do one giant post or to break them down. I chose the latter.

There was a new arrival in my family this past Summer (July), a baby girl named, Juliana. Normally, I stick to one color knitting, but I wanted to branch out this time. I am not a fan of pink, but I think it can look pretty good paired with another color. Pink and green were the colors for Juliana's blanket.
This blanket took me 2 Weeks of monogamous knitting. My fingers paid the price, but I am so thrilled with the finished blanket. I love it. If it wasn't pink, I might have been tempted to keep it for Melody.It was not as hard as I thought it would be. The colors are slipped stitched, so it's not like Fair Aisle knitting where you have to carry the yarn in the back. And there were hardly any ends to weave in because the unused color is carried up the sides. Normally, I prefer a blanket with no wrong side, but I was surprised that I didn't mind. I thought the back looked pretty interesting.And here is little Miss Melody posing on top of the blanket to give you an idea of scale and size. The mother of the baby was really impressed with the blanket when she opened it on Christmas Day.

Pattern: Chocolate Petite Fours by Deborah Robson, from Knit Along with Debbie Macomber - The Shop on Blossom Street
Needles: US 8 / 5.0 mm
Yarn: Lion Brand Vanna's Choice; 2.77 skeins = 470.9 yards in Dusty Rose and 1.66 skeins = 282.2 yards of Dusty Green
Size: 31 inches by 31 inches
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Penny's Blanket
This cheerful baby blanket was made for Penny, my friends Jen and Jason's new arrival (born in Oct). I didn't get to see them until after Christmas, so we exchanged Christmas gifts at Melody's birthday party. Yellow is the theme color they chose for her, so I made the blanket in yellow. The color came out much brighter after knitting than when it was in the ball form.
I love the cute checker board pattern that borders the blanket. And it got bonus points from me because it looks great on both sides, no wrong or right sides.
I forgot measure the final size of the blanket, but I know it's huge. If I had to estimate, I would say 40 inches by 36 inches? It took even longer to knit this one. At one point, I thought it would never end.

Pattern: Baby Blocks by Ann Norling, from Knit Along with Debbie Macomber - The Shop on Blossom Street, but this is also available for FREE from HERE.
Needles: US 9 / 5.5 mm
Yarn: Lion Brand Vanna's Choice Baby, 5 skeins of Duckie

A NYC Rat is moving to Oregon.

My knitting pal, Brooke, is moving back to Oregon. I wanted to make her something to remember her time in New York City. We both admire and love Ysolda Teague's toy patterns. So when the pattern, Mousie, came out, I knew it was the perfect thing to make for her.Now, if you have ever been to NYC, you will surely have seen a rat scurrying on the sidewalk or most commonly sighted, on the subway tracks and platforms. The pattern calls for fingering weight yarn which would make a cute little mouse. I used worsted weight and he ended up looking like a mouse on steroids. He is really more the size of a NYC Rat.The NYC Rat was a welcomed addition to our household in the beginning. But he got restless and started to cause some trouble. Climbing on my shelves and getting way too close to my new set of measuring cups. (Those were a Christmas gift from my sister. So cute!)And then he was terrorizing Napoleon! I realized that the NYC Rat was just lonely and wanted some company.After realizing that the NYC Rat meant him no harm, Napoleon got pretty chummy with him.The day of his departure finally came last night. It was the last knitting group meet up that Brooke would be attending before she left next week. She was happily surprised when she pulled him out of the bag.She named him Oscar. I hope that every time Brooke looks at Oscar, she will remember her knitting pals in Brooklyn, New York. Brooke, you will be missed very much. Good Luck!

Pattern: Mousie by Ysolda Teague
Needles: US 6 / 4.0 mm
Yarn: Lion Brand Wool-Ease "Grey Heather" and Vanna's Choice "Dusty Rose"

Welcome 2009!

I took these pictures on New Year's Eve with the intentions of posting something on New Year's Eve. Yeah, it has been that busy around here. Ever since we got back, I have been on a mission to clean and organize the house. And I got to catch up on my blog reading.2008? What can I say. It went by in a blur. I had Melody on January 14, 2008 and then my life was consumed by her. I really don't remember much. I think I began to resurface when she hit 6 months and the colic went away. People say that you will forget the hardships of taking care of a newborn infant, but I still remember the colicky phase. 2008 was the Year of Melody. (Can you see her teeth? She now has been on a major teeth growth spurt. 4 on top and 3 on the bottom.) So, her FIRST birthday is coming up. Too soon, in fact! I am so unprepared because the holidays kept me really busy. My sister, Jo, will be coming from Boston to attend Melody's birthday party and she will be helping me plan the party. I don't know what I would do without my sister. She has a talent for organizing and planning parties. I sent her a frantic email 2 days ago, and she calmly emailed me back with what we need to decide on first. If you give her a party theme, she will seek out wonderful party decorations and she is a bargain hunter, too. My baby shower was a bird theme and she made the invitations herself.In these pictures, she is wearing a hand knit vest from her grandmother, my MIL. Her grandmother knit her two vests and one cardigan with a matching scarf for Christmas.I couldn't forget about the fur-babies while I was taking photos of Melody on New Year's Eve. Both the dogs rang in the New Year with us when we watched the ball drop in Times Square on the television. I was so glad to be home that night because it was freezing outside. DH has been very busy at work and just wanted to stay home and relax.
I was surprised to see this photo when I uploaded the pictures from my computer. Not sure what I did, but this was not edited at all. It made me laugh. It's like I took a picture of Caesar's aura.

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I still have pictures to take of the projects I finished in 2008. I am slowly entering them in on my Ravelry page and I am trying to take some photos when I have a few spare moments.I call this the Baby Winter Set.
These booties were made with the leftover yarn from the baby shrug. There was barely any yarn leftover to seam up the booties, so it was a close call. The Winter Bootees pattern is from She's Crafty. I bought the the pdf pattern for Issue 2.For the shrug, I made the 6-9 month size and it came out huge. She won't be able to wear it for a while. It looks like it can fit a 2 year old. But Melody is on the petite size.It is knit all in one piece, but there is seaming involved. Lots of mattress stitch. And for the seaming to look nice, you have to be able to mattress stitch in the different directions the knitting changes from the body to the sleeves. Then there is the ardous task of picking up the stitches to make the ribbing for the cuffs, lower back edging and front edging. I felt that this shrug required a lot of finishing, but I am happy with the results.
I thought about embellishing it with some simple embroidered flowers, but decided to leave it plain. I think it's good to have a simple plain shrug that is versatile with her other clothes.

Pattern: Baby Shrug (free pattern from HERE), but it's also in the book, Simply Baby.
Needle: US 8 / 5.0 mm and US 9 / 5.5 mm
Yarn: 2 balls of Lion Brand Vanna's Choice Solid in color: Linen #99
The leftover yarn was enough to make the Winter Bootees.

It's good to be home.

We are finally home! There is nothing like sleeping in your own bed. I am trying to catch up on all the lost sleep while I was away. Here are some highlights of Melody's First Christmas.
Lucky Melody got to celebrate 3 Christmases for her first Christmas. First up was Christmas at my mother's house. We arrived on Friday night from NYC and stayed there for 3 nights. My mother made us a delicious lunch featuring all of our favorite Chinese dishes. On Sunday, we opened presents and took my mom out for a early birthday dinner. Her birthday is Christmas Eve. Since it snowed again on Sunday and didn't stop, a lot of restaurants closed early. We had to cancel our original plans and went to a place nearby. When we arrived, there was no one there except the staff. We were worried they were not going to serve us. We got there just in time, since the wait staff had their coats on and was about to leave. We got top notch service that night since there was no one else in the restaurant.

Melody behaved herself at the restaurant, but wouldn't stop crying in the car on the way back to my mom's house. She was basically cranky that whole weekend.I gave my mom the Clapotis Scarf I started last year for her. I finished it up in November. It took no time to finish it and I am wondering why I always drop projects right before they could be finished. I soaked and blocked it the day before I had to leave so there are no other photos. I had to place a fan in front of it to speed the drying process. This scarf is so soft. If you ever have a chance to try this yarn, please do.

Pattern: Drop Scarf (This free pattern is a scarf-sized version of the famous Clapotis)
Needles: US 9 / 5.5 mm
Yarn: Brooks Farm Solana, 1 skeins = 320.0 yards (292.6m)
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My sister waited until Christmas night to exchange gifts with us. We left my mom's on Monday and stayed the the rest of the week at DH's brother's house.
This is the 3 year scarf that I have been working on for my sister. It has reincarnated itself into different patterns for the past 3 years until I settled on Maryse's Gathered Scarf pattern.It was funny seeing my sister's expression when she opened it and saw her long-awaited pink scarf.

Pattern: Gathered Scarf (free pattern)
Needles: US 4 / 3.5 mm and US 7 / 4.5 mm
Yarn: Fable Handknit Pure Baby Alpaca, 4 skeins of Peach
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To make up for being so late with my sister's scarf, I knitted her another one.I had bought this yarn last year intending to make her something, so I was excited when I found this pattern. I held the yarn doubled and was worried that I would not have enough yarn, but it worked out and I have a few yards left, so it was plenty. I love knitting with this yarn. The scarf is soft, but it was even softer after soaking and blocking.

Pattern: Anthro-Inspired Scarflet(Ravelry link to free PDF pattern)
Yarn: Blue Sky Alpacas Sport Weight, 2 skeins of Natural Light Grey 009. Yarn is held doubled.
Needles: US 9 / 5.5 mm
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I must have been a good girl this year. Look at what my sister and her boyfriend, Scott, got me!!!! The Addi Click set!I screamed pretty loudly when I opened it. The rest of family just didn't understand what I was so excited about, especially my in-laws. My MIL only knits with straight needles and didn't know that you could knit flat with circulars. I showed it to her and explained, but I don't think she was too impressed. THANK YOU SO MUCH, Jo and Scott. You guys are the best!Surprisingly, the case is much bigger than I thought it would be, huge actually. Perhaps that's why I was so surprised when I opened it. I had no clue what it was until I read the box. The case is not something you want to lug around in your knitting bag because it would take up the whole bag.

On a side note, my sister bought it at Paradise Fibers and said that they had good customer service. When she received it, the case was badly damaged and she contacted them. They quickly sent her a replacement case. She thought that she would have to give me the damaged case, but replacement arrived before Christmas.

That's it for now. Melody got many amazing toys for Christmas, but I will save that for another day.

Christmas Tree and Making Treats

We bought this tree 2 days before Melody was born. It was 75% off at Jo-Ann Fabric and Crafts Store, so it was a steal. It even has lights strung on there already. We never even had the chance to put it into storage and drove to the hospital with the tree in the back of the car. I knew I wanted to have a tree for Melody because I grew up with a tree and have many fond memories.When my parents divorced 4 years ago, they had to sell their house. My father and sister were going to be moving into a 2 bedroom apartment. During the time when we were packing things up and throwing things away, vultures descended on our house. I called these people vultures because they practically took anything they could get their hands on. I was only able to go back a few times to help them clean, so I wasn't there that much. My father was pretty distraught and didn't really care about anything. It was DH, me and my sister who got the house ready for the movers. What we didn't know was that my father let the vultures take our huge Christmas Tree and all the ornaments. Ornaments that we collected since we were kids. And some ornaments that my sister made in grade school with her name on it (it was a cute Rudolph the reindeer made out of clothespins).
When we first found out, we asked my father to ask for it back, but he said he couldn't. Though he had no had no problem asking for furniture pieces back when he bought a house a year later. Anyway, my sister and I have been pretty upset about it for the last 4 years. It was our thing to put up the tree and we would always save our favorite ornaments for last. It was these two crystal candy canes. We always thought that when we grew up, we would each take take one for our own tree. I have been pretty upset since Thanksgiving when we put up our own tree. It reminded me that we lost all our ornaments, all those memories.Now that I have my own child, I decided that I am going to make my own Christmas ornaments. The plan is that I will make a new ornament each year. When Melody is old enough, we will make the ornaments together. I think it will be wonderful to see a tree full of memories and special ornaments. I started off Melody's First Christmas with 5 knitted Baby Santa Ornaments, one to represent each of us in the family. As you can see, I only managed to get initials on for Melody, Napoleon and Caesar's hat. I was having trouble embroidering and kept trying different techniques. I will get mine and DH's initials on after I get back.And on the back, the numbers 08 to represent the year that I made it. For the pattern, you can get it here. It's quick and easy and it only took me a day to knit all 5 hats.This little bear is super cute. It's knit flat and then seamed up with the ribbon tucked in the head. I want to make more, maybe next year. The free pattern can be found here.On the top left, I filled empty glass globes with the yarn ends I had to snip off when making the hats and the bear. They look very festive with the colorful yarns in them.I know the tree looks sparse, but I don't mind. It's a work in progress for me and I can't wait until Melody can join in the fun. DH had Melody pick out a pack of minature Sesame Street ornaments. He held up two different packages and she grabbed for the Sesame Street one. She is in love with Elmo lately. On the top right, you can spot Big Bird dangling there. We also had some simply felt ornaments that I had bought last year. I need an idea for the Tree Top. Something knitted would be great, but I have until next Christmas to get that done.
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I spent the beginning of the week locked in the kitchen making treats.Right to left: Pecan Almond Chocolate Toffee from the book, Baked: New Frontiers in Baking, Homemade Marshmallows from Martha Stewart, and Hazelnut Chocolate Chip Cookies.I packed up 20 assorted packages and brought it to my Wednesday night knitting group. I think it was a good sign when one of the ladies, Judy, polished off all her toffee with her cup of coffee.

I also made enough to send a few packages out to friends. I am not saying who because I want them to be surprised. I hope the marshmallows last because fresh marshmallows dry out faster. Eat them first! Or use it in your hot cocoa.
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I am now in Massachusetts for the Holidays. We drove from NYC on Friday morning and it only took us 8 1/2 hours (normally it is a 4 hour drive). We got caught in a huge snow storm. The conditions were so scary. I was car sick for most of the trip. Melody could not fall asleep and ended up screaming and crying from Rhode Island to Massachusetts. The boys (Napoleon & Caesar) were whining to get out. We finally had to stop and let them out. It was snowing so hard, you couldn't see past your hand. Napoleon had a coat on, but was so cold, he stood there shivering and wanted to go back into the car immediately. Caesar and his mighty fur coat was fine. He did his business and ran around for a bit before going back to the car. Napoleon basically held it for the 8 1/2 hour drive. They are very good boys.

We are spending the weekend in the North Shore with my mom and will be heading down to the South Shore for the rest of the week.

Are you all done with your holiday gifts or shopping? I am done and actually brought a knitting project for this trip that is just for me. Selfish knitting! I think it was more wishful thinking than anything because I am so tired right now and knitting is the last thing I want to do. Good luck to everyone that is still working on your gifts.