Tag Archives: Froggy Hat and Socks


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a boy in knits

Does anyone remember me talking about the Cabaret for the Cure? My friend’s leukemia fundraiser? Well, it is next week, so last weekend I got my tushie in gear and fixed the Montego Bay Scarf I’d knit for her.

Yeah. Um, no.

We won’t speak of that scarf again. I wove in the edge that got caught, and I spent 1.5 %&$^ hours carefully unpicking the part that had torn and ripped (of course it wasn’t the side that would unravel easily), and used new yarn to bind off, and wove in all the ends. Then I looked at it.

I had to admit that it was now a) a good 2 feet shorter, and b) still looked really fuzzy from getting attacked in the washing machine by some stray velcro. I did the only thing I could think of to tame the fuzz…I let it soak in Eucalan for 10 minutes, rinsed then gave it fresh water and a squirt of hair conditioner. I worked the conditioner through then put it in the dryer. Much of the fuzz was flattened, but even at this new, softer feel I had to admit that it still wasn’t good enough to be a charity-auctioned scarf. Hell, it wasn’t good enough to be a raffle prize!

I kept looking at another project I’m doing with the proper yarn, and realizing that I should never have skimped on the yarn for that project. Well, I didn’t really skimp to save money. I just honestly thought the sock yarn would be cute, since there was one in my LYS that was made with sock yarn and it was great. I should have realized that particular sock yarn was Regia Bamboo, which had a much silkier hand and feel than plain old sock yarn.

I didn’t want to leave my friend empty-handed or renege on my offer of knitted goods, so I looked around to see what I could offer. In the end I am giving them 3 sets of knitted goodies: all stuff I’d knit for Jakob. I don’t feel bad because a) I missed the boat on some articles that are already too small for Jakob, b) they have never been worn, c) they were knit with love, and d) they will go to make someone else’s child warm and happy, and that is much better than staying here and sitting in a bag.

Since they WERE originally knit for Jakob I took some photos of him wearing them, just to have for my records, and I will show them to you here.

This is the “Ice Cream Cardigan and Hat” knit from 2 balls of Regia Canadian Colors- Ottawa. I used my leftovers to knit “Christine’s Baby Booties” to match.
Jakob was all giggles that day and I can’t help but crack up when I see these photos!

I think this one (below) was my favorite of his silly grins. He looks like a roly-poly little toy and I just want to pinch his cheeks!
I will be giving away the Just Ducky Hat and Socks set. It is still too big for him, and I think by the time it would fit he would be too old to wear it.

I’m sorry…I think I’m going to gush here…but I LOVE this boy’s face!

The last set I will be giving away is the Froggy Hat and Socks set. I don’t know why but the hat is way too small but the socks are too big…it would have been cute when he was smaller but that would have been May and too warm…all in all I feel quite comfortable with giving it away.
More of his favorite face…sucking in his lip. (He didn’t stay that way for long, I think I tickle-bombed him right after this photo was taken).
Finally, some other knit photos to share. This is the Baby Cabled Cardigan I finally got around to finishing last week. I don’t know if this photo properly shows it, but the cardi is baggy and the sleeves are too long, which means it should fit for another 3-6 months- or until the Winter is over. But you can clearly see that the length is too short. Every time he moves his arms it rises, and since it has a hood the weight of it pulls the back down and the front rises up to about his mid-chest.
I’m going to fix it once I finish my secret project.

The hood however…let’s not go there.

Cute elfin look- yes. Practical and useful hood- no. In theory the hood would fit a normal head, but the cables pull it in too much. I really don’t feel like knitting a border, and I can’t pick up more sts at the neckline and work up since the hood already grows up from the front edges of the cardi. So the hood will be purely decorative. I’m ok with that.


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lotsa fun stuff

There was a lot going on this weekend, here in our little neck of the woods. Saturday was a huge milestone for our family- we started Jakob on solid foods!

Here he is having NO idea what he’s about to get into.

…here comes the airplane…open the hangar…

…and the verdict is…

…he likes it! Ok, he really didn’t express any form of like or dislike over the strange mushy stuff we were repeatedly spooning into his mouth. He did, however, avoid crying or fussing, and kept breaking out in his usual grins, so we’re counting this as a success!

We’ve been giving him a sippy cup with some purified water after each meal to help wash down the cereal, and he has yet to refuse the cup. If he continues to take it we’ll see if we can get him to take breastmilk or formula in it, and since he’s still refusing bottles, this might be a way to be able to leave him for longer than 2-3 hours. (Of course, I’m not going to try to get him to take bottles any more, because there is no sense in getting him started on them just to have to wean him. I’d rather him go straight to the sippy cup).

Here’s another photo of him, just because. 🙂 I can’t stop taking photos of him and I can’t stop staring at them, so now you all get to see what I get to see every day. My gosh I love this boy!

Does anyone remember the Froggy Hat and Socks set? I finally found the bag of handknits I made while pregnant. Just in time too…the socks are too big still but the hat barely fits! I think he will have worn it just for this photo, and it is now going to go into the “grown out” bin.
Sunday was another exciting day- I attended an all-day Fiona Ellis workshop! She is so nice and warm, so genuine, and I am really, really happy I took the course and got to meet her. In the morning I took a class on short rows, and in the afternoon it was about slipped stitches. I felt bad because Yannick had to bring Jakob to me twice so I could feed him, but it was remarkably non-disruptive. The first time he brought him in was during the morning class, but they came in silently, I fed Jakob on my lap and then they left, all within about 10 minutes and all without causing any interruptions to the class. The second time we called a bit more attention to ourselves, but that was because it was during lunch hour and we played with him for a bit. It might also have had something to do with the fact that he wore his Superman costume. (I had been asked to bring it in).

This is my short row swatch. The pink section uses the “wrap and turn” method, which I usually tend to use in garments (like the bum area of the Superman costume). It works well, but if you look closely you can see the 3 turning points. The blue area uses a “yarn over, slip first stitch” method, which I enjoy. I find it shows less than the wrapped one, and I tend to use it a lot on short-rowed sock heels (and toes). The yellow sections use what I think she called the “Japanese or catch method” where you grab the back of the stitch in the row below to close the gap. I didn’t mind it, but it was fiddly. I was knitting fast on Sunday so I had enough time to make a second “catch” swatch and do the short row/3-ndl bind off shoulder method. I didn’t really need practice on that, however, as I almost always adapt patterns to enable that bind off on the shoulders. I really, really like the professional look it gives.

Before the short row class was over we were given the time to work on a creative swatch. The assignment was to work the short rows while interrupting a pattern, and the examples given were lace and cables. I decided to see what would happen if I worked short rows while working a striped pattern. This was the first time I used 2 different colors to cast on (I did the long tail method) and I was able to practice my Fair Isle. I tend to pull too tight when switching colors (probably because I do a lot of intarsia) so I was trying hard to keep things loose. I was also holding the green with my left hand and practicing the two-handed technique. I was able to knit pretty fast using both hands, but I had to remember to knit that color through the back loop on the following rows because the stitches I knit from my left hand wound up mounted the wrong way on the needle.

This is my swatch from the slipped stitch class. There are 6 different techniques shown, I did the first 4 twice each for practice. I never before realized how much fun slipped stitches are, and how much I enjoyed working them and how much I like the look of them. I think this is something I will definately have to play around with some more!

Two last things. First of all, I tried a new recipe tonight. I found this on Caroline’s blog not too long ago, and remembered that I had some apples in the fridge about to go bad, so I made it for dessert tonight. The only modification I made was to bake it in individual dishes instead of one larger pie plate.


It was delicious! Thanks Caroline! Next time I would probably try adding just a dash of lemon juice (I like how it brings out the flavor of the apples) and I would put less sugar, because I found it sweet. I would also probably make up for the less sugar by serving it warm, with vanilla ice cream. 🙂 What I also found cool was that I’d sprayed the dishes with Pam first and the resulting dessert was able to pop out and still hold its shape…so I would try making it in smaller ramekins next time I entertain and each person could get their own little one for dessert, maybe with some melted chocolate drizzled across the top…

The other last thing is my current knitting. I have been working on something but I can’t show photos of it here. I can tell you it’s a hat, but I can’t say much more because it is one of my Knitty.com submissions. My mom’s manicurist saw a photo of it and wants me to make her some to give as gifts, but before I can figure out how much to charge I need to make a second one and record how long it took, the exact yardage it took, etc. So I’ve been working on that for about a week now, but today I decided to put it aside temporarily.

We have a family event to attend this coming weekend and I wanted to dress Jakob up a little. I decided to knit him a little vest to wear with a white button-down shirt and dress pants. After rooting through what little of my stash is unpacked, I found some gray Patons yarn left over from the Glam Coat. I have two balls left, which I’m sure is more than enough for a baby’s vest. I didn’t feel like hunting down a pattern at the right gauge, so I spent today writing one up. I was able to knit the ribbing too, and hopefully I will have a vest in time for this weekend.

Here’s my swatch, before I unravelled it. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to use a garter or ribbed edging for the cuffs, so I swatched it with both. That’s regular garter on the bottom, sideways knit-on-as-you-go garter on the top left, and ribbing on the top right. I like the look of the regular garter the best but the swatch kept flipping up really badly along the first stocking stitch row, so traditional ribbing it is.

Tomorrow I get to go knitting with Robyn, Tara and the blogless Kate, so I hope to have some vest progress photos by night time.