bears and blankies

These cotton baby blankies were inspired by these flannel receiving blankets at Purl Bee and motivated by two pre-Xmas baby showers - first one tomorrow. I modified the pattern to just 1sc, 1 ch all round and I used a #10 cotton with a 1.5mm hook. I'm quite pleased with the simple look but SewChic has several patterns available for some nice fancier edgings. The bears are made from gloves like this one.

Time now to focus on Christmas. How are your preparations going?

Reading Are you my mother? by Alison Bechdel + Eating strawberries fresh from the garden

blanket

 

Here's another baby blanket like this one one I made earlier in the year. Again I used the Purl Bee pattern and the Filatura di crosa 'Zara' wool. This one took me a bit longer to knit because I got to half way and I decided I didn't like my colour choices/combinations. So I undid the whole thing, bought some more of the colours I did like - pale grey, blue and charcoal - and started again. I'm pleased I changed my mind about the colours but now it's going into summer and I'm not sure that a woolly blanket is an appropriate gift for a summer baby. What do you think?

Autumn knitting

I do love stripes. And for a long time I've wanted to knit a baby blanket for no other reason than just to make one. This project from Purl Bee brings it all together. The recommended yarn for the free pattern is Alchemy Temple - not available in New Zealand and I couldn't wait to buy online. Now that the weather is cooling down a bit I'm impatient to get knitting. So I've substituted what I hope is a similar yarn from Zara - a lovely, soft, machine-washable merino. Unfortunately there was a limited colour range of mainly autumn shades at my local wool shop but I've chosen four colours that I think might work. The pattern is all garter stitch - easy, quick, reversible (it comes out the same on both sides). And it has stripes. Perfect. Thank you, Purl Bee.