Unphotographed FO's - Edited to add some photos

Lots of FO to speak of today. Lots of WIP to speak of too. And more work added to the pipeline. Cause that's how I roll.

First the FO's - I finished my socks in Lorna's Laces Pewter. The two socks are a little different, but not hugely so. I wore them to work today and my tootsies are toasty. The wool washes up to be really soft, too. Also finished the hat for LaLa's baby.

Did lots of sewing over the weekend. I really have to take pictures of these things cause they are fantabulous. I got caught up on my baby sewing for the summer babies - 3 flannel receiving blankets each, plus 3 more blankets I had on deck - I think those are going to my SIL.

In the box is the hat for my neighbor, and the flannel blankies I made for her. The swaddled baby doll is modeling the "big sister gift", and the blue baby is wearing the hat I made for LaLa's baby.



I also made a couple of tote bags. One in some striped Waverly fabric for me. I found the fabric as a remnant. It's very striped. Perhaps too striped. It could use a nice block of chocolate brown to tone it down a little - I'm thinking of adding a big patch pocket to the front. And the handles are a little floppy. Maybe I should have added interfacing to them. But I'm so pleased that my scheme for a self lining bag worked out. I did run into an edge that was hard to turn over, but not bad for a 1.0 attempt.

The second tote bag was for LaLa, made with Thomas the Tank Engine (a remnant from WalMart) and lined with some kind of woven nylon stuff in very bright yellow. She seemed darn pleased with it, and I think it's pretty sharp too. I need to add some fray-check stuff to the exposed edges to help ensure that the whole thing doesn't fall apart. Not bad for a couple of remnants. I think I must have spent $10 to make both bags, and that includes $6 for a yard (60" wide) of the yellow stuff. Also pleased that the scheme worked out pretty well, for a 1.0 idea. I was really having trouble visualizing how to sew these things together without sewing it together, if you know what I mean.

I also managed to get in another tier of the Lady Eleanor Baby Blanket for my nephew. And I restarted the socks for DH. I've finally made it through the toe on the first sock - and I'm at the straightaway heading for the heel. I ended up going with the "easy" method from Wendy's Knitty tutorial, which involves crocheting a chain a few stitches longer than what you need, picking up the little loops from the chain and knitting from there. I guess it boils down to a provisional cast-on. It seems to work pretty well. The socks ended up being 4x13=52 stitches around. I was thinking about adding a pattern to the top of the foot, but 13 is just so darn prime. As I'm going around the calf, there'll be more options. I've also cast on a baby hat for the other upcoming summer baby. In blue elann sock-it-to-me (fake cascade fixation), like I made for my nephew. Got a couple of inches of it done during the troop parent's meeting.

So....adding things to the pipe. You remember the two new pregnant ladies? My SIL and a friend of the family? SIL is due in mid-January, so I figure that the friend is due around the same time. Instead of knitting a baby blanket, I think I'm going to make a quilt for my SIL's baby. The gender neutral colors she likes are sage/minty green and baby duck yellow. I can't decide between a yellow/green checkerboard pattern or something like this (a Denyse Schmidt design.) I have an idea of how to cut out pieces that will fit together, based on how a friend of my mom's would make custom tiles and freezer paper piecing.

And I've been thinking about a quilt or something for the monkey for quite a while now. I'm still really fascinated by the psychedelic squares, but that seems like a whole lot of knitting. So, we talked about it, and I think he likes a zig-zag configured Rail Fence design. We picked out some yellow, cream, and black fabrics for his quilt.

That leaves LaLa. All I could get out of her was blue. So we picked out a ton of blue fabrics, ranging from blue green to green blue to dark blue. I made a My Little Pony concession. It had a turquoise background. The actual pattern for this still needs some thinking. She ended up with a bunch of fat quarters, so I could (in theory) stack and slash the fat quarters to make fat-quarter sized blocks. Or I could make brick-shaped pieces and arrange them in running bond. But that might be too swimmy because I don't have a contrast color for the cement part. Or I saw a really pretty monochromatic rail fence. So, my big contenders are the monocrhomatic rail fence of a thousand little squares placed randomly. I'm leaning toward the little squares, in a monochromatic Kaffe Fassett moment.

Next on the agenda is: finishing the baby hat and baby blanket (for the sundry babies), pajama pants for me and the monkey, then other knitting WIP and the quilts. Also am thinking about vacation knitting.