Alexa Bernadette baby dress & matching teddy bear!

I’m so happy with my latest finished project!
I completed a baby dress recently for my (future) niece…and I made a matching teddy bear with the leftover yarn! It was well worth the expense and time!!

I followed the Alexa Bernadette dress pattern on the Berroco website and their pattern for a bear made out of Plush yarn too. This was really easy to make, the pattern was straightforward and the recommended yarn, Plush, feels soooo amazingly soft and was not insanely budget-busting (cough, cough, Debbie Bliss, Rowan, cough, cough). I did everything as instructed in the pattern but picked up and knit the stitches for the neckline. They were supposed to be crocheted, but I don’t know how to crochet (yet!) I think that I like my neckline better – it’s more ruffled. The first pic is a true rendering of the actual colors.

Click on the other pics if you desire a bigger view!

Will work for Colinette Point Five Yarn….

From what I can gather, I am not the first knitter to fall head over heels for the vividly gorgeous Colinette Point Five.  However, discovering this yarn was akin to the sensation an intrepid explorer would surely experience when embarking upon a new world.  I just can’t get enough of this yarn!  I simply cannot get enough! I must have every colorway!  It is so easy to work with and the colors are TO DIE FOR!  I have been obsessed with Noro since learning to knit but I believe that my Noro obsession has now been trumped by all things Colinette!

I stopped into my local yarn shop, Loop, in Islington, North London, earlier this week and purchased a small pamphlet with designs for Point Five yarn and 5 balls of colorway Lichen. (a warm chestnut brown with flecks of amber, copper, grey and olive) to make a capped-sleeve sweater. To my intense glee, I found out that the shop was offering a 10% discount due to National Knitting Week!  So, even though I shouldn’t have, I picked up another five balls of Point Five yarn in Florentina to make another cropped sweater for myself and two balls of Frangipani to make a scarf for my mother.       

How can anybody resist these shades?  Here’s a ball of the Lichen  (pictured below on the left) and a ball of the Florentina (pictured below on the right). The Colinette website offers the most mouthwatering descriptions of their yarns.  Here’s what they have to say about the ball of Lichen: “Natures oldest pigments primitive and bright. Ochre and brown from the river’s edge and oak’s bark. A ‘for always’ colour, lasting and alive.”  And the Florentina: “Flags fly and trumpets play; a rich Byzantine tapestry of purple and jade gallops by. The race is on. This is the colour to bet your Ducats on. A majestic medieval mixture.”  

And here’s the scarf in the Frangipani color! I was able to knit this baby up in a single evening while watching a movie with my honey… I used two balls and did this in a simple broken rib pattern which really lent itself nicely to the contours of the yarn. 

Hopefully the pictures I’ve taken will help convince you that this yarn is nothing short of fabulous.  It is difficult to photograph of all the attributes of this yarn, but I have tried my best.  The predominant colors in this colorway are burgundy and jade green, but as you can see, there are flecks of olive, light salmon, lavender, beige, mauve and periwinkle thrown in there too.  Remember that you can click on the pictures to see a larger version.

Tempting! Finished!

It’s been a while since I have updated, but I assure you that I have been VERY busy.  I have finished a few projects and I have MANY, MANY others waiting in the wings.  My appetite for knitting is truly insatiable.  I can’t stop buying yarn or envisioning yet another new sweater.  At present count, I’m working on four separate projects.  Fortunately, I have finally finished my Tempting Sweater from Knitty.com.

 

 

To be honest, I think that the best part of working on this sweater was finally finishing it.  It took me a few weeks, off and on, to complete this sweater.  Since the entire thing was assembled in 2X2 rib, it was fairly boring and tedious to work on until the end when I laced the chocolate brown satin ribbon through the neckline.  I liked the pattern and I found it relatively easy to follow as a beginning knitter.  I would love one of these in every color of the rainbow, but I think that should I attempt this pattern once again, I will do it in SUPERCHUNKY yarn and perhaps instead knitted in a brioche rib stitch.  Doing this in a fairly small gauge with the recommended Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran (I used the colorway called Ginger) took a long time.  Plus, I am not overly impressed with the Debbie Bliss yarn.  It is soft to the touch and feels wonderful to wear (must be the cashmere content) but I can already tell just by looking at this sweater that it will pill and fuzz in time. The yarn just doesn’t seem to be a good value for money.  I used 5 balls to make this in the medium size and it was pretty expensive, even despite the fact that I picked up the yarn for a song on Ebay.   I am pleased with the results nonetheless. Extremely cute!!!!!

 

Also, I have completed one more Anthropologie-Inspired Capelet! This time I did it in a buttermilk shade of Sirdar Bigga, a thick suberbulky wool/acrylic rope-like yarn, with a 12 inch circular needle and it was such a quick knit! I also made a matching ribbed tube top, which is almost complete.  I used 6 balls to complete the tube top and capelet. All I need to do now is add a big wooden button to the shrug and I also plan to sew one or two onto the tube top as well for ornamentation purposes.  I am really pleased with the turnout on this sweater set! (P.S. Click on the pictures below if you want to see a larger image)

 

 

Casting on, and some really hot shoes.

I’ve started yet another project.  This time it’s the Knitty Tempting sweater by Jenna Adorno. You can see what the finished product will look like in the picture above.  She looks so cute! I can only hope that mine turns out as sweet. I’m doing mine in the recommended yarn, Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran. The color is called “ginger”. It is sort of a cross between the color of fresh ginger and powdered turmeric.  I’m going to finish it off with a chocolate brown ribbon, and wear it with these hot Steve Madden wedges.  I bought these over a year ago in the USA, then subsequently never wore them.  Then I schlepped them all the way over to England when I moved here last year, and no, I still haven’t worn them! Well, now I have an excuse.  All I’ll need now is a nice brown wool skirt. Preferably something pleated or a-line. Anyway, I guess that I should finish the sweater first.

 

How the West Was Won (through accessories)

 

 

I bought the cutest little bag for my knitting a few weeks ago.  As you can see, it’s not really big enough for my knitting needles, but it is big enough to hold my current project, a few balls of yarn, needles and instructions – which is really all you need.  It’s the perfect size bag to take your knitting on the town. It’s from a great (and relatively inexpensive!) store here in London called Paperchase.  Paperchase is mainly a store for art supplies, cards and notebooks, but they do carry some awesome PVC-coated canvas totes in unique, colorful prints.

 

I fell in love with this bag instantly, mainly due to the awesome vintage 1950s Western print.   I’m sure that my father had pajamas or a bedspread in this print as a boy.  It really is the coolest print: here’s a closeup….

Awesome, huh?

 

First completed project!

I finished my first sweater over the weekend.  Mind you, this is not the first project that I have started recently, but the first that I have actually finished. 

 

I’m quite pleased with the result.  I followed the pattern for the Anthropologie Inspired Capelet on Craftster but instead of following the instructions to make it into a tiny capelet, I made it a bit wider and longer so that it would be more of a swingy cropped cardigan.  I used 3 balls of Noro Silver Thaw in Color 5 (which is a gorgeous mix of orange, purple and turquoise shades).  This yarn is so soft and easy to work with, and this sweater would be perfect for both winter and spring.

At this point, I’m debating whether or not I should put a button at the top.  Maybe a nice big round wooden one… What do you think?