baby surprise jacket

So the jacket looks really cute and I made a toque to go with it.  They don't know if it's going to be a boy or girl so it's in yellow.  I found some wooden buttons with a snowflake design on it.  I figure that's neutral enough and boy enough if need be.  I like the buttons.  I think I'll go and get more for myself ;-)
The neck hole looks really small, but I followed the instructions so I have no idea what went wrong.  I figure they'll just have to leave the top button undone.

holiday knitting

So since I don't have enough projects at this time of year my boss asked me for a favour.  She's having her first grandchild and asked if I could knit a sweater and hat for the baby to come.  She wants it for christmas of course :-P  How could I say no?

I found a pattern for the "baby surprise jacket" in my Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitting Workshop book.  On Ravelry there are something like 1600 people who have done this pattern.  In the knitting podcast that I listen to (yeah I know how geeky that sounds but I don't care, ha ha), by Kelley Petkun of Knit Picks, highly recommends it.  She's done several of them over the years.  I even found some YouTube videos with tips and tricks to make more sense of the vague wording of the pattern.
http://youtu.be/xMirlP_YuXo

So far I'm almost finished the first batch of decreases and I'll be onto the next stage of the sweater today.  I would have liked to have done stripes or a variegated yarn but she wanted plain jane so I guess I'll just have to make a second one for another bundle of joy somewhere down the road.  There are always more baby showers to go to right?

I used Bernat Satin Sport weight so it's super soft to the touch.  I wanted to avoid wool as I didn't know how they'd feel about that.  Some people are funny about wool.  I figured the washability was cool and you could throw it in the dryer without worry.  This line of yarn is a little fuzzy but I don't think it'll be an issue of wear for a baby as they grow so fast.  I hope they like it.

knitting

I've been working on some knitting projects but I can't post them as they are presents for this coming yule.  However, I've also just finished a baby hat for the charity I work with called LeeLee Hats.  I have a feeling I'll have to make a few of these due to the cuteness factor.

I don't have a baby to model it so this little guy will have to do.

this year's garden results

I'm rather disappointed with this year's garden.  It wasn't well organized, the weeds got away from me to the point of ridiculous.  I'm sure my neighbour with the perfect grass and robotic like garden has been cursing me.  I have a  plan for next year to downsize the garden in such a way to help with productivity and my management of it.  I'm going to try the "square-foot gardener method".  It should be less labour intensive.  I'd love to set up my gravity feed watering system but I'll have to see if I can afford it.

This year resulted in only two pumpkins, dried beans, some tomatoes and a handful of beets.  I did get a large batch of weld for dying.  Each year I learn what to change and  what works where.  Since this moving I've had to learn what works for our new location.

Sprang

So in  my travels I found that the local library has Collingwood's "The techniques of Sprang".  I began taking notes and it really helped me to get a clear image of technique.  A friend of mine showed interest in learning so I began trying to research more in depth to help her (and let's be honest I can let a fiber art alone to save me).

A year or two ago I took a class on basic sprang and another on circular warp sprang.  On the left is part of my circular warp from the class.  I still need to reach that part in the book to see what it can add to my understanding.  On the right is my playing with double intertwining at the top with single intertwining near the bottom.  It doesn't look much different when relaxed.  The difference shows when it's stretched making a hexagon as opposed to a diamond shape.  I think it would make a nice hair net.

Results of the Coif

So I found that the coif tended to slide back with the weight of my hair (no surprise there as I have a lot of it).  I used bobby pins to hold it on which seems to work well enough.  I meant to bring my hat pins but forgot them in the rush of packing for the day.  I was happy to find I still had a small black velvet cap, as I thought I had sold them all years ago.  It definitely can use the blackwork on the cap to tone down the white-ness.  Other than that I'm quite satisfied with the result.  Maybe I'll add it to the stash of merchant repertoire.

I didn't bring enough bobby pins to pin the coif, hat and my hair so you can see my braids pulling the coif back from the weight of it, but if I pin the braids up first it holds quite well.

Elizabethan Coif

This Saturday is our local event and I'm in charge of running the fencing for the day.  So I may or may not fence myself.  While I'm fencing I wear Elizabethan age clothing to suit the blade and fencing style we use in the SCA, even though my persona is 7th century Irish.  The thing I've been missing is headwear and if I don't feel like changing after fencing for court I didn't want my fuzzy hair to do it's "troll doll" impression.  So I looked up the Attack Laurel's recreation (http://www.extremecostuming.com/reproductions/vacoift281975.html), the Blackwork Guild (http://www.theblackworkguild.com/COSTUMES-MEMBERS%202.html) and this last site which gave me another reference for sizing (http://www.europeana.eu/portal/record/00401/BBAB9B66128397DA499B1E6AF8A0DDEA5676ABD2.html).
There was no way I was embroidering a coif in time for this weekend, but I did see reference to plain coifs anyway.  That'll do for me to decide if I like them.  I tend to get headaches if my hair is too concentrated in one spot on my head (very thick hair).  It looks pretty good so here's to hoping.