Daily Craft - Planes, trucks and stuff

Hope you all had a lovely long weekend.  I made it a super long weekend by taking yesterday off with no intent other than to get some sewing done.  I'm still debating the best way (or if it's even possible) to share my sewing space with baby, as the nursery has been my craft space up until now, and I've been happily utilizing the dual closets for supply storage.  However, husband has graciously offered to let me move my craft space into his "man cave" once we've cleared some room.  In the meantime, I figured I'd take advantage of not having the baby furniture yet, and spread out my fabric!

I started off with sewing this panel that I bought on sale at Joann's.  I'd never really looked at the panels before, but this has changed my mind.  It was $6 and I loved the patchwork & applique....it makes it look like I did something much fancier than I did!  It's also got a nice variety of textures between the flannel, minky and felt on the front.  In the end, I just sewed some snuggly minky fabric (which I'd also purchased on sale and was already in my stash) on the back and called it a day.  Total cost?  Approx $10.  Super cute and cost effective?  I consider that a win! 


[Sorry these aren't the best pictures, but my preggo self didn't feel like walking down and then back up 2 flights of stairs to get my other camera.]


Next post...some crate covers thanks to a tutorial found on Pinterest!

Daily Craft - Coming along nicely!

3 hours into knitting the baby blanket, I'm really quite thrilled with my choice.  After getting over the fiddly beginning with only 8 stitches, several double pointed needles, and feeling a bit like I'm all thumbs - this is now proving to be a super quick knit.  Thank you no purl stitches.  I'm thinking all blankets should now be knit in the round so that you can eliminate purl stitches altogether and just whip in circles. 

I'm also pretty psyched about how the colors look together.  The dark color in the picture is actually more of a pine green, and I think the combination is a good one.  I'm following the stripe design from the original pattern (sort of), but incorporating 6 colors instead of 5.  I think I'm going to love it.

I should also give two very big thumbs up to the yarn.  This is my first time working with Plymouth's Dream Baby, and I gotta say that as an acrylic/nylon blend, this may actually sway even the most particular yarn user that not all acrylic yarns are bad.  It is SO soft that just want to curl up with it.  I've heard that it just keeps getting softer with washing too.  Soft and functional?  Sold. 

Daily Craft - The great blanket debate

As my parting payment from sample knitting with Plymouth Yarns, I opted to get a bunch of baby yarns.  I got some Dream Baby DK, Jeannee DK, and a fun textured yarn, Whitney.  All in neutral colors of course, seeing as we have another 2 weeks before I go in for my anatomy scan and find out gender.

What's up with this poor kid's head
being super-imposed on here?!

One of the things I intended to make is a knit blanket...but my search for a blanket ended up being quite complicated with thousands of patterns out there to choose from!  With 6 coordinating colors, I wanted something that would be fun and show off the colors nicely.  In the end, I narrowed it down to 3. 

I did somewhat fall in love with this Honeycomb Stroller Blanket - which looks amazing in bright, bold colors (thank you Ravelry!).   The pastels in the pattern photo do NOT do this justice.  I decided against it for now though as I want something that looks nice on both sides and didn't feel like dealing with adding a backing fabric to a knit piece for now.

I also considered the Bright Blocks Blanket pattern (pictured left, courtesy of Lion Brand). I really like the woven look of the squares, but I've not done a ton of entrelac and I feel like I'm looking for something that won't take forever to do and I don't have to pay much attention to.  Yes - I'm aiming for a good quantity of knit items while I still have the time to do it! 

My final decision?  I've opted to make the Constant Baby Blanket, which will be a nice square blanket, worked from the middle out using simple stitches, but will show off stripes nicely, while being a good mindless (and quick) knit.  Time to cast on...  :)

Daily Craft - Pretty in pink (and purple)

Months ago, I got a total steal at the local thrift store involving 5 bags of yarn with a retail value of probably $400+, for the bargain price of $30.  One of those bags had about 40 balls of fingering weight cotton yarn in about 16 different colors.  I can only assume that at some point, somebody bought them intending to make a gigantic blanket of some kind, then concluded that making a blanket like that in fingering weight yarn would be sheer insanity. 

The yarn has been sitting there just asking me to do something awesome with it and I recently decided to make a blanket with it, as I believe was originally intended, using this pattern.  I'm making it baby blanket sized instead of full sized (hey, somebody I know is bound to have a baby girl sometime!) and it has to be said that my initial trepidation that it would still take forever with such thin yarn is gone.  I'm already a quarter way into it and really happy with how it's turning out.

I'm only using 4 of the 16 colors that I have so once I'm done with this one, I'm wondering if I should make an adult sized blanket with the rest of it.  I'm thinking I'll stick with crochet because it'll be so much faster than knitting it on tiny needles.  Getting through it quicker will also help prevent the WIP (work in progress) hibernation factor - like the sweater that's been sitting in the closet, on the needles, half finished, for 18 months now.  If you have a favorite crochet blanket pattern, please share as I'm open to suggestions!