the 7 month sweater (a cautionary tale)

My dear darling neighbor was expecting a baby last March.

In February, I decided I wanted to whip something up for that sweet little addition to our neighborhood.  By the time little B.W. was born, I had the body of a very adorable sweater, but no sleeves.

Fast forward 7 months...

I finally had those sleeves knitted on, added the button bands, sewed in the loose ends and attached some buttons. B.W. was 6 months old and growing bigger every minute. Better late than never, right?

Fortunately I'd long since learned my lesson about knitting newborn sized things. That lesson, by the way, is don't. Teeny tiny newborn sized things are oh-so-adorable, but they'll also be oh-so-unwearable after about two weeks what with the way those little beings grow like weeds. Baby will get far more use out of a 12 month sized item than a newborn item. 

Do not be seduced by the adorableness of teeny tiny itty bitty!!

But I digress. Where was I?

Oh yes, 6 month old baby got the sweater, which happens to fit perfectly. Phew!

Pattern: Little Coffee Bean Cardigan Oh how I love this (free!) pattern. It's so well-written and versatile.

Yarn: Recycled from a thrifted merino/cashmere blend sweater. It was all originally blue, but the green stuff was dyed with food coloring (a remarkably satisfying experiment that I documented here)

Cost: 

Yarn: about $3.00

7 months of my time: about $47,040

Total: the most expensively awesome baby gift ever.

more thrifty gifting

After my post on recycled baby sweaters, it occurred to me that I've got a few other thrifty gift ideas up my sleeve.

My niece is going to become a big sister any day now. The new baby needs a sweater (of course!), but we didn't want the Big Sis to feel left out of the gifting.

For her gift, we cut shapes out of brightly colored foam sheets to use as bath stickers. My boys have been playing with a set of our own for the past few weeks and bath time has never been so much fun. We got a huge stack of the foam sheets for about $4, and used 6 sheets of foam for the gift, so we ended up with a gift that cost pennies, but is as much fun as toys that cost more $$ . (we borrowed the idea from this wonderful post at FilthWizardry)

Incidentally, these foam "stickers" don't have to stay banished to the bath. They also work really well on windows, dishwasher doors, refrigerator doors, etc.-- just keep a dish of water nearby! A handy way to keep little hands occupied while you're busy in the kitchen, no?

I loved playing with paper dolls when I was little, did you too? It was a happy little trip down memory lane when I stumbled across this lovely collection of free vintage paper dolls.

They seemed the perfect birthday gift for one of our favorite little neighbor girls. We printed them on heavy cardstock and covered them with clear contact paper to help them last a little longer. I downloaded some free pretty wallpaper from lovemae to make the storage envelope, and we had a sweet little gift for nothing more than the cost of ink and paper.

If I did it again (which I'm sure I will), I'd print them a little smaller and mount the doll and dresses on thin refrigerator magnets (the kind that come covered with advertisements for plumbers and dentists), and store the whole lot in a recycled candy tin for a fun and handy travel toy.

For a more gender neutral gift along the same lines, check out these awesome slotted building discs from madebyjoel. Really, go check it out right now. You'll find an incredibly inspiring blog with oodles of beautiful ideas for fun toys you can make for and with your kids. (I confess to spending a weekend reading through his entire blog after I stumbled across it-- it's that good)

What about you? Do you have any great and inexpensive gift ideas?

two little coffee beans

Two little cardigans from Elizabeth Smith's Little Coffee Bean pattern. This is such a well-written pattern. I love that it's completely seam-free, since it's all knit in the round, even the sleeves. I'm sure I'll be coming back to it.

I learned magic loop knitting to avoid purchasing double pointed needles for the sleeves. It was delightful to find that the technique is easy peasy!


Just using up stash yarn and buttons with this one. I think the stripes are fun, don't you? My gauge was off so it ended up disproportionately wide, but still wearable.



Okay, so the birdie is a little wonky. I still think he's pretty cheery. Yarn was Bernat Cottontots solids-- same as Matthew's sweater.

welcome to the world...

My little nephew Matthew Ben made his grand appearance today. I finished his sweater just in time. Well, I probably had a little time to spare since I made the 6 mo. size-- big enough to grow into.

I had a lot of fun with the extra little details: the twill tape tag with his initials and the content and care hang tag.

Seriously though, people, I think I'm going to need to join an addiction treatment program or something. I've got another baby sweater in the wings (so cute that it's physically painful), and more planned. I just can't stop myself. My sincerest apologies to any non-knitters who are getting sick of all this.

P.S. The pattern is Presto Chango by Valerie Wallis

yellow brick road baby sweater

I cast on and got half-way through this sweet little baby sweater during last week's family movie night viewing of The Wizard of Oz. A couple of hours knitting the next day were all that it took to finish it up. (ignore the needle closure-- I've got some tiny little ladybug buttons that I still need to sew on) It was so fast and easy I could hardly believe it! My favorite part: it's knit in the round, so the only seaming required was a couple of inches on each sleeve. This was instant gratification baby knitting at it's best.

I'm pretty sure this is going to become my go-to baby gift. Short sleeves for Spring and Summer babies, and long sleeves for Fall and Winter babies. The eyelet look might be a little feminine for boys, but it would be really easy to skip the yarn-overs (that's what makes those holes) in favor of un-holey (tee hee!) raglan increases and moss-stitch borders on the body and sleeves for a more boyish sweater.

My modifications here:

• Short sleeves: instead of working 3 inches on the sleeves before the border pattern, I jumped immediately into the border pattern at the division, only doing one row of yarn-overs.
• three button holes instead of just one.
  

Golden Dahlia

I'm sure that many of you have seen this lovely Mother's Day dahlia corsage tutorial by now. Personally, I thought it was one of the loveliest projects I've come across in a while and since I already had all the supplies on hand, I had to make one of my own. Now I want one in every color of the rainbow.

The tutorial recommends using craft glue, I found a glue gun to be much easier and faster. Mine's not as perfect as the original, but even so, I think it's very nice. It really would make a lovely (possibly last-minute) Mother's Day gift.

family tree

I used the templates so generously provided by Erin, of Sutton Grace, for this family tree project. This is the second of two trees that I've made as gifts for other people.

I'd say it's high time I made one for my own little family, wouldn't you agree?




p.s. It can be hard to find a suitable frame for this since the final measurements are 24" x 20". Try the thrift store first. I found a really nice 24x24 frame at my local thrift store for my first family tree for $10.

Done!

The cookie marathon is over and all of our little goodies have safely made it into the hands of our little friends.




I really wanted to use glassine envelopes for our cookie packaging, but I never remember to order them in time. So we sewed little parchment paper packets instead. I'm pretty much in love with the simple imperfection of them.

But still, if I want to have glassine envelopes in time for Valentine's Day 2011, I think I'm going to order them tomorrow, just to be sure. If I can keep from losing them, that is.

This whole "planning ahead" thing is new to me, but I think I might like it...

(cookie recipe here, royal icing recipe here)

belated

The curse of the do-it-yourselfer strickes again: I want to make something meaningful, cute, and earth-friendly as a gift for someone I love-- in this case, my sister Erin. So I do.



Trouble is, it gets finished 4 months too late. Her birthday was in July.



Sorry Erin, will you ever forgive me?

All the components for this bag came from the thrift store: a cable-knit sweater that I felted, a silky polyester blouse (for the lining), and a thick braided leather belt. Oh, and the magnetic snaps came from an old purse I've had for years and recently started cannibalizing for parts.

The hem of the sweater became the top edge of the purse. I left the buttons on the blouse-- thought they'd be a cute reminder of the origins of the purse.

Minor detail: I still need to take it to a shoe repair shop to have the strap sewn on. If you look closely at the second picture, you'll see a pin poking out. Yikes! I purchased leather needles for my sewing machine and got one in and ready to go, only to find that my presser foot won't lift high enough to get a few layers of sweater and leather in there. So, the the shoe repair shop we go...

But I'll have it done this week Sis. Cross my heart and hope to die.

a paper "refashion"

I have a confession to make: I get more than a teensy bit excited when I see bills show up in the mail. It's a sickness.

But why, you say?

Because I've recently begun to appreciate the lovely variety of patterns hidden away on the inside of those security envelopes (and I'm not the only one). They're sweet and subtle and not too perfect. And just right for substituting for regular patterned paper. And did I mention free?!

I made a little thank you card for a kind friend who generously invited our crazy circus family to visit, in her home, for an entire weekend. We had six kids under the age of five in the same house. It was awesome. Really, it was.

And awesome I am not, since that was a month ago and I still have her dang thank you card...

But I digress.

My point is that security envelopes are great. Lots of potential. For my card, I used a circle punch, some rub-on letters, a glue stick and some white cardstock.

Piece of cake.