Because 2 days is never enough.

It’s official – I have finished knitting the baby blanket (and successfully completed birthing class), so the baby can now arrive!

Erik picked out the colors for the blanket, which is knitted in Blue Sky Alpaca organic cotton.  The great thing about this pattern is that it forced me to learn how to pick up stitches on a completed work since the ruffled edge is knitted after the rest of the blanket is complete.

Now I have to get used to the idea of my beautiful blanket covered in baby spit-up.

Jess, Kate and I had a fun-filled adventure at the Renegade Craft Fair in Williamsburg not too long ago. We strolled the crafty aisles and ogled the goods after consuming brown rice crispy treats (with cranberries, almonds and flax) from the beloved Treats Truck.

There were definitely some recurring themes, the most prominent being mustaches. That’s right – mustache jewelry, mustaches on t-shirts and notecards, etc. And it also seems safe to say that squirrels are the new owls.

Needless to say, all three of us walked away with some great purchases. One of mine was a felt patch featuring a cute marsupial with it’s offspring. It seemed especially appropriate for me to use it as a way to customize my Ergo baby carrier (which will be my way of making myself into a marsupial).

Note from Jess:

Check out some photos here.

The photos feature the mustache meme and other common indie-crafter motifs like perched birds, ironic t-shirts, and fonty cards.
Speaking of birds on wires, Mindy and I were particularly taken with these and each bought a necklace.

(I temporarily lost my little pouch with the business cards I picked up, so I’ll try to figure out who makes all this stuff and post it when I get the chance)

I’ve been wanting to hang a bulletin board above my desk for a while now, but I could never find cork board that was appealing.  I looked online for nice cork squares but they cost more than I wanted to spend.

Erik and I were in a long line at the new Ikea in Brooklyn recently and while we were waiting I noticed a bin full of trivets near the checkout counters.  The trivets were made of cork, came in packs of three, and were only $2 a pack.  A bulletin board in the rough!  I bought two packs of trivets and hung them above my desk using self-sticking foam mounting tape.  Voila – a funky homemade bulletin board for cheap!

Our dear Mindy is about to have a baby.

In order to celebrate this joyous occasion, we had a small shower for her friends and family at my house. We naturally emphasized the handmade for the festivities.

The lovely and talented Kate helped me with the invitations, providing inspirational genius and supplies, including an introduction to Speedball Speedy Stamp Blocks. I’m used to the old linolium block, which I love/hate. I have made some great prints with lino, but have also dug my carver deep into my hand on pretty much every project. The speedy stamp is, well, speedy. And injury free!

For the party favors, I hunted some thrift shops in Manhattan for old (cheap) teacups and made some “tea-lights.”

Mindy and her mom, Joan, made some delicious finger sandwiches, chocolate chip cookies, and the Tartine shortbread cookies that could break your heart. Add some ginger scones and strawberry rhubarb compote and ricotta, honey, fig crostini and I think my stomach was as big as Mindy’s by the end of the party.

Being the official 3dayweekend baby is a pretty big job, and there’s a scary possibility that this kid will be wearing a tragic, knit wardrobe and playing with odd, homemade toys. But we’ll have to wait until August 2 to find out (or will we???)

I have been extremely remiss in posting blog updates, but I have a good excuse – I’m pregnant!  Or as my friend Alyssa says – I am working on the ultimate craft project.  One that spawns many other craft projects along the way.

The first completed baby project is a stuffed duck that I knitted.  I am embarrassed to say that I started knitting this duck for a friend’s baby (who is hardly a baby anymore) and by the time I picked up the project again it only made sense to make it for my baby.  (How convenient!)

My brother, Stephen, was visiting last week.  When he saw the duck he got excited that I had knitted a Ferdinand replica.  As soon as he said “Ferdinand” I immediately remembered that I had a stuffed animal duck when I was a kid named Ferdinand.  I totally forgot about him until Stephen mentioned it.  Unfortunately neither of us remember how Ferdinand got his name, but it really is the perfect name for a duck.

Meet Ferdinand (#2)…

As my friend Hardy said, it’s beginning to feel like the baby-of-the-month club in our parts and consequently, I’ve been hard at work making baby related crafts.

I made a very soft and very cozy baby blanket for my friends Seth and Vanessa. Of course, I worked in a leisurely fashion until about a week before Vanessa’s shower and then I had to kick into over-drive, sweatshop mode. I was focused, knitting on the train, at lunch during work, staying up late, even once working on it at a restaurant while we waited for the food.

I was blocking it just hours before the shower and probably it was a bit damp as she pulled it out of the bag.

It looks 100x cuter wrapped around precious little Aidan.

I’m catching up.

Potholders are so April and May to me, but I just wanted to make it know that I did actually sort out the thumb issue. I cranked out a number of adorable and fully functional little mitts and distributed them to friends for wedding, thank you and housewarming gifts.

I have so many fabric scraps and extra quilt batting, that I really should go into turbo mitt-making, but I’ve moved on to bigger, if not better things.

This is a photo from a flight to San Francisco, where I used my time to sew down the bias binding on the mitt collection.

You know you’ve reached maximum craft-dorkdom when, upon getting stuck home on Friday night, you think to yourself, “cool, now I can make that potholder I’ve been thinking about!”

Yes, friends, this is how I spent my evening. And, yes, it was glorious.

I used some leftover quilt batting (from that quilt I still haven’t finished) and some fabric I had lying around from various other projects to craft a really fantastic potholder. If I do say so myself.

The only bad news is that in drawing my own pattern, I didn’t leave enough room for a seam allowance and, consequently, the thumb area is a bit constricting. It kind of cramps that opposable thumb style that humans rock so smoothly. Well, Karl and I have been practicing and I think we can still accomplish all our basic pot-holding needs required. And I’ll just correct the pattern next time around.

Once upon a time, a girl bought some beautiful steel grey alpaca yarn at The Yarn Tree on Bedford. And from it, she made a fantastic cable-knit hat. Which she lost on an airplane. Then, to console herself, she made a matching shorty cable knit scarf with a cloth covered turquoise button that her boyfriend bought for her. This scarf was the best thing she ever knitted. People complimented her on it constantly, expressed amazement when they discovered she made it herself. She was in love. She tried to get more of the grey alpaca wool to make another matching hat, but found out it was discontinued. This only intensified her bond to the scarf.

Then, one terrible day, it was gone. It was torn brutally from her life at a high school where the girl was visiting for work. (okay, not that brutally, since she just left it in the office, but still)
This weekend, the girl tried to recreate another shorty scarf. It was so ugly that it’s picture won’t grace this blog and it will promptly be unraveled. This only served to remind her how much she loved the first scarf.

The scarf is greatly missed. Not a chilly New York day goes by that she doesn’t think fondly of the scarf and bitterly of her loss. These photos are the only evidence of the scarf that exist in her new, empty world.

Farewell fond scarf! May the high school student who found you in the Principal’s office appreciate your loveliness.

Jess and I managed to be productive on the train to and from Connecticut for cheesemaking weekend by turning the ride into a knitting circle. I used the time to finish a matching hat and scarf that I started many months ago – just in time for the cold weather. Alas, I have developed a mild allergy to wool (the worst news you could receive as a knitter), so I have been experimenting with other blends of yarn. This hat and scarf is knitted using 6 skeins of Blue Sky Alpacas from Peru (color 009; lot 3412), which is extremely warm and soft to the touch. I used the following patterns that I made up (both use seed stitch):

Hat
#10 circular + #10 douple pointed needles

CO 65 stitches – doublestrand

seed stitch in the round (k1, *p1, k1 – repeat from * to end; knit the purls and purl the knits)

once the hat measures the length you want, reduce by knit 7, knit 2tog and try to alternate knits and purl to retain the seed stitch (do this for one round)

then knit 6, knit 2tog for one round
then knit 5, knit 2tog for one round … reduce by one each round until knit 2, knit 2tog
bind off!

Scarf
#10 straight needles

CO 21 stitches

seed stitch (k1, *p1, k1 – repeat from * to end; knit the purls and purl the knits)
repeat until the scarf is the length you want…
bind off!