Baby Knits

Finally, photos of the everlasting baby blanket! I made this for the son of a friend of mine in Belgium. I started last June and finally finished at the end of January. I was so excited! Originally, the stars and the moon were supposed to be done in white Chenille cotton (intarsia), but I didn't like how it swatched, so I was just going to do random geometric shapes. Then, a fellow Amsterdam-SnBer suggested doing the design in purl stitches. That's what I did and I'm happy with how it turned out! I hope my friend's son likes it as well! It was done with thousands of skeins of Rowan handknit cotton. Okay, not exactly thousands.... Seemed like it though... 7 skeins of a light blue color and 1.5 skeins of the dark, dark blue for the edging. Done on Denise Interchangeables (US size 6). Next time I do a baby blanket, I'm going to choose a less monotonous pattern!

I also finished a baby hat for the as yet unborn daughter of a friend of mine in England (who is Russian, and we studied together in the US). I sort of just made up the pattern with the leftover yarn from Fulya's gloves. I did a spiral rib (k2, p2 over an odd number of stitches). I was quite happy with it and am thinking about making another hat...with a wavy rib (inspired by Wavy from knitty.com). We'll see! ^^

And I mentioned swap-bot.com in a previous post. I received my first magic yarn ball from my first swap two days ago! How exciting! Of course, being my first magic yarn ball, I had to immediately unravel it and wind it into a ball. In theory, you are supposed to knit from the ball with all the goodies inside and encounter fun surprises while knitting. But I was too curious to see what was inside: pencils, pens, assorted teas, fabric, erasers, flower seeds, a bookmark, a magnet ("I knit, therefore I am"), heart-shaped cookie cutters, chocolate, chocolate, chocolate and more! I'm impressed that my partner was able to get so much stuff into the yarn! Fabulous! Thank you so much!

And the yarn... It is a lovely multi-colored 100% wool yarn called Taos by Crystal Palace Yarns. Fun! I think I'll use it to make a tea cozy. I just have to figure out how to knit an oval in the round... Any ideas? I was thinking if I knit a round and then alternate between slipped and knit stitches (1/4 of the stitches for each), and then knit the next round, etc. I should swatch and see if it'll work... Hope so!