Baby Booties and the Start of Something New

Whew, life has been crazy around here lately! I know, everyone's life is crazy and I'm sure I will say that again a couple hundred more times before the end of the year, but it doesn't make it any less true.

Sunday was my husband's birthday, which meant a visit from his mother. This meant extra house cleaning and way more time spent on things like meal planning, cooking, entertaining, being nice, etc. This past Monday was a very rare one indeed in which I was glad to go back to work!

Through all of this craziness though, I have continued to knit. I finished up the baby booties/shoes I mentioned last time. This view shows off my less than stellar seaming.

Pattern: Garter Stitch Shoes from Debbie Bliss's Baby Knits Book

Yarn: Knit Picks Ambrosia in color Mint

I have knit this pattern several times. It's very simple, but was kind of confusing the first time. Like all Debbie Bliss patterns, at least that I have seen, it has no schematic. So, you just have to follow the directions and trust that it will all work out. You actually knit one flat piece which you seam here, then seam there and then, POOF, you have a baby shoe. I like fluffier ribbon in mine than shown in the book.

This was the first time I knit with Knit Picks yarn though. A friend gave it to me at the last yarn swap we had at our Guild. I really like it, it's so soft! But then, with a blend of 80% Baby Alpaca and 20% Cashmere, how can you go wrong?

Now that this gift was out of the way, I decided it was time to crack open some of that Belle yarn I mentioned in my last post. I have been thinking about the Kimono Shawl pattern from Cheryl Oberle's Folk Shawls book for a long time. Here is a lovely picture I took of the illustration in the book.

For me, I knew it had to be silk, but thought it would look interesting if done in a thicker yarn. So, I did some quick math and came up with a slightly modified version that I am happily plugging away on. I cast on 81 stitches, knit 6 rows of garter stitch to start, have a 5 stitch garter border on each side and am knitting 7 pattern repeats across. So far, so good.

If this comes out as I am hoping, it will be a Christmas gift for my sister. Shhh, don't tell her about it, or the blog. Don't want to spoil the surprise.