Since Pauline gave her Trees Baby Sweater (Ravelry Link) to her adorable grandson, I thought had to knit up a new sample to have at Lambtown.   Since my back injury worsened I had to cancel my trip to Lambtown, but I have a sample Trees to take to TNNA and Stitches West 2009 now, so I thought I’d show it to you.  It’s identical to Pauline’s, except it has different buttons (ladybugs instead of acorns).  Also, I know now that I’ll be in Booth #1141 at TNNA’s Winter Trade Show in San Diego in January.

Here’s a photo of the TNNA Winter Trade Show post card. If there are any yarn store owners or designers out there reading this who will be at TNNA out there, stop by my booth and say hi!  #1141!  I should hopefully have some new designs by then, and all the old ones too.  I might be wholesaling a select few yarn/fiber lines also, depending on my health.  If I can’t dye anything by then, then there’s no way I’ll be taking any wholesale orders for yarn/fiber (then I’ll only be taking wholesale orders for patterns), but if I’m back to good health, then I might make a few yarn/fiber lines available for wholesale.

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Rowan Felted Tweed (Ravlery Link) is 25% off at Purlescence Yarns through Monday November 10th. This yarn knits up at the perfect gauge for my new pattern Sicily, 23 sts per 4 inches on US5 needles. It’s a gorgeous tweedy yarn made up of 50% wool, 25% alpaca, and 25% viscose.  As soon as I saw that this yarn was on sale, I walked over to Purlescence (I can walk again!) and bought 6 balls in the color Rage to knit up a 2nd Sicily so that I can have a sample to bring into a Purlescence trunk show some day. I have no idea when I can knit it up, but some day I will… maybe right after Stitches. Anyhow, if you are anxious to knit Sicily, and you live in the area, this weekend is the perfect time to pick up some Rowan Felted Tweed on sale at Purlescence.

Here are two photos of my Rowan Felted Tweed in Rage:

I’m afraid I picked up the last few balls of Rage Purlescence has at the moment, but they have all kinds of colors ranging from pinks to purples to blues to grays to greens to browns to yellows and probably even more I forgot!  I almost chose a beautiful sea green called Watery instead of Rage, but I thought I should go for something totally different from the original because I have too many blue/green sweaters in my closet!

And here are some new photos of Sicily on my mannequin:

I now have yarn requirements and a full materials list for the pattern. The pattern itself just needs finishing touches and should be ready sometime this weekend.

SICILY

SIZE
30 (34, 38, 42, 46, 50, 54) (Shown in Size 34)

FINISHED MEASUREMENTS
Chest: 30 (34, 38, 42, 46, 50, 54) inches
Length: 20 (20.5, 21, 21.5, 22, 22.5, 23) inches

MATERIALS
Jaeger Roma [63% viscose, 22% nylon, 15% angora; 137 yd / 125 m per 50g ball]; color: Leaf 10; 7 [8, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15] balls, or approximately 954 [1090, 1362, 1498, 1634, 1906, 2042] yd, or
Rowan Felted Tweed [50% wool, 25% alpaca, and 25% viscose 191/175m yd per 50g ball]; color: Rage 150; 5 [6, 8, 8, 9, 10, 11] balls.
1 set US #5/3.75 mm double-pointed needles for sleeves
1 set US #3/3.25 mm double-pointed needles or 1 16-inch US #3/3.25 mm circular needle for sleeve hems
1 24-inch, 29-inch, or 32-inch US #5/3.75 mm circular needle for body
1 24-inch, 29-inch, or 32-inch US #3/3.25 mm circular needle for hem
1 16-inch US #5/3.75 mm circular needle or straight needles for cable band and end of sleeves (optional)
Stitch Markers in 2 colors
Stitch holders or waste yarn
Tapestry needle
Cable needle (optional)

GAUGE
23 sts/36 rows = 4″ in stockinette stitch
Center Cable Band = 3.5” wide; one pattern repeat (24 rows) = 2.6” long

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Going even further back in time, I knit this warthog for my other nephew’s 2nd birthday in May.

Here’s the Ravelry link.

The pattern is from Kath Dalmeny’s World of Knitted Toys book.

I enjoy knitting stuffed animals…

There’s just a lot of finishing involved.

Also in May, I knit this yellow Spring Wave (Ravelry Link) for my mom for Mother’s Day with blue beads. After she took my blue one, she requested a yellow one for Mother’s Day, so I complied.  I thought blue beads would be fitting for her Swedish heritage.  =)

Her hair does get a little wild so she wanted something handy to keep it out of the way while painting and gardening.

(These photos are quite small because my dad took them and emailed them.)

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These are overdue in blogging…

First we have my niece Claire with the purse I knit her for her 3rd birthday in late August during the Ravelympics…

She apparently loves her purse. She loves carrying around her rock collection in it… =)

Next up in the wayback machine, we have Anabel‘s daughter’s Sheep!!! that I knit for her 5th birthday in June… I do miss teaching her piano lessons.  Hopefully I can start that up again soon now that my back is feeling better.

Gotta love that tail!

Lastly for today, also in July, I gave my sister her birthday present (although her birthday is in April, I was having some tendinitis issues in April, so I had to delay finishing her present). I knit her the Dollar and a Half Cardigan by Veronik Avery from Interweave Knits Spring 2007 (Ravelry Link). I used Cascade 220 Superwash in green heather 867 so she can machine wash & dry it.

Since I had my severe back problems at the time, I couldn’t block the sweater, so my parents, BOTH of them (!), helped block it. Here it is blocking.

It was my first attempt at set-in sleeves, and it went quite well.  It was also my first experience knitting a larger sweater (size 47) for a gift, so I was SO SO SO happy when she tried it on and it fit PERFECTLY.  I just beamed. And she was super happy too, because she was visiting to teach a workshop in Santa Cruz and she didn’t bring anything very warm and she actually wore it every day she was visiting because it gets so cold & foggy in Santa Cruz at night.  She said it is one of the best-fitting nicest cardigans she owns.  And she loves the color.  That’s all a gift knitter can ask for, right?

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Not my birthday, gifts I’ve given! First off, most recently, for my dad’s 65th, I knit him a gnome! He’s a little obsessed with garden gnomes. I think the last time he told me he counted, he said he had over 80 of them! Well, now he has some indoor gnomes as well… including this hand-knit one.

Ravelry link for details. A fabulous pattern by Alan Dart.  I used various colors of Cascade 220.

Pattern modification: For the hat, instead of using tons of hairspray to get it to curl that way, I put a pipe cleaner in it, along with some stuffing, and bent it to shape.

Next up, for Nathania‘s birthday, I knit her a Calorimetry out of Malabrigo.

(This is me modeling it, by the way.)

And I liked it! And I have enough yarn left to make myself a matching one, so… I might just do that someday. I think it matches my eyes. The yarn is left over from my Malabrigo Sahara.

So, these two were October birthdays. Next up was an August birthday, but I didn’t get the photos until pretty recently, because this guy was BORN on August 31st, so he didn’t fit his birthday present until he was reportedly 5 weeks old and 11 lbs., which was in early October. =) This little guy was the recipient of the Ribbed Baby Hat (free pattern, Ravelry link)!  And matching sweater (knit based on my Trees Baby Sweater pattern with no trees, changing colors at the yoke, with short sleeves).

His mom couldn’t decide if the rim of the hat should be rolled up,

or pulled down!

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