Happy Easter

The kids are done bouncing off the walls and are passed out with candy comas napping, the ham is quietly baking and I'm taking advantage of the opportunity to knit.

Hope your family is having a pleasant holiday!

Colorful Baby Top

Earlier this month I picked up a copy of Itty-Bitty Nursery. It's full of lovely things, but I just had to try out the Cozy Boatneck Sweater pattern. The colors are so much fun, and I happen to have a supply of suitable wools on hand left over from the other colorful items I've been knitting lately. Here you can see the results of my efforts.

I find it so inspiring that I feel I simply must make baby hats and socks to go with it. I can play with different parts of the design and color combinations on a small scale that way.

The designs would be appropriate for charity items for afghans for Afghans too, and you know how much I love making useful stuff for charity.

The photo at left shows the front of the sweater and the photo at right shows the back. Don't you just love the asymmetrical coloring of the sleeves and the patches?

Yarns are all worsted wools: Patons Classic Wool Merino, Cascade 220 and Plymouth Galway.

I have to admit that I had some trouble with the pattern toward the end. I misread the stripe patterns for the sleeves and had to rip and reknit them. I think it would have been easier for me to follow a chart instead of textual directions. Otherwise, it was a pleasurable and quick knit, as a garter stitch project usually is.

You can download a free sample pattern (Flower Pacifier Clip) from the book in .pdf format here, from the author's website.

Lemon Drop Cardigan

I've seen quite a few free patterns for baby sweaters that are very popular on the internet and I've always meant to give them a try, but hadn't gotten around to any of them yet.

Until now.

This is the Seamless Yoked Cardigan by Carole Barenys, and you can find the pattern at Knitting On The Net or at Carole's website, where she also has a .pdf file available. I've used Lion Brand Baby Soft yarn in Lemon Drop. Isn't that a delightful name for a color? And it's such a nice one, soft without being too pale.

This is a nice little sweater pattern, with one exception-it doesn't tell you how long to make the sleeves. I referred to the Craft Yarn Council's Standards & Guidelines for Crochet And Knitting to figure it out. I followed the instructions for the smaller size, and gave it 6" sleeves.

Add this to the gift stash!

Artsquares

Here is a collection of dishcloths I've been working on for Larissa's art project. You can read about it here. Using natural undyed worsted-weight cotton yarn, I've made some of my favorites in a 6-inch size.

If you look closely, you'll notice that one of them is bigger than the rest; you can calculate your gauge all you like, but sometimes the item doesn't come out the size you intend. This isn't a problem when it comes to dishcloths, however, they are always useful no matter what size they turn out to be.

The patterns I used for these, starting upper left:

4-Corners Dishcloth; NYD'05 Dishcloth; Simple Weave Dishcloth from Leisure Arts #3122, Nifty Knit Dishcloths; eLoomanator’s Diagonal Dishcloth (available only on Ravelry! at the moment).

The due date for sending in these cloths is March 20, so I will be mailing these tomorrow to be sure they arrive on time.

Update: Here is Larissa's post. She received a total of 132 cloths. How very cool. See them all here (mine are numbers 78 through 81).