On Sunday Carrie and I threw a baby shower for our dear friend Danielle who is expecting her first baby, a boy. We hosted the shower at Tangle (which is a great place to have parties!) and it was so much fun!

Mama Danielle looking beautiful.

the goodies lined up on the counter

We served everything on stacks of old china. My collection is ever-growing.

Our color theme was aqua and orange.

Everyone, young and old, is always impressed with chocolate covered marshmallows.

Fruit filled waffle cones are one of my most favorite things in the world.

The straws are from Shop Sweet Lulu.

mason jar’s are my favorite

I didn’t get to take pictures of Danielle opening her presents from me so she was kind enough to send these to me. A camo baby sweater with my signature orange stripe.

And a super soft blanket made from a plush yarn.

I’m pretty sure my most favorite thing to knit is blankets. I don’t know what it is about blankets, but I am such a sucker for them!

I’ve been working on this blanket for quite awhile. When I discovered that Berroco Plush had been discontinued, I snatched up what we had left in the store to make a big throw for my living room. We have been SO sad that this yarn is discontinued, it is perfect for making baby blankets! I used size 10 needles and knit each stripe from one ball. And used 20 balls total (I can’t believe how much this blanket cost!) It is definitely the favorite blanket around here and so soft and snuggly.

I made this sweater for baby Gunnison. I just love my stand-by Knitting Pure and Simple #214 Baby Pullover Pattern. It is perfect for babies and so easy. The yarn is Spud and Chloe Sweater which is my favorite kid yarn at the moment. I modified the pattern a little bit by using a size 8 needle rather than the recommended size 9. I thought the yarn did better on a size 8. So I tweaked the sizing so it would end up being the 6 month size.

I made this blanket for my cousin Leann who is pregnant with her third child. I just knew the baby was going to be a girl and for the first time in YEARS I was actually right. I love, love, love this pattern from Purl. It was so easy and such a great way to use Blue Sky’s organic cotton. It’s so soft and squishy. We plan to offer this blanket as one of our fall workshops at Tangle.

After over a year of working on my crochet blanket, it’s finally finished. This monster took two MILES of peaches and creme yarn! I don’t normally recommend peaches and creme for anything but dish cloths, but I felt comfortable with the shrinking and fading aspects of the yarn for this blanket.

Since July is blanket month at Tangle, I’m onto the next blanket – a loose knit throw out of brushed alpaca.

So today the UPS guy brought me something extra special; a box full of copies of Pure Knits. We’ve waited forever for this book to come out! But it’s finally here and I can now, officially say that I’m published.

My two patterns, a boy’s raglan sweater and a girls raglan dress with puffed sleeves are right around the middle of the book. Here’s a peek at what they look like.

There is a super cute little shoe boutique on the next block over from Tangle and the lady who owns it is also super cute. She had her first child, a little girl, a couple weeks ago and Christina and I wanted to knit something for her. This is what we came up with. The bootie pattern is one of Christina’s that will be available at Tangle soon and the sweater is from One Skein. We used Berroco Pure Merino which is a washable, super soft merino. The sweater and booties just took two balls. I’m hoping we’ll get to see pictures of the little cutie wearing it!

I’ve started and stopped on this sweater for the last month, but got the majority of the knitting done on it in the last week or so. (Can we say every season of the West Wing on DVD?) I started knitting it on size 9 needles and ended up on 11’s for the body and 10.5’s for the ribbing. I’m really happy with how it turned out. I just wish that Rowan wouldn’t have discontinued the yarn.

Stats:
Yarn: Rowan Soft Tweed
Pattern: My own, although it’s based on one by Stefanie Japel

I whipped this up last week as a model for Tangle. We ordered this yarn without any patterns in mind (the yarn is just so dern cool!), so I wrote a simple bag pattern for it.

Stats:
-pattern: cambio summer bag free at Tangle
-yarn: Lana Grossa Cambio – cotton core wrapped with polyamide, 2 skeins
needles: Size 6 and 10.5

Stats:
-Pattern: Knitscene Spring 08
-Yarn: single strand of Blue Sky Dyed Cotton (3 skeins each color)
-Toggles: Quadriliteral toggles distributed by Rowan
-Needles: addi’s size 9
-Size: 41″ with some mods
-Mods: Even though I was on gauge, the sweater was HUGE after removing the sleeves. So I ripped back at least two inches of the raglan increases and then divided. I think that it fits perfect now! Also, used a single strand of BSA cotton rather than a double strand of Lily Chin yarn doubled on 6’s (I still can’t figure out how her model didn’t feel like cardboard knit that tight!)

I’m really happy with this one. Fer Sher.

I finished up this tunic a couple weeks ago. I knit it with Eden in mind, but it’s more likely that she will wear it next year.

Stats
Pattern: Knitting Pure and Simple #232
Yarn: GGH Samoa in Barbie Pink and Lemongrass
Mods: none, just forgot to add in the button hole and the gauge wasn’t quite on.

I’m now about a quarter of the way done with this:

And next I want to knit this from the same issue of Knitscene:

And then these two from the brand new issue of Rowan (43) – sigh, I’m so happy we carry Rowan at Tangle now!!

Finally this from the new Interweave (that’s not even here yet, but still…)

mmmm, silk.

How long do you think it all will take me?

I spent Friday adding new patterns to Tangle’s website. There’s a few that I just moved over from this site and a few new ones.

This shawl is one that I knit last month. For as simple as it is to knit, it makes a big impact.

(my mom modeling)

And a basic rolled brim hat pattern.

All of Tangle’s original patterns are here, most of which are free!