Lockdown Elijah

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Corrine (@cosmoandknits)

I’m playing catch up. Life has been crazy since I last posted and I just haven’t had the energy to write. Working in healthcare has been exhausting, having a significant birthday in lockdown was exhausting and now a working in nonstop vaccination programme is exhausting in the middle of a huge surge in infections. I haven’t knit or crocheted so much but there are a few projects to share and this on is born out of lockdown.

I always knew I’d make a scrap yarn Elijah project one day and save all the ends of my Elijah yarn for this purpose. I’m not sure if I’m being environmentally conscious or hoarding … probably the latter. I did think it would be a crochet blanket project but the imminent arrival of the stalk next door following Boris locking us down in March meant I changed this plan. I hadn’t bought the little man a gift, and wasn’t going to get an opportunity to with all the shops closed so I made a proper Elijah scrap yarn Elijah.

Cute? What do you think?

All Change at Cosmo Castle

A little while ago I think I remember sharing that I was going to get myself my very own mini me. Well my mini me (or mini Hunky Husband to be more precise) made his grand entrance into the world a week ago and has been busily causing chaos at the Castle while he settles in. The Little Prince that he is is making his mark taking visitors by the gazillion and by filling the Castle with soft toys, blankets and clothes. There’s one very special soft toy that is gracing the crib right now…an Elijah that I didn’t make. Auntie Senior (aka my Big Sis) has been busy speed knitting and here he is…

Anyway, I’m sure you won’t be suprised to hear that I haven’t picked up my needles in a week. This is be rectified today with a little seaming of a Little Cotton Rabbits pattern while my Little Prince is sleeping soundly. I feel a pattern review coming on.

Finished Object: Latte Baby Coat

This is the first of two wee cardies I’ve knit for Baby.  No soft pastel colours here, just dark green.  Everything else we’ve been given has been pale in colour and not surprisingly babyish so I thought something more grown up was called for.

• The pattern: Latte Baby Coat 
• The designer: Lisa Chemery
• The yarn: Stylecraft Special Chunky in Khaki

That’s right, I’ve put the yarn snob in me aside for the practicality of acrylic for this one. Stylecraft Special is such good value and easy to get hold of so why not.  The pattern is great, well written and easy to interpret.  I might have made a minor mistake in the woven basket stitch section but boy is it a nightmare to fix when you do so I’ve left it in and fortunately it’s not really noticeable.  Pay attention, close attention if you take this on when you get to the woven basket stitch if you don’t want to repeat my mistake.

Knitting is Nesting?

The top definition of nesting according to Urban Dictionary is nesting
Nesting is a ritual performed by pregnant women in ridding the house, the “nest”, from anything potentially harmful to the soon to be born child. The moment you step onto the Internet and look at nesting and pregnancy, it soon becomes apparent that I should be nesting and that nesting should involve [the horror that is] cleaning my house. Baby is due in 12 days and the nearest urge I have to nesting is, yep you guessed it, knitting.  Does knitting count as nesting?

I’m on cardigan number two that I have to add to the six others Baby has, and it’s growing at a rate of knots. It’s getting raised eyebrows from Hunky Husband (apparently Baby can’t wear them all at once) but Baby is super active so at least he seems to approve.

 

Another hat in record time

This little beauty was knit in the space of less than 24 hours and is already packed and ready to take to the hospital with us.  The thought of the trip to the hospital is filling me with dread but kind of inevitable.  Well not kind of, it is inevitable.  There’s no getting out of getting baby out.  I’m keeping myself busy with my needles and hoping nesting kicks in soon.

The pattern: Little Boy Blue Ribbed Hat (can be found through Ravelry)

My adjustments: I used Stylecraft Special DK rather than an Aran weight so increased the stitch count by eight and decreased as suggested by the pattern resulting in 12 stitches at the last round.

Finished Object Friday

Ta dah. Baby has his first hand knit hat. The pattern came right out of my head (brave), used stashed yarn and I think it’ll be just perfect. I hope I’ll get round to writing the pattern up when I’ve done some playing around with sizing and striping options as I couldn’t find a pattern for a simple hat that used the helical striping technique.

Casting on… Magic Cast On for Toe Up Socks

Baby’s hat is blocking so it’s cast on time again. I love cast on time and this time it’s a new cast on for me. I’ve picked a pattern with a number of new skills this time so there’s likely to be a few posts about it that get my blog back to it’s orginal purpose of keeping all my knitting ‘stuff’ in one place so I can find it in the future.

A magic cast on for toe up socks. “But you hated knitting socks” I hear you say puzzled. Well don’t worry, I haven’t lost my mind and decided to knit socks again.  I won’t be using this for socks but for the hood on a cardiagan/coat for my little wriggler that still has about a month to cook.

I found a number of versions of this cast on. What seems to be the original posted online is from Judy Becker published here on knotty.com known as Judy’s Magic Cast On to the web (recommended by the pattern I’m following). Then there’s another version from Curious Knitter known as Judy’s Magic Cast On a la Jeny. Both are really well illustrated and I didn’t need to resort to YouTube to work either of them out.

Plumping for the original, just because it’s the first I tried, rather than any preference for the technique and the result is a very boring invisible cast on at the top of the hood on Baby’s cardigan. So boring in fact that I’m not even bothering to photograph it!

 

Jogless stripes in the round

The ombré blanket hasn’t materialised.  Why I hear you ask? Well the pram arrived and it wasn’t the colour I was expecting and that kind of threw me and now I don’t know what colour to use.  Leave me to think on that one for a while please.  I probably just need some new inspiration on the colour and then I’ll get my ombré mojo back.

Instead, I’m planning something smaller… much smaller. No idea where the inspiration came for this one but I want to make a hat for Baby Cosmo.  I’ve got left over Baby Cashmerino from two Hermione Hearts Ron hats I previously made that I’ll use so this is a destash project as well as the first piece of knitting for my own little baby boy.  I haven’t used left overs for so long I’m calling this a little victory.

So the pattern? No pattern! This one is coming from my head. Flying by the seat of my pants as they say.  They do say that right?

In my quest to keep discovering new skills I’ve been inspired by a Pinterest Pin on jogless stripes knit in the round so this is going to be a stripy hat knit in the round.

Following the pinterest link, I find myself back at the TECHknitting  blog. A three part series none the less with Differnt methods all clearly explained with pictures.

I settled to try helical stripe. This means a continuous candy stripe of each colour knit continously from two balls of wool (or more if you’re feeling adventurous) with no cutting or joins. That means no weaving in the ends!!!

And this is what it looks like…

Past the finishing line

Well I wouldn’t give myself an Olympic gold for this but I think I’ve beaten a Cosmo personal best.  17 days from casting on to grafting that last little ear.  The stalk has dropped of his penultimate package of the year so no more elephant knitting for me and Baby D will have her Elijah very very soon.

Time to move on and get on to knitting for my own little package who should join us in mid October if the stalks pocket watch is keeping time well.  Now I must get on with washing the baby clothes before I get lost in Ravlery again.

Another Elijah off of the needles

I’m so far behind with my Elijah‘s, I’ve only just managed to finish this one and then there’s one more to go before I can start knitting for my mini monkey. T minus 11 weeks until he arrives so I really need to get a move on don’t I!

So while casting on another Elijah (obsession becomes Groundhog Day) I’ve made a yarn and pattern purchase.  Chunky Special by Stylecraft (I seem to be a bit of a convert to this yarn and despite my yarnsnob tendencies preferring to work in natural fibre, I’m planning on making mini monkey a latte baby coat.  This won’t be for contact with skin and should wash well.  Yes yes, I know I promised you an ombre blanket,  I’ve not forgot – just slightly distracted.