Crocheted Moccasin: Toddler Version

This winter, I had multiple requests for knitted/crocheted slippers from my kids. I had planned to make three pairs but due to the relative shortness of our winter coupled with my relative lack of free time, I only managed to make one pair. I finished these in December, well before our floors got really cold. Not that it mattered much, my toddler would not wear them for more than half an hour at a time. So, basically these are more to be looked at and played with, than be worn.

Still, they do prove one point. That is, my Crocheted Moccasin pattern can be successfully  downsized to toddler size, with thinner yarn and hook. So they still might be worth something. Also, I made them to be a generous size and a four-year-old just might be more inclined to wear them than a three-year-old. We will know the answer next winter, in sha Allah.

Little Pullover For June

I reclaimed this yarn from a baby sweater, that I had knit for my littlest two years ago and had since then been outgrown. After searching through all possible patterns and failing to find a suitable one, I improvised one of my own. It has turned out on the smaller end of my target size range, but I am just glad to have a finished sweater.

This sweater marks the sixth sweater of the year, namely the sweater for June. I have already cast on for the next one, which promises to be a lot more exciting.  Still, Ramadan is round the corner,  and I plan to take a break from my crafty pursuits during the holy month. To this end, I am rushing through my Eid sewing,  these days. My girls are getting some sparkling, traditional dresses this year.

Toddler Dress

The finished sweater (in this case, I use the term loosely to include all types of clothing) for the month of May, is the dress for my youngest daughter that I started last October. It was a good thing that I cast on for a size bigger than her size at the time, seeing how long it took me to finish it.

 It is another DROPS pattern, one which I have knit once before,  back in 2010, for my niece. I knit the 3/4 year size, and the skirt portion had knitting in it equivalent to an adult sweater.  It got boring and went into time-out, at the end of last year. But I got it out a couple of weeks ago and knit the remaining few inches on the skirt. From then on, it went relatively fast, and I am happy to have it finished.

Now that I have no project on the needles, I have been dealing with the pre cast- on inertia, where I take my time getting things like pattern , yarn and supplies ready for the next project ready.  And some quiet time to actually cast on. This may happen tonight or tomorrow.

 Meanwhile, we have a birthday to celebrate. Our middle daughter  as turned five today.

October Update

I have no pictures of any wonderful FO (finished object) yet, but my knitting has picked up speed lately. I started this month with a dress for my daughter. Fingering weight yarn on 3.25 mm needles, made ten days of knitting equivalent to this:

At that point, I decided to take a break and start something else. Almost-worsted weight yarn on 5 mm needles made a for much faster knitting and this sweater has come this far over a few days:

I have finished the sleeves since I took that photo and hopefully there will be a FO within a day or two, insha Allah. Which means, it is time to pick my next thicker yarn project, to knit alongside the toddler dress.

Green Baby Dress

This year, I find myself drawn to little baby dresses to knit. I am currently knitting one of my youngest and I got one off the needles recently. This post is about the latter.

 Like several knitters on Ravelry, I took the hybrid approach for this dress, taking the yoke pattern from one pattern and the body pattern from another. As I was using finer yarn, I had to do many modifications to the yoke, adding rows to the leaf pattern and simultaneously increasing the stitch count. For the body, I did eleven repeats of the flora dress pattern. I ended up doing rib border instead of moss stitch one, as it looked neater in this acrylic yarn. It all sounds quite complicated but it turned out quite easy to execute. I think it is a fine dress, though I am not sure about the color and acrylic is not the best choice of yarn for this dress.

Prairie Fire

 

The second attempt at a toddler sweater with the yellow yarn, was a success.  This time, I went for a pullover rather than a cardigan. Interestingly, this pattern has the same lace pattern as Lucille cardigan, which I had tried earlier. 

 Again, I had to recalculate for finer yarn and needles. I went up to a size 8T to get a size 2T but it was easily managed and I had enough yarn to finish it comfortably.

photo taken in front of a mirror

The pattern was a pleasure to knit and went fast. It fits our toddler wonderfully well and after nearly a month knitting with this yarn, I am more than eager to take on a different one.

Ripped

Even though I have little progress to report, I have been busy this month, knitting-wise. I got some new yarns, picked out the patterns for them and got down to knitting the first of them. I intended it to be a cardigan for my toddler. I wanted a size larger than the one the pattern was originally in, so I went up a few needle sizes, and that seemed to work well with my yarn. I knit, and knit and knit. I had some doubts that it was turning out a tad bit larger than the target size, but I persevered. I had doubts about the color and the pattern together, but I continued. I divided for the armholes, and continued with body.

 

 I went much farther down the body than seen in the picture. With each passing day, and every growing inch, my dislike for the project grew. Even then, I gave it another chance, and started a sleeve to see if I would like it better once the sleeves were done. In the end, I had to be honest with myself, I hated it, no matter what. Hated it enough to rip out a couple of weeks of work and start afresh. So, I have finally done that. My confidence is still a bit shaken and I am not ready to share a picture of the new WIP just yet. But I know already that I do not hate it. So, there is a good chance, it will have a happier ending. 

Purple Toddler Coat

 We have had a lot of rain this month and so while I finished this coat a week ago, there has not been enough light to take proper photos till now. It may look benign or even nice, but it was one of the most tedious things I ever knit. Not fun at all. In addition, the honeycomb pattern can be physically challenging to the wrists.

The technical details..Initially, I picked this pattern to knit, but my yarn was a different weight, so I decided to do my own math. And go with a top-down, contiguous approach, which I later realized, was all wrong for this design because of the considerable gauge difference between stockinette st and honeycomb pattern. So when I tried to get proper sizing at the yoke, the sleeves caps grew quiet loose. At that point, I had already invested a great deal of time and energy (remember the honeycomb pattern being hard on the wrists) to rip back. So I decided to move on and get it done.

 Thankfully my toddler does not have an eye for such details yet. She is happy and content with the fact that her mom made her a new cardigan. And that is good enough for me. It is a bit large on her at the moment as it is intended to fit her next winter.

Little Blossom Cardigan

 

I got the buttons and finished up the intarsia sweater. I had to make something for my toddler as she was keenly waiting for something to fit her, trying on all the little baby projects while I worked on them, recently. So I promised her a sweater with flowers. It took care of my need for some color work too, as well as using up some of the leftover yarns. I made a few changes to the pattern, omitting the side slits, doing garter rib instead of seed stitch and added a crochet trim around the collar cuffs and bottom. I knit the 3-4 year size, so it is a bit large on her for now. However she is quite happy with it, flowers, pockets and all.

Intarsia Preview

I did start a little intarsia project to appease the unusual craving I had for some more color work. It is a cardigan for my toddler. It is nearly done, however, I still have to find the right buttons for it. So it will be a few more days before I have a FO photo. Here I leave you with a small preview:

Initially, I was planning a hat to go with it but all this color work has apparently taken care of my craving rather too well. And I can not wait to get it finished and start something new and different.

More Spring Dresses

I completed three more dresses to add to my toddler's spring-summer wardrobe. The first one was the simplest one, for which I used this tutorial. However, I was quite disappointed with the result. Just do not like the style and look of it in real life. Plus, the dull color does nothing to flatter it.

The second one was quite the opposite. I was quite uncertain about it initially, but it came out much nicer than expected. No pattern for it, per se, just put together some ideas that I had. I love this one, the color and the scallops, the pink piping and all.

No pattern again for the last one. I have memories of a orange dress with a pocket, that I had as a child. I loved that pocket, even though it was far too down to reach into, with ease. When I got this fabric, I knew it had to have a front pocket, or two!

I guess this winds up my sewing for my littlest one, this season. I am hoping to do some embroidery project in the coming days. And maybe something for my older daughter. Also I should get back to the knitting, but frankly do not have any motivation and inspiration at the moment.

Sewing: Toddler Dress

 Every year, around this time, when it grows steadily warmer, I have an urge to do some spring sewing for my kids. This year too, I have found myself drooling over all the lovely clothes on Pinterest, for the last couple of weeks. Sadly, I do not have much fabric at hand and no chance to go shopping until the kids' exams are over. But still, I found a piece of plain purple cotton and taking inspiration from this top, got out my sewing machine. I was too lazy to look up the associated tutorial and did my own thing, but there definitely is a free tutorial for those who maybe interested.

 It was a quick, fun project, in which I got to expand my skills in sewing pleats. And I may have to do another one for my older daughter soon, as she wants one too, in the same color.

 

Gradient Cardigan

 

This is the second small project in my recent small project series. I intended to use the yarns left over from the recent projects into something nice and useful, so went the top-down, raglan route and a knit a cardigan for my toddler in worsted weight yarn. I am working on the pattern right now, but hopefully will be able to make it available (free and in a number of sizes) in a week's time, inshaAllah.

Pink Baby Set

This was one deceptive little (!?!) project. Despite being for a toddler, it required almost as much work as an adult sweater.  But I think it is worth the effort as it turns out so cute.I made a similar one for my older daughter in my pre-blog era. It was a big hit. The pattern was easier to follow, second time around.Knitting more rows of ribbing at the leg cuffs as in the pattern, would have made them a bit narrower but I ran out of yarn. The yarn is our local acrylic, which works beautifully for kids in our climate.

Fingering weight and 2.5mm needles for the last 6 weeks, I think I need a change now. Most probably I will be casting on a vest in worsted weight.

Play Time

With only a couple of days before Eid, I did not feel like starting any major project. Also, I had observed my daughter's recent fascination with little cribs and an childhood doll of mine had outlasted her rocking crib. So I decided to make a cradle purse. The pattern I used was Cupcake cradle purse.

I did one extra row at the cupcake bottom to fit a slightly larger doll.

While at it, I also made a new dress and cap for the doll. My daughter is very happy with her new toy/purse.
Feeling a little guilty that I did not make anything for my son, I asked him if I should make him a car or something. And guess what, he also wants a cradle purse, LOL.

Simply Divine Bolero

Not that I would call this bolero that myself, Simply Divine is the name of the pattern I used. I knit it for my daughter to wear with is Eid clothes. Although a simple project, it took me six days to knit. The only modification I did was to make sleeves full-length.

The yarn is local acrylic DK which I retrieved from a frogged project. I took the opportunity to take a picture of my daughter in her dress, bolero and all:

More Mittens

When I finished my Bronte's Mitts a few days ago, my son was rather taken with them. He took the pair to try on and I let him, thinking he will hand it over in a few minutes. He handed them back all right but those were all wet! It turned out, he was trying to block them, Lol. Well, I managed to dry them but he was still hovering around, so for the sake of my mitts' safety, I asked him if he would like a pair of his own. Affirmative. Now what goes for my son also has to go for his little sister and this brings me to this current FO.

I made these mitts for my daughter. This is a heavily modified version of Mouse Mittens. I left out the tail( lesser yarn for her to put in the mouth). I used yarn scrap for this project and it took one day to knit.
Next I have to make a pair of dinosaur mitts for my son. I will have to come up with a pattern of my own and I am thinking hard :) I have not shown my kids these ratty mitts yet as I want to finish the dino pair first and then give both the kids their mitts at the same time. Some time next week, inshallah!