FO Friday: Whale Hoodie

Hello, and welcome to another Finshed Object Friday. The FO for this week is a cute little hoodie that I've made as a gift for a friend's new son who made his appearance late last year.

Last year I was sent some samples of Paintbox Yarns Baby DK* for review purposes, and knew that the soft yarn and gentle colours would be perfect for a baby garment. I'd been sent four shades of blue, and some red, and from those I picked out three shades of blue that looked lovely together, and added a little Sirdar Snuggly DK from stash to add some neutral stripes (and to make sure I had enough yarn - baby yarn comes in 50 g balls, and I wasn't sure three balls would be enough. Hoods take a lot of knitting!).

I was a bit behind the game with this baby, who arrived at the end of last year, so I decided that I needed to make a 6 month size garment rather than something smaller. I opted for a modified Rainbow Child, which is a good basic top-down seamless hoodie that I have made before. I decided against adding the pockets or the i-cord edging on the basis that babies don't really need pockets (although they are cute) and I don't like all the extra knitting i-cord edges entail, especially when I'm knitting to a deadline.

I restricted this project to weekend-knitting only project, and, as ever, expected to finish rather faster than I actually did, partly because I messed up the hood decreases and had to rip back, and partly because I underestimated the amount of time it would take to knit the hood and pick up all the stitches for the egding.

I finshed the hoodie with some whale buttons - it was either those or rainbow stars, but I'm saving those for something for my daughter.**

The finished garment is really cute, and looks like it should have plenty of growing room, so should get plenty of wear.

This hoodie is defintely not the end of the baby projects as I know lots of people expecting babies at the minute, including a set of twins!

Have you finished anything recently?

********

Rainbow Child Ravelry project page
Pattern: Rainbow Child by Tiny Lovely Knits
Yarn: Paintbox Yarns Baby DK* in 737 Midnight Blue, 732 Washed Teal and 761 Baby Blue, and Sirdar Snuggly DK* in 303 Cream

*Affiliate link.
**I really need to sort the button box! I'm sure I have other suitable options, but couldn't find them.

Yarn Along: Baby knits

Hello! Hope you're having a lovely Sunday.

I have somehow stuck to my resolution of only working on personal projects at the weekends, and both my business crafting and hobby crafting seem to be benefiting.

I am currently working on a lot of baby knits, either on the needles, or just in the back of my mind. In the current academic year (September to August) 7 babies will be making an appearance*; in my experience babies do seem to come in clusters, but this is a pretty extreme one! So a lot of my weekends will be spent knitting baby garments. I love knitting for babies: the garments are so small and cute. They allow a chance to try new things without having to commit to weeks of knitting.

The current baby knit on the needles is a heavily modified Rainbow Child**. I'm knitting it in 6 months size as the baby is already here, and I definitely want it to get some use before it is outgrown! All the blue yarn I'm using is Paintbox Yarns Baby DK,*** while the cream is some long-stashed Sirdar Snuggly DK.**** The yarns are working really well together and I'm enjoying the project. I'm hoping that I might even have the whole thing knitted by the end of the weekend (but it is possible I said that last weekend as well and that clearly didn't happen), but a bit of a mishap knitting the hood means that’s looking less likely!

State of play this morning 

Not the greatest progress for one day!

As for books, I finished the Sarah Millican book before last weekend and loved it. I laughed out loud so many times that my children thought I was mad. I'm now onto Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly (you may have come across the film based on the book; it was out in 2016 and I plan to watch it when I have finished the book) about the role of black American women in the space race. I'm finding the book interesting, but a little slow - this is not one for bedtime as I tend to fall asleep.

What are you working on at the minute? What are your favourite things to knit for babies?

Linking up with Ginny for Yarn Along.

*And that's only the ones close enough that I plan to make a gift for them!

**I have used a different stripe pattern, omitted the i-cord edging, and am not knitting the pockets.

***Supplied by Paintbox Yarns for review purposes. Affiliate link.

****Affiliate link.

#GAL2016: Finished objects

The Indie Design Gift-A-Long 2016 is now in it's final couple of days, so if you have any projects that need to be added to the FO lists, head straight to the Ravelry group* and get them added! You have until 23.59 EST on Friday (31st December 2016).

I had no grand knitting plans for the GAL this year, knowing that I had lots of other projects that needed to be finished before Christmas; I did however, end up knitting one GAL-qualifying project, my rainbow hoodie that I showed you earlier in the month.

This hoodie was for the son of one of my daughter's nursery staff, and she had specifically requested rainbow colours and a pixie hood. I had looked through Ravelry and nothing had quite fitted the bill (especially as I wanted the hoodie to be seam-free to make it quicker to finish), so I had planned to design something, then November disappeared and the December deadline was fast approaching. I had another look through Ravelry and found the Rainbow Child hoodie pattern by Rebecca Newman (aka TinyLovely), which ticked alot of the boxes.

The original hoodie had an i-cord edging, which I totally ran out of time for, so worked a basic cast-off on all edges instead. I'd also planned to do the whole thing in the rainbow yarn, but as soon as I thought about the fact that the button band was knitted in the opposite direction to the rest of the garment I rethought that! I like the turquoise trim I finally went with (even if it did involve a last minute drive to a nearby town to find somewhere that stocked the yarn), it tones down the rainbow yarn a lot.

The other thing I changed was the shape of the hood: the pattern makes a standard fitted hood, which I changed to a pixie hood by knitting the hood a little longer than the pattern called for, and then joining the top of the hood using Kitchener stitch.

Overall, I enjoyed the knit. It was a little stressful at times as the deadline was a little tight (I finished the evening before I had to give the hoodie away), and the body is rather long. This hoodie has a lot of growing room, possibly too much in the length, but no parent really minds if clothes last longer than they size tag indicates

Pattern is Rainbow Child by Rebecca Newman, knitted in Stylecraft Wondersoft Merry-Go-Round in Rainbow (unfortunately I think this colourway be discontinued; Starburst is similar, but without the purple), and Stylecraft Special DK in Turquoise.

What have you knitted during the GAL?

*You will need to be logged into Ravelry for this link to work.

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