What a hiatus?!?!

Motherhood has certainly taken a toll on my writing, hasn't it? Well luckily for me, it hasn't taken a similar toll on my textile work. Somehow between my two busy kids I have managed not only to continue knitting and designing (mainly for selfish reasons) I have also picked up quilting and sewing. And now it is time for me to return to documenting my crafty adventures for all to read and enjoy.

From now forward, you can expect once weekly content documenting what's on my needles, or ready for its final washing, along with the vital lessons each successive project has taught me.

Turned Hem

I love the tidy look of a turned hem on sweaters. I would probably like it on other pieces as well, but my go to method for turning a hem has always been a provisional cast on and that was typically too much bother. I want to just get knitting!! Until the other night when I had a great thought to make the process more "just jump right in"-y

A reverse loop cast on typically results in a very loose cast-on edge of knitting, so why not use that to your advantage! I simply looped on one additional loop to my cast on target number. That way I can let it get as loose as I want and I can easily slip that extra stitch and all the extra yarn off at the end of my first row of knitting. But that's not the amazing part. The really awesome part is how easy it is to pick up those loops as new stitches when you want them later!

Look how lovely and uniform those loops are waiting to be worked together with the working edge of my folded knit hem!!

But that wasn't my only revelation while working this hem! In a usual matter I held my needle of live stitches in close proximity to my picked up loops and began purling two together. It's a bit tedious because either set of stitches could easily fall off without much trouble. So I did something a little different.

I slipped off the live stitch from my back needle...

Then purples my picked up loop...

See my little pulled stitch and that loose loop to the right if it, poised and ready!

From the back (which is the front of the hem) pass that slipped stitch over!

There is way less attempting to coordinate shuffling of stitches in my opinion. Sliding two purled together stitches off of their original needles always ends up a little uneven in my experience. This method eliminated that shuffle for me. I feel like there may be a couple more movements this way, but much more precision. I prefer it.

And look at these pretty purl bumps on the inside of my hem!

And a wonderfully even look on the outer side of the hem, not that I find a turned hem to be incredibly obvious on the right side normally. But this is so clean!

Christmas Stocking Planning

Four years ago, for our first Christmas together, I knit stockings for my husband and I. Having chosen 4 classic Christmas hues, I still have plenty of yarn. Part of my plan was to knit stockings for our whole family. It was not until last week that I remembered that I now get to make the third stocking!!

Little Red Sweater

In a past post, I shared about a lovely little shrug that I designed. But you know what? Sometimes I knit lovely things and they just don't work with my lifestyle. Luckily, I'm a hand knitter with a passion for designing things that work for me (sorry if you aren't me and my designs don't work for you, I may be willing to dive into your life and design based on you, so email me and we could see if that could work out for both of us). So that's what happened with my Little Red Hooded Shrug, I changed it.

The Pros and Cons of Knitting with a Baby

Pros:

• Naptime = guilt free knitting time, because mom needs a rest too.
• Small sweaters take next to no time to knit
• Baby enjoys watching the repetitive motions (from a safe distance)
• Babies are constantly growing, therefore requiring new sizes of classics such as small sweaters, half-sized hats, and bitty booties.

Cons:

• Naptime = catching up on sleep missed last night
• Small sweaters magically has as much finishing required as the full sized versions
• Knitting needles have points...not so baby friendly
• Because baby is constantly growing and requiring new sizes, there never seems to be time to knit (let alone even sketch out) that new sweater(s) bouncing around in my head.