Ok, One MORE Knit Project. . .Before Baby Comes.......

Knitting on the beach yesterday with my Momma. I was 40 weeks pregnant and 3 days.....now I'm 4 days + 40 weeks.........We had a lot of fun besides my sore hips..... I am finally conquering the ginormous strap for my felted bag posted some time ago. I am doing a multi-colored horizonal striped band to make it a sash bag. I will add a flap and bottom to the bag before felting. I got two more colors done today when we went back to the lake for more swimming. I sat and knit.

Ok, so I have gotten so much more done than I thought I could before our new son arrives. Here is hopefully the LAST thing I'll make for him before he comes. I am starting a new pair of socks for him, so we'll see what happens........

I just finished these baby leg warmers for Ezra....see above photo :o) These were knit at the same time on a pair of 24 in circular needles. Size 3 nickel plated needles from Knit Picks (buy them, you'll love them!!!) I cast on 30 sts and worked k1p1 ribbing at the top and bottom. I increased 2 sts 3 or 4 times evenly as I knit the length of the leg warmer. The yarn is Wool Ease by Lion's Brand, 20% wool/80% acrylic....machine washable. Color "Violet".
These are not knit projects, but worthy of space on my knitting blog........handmade for sure!

Kevin and Ezra's quilt.......he had to hold it up for me because the picture wasn't turning out on the floor. The black and white below is the back of the quilt. I bought the fabric at IKEA. I think it was about $6 a yard. Great price for how nice the material is, the print is off the hook, too.
A changing pad I made out of the quilt fabric. It is actually even, not lopsided, but the camera was being persnickety. It has a backing of black fleece.

The little black round thing at the bottom of this picture IS MY PREGNANT BELLY, hahaaa......Ezra wanted to get in the shot!

One last project before baby comes. . .

Here's a little knit hat for our baby Ezra. . .he'll be here any day. . .I made this hat out of a wool acrylic blend. I had to really work hard at learning/re-learning the 6 pointed star decrease at the top of the hat. I had to draw pictures to really get it figured out. This is a newborn hat. 54 sts worked on size 5 needles. I used my 12' circulars and then switched to double points to decrease. The inch+ of ribbing is K1 P1. The decrease is a little tricky but not impossible. I worked the decreases in K2tog so it would stick up a little. I will try to purl this decrease on a future hat to make it stick up even more.

Star decrease: if you want 6 points, make a hat with a number that has 6 as a factor. I do a lot of freeform knitting, so it's sort of like you write your pattern as you go. I always figure out my gauge, even if just to approximate it. I am usually really close. But gauge helps me have more freedom when I'm just winging it, if that makes sense.

So for example, I want a six pointed decrease.
Cast on 54 sts.

Knit 2/3 the body of the hat, ribbing included.

Start the decreasing rounds...
The first round will be a decrease at every 9th stitch. You have 54 sts, so there'll be 6 decreases.
The thing I had to draw a picture of: >>You want to knit 8th and 9th together<<. This ensures that you will end evenly at your stitch marker, at the beginning of the round. If you knit 8 and knit the 9th and 10th stitch together, then you will end unevenly.
Knit around
Decrease: knit every 8th stitch, meaning the 7th and 8th stitch together
Knit around
Decrease knit every 6th and 7th together
Knit around
Decrease, knit every 5th and 6th together
Knit around
Decrease, knit every 4th and 5th together. . .
and so on, until you are decreasing every other stitch........darn the yarn tail thru the stitches that are left after the K1, K2tog decrease round.

If you wanna talk more about this we can. It's pretty awesome to have it work out after messing it up a bunch of times. I was feeling really, really challenged. Now Ezra has a hat to match his little black newborn kimono. He's gonna be so dashing. I will post pictures of him soon. . .any day now! I am working on baby leg warmers and a new pair of socks for him. He's easy to knit for because he's teeny tiny. I may make a pair of shorts to go with the kimono and hat. I dunno. I would like to knit a pair of socks for each of our big boys.......we'll see.........I also still need to finish Sage's knit monkey. I did get some wool from a new friend to replace the icky polyester fill I stuffed it with (that's coming out all over the place through the stitches).