Knitting Sandwich

snuggle the french press

a few weeks ago my coffee pot declared war on me.  after a couple mornings of ruined coffee i decided to not fight back, but to march myself straight to the store (after first stopping at the coffee shop for a cup of non-ruined coffee) and bought a french press.

take that coffee pot.  set.  game.  match.

now i own a french press and i love it.  as with everything i love i felt the undeniable urge of a knitter to make it handknits to demonstrate my adoration.

my plan was to make a simple garter stitch snuggler that closed with buttons.  then the other day i was rummaging around my grandma's sewing box and i found some very lovely, very sparkly, vintage buttons.  i think we have lily to thank for the fact that my very first thought was - "oooh! i'll put these on the snuggler!"

then i got to thinking that those fancy buttons might need a little zazz to go with them and decided to embroider a few loopsies on my simple garter stitch rectangle.

i ended up with a sweet little snuggler and just the right amount of "fancy zazz" for my new beloved french press.

-melissa

squares of joy - may edition

the may square for my square-a-month blanket for bundles of joy is finished:

this month's yarn was leftovers from the mitered crosses blanket i made for my sister's family to celebrate their new home.  the yarn is bernat's mosaic and i love that this oh-so-fun colorway will continue to bring love and snuggles to people allover the midwest!

four down - five to go!

-melissa

muddy miters

my april bundles of joy donation is finished!  it's a phazelia's mitered baby jacket (rav link) knit in paton's kroy sock yarn.

i followed the pattern exactly, well until the end... then i wasn't feeling the applied icord love, so i edged it with a round of hdc instead.  

i give this pattern a huge thumbs up!  i can totally see myself knitting it again in the future!

-melissa

Blanket Bonanza

You might remember my first ever quilt for my sweet neice Zoe. (Please use your imagination to read her name with an umlauted e, and if anyone knows how to do that on a pc, please let me know). That was actually just one of three blankets I sent her.

The second blanket was conceived at the family baby shower for Sarah. We used fabric paint and got footprints of all the kids who attended to make a cousin blanket.

Isn't Zoe darling on it?

The last blanket was inspired by Melissa's and Claire's mitered cross blankets. I could not resist the mitered bandwagon.

I love this picture of Zoe, it looks like she is saying "GO MITERS!"

I am SO excited that I finally get to meet her in person next week.

How about you? What is your favorite baby blanket pattern (or medium)?

-Lindsey

brown muddy springtime

this year in southern minnesota we are experiencing an especially verdant springtime, but many years winter drags its feet, leaving us with browns, greys, and just a hint of green.

april's bundles of joy theme is "tiptoe through the tulips - springtime color explosion" (or something like that, i may have taken a few liberties with the title) but i've decided that my chosen donation project for this month will pay homage to the late arrival of spring.  so i present to you my current wip, muddy miters:

it's a phazelia's mitered baby jacket (rav link) which i've had my eye on since claire made one almost three years ago.  the pattern is crazy-fun, very baby-surprise-jacket-esque in my opinion (although i've never made one of those either, so who am i to say?) i'm just excited to flip it all around like magic when i'm finished and have a sweater!  voila!  

so bring on the magic and bring on the muddy miters!  who says babies need to wear pastels anyway?!?

-melissa

all this talk of muddy miters has gotten this song stuck in my head... "up to my neck in high, muddy miters"  (heh heh, i'm like the weird al of knitting songs.)

yarn pilgrimage

I have to admit that I haven't been very inspired by the yarn store options I've found so far in Munich.  Most of them carry all the same big-name brands of mostly spongy merino yarn with not a whole lot of variety to choose from in terms of color, fiber or texture.  I am really missing the handdyes and independent yarns that took up the majority of shelves in my little Brooklyn yarn stores. 

However, If you become desperate and begin to investigate the ravelry projects of other local Müncheners, you'll find over and over again the name Wollmeise  and their charming shop in Pfaffenhofen an der Ilm.  Pfaffenhofen (don't you love that name?!) is a little town about 50 kilometers outside of Munich where apparently people flood to from all directions in search of their infamous handdyed sock yarn.

And so I got myself to the train station

 

and about half an hour later arrived in the (now infamous) Pfaffenhofen an der Ilm.

 

After a brief wander into the center of town, I found the most wonderful color oasis imaginable. 

This store is just overflowing with the most delicious colorways and unique dyes imaginable.  (sorry that my iphone pictures don't do them justice at all)

 

The impossible part is picking which colorways to take home or stopping yourself from taking home more than you can carry on the train.  I settled on these three lovelies

and then whipped up a horseshoe lace cowl for my mother-in-law's birthday.

Three cheers for Wollmeise and yarn pilgrimages!  (now if I can only figure out a way to take a yarn pilrimage back to my Brooklyn yarn stores....)

-cmvs

squares of joy -april edition

the april square for my square-a-month blanket for bundles of joy is completed:

it didn't turn out exactly as i envisioned... there were less of the darker blues left than i thought (all but the navy blue is from my first ripple afghan) i threw in a little navy there at the end (from my march ripple afghan) but still, it's not quite right in my mind.  but i hope once it's mixed in with the other eight squares it probably won't look so odd.

three down, six to go!

in other news: eight years ago today in an abandoned lot in austin, tx the best cat in the entire world was born.

happy birthday to my sweet sweet pippin!

-melissa

i made a hat... who knew?

this weekend lily and i met my sister and her family for a hotel overnight in the middle of iowa half way between mankato and omaha.  i was able to deliver the little vest i made for their baby-on-the-way in person.  

henners got a hold of it and it turns out it also makes a charming hat!

aside from ridiculous 2 year-old fashion shows there was swimming:

more swimming:

cousin snuggling:

sister snuggling:

and general hotel room shenanigans:

a whole lot of fun packed into 24 hours!  

-melissa

sunshine sunday

the one up side to our super mild winter has been an absolutely dreamy early arrival of springtime.  when lily suggested we get out the quilt and head outside i was only too happy to oblige.

while lily lolled around reading i enjoyed the many greens and blues of early spring.

what?  well of course i was knitting as well!

it's a new project, to counteract all the fiddliness of yesterday, an age of brass and steam kerchief (rav link) knit up with some amazing new zealand possum yarn gifted to me a few years back by the lovely louise at prairie mouse.

a perfect day, everyone is happy to be out of doors!

-melissa

squares of joy - march edition

the march square for my square-a-month afghan project for bundles of joy is finished:

i am still loving the pattern - the 10 stitch blanket by frankie brown (rav link) is really quite fun and a great way to use up all my random bits of yarn.  i had to dig waaaaay back in my ravelry project page to find what these yarns were originally for.  the light grey was used in a ravenclaw hat for brian, the dark grey was a random hat for a donation project, and i can't for the life of me figure out what i did with the green yarn.  but i only had a partial skein, so it must have been something.

two down, seven to go!

-melissa