Dress

Blue Sky Alpaca : organic cotton from Close Knit,

Bea : baby with brand new tooth and a brand new dress,

and the sidewalk : cooled off after an evening nap and heavy direct sun all day.

This dress is the tester for my first ever written pattern. I'd like to see how comfortable a baby really is in it, how those straps stay up, if the length interferes with sitting, rolling, and eventually crawling. So far I'd like to change the weight of the yarn from worsted to sport, to keep it light. Maybe bring in the straps a little closer to the neck? The next dress, the one the pattern will be written from, will have some basic lace work instead of the two colors pictured here. I love the yarn and I love the fold over edge on the bottom there. It's so clean and pretty. Ah, it's cute and really fast, perfect for a busy person. A person busy with having fun. Anyway, I'll post the pattern as soon as it's finished!

little hand knits is alive!

June

Lots of pool time over here equals a good way to help long, teething, dad's at work, hot days. Lots of outside on a blanket time as well as she loves watching trees and tall grass move and the parent gets to lay down nearby and admire wide eyed, giggly fascination of such things. Sometimes tears form in this parent's eyes at the beauty in this and because just a few minutes before were really difficult with lots of crying and wriggling while trying to be bounced to sleep in a too warm house. I'm starting to understand our feisty girl's patterns a little more. Oh what a change of scenery and activity can do for all involved. I recommend it before anything else.

There are lots of new flowers in the mystery garden (we moved here in January) including an evening primrose (pictured at the top). It's amazing, flowering off and on all through the month and into July. It seems to close during the day and open in the evening, when it's cooler. We still have a few unknown green things with buds that are soon to pop!

Some lady, me, made Bea a tag toy! She loves tags. 

Just finished the pink knitted tank top. It was inspired by a Purl Bee pattern I'm having a really hard time finding again. 

and

Tried a new recipe for making fizzy kombucha. Ours is never fizzy and this is the closest it's ever been to store bought, deliciously carbonated kombucha. Check out this great tutorial: 

http://nourishingfoodways.com/2011/06/29/flavored-kombucha-how-to-make-your-favorites-at-home/

Isn't the scoby gross looking?

That's right.

Today the girl is five months old. We started introducing foods. Kind of...

She's had apple, fava bean, and snap pea.
It's the little things, you know?

Oh and the dress didn't fit. I laugh.

I've been loving every day, these days. 

This lady has been meeting lots of loved ones. It fills us all up! Way up! Soon, she'll have met every last one of those loved ones we love so much. 

The flowers, the running, the smiling, the sleeping, the tiredness, the coffee, the strawberry picking, the mom's groups, the new friends, daddy, my dad visiting, the rain, the making of things, the lists of things to make, the nursing, the cuddling, the babbling, the laughing, it is all filling me up. 

Yarning

I love Quince & Co. Within Quince I discovered Carrie Bostick Hoge. Her designs are charming and old fashioned. They are simple and very ordinary but not dull, not even close. They are comfortable and a little back country or homesteadish. What delight I find in these kinds of things. I think of grandma quilts from Vermont and my mom's wicker crochet basket when I think of Carrie's patterns. The sweater below is for my special Camellia Bea Babe. It happened to be named similarly.

The Camilla Babe

What a beautiful scallop center. How sweet that garter stitch is.

Another lovely garter stitch piece by Carrie is The Annabel Sweater. That squishy blue wool was wound around my fingers all the way to Vermont last October. The almost sweater met my sweet friends in St. Johnsbury and kept me comfortable high in the sky, on route back to Oregon. Here I sat on the porch with it and watched the leaves brown and die and thought of what was alive in me. It was a comfort. It is still.

There they are; there we are.

When my sister in law asked me to knit her a sweater I sent her tons of Quince and Co. and specifically Carrie patterns, hoping she'd like one that might be really fun to knit and sure enough she chose one from my special, favorite designer, The Moorland Cardigan. This one is not available through Quince. Instead you can find it here at Classic Elite.

So, here's the slow but moving progress of The Moorland Cardigan. Bea is quite helpful, see.

The yarn is an absolute treat to knit with. It is hearty and wooly. It is mostly black and strong as a Swede. It's swedish and from Close Knit. I adore knitting this thing. Oh and look at that Bea!

This one is about Bea.

Three months is quickly turning into four months. Bea is quite the lady.

Pretty in love, yup.

Making stuff within the free windows of time:

Those are old Trader Joe's shirts and flannel I found in the stash. I make the baby stuff because I love her. I make burp cloths because it's fast meaning I can really fight off a cry by saying something goofy, sewing, smiling, sewing, singing, sewing, and before she knows it, I finished a burp cloth. For her! Merry Christmas!

One day I walked us to Bolt and found some cute ass, expensive fabric (I go for the high dollar stuff for my girl because I'll only need 1/4 of a yard or so) and decided to make this. Since I'm not very skilled at sewing, Bea'll only be getting the top part of the dress. It'll be a top and it'll look like a dress for a while anyway.

I started that about a month ago. Does anyone want to come over and finish it for Bea?