Sunset Baby Jacket

The last pattern that I used to make baby jackets for, the one where I dyed one of them, actually had two designs.  This is the other design.  Its not lace but it does have a honeycomb texture to it.

I bought this yarn about 5 years ago when I was on holiday in Weymouth, on the south coast.  It just called to me and its really soft and squishy.  Its a long colour change double knit weight yarn which is 75% acrylic, 10% wool, 10% mohair, 5% metallic.

Because you knit the jacket from the bottom up and then just work on small sections up to the shoulders I tried my best to make the colours 'flow' and match for the main part of the body upwards from the 'orange' garter stitch border separating the honeycomb pattern from the plain knit.  The sleeves took some a lot of work make them match, trying to find the right place within the long colour changes to cut the yarn and start work, lots of cutting and winding of the yarn to get what I wanted.

I decided to add three matching buttons and luckily I had just the right colours of the same button style.  Another non-traditional baby item from me but its still pretty.

Baby Jackets made with Eco-Friendly yarn

Some time ago, when mooching through the "end of line/end of batch" baskets at House of Fraser on the rare occasion that I travel into Birmingham City Centre, I came across an interesting yarn called Rowan Purelife Revive and I bought a few balls of it in two different shades.

From Rowans' website : Recycling is becoming increasingly important in a world coming to terms with the challenges of environmental, economic and climatic change. Rowan Purelife Revive is made from used garments which have been selected according to the silk, cotton and viscose content. These are then carded to make regenerated fibre, which is then spun into this beautiful, high quality yarn, which gives life to new hand knitting designs.

I like the idea of this yarn because I recycle as much as I can myself.   The yarn is 36% recycled silk, 36% recycled cotton, 28% recycled viscose and is a double knit weight yarn.

 

The pattern that I chose to use with this yarn is a vintage Wendy Peter Pan pattern and I got started on 28th June with the first one.  It wasn't until I had finished and sewn it up that I noticed that one sleeve was darker than the rest of the jacket.  Not knowing what to do at this point I carried on with the other colour yarn and made another one.

As you can see, the sleeve to the right in the picture is darker than the rest of the jacket.  Meanwhile, the jacket made with the darker shade has turned out lovely.

Because of the varied fibre content of this yarn and the fact that I only have dyes intended for use with animal protein fibres I was not sure what to do with the first jacket.  Do I bin it, do I dye it, if so what dyes do I use?  After much deliberation I decided to just try dyeing it with the dyes that I have and see what happens and if it goes wrong it can't get any worse than it already is.  I made up some dark blue dye and just went for it.

I have to say that I am seriously liking the result.  You can no longer see that the one sleeve is darker than the rest of the jacket and because it has only dyed the animal protein fibres in the yarn it has created a marl effect.  Fantastic!

If I ever have a problem like this again, or fall out of love with a yarn colour that is a mixed blend or don't like the way it knits up I will have no hesitation in getting the dyes out because I really love this effect.

Beige and white baby jacket

Motoring along through June making these gorgeous little baby jackets that are taking me a couple of days each to make.

Back to the sparkly beige yarn, again with the same fluffy white yarn that I've used with the others.

This one isn't a colour change yarn, its a solid colour even though it is from the same range as the other yarns I've been using.  I think it looks better with white than it does on its own.  The construction of these little jackets is quite simple and its the edging that brings it all together into a jacket shape.

Time to move onto a new design and different yarn.

"Aqua" and white baby jackets

I still can't believe that they called the colour of this yarn "aqua".  The mind boggles!  I loved making those baby jackets so much that I've decided to carry on making more of them in different colours, again using the same white as I did for the last batch.

I made enough motifs to be able to make two of these in the same colour but noticed that some were very dark whilst others were a lot lighter in colour so I separated them out as best as I could into those two groupings and got to work.

Please note that since making these I have removed the ribbon, due to a potential choking hazard, and replaced it with 4 buttons.

Dark Aqua

Aqua

I hope that from the photos that you are able to see two different colours of jacket.

One colourful yarn, three baby jackets

I've spent a bit of time making 60 motifs from a colourful yarn that I have for another baby jacket design.  I started out thinking that I was just going to make the 20 motifs needed but as I worked I noticed that they were coming out in pretty much distinct colours, a few were a bit "muddy" in the colours but most could be defined as "blue", "green" or "pink" and so I have separated them into these colours as best as I can in lots of 20.

So the pattern is another vintage pattern, this time from Patons for their Fairytale yarns and the original was all white.  I'm going to use the different colours as the centre of the motifs and join them together with some white brushed acrylic that I have that was originally on a cone but I have skeined up, washed and measured.

I started off with the green motifs and added the white around the motifs and joined them all together, followed by the pink and then the blue.  A nice quick make but really annoying with the amount of yarn ends needed to be sewn in when it was finished.

I really like these, they're certainly different from anything else around.

Please note that since making these I have removed the ribbon, due to a potential choking hazard, and replaced it with 4 buttons.

Greens

Pinks

Blues

I like these so much that I may use up the left overs of other colours of this yarn and make a few more.

Baby Lace Jacket - Aqua

I can't believe the yarn company called this yarn "aqua", its nothing like aqua.  Moody, stormy sea maybe but aqua, no!

I've not got a lot to say about this one other than its the third one I've made in this design.  The yarn looks like a dark teal here but it has a browny black section too.

The work-in-progress shot and a close up of the buttons whilst its pinned out to dry to shape.  I've used the same kind of buttons as I did on the beige one only this time they are a murky browny purple colour, a bit of a weird colour but they do work well with the colours in the yarn which are dark greens, browns and grey.

Baby Lace Jacket - Beige

I guess this one is beige with gold.  Another of the same design I just finished.  Its been quite warm here and this yarn is fluffy so its been sticking to my hands a little and making it hard to work with but I'm no quitter.

I had a bit of trouble deciding which buttons I preferred with this one.  They both work well with the colour.

I think I chose the right buttons for this.  Took me a day and a half to make, that's pretty quick and I like a quick make, doesn't give chance for boredom to set in.

Baby Lace Jacket - Pastel

Carrying on with making lace baby things I thought I would try this vintage Sirdar pattern for a baby jacket.  The picture on the pattern is not entirely clear so I can't see the details but I am prepared to give it a go in non-traditional colours.

I have some slightly sparkly long colour change yarn that I think would be suitable and I have a few different colours so I can make a few of these if they look Ok.

This one is called "Pastel", not what I class as pastel but never mind, its still pretty and its a sport weight yarn 46% wool, 46% acrylic, 8% polyester.

This is a crochet design and I started on 19th May and had most of it complete in one day.

I had to trawl through my big tin of buttons to see what I had that was small enough but also pretty too.  I found a bag of buttons that were perfect and came in all sorts of colours so I chose 4 different colours to reflect the different colours in the jacket.

I do like this so I will definitely be making some more of these.

Claret Baby Dress, Bonnet & Bootees

Sales from the shop have been incredibly slow, views are down and I'm feeling a little despondent.  In a bid to increase views and interest in my shop I have decided to try making lace baby items and see how it goes as a lower price point product in my shop.

I inherited a lot of baby knitting patterns when my mother passed away years ago and so I trawled through them looking for anything pretty that fitted the lace theme of my shop.  Most of these patterns are vintage now, she hadn't knitted in years and my nephews who she did knit for are in their late 20's/early 30's with families of their own.

I fell in love with a pattern for a little baby dress, bonnet and bootees and thought I'd give it a try to see how it came out.  It is supposed to have embroidered flowers on the yoke but I decided to use ribbon roses and sew them on in a way that means I also sew through the ribbon so it won't unravel.

Seeing as it is for a baby and baby's make a lot of mess I decided to dig out some of the acrylic yarn that I have sitting at the back of all my lovely pure wool yarns.   I don't want to make it in white either.  Every Tom, Dick and Harry make baby clothes in white, lemon, pink and blue.  Bold colours for me, something different on offer from me.

This is a dark red / claret / burgundy colour yarn in a light fingering weight and I have about 200g/1150m of it.

I forgot to take work-in-progress photos so unfortunately I don't have any of those to show you but I can show you the finished product.  I was a little worried about the placement of the ribbon on the hat as the pattern doesn't give you any instructions regarding this and I don't have any babies to try it on, nor do my girls have any dolls that I could use, they don't have any dolls at all as neither of them are girly girls.

I guess the ribbon on the hat must have been OK as this was sold to a buyer in the USA, who gifted it to the parents of a new born baby and I've not had any complaints.