vintage car coat

There is still no baby to wear it...but yesterday I sewed the buttons on this sweater and it is now all ready to go! I used a pattern in the Sublime pattern book #600, but used the Sublime washable merino rather than the baby cashmere merino silk yarn. It's called the "vintage car coat," and looks absolutely adorable on the baby boy in the picture.

The only thing I hated about making this sweater was sewing together all the pieces. I think there is a good reason I tend to stick to circular knitting with minimal finishing - I am terrible at seaming, and pretty impatient with the process too. The sweater is really cute though. It has two buttons on the cuff of each sleeve, which is a pretty nice touch...although the buttons I bought are a little heavy, so our baby might get a muscle work-out from wearing this sweater! I made the 3-6 month size, so hopefully it'll fit him this winter. With my luck, it'll fit perfectly in the middle of the summer.

felt bears

I think this might be one of my favorite recent projects. These little bears were really enjoyable to make, not terribly time-consuming, and I think they are absolutely adorable. I was browsing through the handmade gift guide on marthastewart.com and saw the "Tooth Bears" template...I have always loved the look of simple hand-stitched dolls and toys, so I started cutting.

I had intended to make the tooth bears, which have a little pocket on their chests for kids to store lost teeth in...but honestly, teeth are not front and center in my mind right now. I'm not even thinking about my baby (not even born yet) getting teeth, let alone losing them. Plus, I didn't have any good pocket colors in my felt stash and I wasn't terribly convinced that I could embroider a picture of a tooth (that anyone would be able to identify as a tooth) on the little pocket...so I thought I'd forgo the pocket and put a red heart on their chests instead.

I'm thinking of changing the pattern slightly - expanding the length of the ears and adding whiskers - to make some felt bunnies...because honestly, I enjoyed making these guys so much I can't imagine not having a hand-sewing project to work on!

fingerless gloves

In these last weeks of waiting for baby, it seems like all I want to do is sit on the couch and knit. Which means that when I see a pattern that I can't resist, I immediately cast-on. This pattern, the cashmere fingerless gloves from Purl Bee was completely irresistable to me, but I couldn't justify the expense of the cashmere. Luckily I had some handspun alpaca, merino, bamboo yarn that seemed to be the right weight, and oddly enough I had even mentioned making it into fingerless gloves when I first finished spinning the yarn. I used Blue Sky alpaca sport weight in dark brown for the trim, as was recommended in the pattern.

The gloves are great, and the glowing hearth yarn is one of my favorite handspun yarns ever. I am giving these gloves to a friend for Christmas, but only because I have enough of the yarn left to make something for myself later. I don't think I could completely part with this one...it's so glowing and warm and gorgeous.

I am also planning to make these same fingerless gloves in red and brown (with an orange button, like in the original pattern) for myself...to go with a new wool coat with red trim that I got last fall. I anticipate that sometime in the near future this coat will zip up over my belly again and I'll be happy as a clam to have coordinating gloves to go with it!