knitting again

Mike and I have decided our Thanksgiving plans and are headed to Louisiana for the holidays to see my Aunt & Uncle and cousins! The have come to us the past few years for my brothers and my weddings, so now it's time to visit them! It's been a while since we've all been together that wasn't for a wedding, so this should be a really good time! The Tamburro side (which this is) usually gets together every 10 years or so for a full family reunion, but I think that's still a few years away, so this will do well in the meantime!

I think I've figured out what to make with the Indigo Moon fibers yarn I won recently. I'd love to make a pair of socks out of it, but the color really isn't right for my skin tone, so I've decided it will look really wonderful as the February baby sweater by Elizabeth Zimmerman, and it'll take care of one of the last baby gifts I have to make.

In the meantime, I'm knitting as fast as I can to finish a gift for someone due this week (who I don't think reads my blog, but you never know). Either way, I have some beautiful baby alpaca yarn 3-ply in browns that I tried making socks out of and they just didn't turn out - see blob on left-hand side of photo? Can we say bad gage bad!?



Then I was going to make a baby boy sweater out of it, and realized I didn't have quite enough yarn, and we don't need to go through that again! So I have now decided a warm hat and cute booties will work perfectly. I've started on the hat tonight and am already 2-3" up the brim (don't get too excited here, it is a baby hat) and its' going quickly. I didn't take any pictures, but I will in the next day or two. I've chosen the bootie pattern that I want to use already too - it's got a cute bulbous toe and ribbed cuffs that fold over - it should be really cute and just in time for the Chicago winters! What I really need to do is enter all this in Ravelry so it'll show up in my side bar and if I ever add pictures people can see what I'm talking about. Another night, not this one - it's too late to get going on that. I'll never make it to bed!

Presenting....

Gangly or "G" the giraffe!!! Yeah! she's done. It wasn't exactly on time, as I was still putting some finishing touches on her when I got to my brothers' house, but I was able to present her before my brother left for his flight on Sunday.

I'm tried taking the yarn I used for the hair along the neck and making some spots on G's back to make it more cute and fuzzy - but they ended up looking like furry moles so I cut them off - I like the simplicity now. I also am not crazy about her eyes - I think they're too small. I'm thinking of embroidering new ones over the top in a thicker yarn. But I really like the way she sits up, it's cute in a gangly sort of way. Over all I'm pretty proud of her.

In the meantime, I am getting quite a bit of knitting done here. I've finished a seed stitch headband I was working on - (pictures to come later) and a cardigan that I am already 5" into:

It's the "chunky tweed cardigan" from Erika Knight's book Knitting for two. I found the yarn it calls for on sale in the cutest colors:

I really like this book. I wouldn't mind having/knitting almost half of the patterns in this book, it's super cute for both child and parent. I've already put it on my wish list.

We were talking about a teddy bear that a friends mom made for Gabriella, and Kristin mentioned that a floppy-eared bunny would be really cute... hrmmm.. I haven't gotten that far on the bear, perhaps I should switch to a bunny. She doesn't have many of those around. I'll have to start searching for patterns. Here's a shot of the bear:

I think I can do something just as cute, if not cuter - ahh, my next challenge. Due: before I leave for California for Christmas....

Getting on with the giraffe

As my deadline quickly approaches (this Friday), I have finally made some headway on the giraffe - he/she/it finally has a head! Wheee! Yea!

Now, I just have to figure out how I'm going to make it connect to a neck.. hrmm... not so easy. I haven't sewn on the legs yet, but I attached them with stitch markers to see what it looks like.
Here's what I've got so far:

I figure worse case scenario I will have to finish on the plane, and I am bringing and extra gift too. Although, I was hoping to finish a pair of booties on the plane, but that might be a bit ambitious.

Quilter I am not.

So, I had this great idea for a softie/stuffed animal for Gabrielle, and have decided on a bear. I didn't want to waste the fabric that I have trying to make my first teddy bear, so I went to the thrift store an picked up a few scarves and a cotton button-down shirt to practice on.

This has been enormously beneficial, as I don't have any guilt when I mess up that I'm ruining or wasting or using up all the fabric I so carefully collected. It's going well, and I'm able to adjust the templates if I don't like them. Here are a shot of the practice piece so far:
I think I'm about ready to start with the "real fabric". Now my problem is choosing which pieces to use. See, I just collected the clothes that "if I closed my eyes and pictured my mother, these are the things she would be wearing". There was no contemplation of design or even a whiff of a thought about color, or fabric, or how they would work together - especially for any type of quilt.

I am so not a quilter. I'm not really even any type of artist in my head. That's what M is for - he's got the eye for color and design, and he did help me before he left. I pulled all the clothes out, and he separated all that I laid out into groups that went together. Now, I have to choose a pile. This shouldn't seem daunting, but to me it is.

I want all the fabrics to go together.

I want it to be worthy of a family heirloom.

I want Gabriella to love it.

I want it to be special and perfect.

I want my brother to realize what it is at first glance, to recognize 'mom' in it.

I also want it to be fit for a little girl.

I'm having trouble picking which lot works for all the things I want.
So I sat down today with my camera, and pulled all the groups out, and spreading them on the floor, took pictures of the combinations. This helped some, because I didn't have to keep moving the fabric around to see how they looked.
I think I'm just afraid of it not being perfect. ....

Any quilters out there? or anyone just good at color and design? Lend me your eye - tell me what you think:

I call these the blue/purple florals:

The blue/purple/green on the left is a scarf, and was made in Hilton Head on vacation - we all made our own shirts, and she of course, made a scarf. The third fabric down, the pastel floral one, I remember her wearing to my brothers' college graduation and Easter. And I'm not all together sure I like the coral shirt in with these.
In my mind, these are really girly-girl fabrics, and although they have a vintage feel/vibe, they might be a little overwhelming together.


These are the green blue series:

I've always love the black, blue and coral dress, I think because of the pattern, and the other two patterned dresses are just 'old-school mom' to me. The green is a simple silk blouse. Once again, there's the HH scarf, (there is another one further down, in blues with a little bit of black)
I like this combo, but I don't know if it's right for this project, but I can't put into words why.


The pinkish series:

This "series" is the one Mike liked the most color/combo wise, but I'm not sure it's girly enough. Then again, I'm not all about super-girly. And I did call it the pink series... It's growing on me.

The top fabric (right) is another one where I think of my mother instantly when I see it. That would be the type of pattern I would look for when buying clothes and gifts for her. Mom's style has it's own "classic" category in my head.

What's weird is - as I look at all these fabrics, and group them all together, and rearrange them and describe them in words, they kind of contradict the image of my mom that I have in my head. If you had asked me before tonight if my mom was a floral person, I would have said Definitely Not. I don't think of her or her style as 'flowery' at all, but I've noticed that in every grouping, there is at least one flower pattern. It's really strange when you are the one to contradict the image you've had in your head all you're life.

These are, in my mind, 'Classic Mom' - black, red and white. I know I pulled out a lot of colorful patterns and dresses, but she did wear a lot of the basic colors too.

I'm thinking these are too similar or .. there's not enough contrast... or something. And yet, I do like them together - I think it's because the fabrics on these dresses are really nice and would make great softies. Plus, they are clothes she wore later in life, so I have stronger memories of her from them.


The last few pictures are left-over bright fabrics that I threw together, but I think they're too bright. Plus the green doesn't go as well as it looks on the computer. It's a bit more.. new grass green, and to me it looks more sea-foam-ish in the picture. The pink is the same fabric in both pictures, and that blue is a really bright blue.


I realize with all the different fabrics I'm going to have to back some of these, but in playing with the scarves from the thrift store, I used some iron on interfacing that worked really well. I've think I've got the technique down well enough... now it's just making a choice.

Welcome Gabriella Mairin

Congratulations to my brother!!!

My brother and his wife had their first child, Gabriella Mairin!! Isn't she beautiful?
Gorgeous.

Just Beautiful.
Personally, I think she has my brother's eyes, and my sister-in-law's mouth, but I think a lot of it depends on the eye of the beholder.
Here's a father-daughter picture:
I don't have a good mother-daughter picture, but here are some of the whole family:

These three are my favorites, I'm not exactly sure why:
I think it has to do with her being on dad's legs :)
Shhhhh! I hear she has a great set of lungs...
Perfection.... (no, i didn't knit the cap..)

They all just gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling. ahhh mmmmm....

Of course, this also means I need to get on with the baby gifts. I'm about 1/4 of the way on both, I've decided on a crocheted giraffe and quilted bear, and I'll put pictures up as I go, - I don't think any of my family memebers check this as of now, but we'll see. Speaking of, back to work...