Almost there

These gifts for the newest niece in the family are the second- and third-last gifts I had to make - just one more left to finish! I made the bear from a cashmere sweater that I'd accidentally machine washed; he is so so soft! I made his face with embroidery floss and knit a tiny scarf to hide his neck seam. The balls are each about 3" in diameter, made with the same yarn I used for the ruffle scarf. I have plenty of these colors left over for another fun kid project or two in the coming year.

What I'm up to

Here's the Baby Surprise Jacket, finally all done. There's not much I can say about this amazing pattern that hasn't already been said - it was fun to knit, and a blast to see it come together in the end. I was pleased to find these little purple buttons in my stash, which I think go very well with the pretty yarn.












Above left are the Cage Comforters I'm making out of recycled clothing. They are close to done; I'll post in more detail when they are. On the right are some little dog toys I made for a friend's dogs, using the scraps from the cage comforters. I saw something like them online somewhere, but couldn't remember where, so I just improvised these.

More miscellany

Wow, Rita's sewing really puts mine to shame, but here it is anyway - my first baby steps toward both learning to sew and beginning a wardrobe recycling regimen with the bags of reject clothes on the floor of my closet. These tote bags made from tank tops are going to get stuffed into my regular everyday handbag so they'll be handy for library books & small grocery store trips.



Here's a little sweater, from Simple Knits for Cherished Babies by Erika Knight, for my niece-to-be. It's super-tiny! It's made with Cotton-Ease, which I really enjoyed knitting with.




Back in December I made a bunch of small felted bowls to give as gifts, but I made more sets than I gave away so I finally put the rest to use by nesting them tightly, stuffing the smallest ones & inverting them, then sewing them all together to make pincushions. And in keeping with my original intentions, I gave them to two coworkers who like to craft.