NKBN: Little Loafers Baby Slippers

A weekly feature on the blog, NOT Knit by Nat highlights great designs by budding designers on Ravelry.   


Ok.  So, I admit it.  I was OBSESSED with little baby slippers when I was pregnant.   I scoured through the patterns on Rav looking for the perfect, cutest footwear.  I dunno.  It's something about tiny baby feet I guess.   I was drawn to the ones that had just the right amount of structure to make it look more like a little shoe and less of a slipper.  Melanie's pattern is perfect.  I'm almost tempted to have another baby just so that I can make these.   (....I said ALMOST!!!!!!)

Click here to check out Little Loafers Baby Slippers on Rav

NKBN: Stole of the Seas

A weekly feature on the blog, NOT Knit by Nat highlights great designs by budding designers on Ravelry.   


I look at Melanie's pictures of her Stole of the Seas pattern and I want to run, not walk, to my LYS and pick up a beautiful, vibrant hank of silk yarn and lock myself in my home and knit this until my fingers have blisters.   Seriously.  I'm that nuts about this pattern.

Click here to check out Melanie's gorgeous Stole of the Seas on Rav

NOT Knit by Nat: Spring Leafy Beret

A weekly feature on the blog!  NOT Knit by Nat highlights great designs by budding designers on Ravelry.  

A couple of summers ago a friend of mine came up to the cottage sporting a rather fabulous beret that she nicknamed "From Russia with love".    It wasn't a handknit, but it was fun. (I am the only knitterly one in my circle.   I'll teach at least one of them, one day...... when they put down the vodka soda's long enough to hold some needles, I just know it ;).   

I was instantly reminded of her hat when I spotted Clare Lee's "Spring Leafy Beret".   This is the perfect "I'm going up north and not taking this off my head for a second" kinda hat.   Loves it.   Clare, you have some serious talent!  You are officially on my radar!

Click here to check out Clare's Spring Leafy Beret on Rav!

 (how adorable is this picture, ps????)

NOT Knit By Nat: Captain Jack Legwarmers

A new weekly post on the blog!  NOT Knit by Nat features great designs by budding designers on Ravelry.   

The criteria for a design to "qualify" are:

1. Less than 10 designs published on Rav by the designer
2. Less than 100 “hearts” on the design to be featured
3. Nice photographs
4. Fabulous design! (of course!)

The goal is to hopefully highlight some great designs that people might not otherwise see!  If you know of a great design that deserves a shout out, send it along to me!


For the inaugural entry, check out these fantastic "Captain Jack Legwarmers" by Jen Patola (rav ID kyuss).  Babies in legwarmers = adorable.   Skull and cross bone leggies on chubby little legs?  Holy moly.  Hold me back!   The converse.  The diaper cover.   Jen, you have a home run here! 

Click here to take you to the pattern on Ravelry

Mrs. Applebomb

When I was a kid we'd often go over to one of my aunt's house and sometimes when the stars aligned for a collaborative occasion, my cousin's cousins would be at the same party.   (You follow?  It's a big Italian famiglia)   When this would happen my brothers and cousins and I would be super excited for an evening spent with "Mrs. Applebomb".    My cousin's cousin would put on such an amazing rendition of a school teacher that we, her little students, would sit obediently on the front door wooden bench and raise our hands proudly if we knew an answer and ask permission to go to the washroom.    I was just on the cusp of starting school and I was wonderstruck about becoming a *real-live* student at a *real-live* school.   I couldn't wait.   I loved the nights with Mrs. Applebomb**.

Now that my little miss is starting her own school career at a school with a uniform no less, I knew I had to knit her a few things (especially before she's too cool to wear mom's knits).   So I trudged over to Walmarto and pick up a giant watermelon sized ball of dark blue yarn and started sketching.    Usually my designs have a name before they even hit the needles, but I was stumped with this little vest which had the drab moniker of "School's In Vest" until a little nostalgia took over.

And to celebrate my little girl's latest milestone I offer Mrs. Applebomb as a free pattern for all!   Knit her up!!

download now

** Fittingly Mrs. Applebomb later became a *real-live* teacher

Push present

Way back when, what seems like a lifetime ago now, I was sitting in the hospital room with my little 6 hour old newborn and I received the best push present.   No, it wasn't a diamond tennis bracelet or a spa gift certificate.   It was from my yarnie sister-in-law and it was a skein of Malabrigo Merino Worsted in Tortuga.  It brought tears to my eyes.   My non-yarnie cousin thought I was a lunatic.

Instantly I saw this rich, dark charcoal grey and espresso stained beauty and thought it would make a lovely man a lovely accessory.   So I poured through ravelry like an idiot the generous soul I am and tried to hunt down a pattern for my hubby.   Then I had a moment of sanity and remembered that this was MY push present.   He didn't push a baby out of his privates without drugs, that was me, ALL ME.   And this fabulous, squishy yarn belongs nowhere else but on my body.

So I knit myself up the Star Crossed Slouchy Beret with a little extra slouch and wore it every day throughout  the winter.  

I never understood the whole push present thing, I thought it was a silly frivolity, but being able to look at something and give yourself a little jolt with your sense of pride and accomplishment is surely what it's intended to do.   And mine cost way less than diamonds.




(Modelled by the most photogenic little girl I know....) 

Inspiration

FINALLY, I'm back.  I must admit that knitting has been one of the last things on my mind for the past few months.   I have been uninspired and too tired at the end of the night to even knit a stitch.   I did get on a crochet kick in my attempt to design the perfect "fashionable" baby drool bib.  Conclusion:  I suck at crochet.

But here I am again, my hands twitching in the evening ready to knit.    As for the inspiration, I looked to the most tangible of sources - beautiful yarn.   I bought this yarn ages ago, before I could rhyme off luxury yarn makers and before I meticulously saved every yarn label I've used in my scrapbook.   All I know is that it's silk, it cost me $36 for the skein and, most importantly, that it's beeeeeautiful.

I have been "inspired" by this yarn for years and years now, although at this point I could almost refer to it as being haunted by it.   I bought it with the intentions to knit the Diamond Fantasy Shawl by Sivia Harding and I swear I started and frogged that thing 12 times before I gave up.   Last summer I designed a rectangular wrap with a shield lace pattern but it didn't really get my juices flowing.  After nine or ten repeats, I abolished it to the "meh" drawer.   This time around I wanted something somewhat mindless with a little bit of fun.  Something I would bind off and be so excited about that I would run out and cast on my next project pronto.    Enter the Oaklet Shawl.   I resurrected this luscious yarn once again and went at it.   The stockinette at the beginning with the promise of some simple lace at the end kept me going.    I love it AND I have cast on my next project (Owl baby vest).    Only one little problem.   I knit the pattern exactly as written (rare for me) and I've got a substantial little ball of this yarn left.   Kill me now, but I'm really, really going to rip this baby back to the end of the stockinette section and use up the rest of the yarn.   Ripping back slippery silk....I can see the dropped stitches now.  (Do I really have the patience/good sense for a lifeline?)  Good luck to me. It may be another 6 months before the next post.....

(extended and blocked version to be posted soon!  ...there, I said it out loud, now I HAVE to do it...)