Yellow Flannel

Yellow flannel with blue butterflies and pink flowers. I've set aside knitting the Bliss Blanket and knitting in public in order to do some sewing I've been putting off for a long time, a long, long time. I have sewing stashes just like I have a kintting stash. My sewing stashes include fabric, of course, zippers, buttons, ribbons, interfacing, thread, machine needles, etc. Within fabric, the flannel stash by itself is impressive. I love flannel. Who could've seen that one coming, eh? This yellow stuff was chosen specifically for this project. I won't delve very deeply into details because this is a knitting, not a sewing blog. I used a pattern for both of these because the prototype non-patterned number I made for the American Girls doll didn't work out under the arms. Now I know how to do that. I undo my sewing a lot, just like my knitting. Fewer sewing operations than knitting operations are undoable. Flowing from that fact, I have had to learn how to sew minuscule, yet sturdy seams, etc.
These are for my 2 honorary nieces Emma and Sophie. They both have their birthdays around now. Emma is 9 and Sophie is 3. Back when Emma was maybe 2 I made her a plain, flannel nightgown and it turned into her favorite. Sophie now wears it. So it was time to make new ones. My main mistake was to make them match, because when Emma outgrows hers and passes it down to Sophie, Sophie will already have had one just like it. That's no fun. At least it wouldn't be for me.

Ready for wrapping

Emma's neckline ................................Both have this hem

Sophie's neckline (back.)

I did use a tiny bit of yarn for the button loop. Voila! ~ Knitting related info: Oops, it was crocheting. Close enough.

Button Loop

Pattern: None--Yarn was too thick to make the classic button loop

Yarn: Elann Esprit, 91m/ 100 yds (relaxed) - 186 yds (stretched), 97% cotton, 3% elastane, blue

Needle: an embroidery sharp--has anybody seen my betweens?

Baby Blanket Begun~Bliss!

I've suddenly got a bunch of babies coming up and knowing already that at least one of them is female, I figured I could make a good heavy baby blanket out of the orchid colored Idena Big Cotton sport that's been tearing a hole in my knitting pocket ever since I got it. So I Ravelried a ton of baby blankets and fell in love with this pattern. Bliss Blanket by Melissa J. Goodale. It looks fabulous in variegated yarn which this isn't, but it does show stitch definition very well. Speaking of stitch definition, this is not just plain entrelac. (I almost said "simple entrelac," but I had a problem, so I guess that disqualifies the term, "simple.") It is knit with a stitch pattern that someone on Ravelry said was a mistake rib.

I mentioned that I had a problem. I misread the instructions and was picking up the wrong number of stitches. I should have realized it immediately but it took me until the second tier of the second repeat to finally decide that I was doing something wrong. Even then I might've kept going if there had been something better on TV. It was getting late so I decided to wait until the next day to make a decision because, hey, I figured I was dopier than normal and also I was not as willing to rip as I usually am because this is even more successful than I'd hoped. I wondered what would happen if I changed up the design and started knitting across all the rectangles untill one whole row would reach across the entire blanket diagonally. Then the entrelac I'd already knit would be a border and I'd add the entrelac back onto the other end for the other border. If I didn't like that or couldn't figure out how to do it, I could rip back just that part.

Picture number two shows the beginning of that on the lower left. Eh. Not so much--though this is the back of the work and it does look a little bit better on the front. I got on the Ravelry pattern forum and asked the question about how many pick-ups I should be making. Tow people responded that I had been doing it wrong. At least one wasn't a cat saying "Ur doin it rong." But one was the designer herself!!! Heart, heart, heart. She said to keep going and I'm going to. Thank you Stick Chick.