Post # 20: A Happy Bear Heads Off to California!

A bear bearing gifts: (that sounds redundant)!

This is the hand-knit and machine-felted bear that I recently completed as a gift for the soon-to-be-born recently born baby boy of my dear hubby's brother and his wife. I had lots of fun making it.

Now, Dear Hubby (DH) has a boatload of siblings (3 brothers and 3 sisters) and all but one live out on the west coast, and I'm not referring to our lovely gulf coast of Florida, but that far-far-away land of Cali-for-Ni-A. The distance makes it very difficult for us to see them too often, which is a real shame. Thank goodness for the advances in technology and the internet so we get to experience, at least through texts and emails and photographs some of the good things that happen all the way across the country, and also on the other side of the globe.

Brother #2 married a beautiful woman from Vietnam, and some time later when I heard they were expecting a little one, I knew I wanted to knit something for the baby. I am a huge fan of Cat Bordhi, who is a well-known knitting designer. On her website I found a pattern for Baby Life Ring Socks made with yarn that has some elastic in it. I had never knit with that type of yarn before, so I thought it might be interesting to try. I went out to a local yarn shop and was told they no longer carried that type of yarn, and I was quite disappointed, but then the person helping me said that there just might be some on the clearance rack. Well, I guess these socks were meant to be, and I bought the yarn, and started knitting them that very day. I loved making them. The pattern was so easy to follow. You can find it here if you'd like to make some:
http://catbordhi.com/patterns/baby-life-ring-socks-free-pattern/

I love the way they came out, even if they do look a little big, I'm sure the little guy will grow and be able to wear them at some point. The life ring style of the leg part of the sock can be scrunched together or pulled up like knee-highs, but that type of design along with the elastic in the yarn will help to keep them on the baby's feet. Now, Bro #2, cute as he is, thinks they make great ear-warmers!

 

I then wanted to knit something else for the lucky child to be born to these nice people. But what should that be? I started to go through all of my books and patterns and as soon as I saw this book on the shelf I knew I had found it. A few years ago my dear friend Linda gave me a book for my birthday, “Knit One, Felt Two” by Kathleen Taylor. You can see the author's version of the striped bear on the front cover picture below:

 I did not want to use traditional colors; I knew that the baby was to be a boy; I wanted good contrast between the colors as babies need visual stimulation, so I set about searching in my yarn stash to come up with a combination that I found pleasing. As I was knitting I kept going back and forth from liking my choice to questioning whether it was okay, but now I am really pleased with the result. I especially like that it is not in the traditional primary colors or baby colors.

It is knit in pure wool on large needles, (which is why it looks a little messy at this point) so that there is space between the stitches. This allows room for the fibers to rub against and grab onto each other during the felting process.

Below you see all of the pieces are knitted, ready to be machine-felted. I am fortunate to have an old-style top-loading agitator washing machine, which makes it very easy to felt these projects. I simply put the pieces in the washer with some towels, a little bit of soap, and using a hot wash and cool rinse, let her run.

 Being a top-loader, I can stop the machine every so often to pull out the pieces and check for the amount of  felting and shrinkage. Different types of natural fibers as well as yarn from different manufacturers can felt and/or shrink at varying rates, so it is a good idea to check frequently or you run the risk of having a very tiny bear when you may have only desired a slightly small bear. You'll notice that the piece for the ear on the right shrunk up smaller than the other ear. I ended up really having to stretch and pull and tug on it when I was shaping it to attach and sew the bear together to make it look right. In this case it wasn't a big problem, but on some other project it may be more important for everything to be just the right size. If you don't check your felting during the process you may end up having to make some parts over again. It's better to take the time to check along the way. Similar to Norm Abrams' old saying "Measure twice, cut once." In other words, better safe than sorry.

After the pieces are felted, they are rolled in a towel, blotted, reshaped, and then allowed to air dry completely. Then I stuffed it with fiberfill and sewed the pieces together. The finishing touches were to embroider the eyes, nose, and mouth, add a few french knots in lieu of buttons (for a baby I didn't want to add anything that could come off), and of course, he needed a nice ribbon around his neck.

Bro #2 and his lovely bride. They are so happy!

 

 Samuel came into this world healthy and happy just one week ago today.

What a beautiful baby (and mother, too)! So exciting. It's no wonder the little bear is smiling!

Finding peace in creativity,

Meryl

Post # 19: Fido's Ill-Fitting Furry Sweater and a Lumpy Bumpy Quilt

    
Sometimes it's good to be a hoarder. Really. Not the reality TV, over-the-top, jaw-dropping, eye-popping, gross-you-out sort of hoarding, not that kind, oh no! What I refer to instead is the good kind of hoarding, the kind where you have something you know you don't need, can't use, it simply doesn't work, yet for some unknown reason, you do not get rid of it, whatever the thing might happen to be.Then somehow, sometime later, it turns out there was a good reason to keep the item after all...a happy ending of sorts. That's what happened with these two things I made for our dog, Fido, a long time ago.

     When I first started knitting I went online and found this dog sweater pattern because Fido needed a new sweater. I chose this particular pattern because it seemed like the easiest and that was the scale by which I measured which project I should attempt, I was so new to knitting. It is a Lion Brand pattern and you can find it here: http://lionbrand.com/patterns/kff-dogSweater.html
This is the photo they provide, which shows up very nicely. It's a bit easier to see than in my photos with the black-on-black (not to mention my slow-to-improve photography skills). I used the Lion Brand Fun Fur and other Lion Brand yarn recommended in the pattern.

I have been unable to locate a picture of Fido in that darn sweater. It was huge on her. All I can tell you is she looked like a sad, soft, procupine or an overgrown hedgehog. Here's a picture of Fido in another outfit just to remind you of her sweet face. If I come across a pic of her in that sweater later I'll post it. That was one good dog. I surely do miss her.

Now, Fido was a much better model for the camera than Alice, but what do want for nothin' - your money back? It's almost as though she has stage fright, it's funny. I dug the sweater out of Fido's dog box, tried it on Alice, and it fit like it was custom-made for her. I'm so glad I didn't get rid of it. One time about a year ago I actually almost turned it into a purse, but then some life event came along or some other project or distraction, and it got stuck back in the dog box for, hmmmm, let me see, 5 or 6 more years.

 Alice seems to be saying, "Come on, mom, just take the picture already." What the pictures don't show is how excited she gets when I begin to put a sweater or a new collar on her. She really acts like she loves to wear the stuff, but she just isn't very cooperative about posing.

     The flannel "biscuit" quilt that I made especially for Fido was also a dud of a gift for her. I made it in a class and it took a lot of time and effort. It was one of those pain in the a-- type projects that you really like at the time but swear you'll never do another one when it is finished.

      Each little puffed up biscuit is stuffed individually and when it was new it was pretty lumpy and bumpy, much more so than it is now. Fido, who was nicknamed Queen of the Pillows, refused to lay on it, and she would normally lay on anything that had a little bit of cushion to it. I guess it was just a little too lumpy for her missy prissy ways. Kind of like the princess and the pea.

      Over the last ten years it has spent time as a bath mat, a bedside rug, and mostly as a decoration inside a box inside my closet. During my winter fibernation and cleaning out of the cobwebs from my craft supplies and my mind, I came across it and draped it across this ottoman. Alice has adopted it as her morning sunning blanket. Yes, I do believe...sometimes...it's okay to be a hoarder.

Finding peace in creativity,

Meryl