of baby things

Leon has grown out of his newborn sweaters. The "baby surprise jacket" that I made him last summer can still button, but the sleeves are ridiculously short. Here's a picture of the bsj:



So, on I go to knit a couple more for him. First up is the seed-stitch jacket by Elinor of Exercise Before Knitting. I'm finding the seed-stitch to be really slow, but I'm liking how the piece is knitting up. The progress so far:



Yarn: Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Worsted in "blue heirloom"
Needles: Addi size 5
Pattern: Seed Stitch Baby Jacket
by Elinor Brown

I'm still working on Ryan's socks, but have put those aside (briefly) to work another piece. A friend of my approached me at the NW Flower and Garden Show this last week and asked me to knit up a baby hat for him to gift to a friend's new wee one. Since my friend is also a garden designer, I immediately knew what pattern I wanted to knit.



This sweet thing is the Koru hat by Just Jussi. I knit this up quick on Saturday using Ultra Alpaca and tried it on Leon. It's WAY too small, even for a newborn, I think. The circumference would be fine for a new babe, but the crown seems really short. On Sunday, I started again; this time with larger needles, adding 6 more stitches, and doing twice as many rows before the fern pattern starts. The result is a hat that should be plenty big for the baby until maybe six months...



Here's the two hats together. I just need to finish the second one and off it will go.

What's blooming

I took some photos last week of "what's happening" in my front yard. We've had some tantalizingly sunny and relatively warm days this month and I'm itching for some time to clean up in the garden and plant some seeds.



This is my witchhazel (Hamamelis x intermedia 'Jelena'). I love the blooms as they come in early January and last for more than a couple weeks. They smell great too, though they need some sun for the scent to be released. The low angle of the winter sun keeps the flowers backlit for most of the day.



The branching is lovely, too.

This helebore is my only one in the garden. (I know I need more.)



I don't remember its name, but I got it from Heronswood when it was still in Kingston and still run by Dan Hinkley. I love it.

I may not be that into pink clothes, but I love me some hot pink flowers!



This red-flowering current (Ribes sanguineum) has gorgeous hanging pink flowers that open before the shrubs leaves emerge. I'm anticipating their arrival, but in the meantime, I can enjoy the pink buds.

On the knitting front, I'm still working on the classic socks for Ryan, and they don't look much different from last week. Hopefully I'll have some knitting to blog about next time!

Socks in progress

My current project is a pair of socks for Ryan. At 8.5 stitches to the inch, it's verrrrry slow going, especially since I rarely have an extended period of knitting time. However, I'm knitting on them alot since the K3/P1 pattern is easy and quick to put down.

They worked great in the car on Saturday on our way to and from picking up our Airstream. Because they are for Ryan, I've chosen a dark color (Cascade Heritage) that makes it difficult (if not impossible) to knit in low light. So I find myself knitting next to our big front window, or with all of the lights on...



I'm hoping to get them done before the 14th? Can I do it?



Last time I found myself in Seattle Yarn working on these socks, a beautiful skein of Madelinetosh sock yarn found it's way into my purse. I swear I don't know how it got there. (Just like when Ryan says he has no idea how a case of Guinness found its way to our shopping cart...)



I think I might knit these into a pair of Leyburn socks.



Last thought: why is this colorway called "ginsing"? Whatever, because I still think it's beautiful.