The sweater is the Seamless Kimono Sweater from the Complete Fabrication.
The hat is a pattern that I got from Jen, in my Knitty Gritties group (not sure where she got it). The Circus Bits is a great pattern that can be done in the round or on straight needles and is actually written for three colours. Its difficult to see the knotted i-cord at the top, but that is the cutest part of the hat! I can send the pattern on request.
I wanted to have a roomier sweater and one that had a bit of a tunic feel, so I made a 2stitch increase at each side, every 9 rows. Then, when I got to the hem part, I divided the sweater onto 2 separate circular needles, knitting the front and back separately, so that there was a side slit...making it more tunic-like.
The hem is a little different than the original pattern...I knit & purled so that the purl stitches showed on the outside for 2 stitches on the first row, 4 for the next 4 rows, then all the way across for 4 rows, then a knit row, then cast off.
Can't wait to be finished!
The best part was finishing it with the mattress stitch, which is completely invisible.
When I'm done, I'll post another picture. I'm still trying to decide to whom I will give it. There is a lovely teacher on staff at my school who is due to give birth anyday. She is already a mom to several kids and I think instead of a 'baby' focused gift, I'll give her the scarf. She has a gorgeous head of bright red hair and this will look great on her...I just have to get it finished.
Long, long ago, in a house very near to mine...okay, my house, a woman lived who attended her knitting group regularly. Every other Monday night she would pack up her most recent project and head out to Lakefield, usually with Annie in tow, and she would knit and chat and laugh and she would feel content. 
Its adorable and simple and so soft!
And when she started to needle felt, it looked like the kind of zen work that I live for. There's not watching TV while you do it, because you can easily prick a finger with the barbed needle. But its a simple poking process and when she got going, it was a almost like watching a manual tattoo artist, her hand was moving so fast.
Meanwhile, everyone else was working on various parts of various projects. Jenn was adding fringe to the ends of her new scarf; she's adding her Guide's badges later, which is priceless! There was also much sharing of baby photos; Annie hasn't been to knitting in some time either. She brought a gorgeous calendar with photos of Lulu's first year. I had my camera with some pics from today, and I also had my digital keychain with pics of everyone, and loads of Harper.
Needless to say, it was a fantastic night and I'll be sure to start going regularly again. It fills up my cup and then I'll at least have some fortnightly blog fodder!
Just barely passed the halfway point. Anyway, the other problem I had was with the spaces that were appearing between the needles. These ladders are ugly and everywhere I look, the advice is just to keep practicing, that they'll disappear with practice. Well, for Christ's sake, I don't want to practice doing socks, just so that I can get rid of unsightly ladders. I DON'T LIKE KNITTING SOCKS! So, when I do finish them, whoever is the lucky recipient better appreciate them, because they are going to be rare. Much like my experience making pumpkin pie from scratch...it just wasn't worth the immense amount of effort. I can get really cool, well-made socks in many stores, at a great price. So, why would I continue to waste my time knitting these ladderfilled monstrocities!?
But I needed a new scarf to go with it. I wanted to do something a little different. Within the fabric of the jacket are fine threads of green and teal. They are so faint that you can't even really see them unless you get up good and close, and I point them out to you. 
I wanted to draw attention to them. So, I chose Lionbrand Wool in Lemongrass and Dark Teal; 1 ball of each. Then I decided that I wanted the actual scarf to be original, but classic. This sounds simple enough, but I wasn't. What I ended up with was a scarf that wasn't striped, or braided, or tassled, or weaved. 
The story behind this is simple. I bought some yarn on eBay and didn't know what to do with it. It was a nice cotton/poly ribbon yarn, in a great creamy peachy colour. There was enough for a small garment, but I'm not a small girl! So, I thought a poncho would be nice.
The pattern was the simple Incredible Ribbon Poncho at Lionbrand. Its a basic rectangle, then you sew up one side part way, leaving a hole for your head, so it fits asymmetrically.
Okay, so even though I have a few UFOs (a monkey bag, a shawl, a toddler dress, to name a few, socks), I finished my scarf (pic to come) and feel justified in starting something new. I got my Knit Bits newsletter from Berroco and in their new booklet #285 there is a pattern for an apron/garment called Paron.
I originally was going to submit these to Knitty (in order to make some cash from my work), but in a moment of holiday giving I decided to post it here instead. The photos are a little out of season, but the leg warmers work in any season anyway.
Well, its been a long time since I've posted anything on this blog; I just haven't been inventing new patterns, although I've been crocheting and knitting up a storm. My baby is overdue now and I'm getting so excited and anxious and impatient. But, mostly I'm kind of excited to start using Elimination Communication. And because my little Harper is due in the middle of winter, I thought that using baby leg warmers would make a whole lot of sense. The nicest ones I've found were Baby Legs, but I'm not in a position to pay upwards of $20 for a pair of leg warmers...especially when I have an evergrowing stash of yarn and the time to knit my own.
So the flower motif found a home, but only by accident. I had been trying to find a sundress to crochet like the knitted Victoria Sundress at Berroco. I'd tried at Crochetville, Crochet Pattern Central, and Google, all to no avail. So I figured, @$%& it, I'll design one myself. And so I did. I took measurements from a dress in Sears and came home to figure out the increases. The dress is made out of breathable cotton, but is heavy enough to stay down on windy days. And the straps are buttoned in place, so they can be crossed or straight, as well they can be raised and lowered to fit. I apologize profusely for the state of the photograph. Crappy cameras yeild crappy photos!
I originally planned to make a poncho with flower motifs, inspired partly by this one by Drops Design/Garn Studio, but the motifs of that one were a little 'pointy' for me. So I decided to design a flower myself. Then once I made a few, the idea of the poncho kind of became, shall I say, less desirable. But the flower is cute enough to be used in other patterns or added to other designs (as we shall soon see).
