Gone But Not Forgotten

Just as I did on my other blog, brittuniainmancunia, I have to apologize for a long blogging hiatus. My trip to the US all November, Germany for Christmas and Scotland for New Year gave me lots of time to knit, but not much desire to write. Oh yes, and there is the pregnancy which I can now tell you about since I am officially 'out'. Since inviting this little life force into my life, I have struggled to channel my creativity into my personal writing, and dare I say, into my knitting (for a while). But now I am back, not knitting quite nearly as much as I am writing now, but at least I have a few FOs and a debut feature magazine article to show for it!

Feast your eyes on my Keep Baby Warm Leggings , pattern courtesy of Chopped Tomatoes, which I originally came across while reading the CRAFT: rss feed. Machelle's lovely design uses sock yarn to create a lovely pair of adorable baby tights. I immediately recognized Kaffe Fasset's Color Landscape Sock Yarn from Regia in Machelle's picture and was delighted that I had a spare ball leftover from knitting my husband's gigantosocks in the colorway Caribbean. A little teddy bear offered to model them for us:

Mind you, the bear's legs may be as long as a baby's, but his fuzzy abdomen does not have the same proportions as one with a loaded diaper. I did add a bit more for the crotch than was called for in the pattern to accommodate bulky nappies.

I started knitting them for a friend's baby, but he was unfortunately born with club feet. This means he has to get new casts put on his little legs each week and will be too big to wear the leggings by the time he is out of the casts.

Another small FO I can share is the Shapes and Ladders neck warmer (designed by Sian Luyken) I made from some Let's Knit booklet I got for free when I bought the mag. It called for Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk which I also had left over from my lovely snoody shruggy thing I knit using Kim Hargreaves pattern Aimee. It really has been a month for knitting with leftovers. Gotta love stashbusters! I couldn't find a link, so if you are interested, check out Weekend Knits from Collins & Brown where the pattern originally appeared. I used the DK instead of the chunky (which is actually called for), so the neck warmer is snug to say the least. I want to give it another go, but double up on the yarn to yield something a little larger for big headed recipients. It just barely goes over mine now. It has several rows of wrapped stitches before being dropped when continuing in stockinette stitch. It is quite lovely despite the size issue.

My professional writing is really picking up speed. During my blog silence, I was actually working on 4 feature articles commissioned by Knitting , a magazine here in the UK. This month, my first feature appeared profiling the ceramic gallery/knit studio Fibre + Clay. In each of the next three months, I will have one feature article appearing in this magazine! I am so excited and satisfied that I have reached   one of my largest writing goals for 2008. Now for the New Year. I predict many baby knits and parenting blogs...

Knit well and knit often.