Mama and me matching rainbow socks

My first knit socks. Hers were first of course.

She took the above picture.

They are very comfy. They were knit on 2 circular needles, I learned from the book "Knitting Circles Around Socks" by Antje Gillingham. The book teaches sock knitting wonderfully, but the errors in the book are atrocious. I have actually since started knitting socks on dpns, which I prefer. The circular needle method requires, for my taste, far to much of the scooching of the stitches. But it is nice to finish both socks at the same time. Of course, you can do that anyway if you have two sets of dpns, if you are so inclined.

The sewn purses

We made purses. I had received a sewing machine for Christmas and had sewn a few bean bags. We had a visitor in town who was 10. Attempting to find an activity that was rewarding to both a 10 year old and a 3 year 0ld, I thought we would sew purses. This idea was flawed because what is interesting to a 3 year old for more than 20 minutes is not always interesting to a 10 year old for more than 5 minutes and what is interesting to a 10 year old for more than 20 minutes is not always interesting to a 3 year old for more than 5 minutes.

But with a little fanfare, I can usually pull it off. That is, if I am not dealing with the other major flaw of this idea. I have never actually done this before and I am a novice sewer. So I am managing the disputes of who gets to push down the foot pedal (while really, I ought to be doing it myself, given that I really should give my novice sewer self the advantage of keeping my own pace), trying to keep it interesting to my 3 year old even though half the time she has to wait patiently while the 10 year old does hers. Add an iron to the mix, and here comes disaster.

The only reason this worked is because really, the 10 year old and the 3 year old are amazing kids with patience beyond their years.

The girls pretty much picked their own fabrics, with some veto power from me (too thin, too thick). That was an adventure in and of itself, as my 3 year old picked out hers in 30 seconds, but we spent 45 minutes in the store. I had forgotten that after age 7, shopping isn't necessarily so simple.

Here is the 10 year old's purse, the stitching was picked by her, the cool zig zag. I was not really excited about this choice because my mistakes would show up more, but she had faith in my abilities after I warned her, and it turned out pretty cool.

And here is M's purse.

Afterwards, we got fabric paint, and the girls painted them.

Matching crocheted Rainbow hat

The completed set.

Here it is in progress. It was completed early April 2008. The hat is also made with Sugar n Cream cotton yarn.

There's that i cord. I love this get up. M landed in the paper wearing the dress.

Knitted Rainbow Dress

The name of this dress comes from M, I asked her what we should call it. This was the dress I made in March, 08. It was based on the folk festival frock pattern from the book Boho Baby Knits by Kat Coyle. A friend showed me the pattern and I liked it, but I made the belt part lower and the skirt part flared. As you can see, my signature "too big" style is present... but I later fixed that with an i-cord tie in the back. If I lengthen the skirt, she'll be able to wear it til she's 15! And she loves it almost as much as I do. I used sugar n cream cotton self striping yarn and got the cool effects that changed throughout.

No hair day

My first projects were completed in Janury, this in February, 08. This I stumbled upon when looking for a sun hat pattern for M. This is the link for what I found instead: http://www.headhuggers.org/patterns/kpatt10.htm

It is called "The 'No-Hair-Day' Hairy Chemo Cap. My friend's daughter (10 months younger than M) had just commented on not liking her mom's post chemo hair . So I made them matching hats. I asked her what color she wanted, this was what she chose.

My daughter comments when we go and look at yarn and she sees this yarn, "This is weird yarn, isn't it?" As a novice knitter, I must have said that several times, as it is very forgiving if you make a mistake (the fur hides everything), but if you make a mistake, it's harder to fix, because you can't rip it easily or see it well to fix it.

I think they are great fun. My dh, when I started knitting, told me "Just don't make anything for me." He is very wise, and was avoiding a potentially less than ideal situation (me knitting with love, him really not wanting to wear it). But when he saw this, he told me, "You can make me one of those. In yellow."

The mismatching matching buddy mittens

So after the hat came the mittens, with little people and an matching hat to match her hat. What is dear to me about these especially is that these mittens are for my daughter, the white yarn I bought, the blue yarn my mother got for us, and the embroidery floss is from my grandmother (my father's mother). The mittens that span four generations! I made the one that slightly resembles M first. And then I asked her who the second one would be.

And there he is, our neighbor and her dear friend, O. She adored these mittens, but 8 months later when we got them out as we started to ready for the weather change, she was very disconcerted that they didn't match. Matching is very important when you are 3. But then I reminded her that they actually DO indeed match, that it was O and M wearing matching hats, and the matching need was met.
I love these mittens, but I should have used a different body yarn, I didn't know enough about yarn, and I think that while I love this yarn, I think it may get scratchy after a while. But where we live, chances are she won't need to wear them long enough to bother her.
The hat, I think, I was lucky it fit her (even as a novice knitter, I didn't knit guage, the pattern was for an adult, I was using a different yarn, etc.). But the mittens were the beginning of my knit-it-too-big-on-purpose m.o.. Maybe I have a phobia that by the time I finish, it will be too small, but I think that really I just felt that if I knit it, I want it worn too big, just right, and a bit snug.
The idea for these came from the memory that I had gloves with faces on each finger when I was a kid that entertained me for hours, I did a search for mittens and finally found these: http://www.aristofashion.com/handknit/freepatterns.htm but I pretty much played it as I went along, and made the hats to match hers. I was going to add the cat ears, but she just wanted the mittens already.

Note: We went to Chicago in Feb of 09 and M would announce to me when holding my hand: "You're holding your Molly!" Or "You're holding Oscar!" I love how much she loves these.

The Kitty hat

So in late December, 2007, I learned to knit. Ultimately it seemed as if I wanted a x-mas stocking for my daughter like my grandmother made for me, I'd have to do it myself, as no one I knew who knew how to knit was knitting socks. A wonderful friend and a wonderful fellow mama turned me on to Stitch 'n Bitch, and I was off. I really didn't want to spend the time knitting a scarf as my first knit item, as we don't really live in that climate. I loved the Kitty hat. Here is M modeling my first knitted item, before I added the ears.

Here she is making a snow angel in the hat (with the mittens that shortly followed)

And on a blustery day at the beach in Mexico in February.

Sunflowers and dientes de leon

These are my favorite, sunflowers for my sunshine.

Here is Grandma playing with Molly in the garden.

And my personal favorite flower, the dandelion... in Spanish Diente de leon, or Lion's tooth. A flower so strong, they call it a weed.

Before the knit, the wall

Before I was knitting, I painted the garden in M's room. It started with this fairy that a friend drew and I painted. I had thought about painting over her, I decided she was too girly for me. Then another friend talked me out of it, saying that the fairy reminded her of me when we were kids (I was bald at the time).

And M seemed to love it.

The next fairy I drew felt much more like us now, a bit more spritish. And I felt we needed more diversity. I liked the daisies, so I decided to paint her to blend in a bit. But then I got stuck on how I wanted to paint the wings. I also felt we needed a chubbier fairy in the mix, to match M, but by the time I finished this one...

M stretched out. She really liked the wall art, down at her level.

My first big knit

Before the knits, came the inspiration, my favoritest creation. Work in progress, begun in September 2004, born June 18, 2005. I'd say she's still on the needles, but I think maybe I'm on hers.