I have just completed and mailed this gorgeous baby blanket and hat to the United Kingdom. I am hoping for its safe arrival by the end of next week because the baby who will use it arrives January 22nd 2010.
Ever since the pattern arrived in the LYS where I used to work I have wanted a reason to knit this stunning lace baby blanket. When my dear friend Sue Medlycott told me in 2009 that her elder daughter Lisa and husband Craig were expecting ab baby in early 2010 I knew immediately that a baby blanket would be made by me and I would finally get to use the Estonian Lullaby Baby Blanket pattern at last.
When I resigned from the LYS in early 2008 I made a decision with myself not to buy any yarn until I could see the tops of the window seats.. Shopping in that stash I found 8 balls of Sirdar Snuggly Babycare DK yarn. The pattern wanted 1050 yards and with the 8 balls at 147 yards I had 1176 yards. This yarn is a combination of acrylic and cotton in a white/cream colour and the label describes it as being machine washable. I am hoping that it will be an easy care yarn for Lisa to take care of.
I started the project in October using #8 addi turbo needles and got gauge straight away. As we don’t know the sex of the baby I chose the design with the garter stitch border rather than the more lacy border. The pattern is extremely well written and the graphs are very accurate and easy to read.
Like most lace projects I have made once I start they become an obsession as I have to do a pattern repeat each time I pick the knitting up during the day. This with DK weight yarn and #8 needles seemed to fly along and I found myself doing a repeat quickly. I did complete the blanket in November but as I had eye surgery the finishing had to wait until I could see comfortably to do that.
There was some yarn left over so I made a little toddler hat using Ann Norling pattern #55 that needed 140 yards of DK weight yarn. Now I am not sure if that will be too small or too large for the baby, but it was one way of using the left over yarn.
Because of the yarn mixture the blanket and the hat are very soft but also extremely light in weight. I knew that an all cotton blanket would weigh quite heavily on a new baby so am delighted with the choice I made as it really does look and feel both light and airy.
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Michele Camacho and Carl Brittain
One of the nicest yarn companies I saw at Stitches West 2009 was a sister and brother team, Michele Camacho and Carl Brittain of Toots LeBlanc & Co. a family owned business located in Oregon. 
We had stopped to look at another booth and as I turned around I noticed an Alice Starmore designed hand knitted fair isle sweater hanging up on the booth opposite. The sweater knitted in two soft natural colours using Toots LeBlanc yarns was really lovely and of course I then had to touch and feel everything they had in their booth.
Carl Brittain
They sell roving in a blend of Jacob/Alpaca and then several blends of yarn including, Merino/Angora, Jacob/Alpaca, Jacob/Alpaca/Mohair, and Blue-Faced Leicester/Pygora Goat. Looking at their website they have yarn from lace weight up to bulky weight in a selection of natural colours and blends. In this day and age when everyone is looking for natural plant and animal fiber it was nice to find out that this company use just the natural colours from the animals. And also no harsh soaps or chemicals were used in the processing of the fiber or yarns.
Michele Camacho
When I looked at the website for Stitches West 2010, Toots LeBlanc & Co is listed on the vendor site so will be visiting their booth again this year.
They have some very nice patterns for sale including, a felted tea cozy which I think would be great for gift for the 2010 Holiday Season…. And if you notice Michele has a ‘bracelet’ hanging on her left arm which holds a wound skein of yarn safely while knitting anywhere. I bought one and find it great when knitting outside as I don’t have the fear of my yarn falling on the ground or on a dirty floor inside a store. An added bonus is that Chester and Lester my two Maine Coon cats ignore the yarn when it is not loose on a chair, a sofa or table and I can knit in peace.
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I was very lucky to get the book A Stitch in Time by Jane Waller and Susan Crawford for Christmas. We had to order it directly from a company in the UK as it was not available anywhere in America. The original edition we found through one business in the UK was being sold for 215 pounds so we decided that a newer version with apparently less patterns was good enough for 29.99 pounds.
The book is very well presented with the ‘original’ pattern from each era reprinted with the updated 2008 version of the knitting pattern. So many of the really old patterns only came in one size – usually tiny – and in this book they have added several sizes and modern yarns. I like that they have put the yardage/meters on the yarns they have used because I can then use a substitute when I go through my stash of yarn.
All the photos are very nice and the patterns can easily be seen in the yarns they have knitted them in. Many times companies will do a stunning design, then use gorgeous yarns only to do the sample in navy blue or black which makes it very difficult to see the design in the photographs.
Every pattern in the book needs to be knitted as far as I am concerned. So many choices that I am going to keep reading the book for another week or so and then make a decision after I have completed Alan’s sweater.
The blog has not been kept up to date because I had been having problems with eye sight. This had to be addressed and finally after a few tears I had cataract surgery on my left eye. The surgery was December 10th and now with corrective lenses I have 20/20 vision in my left eye. My eyes will be retested January 15th and will then have new glasses made which hopefully will allow me to drive again and also use the computer comfortably with no glare.
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