Yarn Shop | Mama Loves Knitting

Baby Evelyn Mae’s Hat

I got to be at another birth and it was an awfully special one, especially close to my heart. This little nugget joined our family almost a week ago and I was present for her first breath of Montana air. She was born right in her Mama and Papa’s peaceful bedroom, and she’s my niece Evelyn Mae. I am working on a blanket similar to the one I made for Baby Bill Jeff but with a different color scheme. I knit a bit during the labor, but I wasn’t working on the hat, that was complete and I had gifted it to Sarah that night, at our house, right after her water broke at our kitchen counter. We were having a bit of a surprise party for her because her birthday was only a few days later and we figured the weekend would be the best time. We were about an hour into the party when ~ “blammo” drenched drawers. We surprised her baby out! Or maybe Evelyn thought the party was for her.

We headed to her house, and I went along for the ride, as I’d planned to be her birth doula. Her midwife visited just to check heart rate, blood pressure and dilation. All looked well. Contractions hadn’t started just yet, so I headed back home for an hour, when Bryan texted me things were getting more serious. That didn’t take long.

Sarah labored through the night with mighty gusto. Bryan was by her side the entire time and things went perfectly. Mama might still beg to differ, but I’m sure not for long. Sandhano (her midwife (and mine 4.5 years ago)) came back around 5:30 AM and Sarah was ready to push. 1.5 hours later she pushed her sweet baby out right before the light of the morn on October 22nd.

Not sure how many stitches I cast on but I know that I just looked back at another ribbed hat for a babe I’d made before. I suppose I probably did somewhere near 60, of course some multiple of 4 as that is a requirement to make this pattern work. k2, p2 all the way around using size 6 circular needles. The variegated yarn I used was wool from Skyline Yarns purchased a couple of years ago, her Etsy shop has been empty for a while now, but I save it (hoard it) for special occasions…such as this one. I am promised the yarn shop will be back someday. The yarn pictured is sock yarn (fingering yarn) but just because it is “sock yarn” doesn’t mean it has to be used for socks only. In fact I’ve never completed a pair of socks…but I’m always on the lookout for pretty sock yarn.

This little hat is so tiny that I was asked if it was made for a hamster. Uncool. Hamsters don’t even wear hats.

I promise to share more photos and love just as soon as I complete the blanket. I’m 1/2 way there. Here is a snip of what it looks like (a bit before the 1/2 way mark) and Thanksgiving felt project my sister (Sloane’s Mama) and I are working on.

Welcome to the world sweet Evelyn. We all adore you!

Hi Knitting Blog

I’ve been away from you, but definitely not away from my knitting. I’ve got a handful of projects for new babes coming into the world and for sweet babes already in the world. I have my sweater in a good place, just awaiting the assistance of the Knitting Jedi to finish up the hood. She is this woman that is probably in her 60s and she’s been knitting since she was 3 years old. I’m pretty sure she might know every single thing there is to know about knitting. My sweater has sleeves now though…I could conceivably wear it without the hood…but I kind of had my heart set on a hood.

Soon soon – the air is chilling – it is harder and harder to get out of my nice warm bed every morning. Pretty soon I’ll be all snuggled up in a nice warm sweater of my own creation.

I had a fun and very full summer. Each of the places I visit, in addition to checking out the local toy store, I’ve now found I need to find the local yarn shop. I made it back to the midwest for a visit and my sister and I had a couple of days sans our kiddos while Grandma and Grandpa spent some quality time with them. We found a couple of magical yarn shops that I hadn’t ever been to.

The first was Crafty Planet in Minneapolis. We decided since we had time we’d find the yarn I would use to make her baby a blanket and hat. Both will be featured in future posts. The blanket yarns are upon her shrinking lap (courtesy of Spud & Chloe). They had several yarns to choose from so it was pretty fun to look without distractions, they also had some pretty great fabric so we spent a LOT of time at Crafty Planet.

Then we got hungry and there was a tiny little restaurant that happened to be right around the corner. We actually did a GPS search for restaurants (pulled over on the side of the street) and we decided on our destination and we were about 20 feet from the parking lot. Probably didn’t really need the GPS to help us get there, actually, who am I kidding?, we did. This was my delicious lunch at Chimborazo.

Now back to the yarn. The next stop was pretty much my dream come true. The only bad part about this entire place was the temperature and that was simply because it was 100+ degrees outside in the muggy muggy midwest. Borealis was the shop we sought out in St. Paul, MN. This was outside the front door and I think it ought to be their home page photo…just sayin’.

I’m pretty into the idea of tagging things these days. My tags will unfortunately never be this awesome.

Now for the yummy inside of the store. I will mention this place is HUGE, it has 3 separate yarn rooms – an entire room for just sock yarn. If sock yarn is your ‘thing’ you will probably want to put it on your list of places to visit before you run out of yarn. Which poses the question does any knitter/crocheter ever run out of yarn? I recently told Jan that I hope I live long enough to use up all of my fabric and my yarn. She told me I would just buy more, so that was probably impossible.

There is something about cubes full of yarn that makes my heart sing. I’m so happy they didn’t care that I was taking photos.

Don’t you just want to stick your entire arm right in the middle of this rainbow?

Just do it!

Summertime Bike Basket and Vacation

This, my friends, is adorable!

And if you want to knit it up the pattern can be found right here. Courtesy of Knitting Today. You can fill *the cutest basket in the world* with your market goodies or a bouquet of flowers and you’re sure to get some compliments. FUN!

This is what much of our summer consists of….

In case you’re wondering where I’ve been, I’ve been knitting (from time to time) so that hasn’t stopped, but summertime is really for my kids so they have been my complete and utter focus. Somehow this morning it is nearly 9:30 and they are still asleep (summertime first). We’ve been having a blast this summer. I can’t promise I’ll do a ton more posts but I’ll do my darnedest to get one done every now and again.

Ooh one other thing I’ve been meaning to mention is that I went to New Orleans a few weeks ago and while I was there, as with every trip away, I like to find yarn shops. I found a shop called the Quarter Stitch, in the French Quarter, and it was fun, but geared more toward needlpoint(ers) rather than knitters.

They did have a bit of yarn in there but nothing that I couldn’t live without. I was hoping to venture to another yarn shop outside of the Quarter called Bette Bornside Company but I never did end up making it there…next time I suppose. The web site isn’t much to speak of, no pretty pictures, but it seemed intriguing so I will try and make it there next time we are back in NOLA.

These two delights were within a block of the yarn shop though. I have a LOT of food photos from our trip, makes perfect sense, why else would one go to New Orleans?

Happy Summertime Knitting!