Pattern: Big Footed Bunny, available here.
Fabric: The pants fabric is from Superbuzzy, the rest is misc cotton purchased locally

I like to think that my knitting is somewhat solid, execution-wise. Unfortunately I’m lacking in any sort of sewing skills, so we won’t be showing any closeups of bunny details. Take, for example, his club foot. Was it a sewing mishap or a poor stuffing job by yours truly? Who knows! And we won’t speak of the frankenstein-esque scar on his ass where I hand-stitched him shut. Good thing this bunny has pants.

When Mr. bunny isn’t propped up against our porch, you can see that his ears are floppy. Too floppy. The pattern said to stuff lightly, but I way understuffed. The ears back makes the bunny looks like our cat Joe when he’s up to something mischievous.

I cut the pieces out a few months ago and gradually pieced the bunny together over the past few weeks. I learned to really use my iron for this little guy, and that definitely made things a lot easier. Ironing is fun! The pattern is clearly written and easy to follow, but I’d say that it’s somewhat challenging to execute. I followed it to a T, only making minor modifications in embellishment - the eyes are embroidered rather than using buttons, and I left the suspenders off of the pants (they didn’t need them to stay up). I definitely did a bit of fudging to get things to work, including hand-stitching his widow’s peak to make it neat looking. My fabric frayed like crazy, and there were little wisps and threads that were itching to escape around the bunny’s face.

If you’re going to sew this pattern, you should seam the inner ears and topstitch the hands first - they look best using thread that matches the lighter fabric. Following the instructions in order leads to frequent machine rethreadings, which makes my old Kenmore 8 very cranky. I really need to get the machine serviced - rethreading the bobbin throws off the machine tension, and I spend forever mucking with it to get things evened out again.

Bunny butt!

Fabric wise, I chose the same pants fabric that the girl bunny in the pattern is wearing, total coincidence! The brown body fabric was a bit of a mistake - I chose it because the color was right, but it’s a cotton-poly blend and is somewhat thin and drapey. Drapiness isn’t such a good choice for softies, as every lump and bump of the stuffing is readily apparent.

Blackie wasn’t quite feeling the love. Hopefully baby-in-law (born last weekend, eep, I’m a bit late with the gifts) will heart the bunny!

I have declared this the Summer of Finishing. I have a number of teeny little projects that have been sitting around, taunting me at the top of my Ravelry project list, and they need to go! First on the list:

Pattern: Jacket in Alpaca, from Drops Design
Yarn: Rowan Cashsoft 4 ply in Forest and Fennel

This sweater has been ABB (all but buttons) for a couple of months now. I had dreams of finding the perfect kicky light-light turquoise buttons for it, but my dreams were crushed by my local button sources. I definitely should have searched for buttons while in NYC, but alas. I purchased a number of contenders (including these adorable flounders, but they weren’t high-contrast enough) and wound up going with some traditional shell buttons. So much for kicky.

The pattern had all the potential to be boring garter stitch, but I quite enjoyed it. The short rows added some interest, and the sweater really flew by.

I made two modifications to the pattern:

1. Wrapped my turns. The pattern says to just turn and tug the yarn tightly, but that still left me with holes. The wraps aren’t noticeable.

2. I didn’t bind off the arm stitches as called for - I instead placed them on waste yarn, and later cast on provisionally. At the end, I flipped the sleeves inside out and kitchenered the live stitches together, which created a line of bumps that does not disrupt the patterning. I am planning on redoing the grafting before I send this off, because my sloppy finishing is pretty obvious (so much for blocking out the wonkiness).

This is the first time I’ve used Rowan Cashsoft yarns, and they are extremely soft. Better yet, they’re machine washable, so they’re perfect (albeit a bit pricey) for baby wear. Unfortunately, the yarn is a bit splitty - I can see a couple of blips in the pattern where I only knit with one ply and the contrast color shows through. The sweater calls for two balls of each color - I used almost all of the dark green and about 1.5 balls of the light green.

I love the shape and construction of this sweater - such a simple idea, and the result is so cute. I was pondering making an adult-sized version of it, and ran into this version at Anthropologie. It’s the same exact construction in stockinette stitch with some garter eyelet rows in the blue yarn.

I had some leftovers from the sweater, so I decided to make some Saartje’s Booties:

These are teeny tiny. So, so wee! Baby-in-law won’t be wearing these with the 6-month sized sweater, since I made the newborn size. Do babies wear booties in August? Regardless, this is a cute-as-pie pattern.

I’d like to send a couple of other things to baby-in-law - my sister-in-law’s due date has indeed spurred my Summer of Finishing. I finally started sewing the Big Footed Bunny, after cutting out the pattern pieces months ago.

I am endlessly amused by bunny pants. These pants were hard, people, definitely out of my newbie sewing skills league. Easing in the ass of these pants is easily the hardest sewing I’ve ever done, followed closely by hemming the teeniest leg holes around.

Good thing that Blackie’s on hand to help.

I am totally and absolutely sick of knitting these days, so I’m expanding my crafty horizons!

Plying is FUN! The spinning itself: not as fun. But plying is WHEEEE all the way!

I helped Amy move her blog posts to a new url, and somehow convinced her to bring her new-to-her wheel over to my house. The fiber is Spunky Eclectic merino in the Nova Scotia colorway. The best part? The yarn is perfectly balanced after plying. After this, I felt inspired and plied up some of my spindle-spun roving, and the end result is twisty as hell.

Next up: sewing. I had a sewing phase a few years ago, but haven’t really done much besides clothing alterations recently. This was partly because of my old setup - my table and chair were both very short, so I would bend over the sewing machine as I worked. My back hurts just thinking about it. Ouch. I bought a new desk to use as a sewing table last weekend, so I’m ready to rock. I was planning on making this whale from this book, which has a sum total of two distinct pattern pieces. However, the pattern sheet looks like this:

It is also double-sided. My pattern pieces are in red, which really recedes behind all that black. I found one piece before my eyes crossed and I gave up.

Instead, we have this (which gets bonus points for having instructions in English):

That bunny? Has big feet! Well, he will have big feet once I assemble him. If you squint, you can see that my bunny-pants fabric is the same as in the pattern photo - total coincidence. I also managed to way overbuy fabric (in anticipation of kelpy mistakes), so I have enough to make three bunnies.

The bunny is for my sister-in-law, who is due in August. Baby stuff! I’m in the midst of compiling baby sweater patterns to make. She’s expecting a boy, so I’m open to suggestions!

Crochet! I now kinda-sorta know how to single crochet. Here’s a tip: don’t teach yourself to crochet with lightly-plied, super-hairy yarn. I kept piercing the yarn between the plies with the hook, which was a total pita.

There is still knitting going on behind the scenes. I’m working on the most looks-simple-but-is-epic project ever:

Knitting the ties are the equivalent of knitting a scarf and a half. Gah! You can see why I’m cheating on the knitting.

One last thing: Blackie hearts dotty! I swear, this is the last word on the cat bed. Except for posting the pattern. I need to knit a new pre-felted swatch to figure out my gauge, because my notes were wonderfully vague.