Baby boys can be difficult

Is it just me or does everything to do with babies just scream cute and sweet and.....feminine? I've been struggling with designs for baby boys. My good friend is awaiting the birth of her first grandchild, and the word is that it's a boy. I hope these little foxes are manly enough.

100% merino wool felt and merino wool (ribbed cuffs)

Pink tiles

I'm working away on the fondant cake topper for the baby shower cake. It's a little like those old paint-by-number paintings. I watch a bit of the instructional video (from Craftsy) and then I run to the kitchen to do 'what she did'. So far, so good.

I had to have 2 tries at the tiled floor. A pizza cutter is a fondant girl's best friend apparently.

And now I've got the bunny's tub in place. See the little puddle of bath water that's spilled over onto the floor? Adorable! Every time I finish a section, I have to have a little sit down to collect myself. It's not like the world will stop spinning if I mess up. It's just that I really want this cake to be nice for my niece's baby shower.

I still have 12 days until the shower. And counting.

Just another Sunday afternoon

Who knows what these are? Anyone? Anyone? (that's a little Ferris Bueller humour, for those of you old enough to remember).

(I was thinking of entitling this post, "Everything in duplication.") I'm making a baby shower cake. Not only have I promised this cake, but I am determined to make a really cute fondant cake topper to crown it with. No matter that I've really never done much with fondant before, except for the cats I modeled this past summer. I just want to. So, I did what I always do. I'm going back to school. I'm following along with a Craftsy course called Too Cute Cake Toppers. And they are. Too cute, that is.

The topper is built on a base. Usually, it's styrofoam, but I couldn't find a styrofoam base, nor could I find the styrofoam form for the bathtub that the bunny is supposed to be bathing in. No biggie. I made my own out of krispie treats. Now, here's a tip for anyone out there who might also be thinking of doing this......leave out the butter. The disk on the right has margerine. The one on the left has no margerine and no butter. The margerine one is flexible. The non-fat one is dense and hard. No human is going to eat this base, so dense and hard is much better than flexible but delicious. You can quote me on that. I'm hoping the toothpicks and skewers that hold things in place will pierce the krispie treat base in the same way as styrofoam.

The first order of business is to construct the shower head, because it needs to air dry at least for overnight. I read other people's experiences, and thought I might need a back-up just in case the first one breaks during assembly. They're both OK. For now.

I have 2 weeks to pull this off. I thought it might be good to start early.

When I'm not working on baby shower cake toppers, or consulting Pinterest, or other fondant/cake decorating sites on the internet, or making cookies, you all know I've been working on the Cowichan-style sweater. There's been a lot of internet research involved in that project, too. And some un-knitting and re-knitting.

Finally, today, I have both fronts completed. I pinned them out and gave them a little steam blocking, so I could measure for the zipper. It has to come all the way from Winnipeg. There are 2 choices of colour....black or cream. Since they are cheap, and I am confused about what 'cream' could mean, I ordered one of each, and I'll decide once they arrive. I have lots of time. I still have the sleeves to knit, as well as the back which I'm re-knitting for about the 3rd time. That will all be worth it though, I'm sure, because I'm lovin' those howling wolves under the starry sky.

Babies!!

What's with all the babies lately?? Suddenly, everyone's having a baby. Girl babies!! Here are a few cookies I've made for a shower later this month. They're simple and quiet and pink, pink, pink!

I don't know why I have to be reminded that simple is always best. I start out full of all kinds of ideas and details, and I end up remembering there's something sweet in minimalism.

Even tinier

A friend of a friend has a new granddaughter who was born early.  They named her Ivy, and something about the story touched my heart. I imagined all the people who were worrying about her, and wishing her their best, hoping she'd be OK.

I graded my booties down from a new-born size to a preemie size. I hope they fit. You can see how tiny they really are.

The last word I had was that Ivy was home, and doing well. Welcome to the world little Ivy.

Pretty little feetsies

Here's another little pair of baby booties. So cute. So much fun to fuss over ..... as are babies!

I'm offering these up for sale for the benefit of  The Lyndhurst Feral Cat Project. $30 Canadian plus shipping if you're not lucky enough to live in the Kingdom of Coco. With today's exchange rate that's only a little over $22. US (Yikes, that's a real bargain, eh?) plus shipping. For personal shopping, they'll be available at the Lyndhurst Turkey Fair on September 19, 2015 along with a whole bunch of cookies, and some other crafty goodness.

Details on the booties: the foot is 3 1/2 inches long, so according to the size chart I found on this site  http://www.bevscountrycottage.com/size-chart.html#foot  they ought to fit a newborn. They're made of 100% merino felt and the ribbed cuff is Louet Gems 100% merino wool. Hand wash.

Sweet enough to eat

Tiny little booties. All done. So sweet.

100% merino wool felt and 100% Alpaca yarn, with cotton embroidery floss

Tiny toes

I can't quite remember now how I got here, but I seem to be making baby booties. Now that the cookie commitments are fulfilled (for the moment), the Smiley Sweater beckons, and yet, I'm making boots for babies. I blame it on the heat.

I put the quarters in the photo, so you'd see exactly how small and precious these boots are. I think they'd fit a baby of about 6 to 9 months. 100% merino wool felt and some truly scrumptious 70% wool/20% angora/10% silk for the cuffs. So soft and special.

I guess it all started when I saw a pile of knitting books in some yarn shop's newsletter. I was quite taken by the photo on the cover of Baby Love: Knitted Booties for Tiny Feet.  All I could see was the cover and title, but the photo was intriguing enough for me to go into search mode. The book is by Catherine Bouquerel.

Further searching led me to a fabulous deal on the very last copy at http://bookoutlet.ca/ at the very moment when they had a promotion going on. It was meant to be. I just love the way she has reduced for the instep of the bootie.

Here's my take on Peter Pan which is one of the designs in the book which also uses that clever decrease. These are made from Heritage 150 Paints by Cascade Yarns. It's a 75% merino superwash with 25% nylon. The booties are knit flat, and seamed up the back of the heel, but next time, I'm going to knit them in the round, once I've finished the sole. I also have some ideas for variations on the felt booties, so I guess I'm riding a baby bootie wave for a while.

New Directions

With winter and snow and mittens in the rear view mirror, looking ahead to spring ...

... with a new project. I have a very loose plan, and lots of Cascade 220 Superwash wool to play with. Let's start with squares knit in the round. Knitted quilt blocks, really. Here's the first one:

Blocking is magic, isn't it?

Duetta

It's Wednesday again. And we're trying really hard to keep the screaming caps and the exclamation marks to a minimum. But today's the day we promised we'd show you our newest design. We're so excited. Never has anything come together so easily, so well and so close to our vision.

Duetta Copyright © Cheryl Coville 2012

This is   Duetta  ...... where quilting and knitting come together to make beautiful music.......and a pretty darling little baby sweater. The knitting brings softness, drape and a comfortable fit while the quilted yoke lends structure and beauty.

We've done it with an appliquéd heart design and we've done a paper-pieced chevron design. Of course, the peek we showed last week was this crazy quilted version. We think you could do just about anything on that yoke. Cross-stitch, maybe? Embroidery, for sure.

The knitting's done in fingering weight yarn which could include sock yarn. The quilting requires less than a fat quarter of fabric. Duetta is a very simple design that assumes only a basic level of knitting and quilting skills. It is sized for 9 - 12 months.

Copyright © Stephanie Coville 2012

The hardest part is probably finding a cute baby worthy of such a lovely sweater. But, we've got that covered, too. How lucky are we?

Copyright © Stephanie Coville 2012

Grandma Coco has already tested the pattern and according to our friend Kate, that means it's ready for Beta testing (which is where an objective third party tries it out). We are therefore looking for a couple of people who would like to test drive it. We'd like someone to try the appliquéd hearts version and someone to make the paper-pieced chevron design and report back on their experience. Ideally, we'd like that to be done in the next month. So, if you'd like to make a sweet baby sweater, please contact us at:  grandmacocosdesigns (at) gmail (dot) com  and we'll send you out the Beta version of Duetta.


This being Wednesday, we're linking to the Needle and Thread Network.
Be sure to click on over and see what the other Canadian needleworkers are up to.

~ Happy Day!

Look, Ma! We're crazy quilting!

We are SO close to being ready to show our top-secret project! It's very exciting but for now all we dare show is this little pink peek. We never really tried to crazy quilt before but with Kathy for inspiration, we've been dying to try. This little project provided the perfect opportunity. We're linking up with the Needle and Thread Network because this is what we're working on this Wednesday.  We hope by next Wednesday we'll be ready to show (and tell) all. Be sure to come back for the big reveal. For now check out what other Canadian crafters are up to.

~ Mysteriously yours,

Aren't babies cute?

We've been waiting patiently for the birth of our new great-niece and we are happy to announce that she she has arrived!! She is beautiful. And perfect. Her parents are thrilled and both sets of grandparents are pretty happy, too. Of course babies need quilts ... or is it that quilters need to make quilts for babies? And what's not to love about a baby quilt? They'll small and sweet, too.




Barnyard Roundup


You know we've had kind of a love affair going on with those pre-printed panels. But they're sometimes hard to incorporate into a quilt.

This is also the baby quilt we mentioned when we were gathering intel about machine quilting. We think it turned out pretty well. We took the "less is more" approach and left it puffy and sproing-y. We hope our little princess will enjoy sleeping under it.