From pattern - to shop model - to real life model!

Patterns, patterns, patterns. There are a million of them! Some of them have great pictures - so you know what your finished item will look like. (And some don't!) 

Minnowknits patterns have always been popular with our customers. The designs are cute and work really well for babies and toddlers. And they've always have good photos, which is helpful!

We love their little dress patterns for girls. Back in 1999, when I was expecting my twin daughters,  I knit two of the Minnowknits Brittany Jumpers for Helen and Sophie. They were adorable! In 2002 when I opened the shop, my daughters had long outgrown the dresses, so they became shop samples. For several years the Brittany Jumper was a top selling pattern because of this.

Brittany Jumper

Over the years, we've made a number of dress samples. We've made the Sunflower Dress:

the Pinafore Dress:

and most recently, the Daisy Dress:

Now this pattern picture is adorable! And it certainly didn't NEED a shop sample to convince people to buy/make it. But we loved it so much that I ended up making a shop sample anyway:

The pattern calls for Jil Eaton CottonTail Yarn, but I substituted Berroco Weekend. It was a quick knit and I love the flowers!

Sometimes our staff members see samples and fall in love with them too. Luckily Polly had the perfect recipient for this adorable dress... her beautiful granddaughter! So we get to share pictures of another Daisy Dress, but this one... in action:

So cute!

This picture was taken in the Boston Common (at the Frog Pond!) on Emma's 1st birthday earlier this summer. Polly says that the dress wasn't on for very long since Emma was not quite walking at the time, and crawling in a dress is pretty much impossible! 

Polly's tips: She tacked down the petals of the daisies all the way around from the inside of the dress. This way, little hands are not tempted to try to pull off the flowers. GREAT idea!

She also used Berroco Weekend, like I did, and loved the way it came out. It's very soft and washes beautifully.

Dresses for the little girls in your life

It's always fun to knit little dresses. I know I've made many in my knitting career, and by looking at our sales reports for dress patterns, it's clear to me that you all have made many as well! Some of the best selling dress patterns for babies/little girls are by Minnowknits. The Brittany Jumper # 130 has always been one of my favorites. I made two of these - one for Helen and one for Sophie - when they were about a year old.

The Sunflower Dress #186 is adorable too. It has a little more coverage above from the waist up, and the fun buttons on the front, as well as the stitch patterning, give it that little something special.

The Cotton Candy Dress #218 is precious. It has sweet little sleeves and a lovely diamond pattern on the skirt and bodice.

The Pinafore Dress #230 was the hit of the year last spring. It was featured in several ad campaigns in knitting magazines, and is probably one of our top selling patterns, ever. It's actually one of Minnowknits' most simple dresses, and works well in both solid and variegated yarns.

And the most recent Minnowknits Dress, the Daisy Dress #238 is what I took to Florida last week for my vacation knitting. It is a simple hemmed dress with gorgeous I-cord flowers attached at the bottom of the skirt. I used Berroco Weekend and made several modifications to this pattern (see my changes in tomorrow's post). I'm thrilled, as it came out beautifully!
All of these patterns can be made in Jil Eaton Minnow Merino and Jil Eaton CottonTail yarns. Of course Berroco Comfort and Berroco Weekend are also wonderful options!

When seedlings sprout...

But in this case, it's the other way around... from a sprout comes a seedling? Or something like that.

Classic Elite Sprout, part of their Verde Collection, is a bulky weight 100% organic cotton. It's amazingly soft and has a lovely nubbly texture. We've used it now for several seasons in cotton sweaters, tanks, baby blankets and fun scarves for those who don't like wool or other blends. It's been so well received, in fact, that Classic Elite just introduced Seedling... the worsted weight sibling of Sprout.

And while we don't have the Classic Elite pattern booklets yet for spring (here's a peak at booklet 9133) this yarn can be used in any worsted weight pattern that calls for 4.5 stitches to the inch. (Think Mission Falls 1824 Cotton, recently discontinued and completely sold out... though we still have some wool left!)

The color range is smaller to start, and we opted out of the primaries and went for the more muted colors. These colors are perfect for both adults and babies. I was so inspired by the colors that I had to pick several and put them together in the same project. Here's a little progress on my recently started the Minnow Knits Krayon Krazy sweater. I've made this pattern before, so it's sort of an oldie but goodie. Super easy, cute, quick and a great way to combine 4 colors into the same sweater, without it being plain old stripes. Soon we'll have a coordinated, but not-too-matchy-matchy baby blanket done in the bulky weight Sprout.

A customer "share"

Our local customers love to come into the shop and share their finished projects with us. We really enjoy seeing what a great job they've done and seeing how excited they are with the end results.

We often get photos emailed to us - from either online customers or customers from out of state who've visited us here in Vermont - and when we get their permission, we love to share their projects.

Recently, Kim from GA wrote:
"This was my 7th knit. I came into the shop while on vacation and fell in love with the dress on display. I bought the pattern and was helped with yarn selection. I love the outcome and so does my little 3 year old! Thanks for the idea and help!!!"

And here is her beautiful daughter, Burke, modeling her new MinnowKnits Pinafore Dress! She was planning to wear it to her frist day of pre-school!Well done, Kim! And thanks so much for sharing. We hope Burke's first day of pre-school was super!

Customer Favorites

Over the past couple of weeks there have been some outstanding patterns and yarns that have been selling like crazy. Here are a few of the latest things that you may want to take a look at if you haven't already!

High Line Cardigan: This is a cute knit cardigan for layering over summery tops.

The pattern book is great and has a variety of other summertime knits in it including the White Rock Lake Pullover that was featured on our mannequin two weeks ago. Folks really like the feel and look of the subtle hues of Tahki's organic Good Earth Cotton yarn but I think this would knit up as a wonderfully bright summer splash of color using Classic Elite Katydid yarn too.

Minnow Knits #230 Pinafore Dress pattern and Jil Eaton Cottontail yarn: The combination of lovely colors in a machine washable cotton yarn and this adorable pattern have both of these items flying out of our shop. Maybe it's the butterfly sleeves on this little dress that's got everyone smiling? The pattern spans sizes 6 months to 4 years making it fairly versatile in the world of little people knits. We've sold this pattern to people who plan to use different yarns, too. Hey, substitutions are part of our job! We knit this up as a sample in the Mission Falls 1824 cotton because we wanted to see what the dress would look like using one of the Cotton Whirls (variegated). It's really cute!

Berroco Book #294 Origami and Berroco Origami yarn: This yarn is a great choice for the spring and summer. This blend of 58% acrylic, 16% linen, 15% nylon and 11% cotton has multicolored strands that knit into a remarkably light and crisp finished fabric. Color names like Sunset Rendezvous, Cucumber Water, and Party by the Shore definitely fit this summertime yarn well, and complement the designs you'll find in the pattern booklet.

The Pinafore Dress

I can't tell you how many of these patterns we've sold! All because of a cute little ad in a magazine for the Minnowknits Pinafore Dress pattern and the Jil Eaton Cottontail yarn. We've even sold out of the Cottontail yarn (in the same color it's pictured in) several times over.

It's a really cute pattern but I don't like always making something in the yarn it calls for. I'm on vacation now and needed a quick mindless project in a fun yarn. Because I just used Cottontail in the Sheep sweater from Roo Designs, I chose the Mission Falls 1824 Cotton in one of the "whirl" shades for the Pinafore Dress. I picked the "Bouquet" shade in tan and blues... think sand, sky and sea because after all, I was headed to Florida.
It knit up really quickly and is just adorable. The hem definitely curls a bit, but with a bit of blocking it will be perfect.

Crappers!

I've been working on my Roo Designs Sheep Roll Neck Sweater over the last week. I am using the Jil Eaton CottonTail. It's really turning out nicely, and I had high hopes that I'd be finished by Sunday. But I'm not.

I made some changes. Remember, you CAN make changes to a pattern! I didn't make any BIG changes, but I did do things differently than how the pattern was written.

1. For small areas on the sheep (the eyes) I elected to do the duplicate stitch instead of intarsia.
2. I was supposed to bind off both shoulder seams and then seam them together. Instead, I left the stitches on a holder, and worked a three needle bindoff on each side.
3. The pattern called for seaming one shoulder seam, then picking up and doing the neck, and then seaming the neck edge along with the second shoulder seam. I don't like to do that - I'm not a fan of any type of seam on a neck edge. So I closed both shoulder seams, and plan to work the neck on double pointed needles. (I'm not quite there yet!)
4. The sleeve decreases called for a k2tog on both sides of the sleeves. I changed it and worked a k1,ssk at the beginning of the row, and a k2tog,k1 at the end of the row. These slanted decreases line up better.
5. The sleeve decreases were supposed to be worked every 3 rows. I prefer (and always recommend) to work the decreases on right side rows. I am anal about keeping those slants going the right way, and it's just easier to always do it on the right side rows. Plus, I calculated my row gauge, and there were plenty of rows to make this change from every 3rd row to every 4th row.

I was nearing the home stretch last night, and was working the seams. Look what I found when I got to the bottom!

OOPS! I can now add a final change to this pattern:

6. Cutting the bottom edge off, and re-knitting the bottom back ribbing, cuz, well... clearly I can't count.

Hey, we all screw up!

Baa baa white sheep, have you any cotton?

When the new Roo Designs patterns arrived last week, I fell in love with several of them! Since I completed my baby block project, I was feeling ready to tackle another intartsia project.

I had a hard time choosing between the Owl Sweater and the Sheep Sweater... and I may just end up knitting both of them!

But then we got a shipment of the new Jill Eaton CottonTail yarn, and with its gauge and great selection of fun & happy colors, it was a perfect match for the Sheep Sweater, so my decision was made.

I had a busy weekend so didn't get as much done as I'd hoped, but I am well on my way. It's been fun knitting with the CottonTail. I really like it, and I'm not a huge cotton fan.

We also got some fun new Jil Eaton Minnowknits patterns which work with this yarn, too.

Look what I dug up

It sure feels like Christmas around here! We've had some really cold temperatures and a lot of snow. Yesterday morning we had just a dusting, but by 2pm it started coming down hard and fast, making for an interesting commute home! I awoke this morning to a good 10-12 inches of new snow in the backyard. Today is just gorgeous and Marc and the girls got an early start - they headed up to Stowe for some major powder. This snow is the lightest, fluffiest stuff - very sparkly! I'm sure they are having a blast.

Last night I was doing some computer work at home - going through some old digital photos of the girls when they were little. It seems like just yesterday that they were babies, so how is it that they are already 9? Anyway, I noticed a few hand knit things in some of my pictures. Before you see the pictures... warning! My children were basically bald until they were almost 2. They inherited that from me.

First, I found a picture of the night I finished their Christmas stockings. It was Christmas Eve of 2000, and the girls were 1 and a half. I did try the stockings on... I remembered correctly.
Sarah and Ellie (white tail is visible) were my old cats. They are no longer with us, but they did like to keep me company when I knit.

And then here are the girls the next morning, unloading their stockings. Clearly, they weren't too sure about it all. Helen's looking at Sophie like "What the HECK are you doing?" She was hard to wake up back then, and boy, some things never change. Another thing that hasn't changed? Sophie rips into every package, and Helen savors things. Funny how evident this is at such an early age.
Then I found some other pictures of them wearing things I'd knit for them. I think this is the picture I used for our Christmas card that year. They are wearing their Swedish Day Dresses, a Minnowknits pattern that has been discontinued. It was obviously more a summer dress, but I made it work for fall with a turtleneck and tights. They don't seem to mind.

These pictures are earlier... in this one they are not yet one. Again, wearing some Minnowknits dresses. This pattern is the Brittany jumper, but I do remember adding length to this one. I'm not into short dresses that expose the diaper when the kid bends over. I used Saucy Sport for these, and it really held up well with all the wearing, washing and drying. We still sell this pattern, and have one of these actual dresses in the shop. It's a big seller.

Here we have some more Minnowknits sweaters, though this pattern was in a book, which has been discontinued I think. And finally, two non-Minnowknits patterns! Helen (left) is wearing a great sweater from the Debbie Bliss Quick Baby Knits book. I LOVED this sweater. I think it had a turtleneck which I switched to a crew. It was so great. Sophie is wearing a sweater I had knit for my niece (who is now 18). It was a really cute Rowan kids pattern.
So see, I DID used to knit a lot more for my kids, before I owned a shop. Maybe I will make a New Year's Resolution this year, to try to knit more for them... but will they wear things I make for them, now that they have a say? Stay tuned.

A new favorite yarn

What a great weekend we had for the 4th - hope everybody else had a nice time, too. We had four gorgeous, sun-filled days at our camp in Maine. The lake was over a foot higher than normal from all the rain they'd had, and we arrived to find our dock pieces (and everybody else's) had floated away. After finding the pieces and raising the dock about 8" so it wasn't submerged, the sun came out and things started to dry out. There was lots of relaxing, lots of tubing (for the kids) and even a little knitting!

I started on my Marble baby sweater and almost finished the back by the end of our first day there. But then I had an urge to try the Minnow Merino so I started the little sweater out of that. And look what I have now:

It was easy and quick, and I loved the yarn! Tip for all who knit this - I used one size down for all hems and front ribbings. The pattern does not call for this, but I strongly recommend going down one size needle - otherwise your hems will flare. I made the smallest size, and it is really precious.

Suzie was in the other day and picked up some of the Minnow Merino. She emailed me and said:

"Minnow Merino is the MOST WONDERFULLY AWESOME YARN TO knit with -- dare I type nicer than cotton??? Ah and the color!!! So deep! Good grief Jill, I just cast on for a mitten and think I've gone to heaven. I can't believe how soft it is. I'll be in tomorrow for some more colors (yeah, I KNOW it's wool and I know it is 100+ degrees out, BUT.....that yarn is incredible!)"

Camp knitting

I'm headed to our camp in Maine tonight for the 4th of July weekend. It's Marc's 40th birthday, so he will be having his favorite "lobstah" dinner tomorrow night. I like lobster, but not the getting messy part, so Marc's nice enough to pry & pick the meat out of my lobster so I don't have to deal with the ick... I mean, he's getting messy anyway, so it's really no trouble in my opinion!

There won't be knitting on the drive over - only in little spurts here and there. Four hours of driving on Route 2 while trying to knit is enough to make you seriously carsick. Believe me, I've tried. Marc's great - he gives me warnings "In about 2 minutes you should put your knitting down" or "Up around this curve you can start knitting again." What a perfect partner!

I do have a few small projects to take with me and hopefully there will be some down time so I can knit. I am going to make (well, start?) a Minnowknits Coco Loco out of the new Minnow Merino. It's a sweater I've knit before, but I just love it, and the colors of the Minnow Merino are calling out to me. It was hard to decide which ones to use, but after about 10 minutes of complete indecision, I ended up choosing these three:

I think it will be so cute!

Then yesterday we got a new yarn in - it's from Kertzer and it's called Marble. It's 100% acrylic and is perfect for baby blankets, afghans, sweaters and more. It's surprisingly soft - in my opinion it is AS soft as Encore (if not more so...) It's a dk weight, but also crosses over well into the 5 stitches to the inch/worsted category. I started a little baby sweater last night and I like it a lot! I know, I know... I've always been sort of a 100% acrylic snob. But this one really changed my mind when I saw it a few weeks ago, and I know that people will really like it. That's why I brought in 14 great colors of it to start. Aren't they pretty?

Make way for Minnow Merino

The Be Sweet yarns are finally online, but our ravenous shop customers have pretty much decimated our stock in just one short week! I apologize - some of the images online are not showing up. I'm working on fixing that.

We have very low quantities in some colors, but there is a lot more on order and we'll just have to be patient. I can tell that it's going to be hard to keep this in stock, so if you want some, order it and if we don't have it, we'll put you in line for it. We should be getting another shipment of Magic Balls (and some new colors) in about 2 weeks.

Yesterday we got our shipment of Jil Eaton's Minnow Merino - WOW! This is washable superfine merino wool for kids - but don't just think kids - these colors may be bright and kid-like, but that's not going to stop me from using it for myself. We had several customers madly digging into the box as we unloaded it. (This has been a trend with our shipments recently...)

New Jil Eaton patterns are due in next week. Can't wait to start working on this yarn!

I'm finishing up a cute little bag made with one Knobby Ball and a Be Sweet pattern. I'll have a photo tomorrow.