Birthday Knits!

I still cannot believe that I have a 5 year old! I simply do not know where the time went, or how it happened to go by so quickly! I am so happy and proud of my sweet Lilly Grace, and she is such a good sister to her brothers.

Birthdays are a great time for special knits, and her's was definitely no exception! I have started a tradition this past year, of knitting a special toy and hat for the kids on their birthdays. Peter started the tradition with his Birthday Cake hat and the Frog/Turtle toy. Lilly Grace did not want to be left out of the fun and asked if she would be getting a Birthday Cake hat to wear. How could I say no? I hadn't planned on making her a Cake Hat, as I had a special surprise all planned for her, that included it's own hat, but when she asked so sweetly, how could I say no? So, I was literally "icing" her hat right down to the last minute.

I actually had her birthday surprise picked out for months- literally, ever since Itty Bitty Toys arrived at my house this past fall when it first came out! I had left it out on the couch right after it first arrived, and while I was busy making dinner, she was busy ooohhing and ahhhhing over every page- and then she got super-duper quiet! Then, she brought the book to me in the kitchen and she could not stop pointing at the Baby Doll Set. She was smitten with the doll- the cute clothes, the sweet hat, and of course, the "mommy" hat with the braids. For months she begged for me to knit her the doll, and whenever I went to bought yarn, she wanted to come with me, so that she could pick out just the right colors for the clothes, the hat, and the hair. She was very adament her doll should have pink in her dress, a pink hat and the hair had to be yellow. I could definitely make that happen!

I knit the baby in the Rowan PureLife organic yarn that the Pattern calls for- I think the color is QueBarcho Bark? I'll have to look it up. I chose to use Blue Sky Alpaca Skinny Dyed Cotton for the Dress and hat- because I found that yarn to be softer, the colors were spot on for what Lilly Grace wanted and I was able to buy it locally at Unwind. I used O-Wool Balance for the diaper/ruffle pants, because I already had it on hand to knit the eff for the Egg/Bird Nest toy and was trying to not have to spend any more money on yarn at that point! For the hair, I got lucky and found the absolute right shade of Yellow at Molly's Store, Yarnside Gathering in Pensacola. Overall, the end result is superb and this doll is much loved.

Susan has some errata for the pattern on her blog- so if you knit this, be sure to check that out, you'll definitely need it! The construction of the doll, is fairly simple, but the directions did require several read-throughs and several moments of complete concentration. I made the ears slightly larger, I think adding an extra round as they looked a little small to me and slightly disproportionate to the body as written. The hair was a challenge the first few times I tried it, but once I figured it out, the hair was one of the shining points of the doll! It's so cute, curly and sweet! One of my favorite moments of knitting this was buying the 5" DPN for the first time- yay! Now I can knit on DPN while nursing, a must in this house! And previously impossible because my little wiggler would always get distracted and either start pulling out my needles or twist in a way I was just sure he would get poked. The smaller DPN are my new favorite knitting tool and I even packed up the kids and went to Molly's this weekend alone while daddy was at work, just so I could buy some in another size beacause I refused to knit any more toys until I had them!

The Birthday Cake Hat was a super sweet knit, as always. I used the RYC Cashsoft Baby for the Cake Body, and the Blue Sky Alpaca Skinny Dyed Cotton for the "icing". So cute! She took it to Disney with her and wore it to all her Birthday Celebrations! The Mad Hatter was quite smitten and was open to a hat trade!

(Eeek! And I just realized that all of the pictures of the Doll are on my Iphone! How did that happen? I'll have to come back and post some pics later, after the dinosaurs are done invading my living room.........)