Cotton Top Hats

After I finished the Cotton Top Baby Sophisticate Sweater, I thought I needed to make hats to match.

I am terrible at knitting hats, I have to follow the pattern very closely or they get all weird shaped. Sweaters I can change the pattern and still have it look and fit fine… hats, nope.

I found a pattern that would be the same age range as the Cotton Top Baby Sophisticate Sweater. The problem was it had ribbing around the bottom and I wanted garter stitch.

So I knitted one following the pattern very closely (Benson Beanie by Robyn Devine). 

Then I took a huge leap (small for most people) and changed the ribbing to garter stitch, and low and behold it worked out!!!

Chicken Coop Before

The spring before last we added four new chickens to our flock, which meant the coop I had built for the first bunch was too small. So that summer break we built a new, and much bigger coop.

Coop #1

Coop #2

Of course we finished the main structure of the coop the day before Vince had to go back to school. At this point the coop had no real roof, no warm indoor area, only a temporary roosting rod, and we set the old nesting box on the floor so they had something. Over the next couple weekends we added the roof (which took longer since I mismeasured… big time) and the nesting boxes. The nesting boxes first were 5 gallon buckets they hated, which were replaced with ugly blue plastic storage boxes with cutouts.

Thanks to school and wedding planning the next thing I knew it was Halloween and the temp was supposed to drop to below freezing that night. I rushed home after school and frantically put up something to block wind and keep them warm. It was supposed to be temporary, but it remained all through the winter.

This spring I added a vine outside to add more shade because I could tell the sun was bothering them, but I did nothing to fix the indoor.

However, my mom just got back from Round Top Texas and found a pretty nesting box for the coop, and now its finally time to fix the indoor coop.

Here is what the inside looked like after I took the outer wall down and set the new nesting box in there. Not very pretty….

Also notice all the places the dogs broke into the coop, not to hurt the chickens but to hang out. 

Stay tuned for the after. 

Cotton Top Baby Sophisticate Sweater

A couple months ago I made a sweater using Baby Sophisticate by Linden Down.  I liked the pattern enough that once we knew Baby was a boy I decided to make another.

That time I used Red Heart With Love yarn in the color Peacock and it turned out pretty cute, check it out here. 

This time I used BrownSheep Cotton Top.  The only issue I have with this yarn is it is itchy, but if you wash it in conditioner this seems to help. Now I don’t know how long it will stay soft after each conditioning.

Oh well, I hope it stays soft for a while because I love this little sweater.

Three Wee Speedy

I found the quickest and cutest sweater pattern and I had to share!

Its so quick that in about 5 days I made three sweaters, if life didn’t get in the way I could have finished them quicker, in fact the first two took a day each, it was the last one that took the other three days.

The pattern is Wee Speedy by Taiga Hilliard Designs, and I used Lion Brand Wool-Ease Thick & Quick.

The first two, I followed the pattern as written.

This first one is done in the color Denim Twist.

The second one is done in Fisherman color with a doggie bone button.

The third one is also in Fisherman and I decided to make it a pullover. So the only changes I made was on row 8: I skipped the buttonhole and row 10: I joined in the round. I am very pleased with the outcome.

Update: After I finished the Pullover version of the Wee Speedy I posted photos on my Ravelry projects. I do this so I can keep up with what I made etc. I then got a message from the designer and she asked if she could use the photo for a Pullover version she would publish. She explains the pattern much better than I did so check it out Wee Speedy Pullover by Taiga Hilliard Designs.