The Trouble with Minky
For those of you who don’t know what Minky fabric is (and I didn’t until recently either) it is a super soft kind of fuzzy fabric that is ideal for baby blankets. I suppose it’s ideal for anyone who loves a nice soft blanky but it mostly (until recently) comes in pastelish colours, ideally suited to a baby colour palette. I discovered this magical stuff and immediately set about making some blankets for my own wee one and the seemingly endless supply of friends babies as well.
I made 2 such blankets with some cute cotton on one side and minky fabric on the other with rounded corners.To make such an item you need 1 meter of each fabric (this depends on the size you want your blanket but I figure about 42″ by 60″ is a good size and I didn’t have to do any math to make everything match up this way). Some neutral thread or something that will go with both fabrics and many many pins. I recommend a nice glass head quilting pin, they are so sharp and you can iron over them if necessary without getting melted plastic on your fabric.
Step 1: I pinned the fabrics with right sides together and used a plate to trace the rounded corners. Instead of trimming to the rounded edges I just sewed along the line and trimmed afterward. Tip: use LOTS of pins. If you think you are over pinning you are not. Minky moves around A LOT so the more pins, the better off you are. I did not learn this until about the 3rd blanket.
Step 2: Sew the two pieces together leaving an opening to flip the blanket right sides out. I used a 1/4 inch seam but it’s not crucial. Just pick a seam width and run with it.
Step 3: Trim corners and turn blanket right sides out. Using a slip stitch close the gap you left for turning. Iron blanket.
Step 4: Sew another seam around the blanket, this time about 1 inch from the edges. This helps to keep all the pieces together and gives a really nice finished look.
Voila! A great baby prezzie and a super soft blanket is complete. It’s especially nice to blitz out a couple of these at a time, as with any sewing project it just makes things go a little faster and ups productivity. There are a lot of pros and cons to minky that I have discovered so here are a few of my thoughts on the subject:
Pro: So soft and lovely, comes in some great baby colours, easy to wash.
Cons: Makes a giant mess while you are sewing the blankets, bits of minky everywhere! Slips a lot while you sew (although over pinning does help with this situation quite a bit), not made of natural fibers.
All in all though, I would certainly (and probably will certainly) make more minky blankets in the future because they are a clear crowd pleaser and I just love ‘em.
Hunter Ann
Just a quick introduction between visitors and feedings! This is my new baby (my only baby really but she is new none the less) Hunter Ann born January 22nd (just barely, almost the 23rd). She was born a very healthy 8lbs. 1oz. Mummy gave her a pretty serious cone head but that has subsided and she is my perfect, big footed, soft skinned, baby!
Nesting
As I sit and wait for baby to arrive (7 days until the due date) I am crazy nesting lady. My house hasn’t been this organized since, I think ever! I keep trying to tell baby “today is your birthday, just come on out!” but it doesn’t seem to be working. So far I have:
1. I made 3 blankets with some super soft Minky fabric (more on sewing with Minky later, it’s quite the tale)
2. I’ve made spagetti sauce for the freezer
3. Finished my Snuggle Sack (zipper and all)
4. Made blueberry muffins
5. Made clam chowder (also with some for the freezer)
6. Have become weirdly addicted to popsicles.
7. Made chocolate chip cookies. Then hubby and I ate them all so I will be re-doing that
8. Cleaned the hosue several times
9. Washed and folded all baby supplies.
This is not an entirely exhaustive list but I am now onto some design work and knitting the stash. I sure hope the babe comes soon or it will meet with an entirely too organized mother and may have to re-adjust expectations as time passes!
New Years Resolutions and Some Nutkins
It’s kind of well into the new year to be starting on resolutions but here it goes anyway. In an effort to organize my home top to bottom and make it baby ready I decided to once again overhaul the stash. It’s not as bad as it once was but it was certainly getting there! I feel like I should qualify the term bad in this case. I’m not really opposed to having a yarn stash of some kind. There should always be, in my life, enough yarn to keep me busy. I design, I dye, I teach knitting lessons, let’s just face up to the fact that there will always be a certain amount of yarn hanging around my abode. It’s when you have so much yarn that you either don’t remember or don’t know what you were going to do with it that yarn becomes a problem in my book. I had to create a second sock yarn bin. That is possibly too much sock yarn! The nice thing about going over and assessing the stash is that I was definitely re-inspired by some yarn and projects.
So, in an effort to complete some projects I picked up my year (or possibly more) old Nutkin socks. The yarn is lovely and the pattern is nice and interesting so I don’t really know why I put them down in the first place. I knit them up on US 1.5 needles in Malabrigo Sock. I really like the variegation in this yarn, it’s subtle enough for the faux cable but it has a really interesting look to it. The only things I would change about this pattern are the heel and toe. I’m not keen on them. I suppose that makes me a little addicted to the traditional top-down heel turn but I branched out and tried something different and it just didn’t work out. I would change up the heel next time around, and it really wouldn’t be hard to do that!
Isn’t mum a gread sock model. She calls the pose at the top ‘action sock’. Hehe.
