Knitting Labels

The sun peaked out just long enough for me to snap a picture of these today. The holiday knitting season has officially begun and finances being the way they are this year, there's going to be a lot of it. I plan on not buying any yarn for gifts, only using what I have stashed. I'll get to pare down my stash so I can buy more yarn in the future as well as save some money on Christmas this year. So I whipped up these cute little tags to sew into knitted gifts to make them just a tad more special, using some twill tape and t-shirt iron-ons. I seriously think that printable iron-ons are something every crafter has to have on hand at all times. It's the workhorse of crafting and has gotten me out of many a pinch. I've been any ironing-on maniac the last week making shirts for the kids labels and even some new baby gifts. I can't proclaim my love enough.

Umbilical Cord Hat and Booties

Here's the first of many finished projects I'm finally getting around to writing about and just to warn you the first of many many baby hats that I've knit. They're just so addicting... So portable, so fast and so darn cute! These I knit before Miss Mabel was born. The hat and booties took just 1/3 of a skein of Misti Alpaca. I don't have the band anymore so I'm not sure of the weight but I'm pretty sure it's a sport weight. The color is the palest of pink and so incredibly soft. These will be a "go-to" for gift knitting because they require so little time and yarn and are such a luxury. The hat pattern is of course from the first "Stitch 'n Bitch" book. The bootie pattern is a great match to the hat, here's the ravelry link. The only changes I made were to omit the ribbing at the top to create a rolled cuff, mimicking the brim on the hat. I also omitted the eyelet section because I didn't want to include the ribbon on this pair.