Tag Archives: Cottage Creations

Cottage Creations’ Babies and Bears Sweater

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Possibly this is a tad over the top colorful for a teeny one, but I still like it. Mine is sized for a six month old. And when the baby outgrows it, then it will fit some teddy bear or other stuffed buddy just fine. It’s Cottage Creations’ Babies and Bears Sweater. Not downloadable (yet) but if you can’t find the pattern booklet at your local yarn shop the good folks at Cottage Creations will now snail mail it to you.

This is knit in Opal 8-fach X-large, by Zwerger Garn, a worsted weight in 75% wool/25% nylon. The yarn has been in my stash for a few years and I’m not finding it on the Opal website anymore, though this is pretty close.

Here’s a look at the back.

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My heavily patterned yarn is overwhelming the guernsey detailing on the front and back. Here’s one I knitted in a solid color that shows the detailing better. The pattern booklet includes instructions for a simple fair isle detail in the front and back panel. That’s totally sweet too.

The Babies and Bears cardigan is constructed in one piece. Off the needles, sew on the buttons, and baby will be snug as a bug in a rug (and cute as a bug’s ear).

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Celia’s Blankie supersized

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Celia’s Blankie is a simple stylish baby blanket pattern by Carol Anderson, of Cottage Creations. Carol is well known for her chatty style in writing patterns. Lots of details are given. You feel as if she’s sitting in the room guiding you along. I like that. Her booklets can sometimes be hard to find in local yarn shops. But now the patterns are available through her website. Great move, Carol!

In my first Celia’s Blankie, I made it basically toddler-sized. This one almost covers a queen-sized mattress. It was designed as a stash buster. There’s almost 3400 yards of wool knit into this garter stitch blanket. The red and blue are Paton’s Classic Wool and the yellow, oh my that bright yellow, is Plymouth Galway worsted. Two no-nonsense, workhorses. Never mind how I managed to stash so much of these yarns, but it all had something to do with a sale.

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It’s 9 mitered squares wide and 11 squares long, with a 14 row garter stitch border all around. I’d be fibbing if I told you it was a quick knit.

It will be warm. It will cheer up a room. And it reminds me of all the fun my son used to have playing with his Legos.

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Grabbit

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This is a Grabbit. It’s another interesting Cottage Creations pattern by Carol A. Anderson. Cottage Creations pattern booklets are available in local yarn shops, many on-line retailers, and via Carol’s website. The booklets aren’t (yet) downloadable, but they’re so worth the effort to find them.

A few more views of Grabbit show what makes it a tad idiosyncratic (if knitting can be called that).

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It’s a carry-all. To create a neat bundle of belongings, you just thread the knitted loop through the gigantic buttonholes rimming the edge. But it’s also a nice playmat. It even works as a small blanket.

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Grabbit_blocked5This Grabbit is knit in my seemingly endless supply of Martha Stewart Lion Brand Extra Soft Wool Blend. I believe I purchased a tad more than I needed for LeCirque Baby Playmat, even if the  bunny, the lamb, the lion, the bear, the vest and the Grabbit had all been planned from the outset. Let’s just say, the layette is shaping up. And Grabbit is going to be the packaging for the stuffed buddies.

 

Heirloom acrylics

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I knit this green throw in the summer of 1978. Jimmy Carter was president. It’s alternating simple seed stitch and reverse stockinette panels. For reasons that are now obscure, I lined up leaves in long rows on the reverse stockinette. I was 26 years old, had already been knitting for 18 years, and was quite proud of my creation. Recalling my knitting budget, this would definitely have been discount department store acrylic. Thirty-five years ago I was a solo knitter, without the support of a local yarn shop or a “Knitlist.” And Ravelry was just a gleam in Jess and Casey’s parents’ eyes. But knit happened anyway.

This throw graced the back of a series of couches, used and new. The couches long ago moved on to parts unknown (or at least unrecalled). But the green throw lives on. It traveled to my son’s new home in the past few years. He, his wife, and their Chocolate Lab, Roxie, are still using it and it still looks basically OK. Even the fringe has held up well.

Here’s another look at the remarkable staying power of acrylics.

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This next blanket is an early full-sized Rambling Rows. It might even have been my first Rambling Rows, that wonderful Cottage Creations pattern by Carol Anderson that I come back to again and again for heavy doses of garter stitch.

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This Rambling Rows was knit around 1995, of a variegated acrylic that was LYS-purchased and more on the pricey side. I recall it as being a Spanish yarn, but don’t remember the producer. My son used this blanket on his bed for many years. It led a hard life in dorm rooms and in rental homes. When I visited him a few weeks ago, I slept under it. It’s still going strong, still keeping the family warm.

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Celia’s Blankie: a Cottage Creations must-knit

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This is Celia’s Blankie, another modular-knit afghan from Carol Anderson at Cottage Creations. Anderson’s website is not set up for e-commerce or downloading patterns, but the pattern booklet is available on a number of websites and local yarn shops and she invites direct inquiries to her.

Miles of garter stitch is a big draw for me and so are Cottage Creations patterns. The instructions are very clear, but also quite chatty. Rather rustic drawings illustrate some sections of Cottage Creation patterns.

As with Rambling Rows, which you can check out here and here and four more here, when you finish Celia’s Blankie, there is no finishing. You will likely chose to work in the tails from the individual blocks as you knit and, if so, it’s off the needles and your finished blanket can be immediately put to use.

My blankie is knit in easy-care Plymouth Encore worsted. I knit the largest size square the booklet suggests and ended with a blanket that was 45 inches by 46 inches, including the 10-ridge garter stitch border.

Anderson leaves a lot of choices for the knitter, including the size, number and color-patterning of squares. Since it’s knitter’s choice, the pattern doesn’t spell out exactly how much yarn you’ll need. I found I was able to get 7 squares out of all but one of the Encore skeins, on US size 8 needles. This blankie took 3 skeins of each of the 3 colors I chose. The booklet provides photos of several blankets knit by several test knitters, with information on their choice of yarn and how much yarn they used. I selected one of the arrangements used by one of the test knitters. There isn’t any reason why you couldn’t put this pattern on steroids and knit a full size blanket. Just knit more squares.

For the border, I picked up 24 stitches in each square, working garter stitch in the round with my longest circulars. Garter stitch in the round means you knit one row, purl one row. I marked each corner with a stitch holder and then each knit row I increased one stitch (by knitting in the front and in the back) on each side of the marker. I bound off on a purl row.

Here’s a closer look at one of the mitered corners:

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I’m pleased with the result:

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