Happy Thanksgiving

One Thanksgiving down, one to go. I am turning the heel on the Deborah Norville sock between bouts of activity in the sewing room. We still have lots of stuff in the storage unit, mostly yarn, that has to come home, but I am gradually getting the room back in order after the window replacement. The old room had ancient draperies in the window, but the workers installed the window blinds that have been waiting patiently in their box in the garage (for almost 15 years) for us to clean out the sewing room and make their installation possible. It is much lighter and more cheerful in the room now. I do have the knitting machines back in position and can start knitting again. In the meantime, here are some fall scenes from our house:
A surprise November rose!

Retro Baby Knits

This great booklet has a lot of useful baby items, the kind that never go out of style. There is no date on the booklet, but it does say Petaluma, California and Milford, Massachusetts, and has zip codes for each city. A quick google tells me that zip codes were introduced in 1963, so the booklet was printed after that date. It is very possible that the designs were created in the 50's since they have the fifties look about them, and companies often reprinted designs.

The first photo shows a helmet and mittens done in a broken rib pattern with knitting worsted. The pattern is written for 6-month, 1-year, and 2-to-3 year sizes. I like the way the mittens have a long cuff and a snug fit at the wrist. The hat shown at the bottom is a beret also knitted from knitting worsted.
I love yoked baby sweaters, and this is a very nice one. It is knitted sideways on size 2 needles at 8 sts/inch. The description says the yoke and cuffs are knitted in Quaker Stitch, which I have never heard of before, but which is as follows:

Row 1: (wrong side) Knit across
Row 2: Purl across
Row 3: Knit across
repeat these 3 rows for the rib pattern.
The booklet also has some cute bootie patterns:

Another yoked baby sweater, this time a pullover. They call it a Baby Sacque.
As I have often thought to myself, I should have a supply of baby items all knitted and ready to go so that there is no rush knitting when a baby arrives. But do I have this wonderful stash of knitted baby items? No, I still do not.

Still Here

There won't be much knitting around here for a few more weeks because the house is still all torn up with the construction. We had to completely empty out the sewing/knitting room, but we are just about ready to start putting the knitting machines and the rest of my stash back in the room. In the meantime, I finished one pair of socks and sent them over to the younger daughter, and I started another pair with that Deborah Norville sock yarn that has bamboo in it. The yarn is soft but pleasant to knit, and I am about 1/3 done with the first sock. As soon as the knitting machines go back up, I will be making some hats for the rescue mission and some scarves for another charity. This should help use up some of the yarn leftovers (that we really noticed when we had to empty out the room).