Done with Love

First things first: Rainbow's Roo is done, has been washed and blocked, and has had buttons selected (by the girl herself, when we stopped by my LYS yesterday on our day off). All that's left to do is some I-cord closures and a proper photo shoot, which I'm hoping will happen this weekend when the weather's supposed to be nice but a little on the chilly side.

Since finishing that up, I've been focusing on the next baby item -- the blanket. For as much as I love stranded colorwork, I don't really care much for intarsia, which makes it rather surprising that I'm knitting this particular blanket. I have three skeins of yarn attached at any given time and I have ends to weave in every 10 or so rows. This blanket is proof positive that I have a lot of love for the recipient (well, for the recipient's mom anyway).

The mom-to-be is the older sister of my childhood best friend and I've known her my whole life; she's been almost a big sister to me, too. I'm willing to deal with tangled yarn skeins and lots of ends for her. I'm being very good about weaving in my ends as I go so there's less finishing to do when I get to the end, and I'm discovering that intarsia isn't actually as bad as I thought. The first time I did it, I think I was making it more difficult than it had to be. I still prefer to carry two colors at the same time if I can, but I'm  no longer disregarding a cute pattern if it involves intarsia.

I did take a wee break from the tangling over the weekend to do a test knit of some very sweet toddler-sized felted slippers.

Trust me when I tell you that these are much cuter in person (and in natural light, for that matter). These knit up in about four hours total and used less than a skein each of two colors -- Hollyberry and Rhubarb -- of some very old Knit Picks Merino Style that I found in my stash. I ran them through my front loader for two cycles and got them to mostly felt, though I'll have to hand felt a couple of spots here and there. Rainbow has tried them on and they fit perfectly, so I'll also have to go in search of some puffy paint to make some grippers on the bottom. Fun!