Photo courtesy of Melissa Hames Duarte

First off, how cute is Petra? Here she is, at six weeks old, modelling Cisco.  You may not recognize the hat – it was originally modelled by a ball of yarn and a vase!

Seeing how much cuter the hat looked on a real little person made me think about a more appropriate model for my latest baby knit, the Stella Pixie Hat by Kristen Rengren (available in Vintage Baby Knits and as a free download from STC Craft). I don’t have any baby-sized softies around – my knit animals are too small and Huggy Jesus’ head is too flat.

Chris suggested a small-scale sculpture by Florence Wyle – The Harvester. The perfect size, it turns out. It’s one of the four sculptures in the Loring/Wyle Parkette in Toronto.

You can see the Young Girl, also by Wyle, in the background of this photo. There are busts of Loring and Wyle, each sculpted by the other, at the far end of the parkette. I would have liked to get some photos of them as well but a man was recovering from a hard night on a nearby bench. I thought it best to keep the visit short.

[Ravelled]

Another sweet, seamless pattern by Tora Frøseth! My first Tora knit was the Magda Tunic and I fell in love with the top-down construction. I used the same yarn in this Sweetheart Dress for Anaya – Cadenza by Estelle. Merino and tussah silk! Not too warm for an L.A. baby I hope.

The heart detail around the yoke is too cute. The body of the dress is worked in stockinette stitch, with rows of garter stitch at the bottom to stop it from curling. This project had me thinking about a me-sized knit dress, and then I remembered this lace dress from Védis Jónsdottir’s book Einband. Hmmm.

You can just make out this handsome Pottageville horse in the background of the top photo. As you can see, we were more interested in him than he was in us!

My quilt squares are ready to be shipped off to Portland where they will meet hundreds of other quilt squares. These two are my contribution to Larissa Brown’s Barn Raising Quilts to benefit Doctors Without Borders. If you’re interested in getting involved there’s still time! The squares are due in Portland by June 9, 2009. The pattern and full details are on Knitalong.net.

I’m looking forward to seeing the finished products! And this knitalong has encouraged me to get involved in another one. I signed up for The Purple Purl’s February Lady Sweater knitalong. Any excuse to order some Tanis Fiber Arts merino!

Knitalong by Larissa Brown and Martin John Brown, opened to Barn Raising Quilt

Larissa of Stitch Marker has put a call out for volunteers to contribute to several Barn Raising Quilts. The finished pieces will be raffled off at the Sock Summit in Portland with proceeds going to Doctors Without Borders. The pattern is available for download on the Knitalong website and more details on how to get involved are on Larissa’s blog. If you haven’t picked up the Knitalong book yet I would highly recommend it. The pattern can also be found there, along with many other great designs. The Blessingway Blanket is one I’m slowly making my way through…

This will be my first knitalong and I’m pretty excited about it! I’m going to contribute two squares to the project. The yarn I’m planning to use (Estelle Cadenza) was actually bought for a Barn Raising Quilt. My knitting partner for life and I were thinking about doing some sort of Boise-Toronto knitalong project for her new niece. So this will be my Barn Raising warm up!