Sit back and relax, this is going to be a long one!

Hello! It was recently pointed out to me by a couple people that it’s been over a month since my last post! I wasn’t planning that much time off, but I just really haven’t had much to say!

When I knit something, all the details go up on Ravelry. I’m doing a couple daily photo projects on flickr, so I post over there a minimum of two photos a day, often with explanatory text and conversations in the comments, so it’s like mini-blogging. I twitter…I just feel like by the time I get to the blog, I’ve already said what needs to be said 3 times over and to have to format more pictures and upload them to my server (I know I can blog them from flickr but I don’t like to do that) and think of yet more to say about them, it’s just too much pressure!

But I am going to make an effort to blog more frequently! This winter has been particularly asstastic, so hopefully the arrivial of spring (and my 30th birthday which is approaching rapidly, eeek!) will get me back in the game. Also thinking a blog re-design might be nice, so I’m looking into that too. In the meantime, if you’re really dying for more Bertha (and honestly, who woudn’t be), you can bookmark my flickr photostream here (or subscribe to it here if you use an RSS reader) and it will be just like getting mini-blog updates from me a couple times a day.

Now that that’s out of the way, I do have a couple things to share! I’ve been doing a little bit of sewing!

For Christmas (um, yes, I realize it’s now March), I decided to make a few projects for my good friend Phoe (she moved recently and has been without internet for over a month due to continuous screw-ups with two different service providers. I seriously think I would be non-functional at this point). I have to apologize in advance for the absolutely horrible pictures I am about to share as they were taken at 2 in the morning in horrible lighting conditons and they were already packed up and on their way to England before I noticed how badly the pictures sucked. Hopefully Phoe can get some better pictures for me at some point!

Here is a set of tiki-themed tea towels that I embroidered from a Sublime Stitching pattern! Phoe loves and collects tiki paraphenalia so when I saw the pattern I knew I had to make them! I really enjoy embroidering, it’s so much more instant gratification than knitting!

I also made Phoe a lap quilt. This is the Flock of Triangles pattern from the Denyse Schmidt quilts book. I had asked her about her living room color-scheme and she said she’d like something orange, so I picked these great Amy Butler & Heather Bailey fabrics. Again, sorry the photo is so craptacular!

And lookit what Phoe sent to me!

A gorgeous handknit hat that I LOVE and have worn regularly despite it being officially spring since it’s been flipping freezing out, a handmade bracelet, earrings, the cutest project bag ever, amazing chocolate (srsly. It was amazing.), yarn!, and delicious English cookies! Thank you so much Phoe!!
Once I finally completed Phoe’s gifts, I started to work on some other projects, some of which must still remain secret, but here are a couple more of those that I can show:

Log cabin pilows! I made these out of some more Heather Bailey “Pop Garden” fabrics. I love how bright and cheerful they turned out.

Recently, I participated in Sonya’s handmade mushroom swap! You had to make 5 mushrooms and you’d receive 5 different mushrooms in return. I made these little mushroom cottages, hand sewn with wool-felt and embroidered.

The pattern I used for these is from a wonderful blog, Little House by the Sea, love! I will definitely make more of them.

And here are the mushrooms I got in return!

Aren’t they all so wonderful!? If you click through to flickr, you can see the details on who made each one. Thank you so much to Sonya for hosting this great swap!

And finally, I can neither confirm nor deny that I’ve been bitten by the crochet bug…

I also may or may not have joined a crocheted pot holder swap…I am not sure what I have become…

Been a little busy so here’s a quick drive-thru post featuring a little knitting and contest winners!If you recall a couple weeks ago, I knit a thorpe (pdf) for June. I loved the pattern so much that I decided I needed one of my own! I thought this rustic style hat would look great knit in handspun yarn so that’s what I used:

The yarn is Folktale Fibers patchwork handspun in “Gypsy Boy.” I’d wanted some of this Folktale Fibers handspun ever since I saw mittens that Knitting School Dropout made! Her patchwork yarn sells out relatively quickly but I was able to score this lone skein a few weeks ago and I am so happy that I did because I LOVED every minute of knitting this and want to knit with nothing but handspun yarn forever.

My crochet edging still sucks, but you can’t really tell too much since handspun is kind of irregular anyway. The trim is Rowan Yorkshire Tweed Aran in deep plum. The hat was knit on size 9 needles and I knit the large size since I was using yarn a little thinner than the recommended bulky weight. I think I have enough of the handspun left to possibly squeak out a pair of mittens if I stripe it with the Yorkshire tweed…we’ll see!

But now for the reason you’re all here, the contest winners! Since June was turning 2, I decided to award 2 prizes! The lucky commenters are:

Comment # 43: Spillyjane and comment # 47: Melissa! If you ladies shoot me an email (bertha at karmakitties.com) with your addresses I’ll put together a package for you in the next week or so! Thanks so much for everyone who left birthday comments for June! She had a wonderful day and year 2 is looking to be pretty sweet so far!

I’ll be back in a bit with some sewing to share!

June, tomorrow you will be two. TWO YEARS OLD! It has been quite a year. You talk more than I ever thought another human being was capable of talking. You narrate every portion of your day, all the time. You know your ABCs, you know how to spell your name, you can count to 20. You’ve memorized all your favorite books and enjoy reading them to us. You can climb out of your crib and open any door (including child-proofed ones. This is becoming a problem). You love Play-Doh and prefer markers to crayons (of course you do.) You are empathetic and constantly worried about whether or not other people (real and fictional) are OK. The other day you had one of the most traumatic experiences of your life. You were happily half-way through eating a cupcake that had been decorated to look like Cookie Monster when a look of horror came over your face as you realized…YOU WERE EATING COOKIE MONSTER. Your face froze and your lips started to tremble and you burst into tears, sobbing about how you loved Cookie Monster and didn’t want to eat him. I tried explaining to you that it wasn’t really Cookie Monster, it was just a cupcake made to look like Cookie Monster, but you weren’t having it. Needless to say, I will not be decorating your birthday cake tomorrow with any beloved childhood characters.

Let’s take a look back at the last year so we can see how you’ve grown:

January:

February:

March:

April:

May:

June:

July:

August:

September:

October:

November:

December:

January:

You are very independent, enjoy screaming, and challenge our patience on an hourly basis, but nothing has ever made us laugh harder and enjoy life more than you. I can’t wait to see what the next year brings!

Everyone who leaves happy birthday wishes to June on this post will be entered into a contest. I’ll put together a prize package and draw a winner next week!

I am afraid that my blogging mojo is missing…I post pictures, usually with little stories, nearly every day on flickr, so that kind of mini-blogging seems to have currently taken the place of regular blogging here. While I don’t know when I’ll be back here on a regular basis, I do have at least 2 posts for you this week, plus a bunch of other projects nearing completion that should provide for some other posts in the near future.

I do have a couple small projects to share. The first is this cowl that I knit for a friend’s birthday.

This is the “burnished leaves” cowl knit in Mama Blue Troika Sport in the ’smart octopus’ color. This is a very squishy merino/cashmere/nylon blend yarn that I love. A lot of indie dyers use this base yarn and it’s one of my favorites!

This pattern was a test knit and should be available as a free Ravelry download soon should you like to knit one of your own!

The other project I finished this weekend was a Thorpe (pdf) for June! She told me the other day that she wanted a pink hat and when your child asks for knitwear, you oblige.

This is knit in The YoYo Cashsport (same merino/cashmere/nylon blend mentioned above) in the “Gently” colorway. Totally squishy and wonderful. The pattern calls for a bulky yarn, so I double-stranded this, but even doing that I still ended up with only a heavy-worsted/aran gauge, so I knit the large size even though I was making it for a toddler. This worked out perfectly. It’s a little big for her, but that just means it will fit for a while (it actually fits me, so it will probably fit her forever, assuming it doesn’t meet the same fate as 3 other hand-knit hats I made for her…lost in a store somewhere. Note to self: take off her hat when you enter the store, before she can throw it off when you’re not paying attention.)

The edging is Dream in Color Classy in In Vino Veritas…my half-double crochet needs a little work, but June didn’t seem to mind. I’m planning another of these hats for myself with some handspun so hopefully I can perfect the edging by then.

And finally…do y’all remember what I was doing 2 years ago this week?? Here’s a hint:

That’s right, June will be TWO on Saturday! In honor of her birthday, I will be posting a little photo retrospective of the past 12 months on Friday and holding another contest like I did last year. Leave a happy birthday message for June on Friday’s post and you’ll be entered into the contest. See you then!

I finally have some long-awaited knitting to reveal! I recently participated in a Single Sock Swap that Robyn hosted. The idea is that you knit a sock for your partner, then send them 1 sock & the remaining yarn + pattern so they can knit the second sock! It’s a great way to beat second sock syndrome! I was assigned to knit for Robyn herself and the wonderful Bea of Baa Baa Blacksheep was my sock knitter! She knit me this beautiful Jenny Wren sock in Green Prairie Fibers sock yarn! I can’t wait to knit the mate! Thank you Bea!

And here is the sock I knit for Robyn!

This is the Heart-Ribbon Lace Sock by Evelyn Clark knit in Hazel Knits Artisan Sock in Beach Glass. I’ve been eying this color of Hazel Knits forever and I’m so glad I finally had a chance to use it! It’s lovely to knit with!

The pattern is well written with clear charts, but I still struggled with it a huge amount at first. I had to rip out the lovely scalloped cuff and restart it like 15 times…eventually I got into a rhythm with it, but I’m still happy I only had to knit one of them!

I’m so glad you like it Robyn! Thanks for hosting such a fun swap!

Hey, speaking of Robyn…you may remember a while back that she had asked me to design a pattern for her Robyn’s Nest November sock club kit! I’m finally allowed to reveal it!!

May I present to you my first ever original design:

“Early Autumn”

My favorite part (if I do say so myself!) is the little trailing vine up the back:

These socks are knit in Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sport in Butterscotch.

(oh I am so wistful looking at those early fall leaves & light from when these photos were taken!)

The pattern will be available via Ravelry soon and I’ll let you know when it’s available! Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to design for you Robyn! I’m not sure how much designing I’ll do in the future…I think I prefer knitting from other people’s patterns, but it was definitely fun to try it once!

I hope everyone has been having a wonderful holiday week! Happy new year!

I still don’t have any knitting I can show you (but will next week!) so I’m here to regale you with tales of kind friends and pictures of my daughter.

June is really, really amped up for Christmas. She took the tree decorating very, very seriously:

This is her favorite ornament hanging method:

Yes, that’s 5 Hello Kitty ornaments all on 1 branch (thanks for the ornaments Rob!) Unfortunately she likes hanging ornaments so much that she spends much of her time taking the ornaments off the tree so that she can rehang them which had resulted in a few broken ornaments and many, many shedded pine needles. Ah well. Such is the magic of Christmas.

Right now I want to thank my good friend Adriana! She sent me a surprise Christmas package which not only included Christmas ornaments, an adorable kitty shawl pin, a Lush massage bar (heaven), and a stuffed doggie for June, but also a hat! That she knit! For me! I cannot underestimate the awesomeness of receiving handknits. It’s perfect and it totally matches the hat she knit for June last Christmas! I tried to get a picture of June and I posing in our matching hats together but she was being kind of surly about it so you’ll have to settle for me.

Thank you Adriana, I wore the hat all weekend! I needed it with all the snow we got…more on that later!

Continuing along the kind friends theme, my friend Paula has just started up her etsy shop selling some of her beautiful children’s knits! She hats mittens, cardigans, and longies up there right now and they are so, so reasonably (almost TOO inexpensively) priced for such wooly, handknit goodness! In fact I decided to buy a pair of mittens for June from her shop but she insisted on sending them to me as a gift for free! I will definitely be shopping with her in the future! Thank you so much Paula! June lovesssssss these mittens so much and insists upon wearing them every day, even if it’s not mitten weather:

Luckily (for June anyway), it’s suddenly become mitten weather very quickly. We’ve had about 18″ of snow since Friday.

We took advantage of the crazy snow to build June’s first snowman!
Here we see June inserting his arms:

And posing with Mama and the finished snowman (who June has named Curious George Snowman):

And finally, the requisite Santa shot:

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas/hanukkah/solstice/3rd week of December/New year!

Whoo, it’s been a few weeks. Things have been a little bit crazy at home…husband getting laid off + June getting sick + super busy at work + secret non-showoffable deadline knitting = no blogging mojo.

But I’ve finally got a little something I can share! I signed up for this years Back-Tack swap a while back and this years theme was “Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh.” The package had to include something sparkly, something sensory (like food or something that smells good), and a little homemade Christmas gift for our partner. I got paired up with the lovely Paula! She’s got an adorable son that’s about June’s age and she’s going to fashion design school! Awesome! I can’t wait to see what she made for me, but in the meantime, here’s what I made for her!

1. Something Sparkly:

I made her one of these snowflake ornaments! The pattern is from the latest Interweave Holiday Gifts, but you can get it free here. The middles are from that pattern, but I was incapable of following the instructions for the crocheted edging, so I just kind of made up my own edging…it’s kind of a hack job since I suck at crochet, but it’s better than I thought it would be. The yarn is Painted Skeins sock yarn (thanks Phoe!) which is a blend of merino, silk, and real silver, thus the sparkle. I also added a little cluster of red Czech glass beads to the middle. These little snowflakes are so fun to make that I made 5 more of them for Amy’s ornament swap!

(looking at this I notice I’ve made green ornaments for that swap every year. Huh. See year 1s ornaments here and year 2s ornaments here)

2. Something sensory:

I don’t know how to make soap or candles, so I went with cookies! I wasn’t sure what kind of cookies would ship well, but I thought biscotti would likely be OK. I’d never made biscotti before, but surprisingly they came out delicious!! They are cranberry pecan biscotti from this Martha Stewart recipe! I’d definitely make them again! They came out a little hard to eat on their own, but they are absolutely perfect for dipping into a hot cup of tea or coffee. Yum!

3. Christmas gift:

I asked Paula what her favorite color was and she said black because it matches with everything. Good call. But I didn’t want to knit something with a plain boring black yarn, so I purchased a skein of gorgeous (thanks Chrissy!) Zen Yarn Garden Serenity sock yarn (merino/cashmere blend, yum) in a hand-dyed shade called Black Magic. It mostly black but it has some gorgeous deep purple undertones…I double-stranded it for maximum squishosity and made a Gloria Cowl.

I also included a yummy pumpkin candle and some organic chocolate in the package…
I hope she likes everything!

And speaking of back-tack, one of the organizers (along with the lovely Nicole) is Alison. She recently held a giveaway on her blog for some beautiful child sized oven mitts. I was so lucky to be one of the winners because June is obsessed with ‘helping’ me cook and is always asking to wear “Mama’s big mitten.” We received the oven mitt in the mail this week:

(omgsheeps)

And she has refused to take it off since. Anytime she’s in the kitchen she insists on wearing it, whether she’s performing any oven related duties or not (she loves her play kitchen). Here she is helping Mama sautee some onions for tacos.

Thank you so much Alison!!

A little while back, my friend Alison and I agreed to do a swap. She wanted a pair of fingerless mittens that looked like these. I knew that Alison had been making a lot of awesome doll quilts lately and I thought June would love one, so I agreed to knit her the mitts and a Meathead hat (she had admired June’s and wanted one for herself!) and she was going to sew me a doll quilt and a birthday crown for June.

Here was my part of the swap:

The mitts are knit in Berocco Ultra Alpaca. I didn’t use a pattern, but you can make a pair of very similar mitts by following Amy’s pattern here! If this had been released a week earlier, I could have used her pattern and saved myself some time, but that’s OK, they still came out good! The Meathead hat was knit using the same yarn as June’s, The Plucky Knitter Merino Bulky in Sprout. I hope she likes them!

I received my package from Alison on Friday and nearly died with what was contained within. Not only did she sew an amazing birthday crown (which I will photograph in January!) and this beautiful doll quilt (which June is completely obsessed with and carries around everywhere, blanketing everything in sight):

but she also surprised and thrilled me by including possibly the cutest piece of clothing in in the history of the world, A GNOME AND MUSHROOM DRESS. Seriously, I’ll give you a minute to collect yourselves…She sewed the dress and embroidered the design on by hand. Go look at it here on Flickr, and when you’re done squealing, come back and look at the modeled pics below:

YES THERE IS EVEN A MUSHROOM ON THE BUTT! GAH! IT’S TOO CUTE! I CAN’T TAKE IT! Thank you SO much Alison, I seriously can’t even deal with it. When she outgrows it, I think I am going to frame it and hang it on the wall somewhere so I can look at it forever.

In slightly less exciting news, I’m knitting a sock (well, it’s a nice sock, just not as exciting as gnomes and mushrooms). This is for Robyn’s single sock swap and I’m knitting it for Robyn herself! She picked out the pattern so she knows what I’m knitting her, but I’ve grayed out the yarn in the picture below so that at least something will be a surprise:

These are the heart ribbon lace socks by Evelyn Clark. I had to rip out the cuff like 10 times because I’m an idiot who can’t follow basic directions, but now that the cuff is done, I’m hoping the rest will go a lot faster! I’m hoping to have them finished by the end of the weekend, well in advance of the 11/30 deadline. I have about 4 other projects I need to have done by the same time so I’ll be a knitting machine the next few weeks!

In closing, I was tagged by at least 3 people (including Robyn, Paula, and Meghann) to participate in the “6 random facts about me” meme. I’m not going to tag anyone because I’m sure everyone’s already done it by now, but here are 6 things about me that you may not know:

1. I only like soda that comes from a fountain, therefore I never drink soda at home unless I am really desperate. There’s nearly always a pitcher of iced tea in the fridge for me.

2. Much like a teething puppy, I like to chew on things that I shouldn’t, including pencils, popsicle sticks, toothpicks, my fingernails and wooden knitting needles. In fact I keep an old DPN here at my desk at work for the express purpose of chewing. I know, I’m disgusting.

3. I’ve never found a lotion that I like. Either they are too greasy, or too smelly, or they smell good but are too greasy, or they smell good but aren’t moisturizing enough…It sucks in the winter because my hands and legs get really dry and scaly and I need to moisturize but I HATE the way my hands feel after I put lotion on them and usually have to wash them off which defeats the whole point.

4. My default facial expression is a slight scowl. I am not sure why.

5. My favorite holiday is Thanksgiving! It’s coming up soon! I’m excited!

6. My biggest fault (in my opinion) is that I am a huge procrastinator. Like, HUGE. I leave everything until the last minute, all the time. I always manage to get everything done, but its so stressful. Why can’t I just start things earlier and get them done earlier so I can relax? I do this with EVERYTHING, even things I like. Cleaning, work, knitting, emails to friends, shopping, making dinner…why do I put everything off? I do not know.

Yeah, I’m pretty boring…

I’m still mostly working on knitting that I can’t show (which will change soon), so I was very excited to receive some knitting in the mail that I *can* show you!

Phoe got a skein of this Pagewood Farms Alyeska (cashmere blend, so, so soft and squishy) in the gorgeous “Fabulous Fall” colorway. I admired it so much that I bought myself a skein in the very same shade. When Phoe saw this she was dismayed, as she was using her skein to knit me a pair of socks! Aw! I assured her that I wasn’t planning to use mine for socks (I’m thinking some sort of slouchy hat) and she sent these off to me straight away! I continue to be amazed at Phoe’s kindness and generosity towards someone she’s never even met.

It’s cold and rainy here today, and Phoe’s socks are keeping my feet warm and dry. Thank you so much friend.

This weekend we took June to her first Halloween party. Our friend works at the Montessori school in our town and we’re looking into possibly enrolling June in the school a couple days a week at some point in the near future, so she invited us to come and check it out. It was sort of short notice and we weren’t planning on taking June trick or treating this year (she doesn’t like candy. I am not sure who’s child this is) so I didn’t have a costume prepared…luckily, like a gift from above, our friend Wendy left us a bag of clothes her daughter had recently grown out of for June. In with the clothes was this fantastic ladybug costume. June fell in love with it and asks to wear it every day. Paired with some black leggings and a black turtleneck, she made the most adorable little bug at the party:

Thank you so much Wendy! I hope Ella knows how happy June is that she shared her costume with her!

I’ll try to get back to regular knitblogging next week. In the meantime, if you want to see more of me (and really, who wouldn’t, right?) I’ve started Project 365 over on flickr. For those unaware, Project 365 is a challenge in which you are to take a self portrait every day for a year and post it to the group on flickr. There are a few different groups, but I’ve joined the knitterly & crafty type 365 pool. They are a fantastic group of supportive people, many of which I’m already friends with. I am pretty hesitant to be posting pictures of myself every day, but peer pressure is an amazing motivator. We’ll see how long I last!

First, the SIP (Sweater-In-Progress):

I know it’s not much to look at now, but it will be. I am test knitting this for the lovely Elinor and I’m hoping to get it finished before the weather gets too cold as I think it will make a perfect fall/early winter jacket for June. I’m knitting this in Rowan Yorkshire Tweed Aran in Deep Plum. I’m a little nervous as this pattern involves steeking, but hopefully nothing will go tragically, horribly, wrong.

Here’s the MIP (Mitten-In-Progress):

This is the Polska mitten by SpillyJane. I’m knitting them in O-wool organic 2-ply merino, except for those deeper red berries which are some scraps of Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sport. I can’t wait to have these done, I love knitting them and I’m going to love wearing them even more!

In addition to these, I’m doing a swap with my friend Alison (she’s making a doll quilt for June and I’m making her a hat and some fingerless mitts) and I also need to knit the sock for Robyn’s single sock swap. I’m going to be knitting this pattern and I’m just waiting for the yarn to get here! I want all of these projects finished before December so it’s going to be a busy couple of months!

And finally, the fall trips! Last weekend my friend Sarah and I took June to the Orchard:

(compare with last years pumpkin picture!)

(compare with last years tractor picture!)

She loved feeding all the animals:

Then yesterday we took her to the fair!

We tried our first (and last) corn dog!

She liked feeding the llamas:

and the donkey:

but the baby chicks were her absolute favorite. She nearly hyperventilated in this room, she was so excited:

And in closing, baby llama:

The end.