A few months ago, my knitting mentor DW sent me some beautiful yellow yarn from a local mill on Prince Edward Island. She knew that I wanted to make something for Juniper, and she knew that yellow was her favorite color. The yellow yarn she sent me was gorgeous and incredibly soft; I couldn't wait to make something with it.

The only problem was finding the right pattern. I fell in love with this cool, modern dress, but the pattern called for a lighter-weight yarn. I don't know if it's because DW was excited to see me use yarn that she sent me, or if she is just a crazy lady who doesn't mind doing a ridiculous amount of work for someone else, but she painstakingly modified the original pattern so that I could make the dress with thicker yarn. I don't know how she did it. I'm guessing it was a combination of the various math subjects that I hated in high school tossed with some magic.

DW's pattern was easy for me to follow, and because I was using thicker yarn, the dress came together pretty quickly. I started it two weeks before Juniper's birthday, and used nearly every non-working minute to knit. I had just enough time to block it before her birthday. Juniper knew that I was making something for her (no way to hide the project from her when I was sneaking in stitches during dinner), but she didn't know what it was. I promised myself I wouldn't be disappointed if she didn't really care for it, but she loved it and wore it all day on her birthday.

(I can't take credit for the sweet knitted gnome. It was a birthday gift from Juniper's teacher, who gave me a copy of the pattern. I can't wait to try it.)


Juniper and I chose the buttons together. Browsing buttons is probably the most fun part about a trip to the fabric store, but when I actually have to buy buttons and also consider the emphatic input from a nearly-five-year-old, it can be difficult. Of course the nearly-five-year-old wanted every fluorescent flower or giant-sparkly-faux-crystal-button, and I was starting to despair when we finally found these tiny white rabbits. They satisfied her desire for the buttons to "be" something, and they satisfied my criteria that the buttons be simple and not compete with the dress.

It's no surprise that DW has made her modifications to the pattern available on her site for anyone who is interested. She is just too nice. The size I made for Juniper is probably best considered a 3T, but you could easily make it longer or shorter. I think it would fit any 2-6 year-old with length modifications. (**Edited to add: DW's modifications are no longer available on her website. Tora Froseth, the author behind the original pattern, asked DW to remove her instructions. Of course DW obliged.)

And there's the birthday crown. She loved that too. I followed a template in Kata Golda's book for the red bird, but made the pheasant based on a sketch by Jim.

Finally, comments are broken here on woodcraft, which stinks because I love getting comments from you guys. The best I can do is encourage you to comment on ravelry if you're a knitter, or to leave a comment on flickr or DW's post.

Previous Project: Felt Stuffed Creature

I am completely outnumbered by Aquarians in this family, so last month, I made a birthday banner that we hung in the bowling alley for Juniper's party:

Yes, that's me drinking a beer at my daughter's birthday party. It was delicious. For Gram's party last weekend, I made a smaller banner with his name on it that I hung under the same happy birthday banner.

I love how this project came out. It took longer than I anticipated to finish, but the banner is something I'm looking forward to using every year. I'm also considering hanging the kids' names above their beds when we move them into the same room (and hopefully get to redecorate over the oppressive girly-ness that dominates Juniper's room right now).

To make a banner like this, you'll need:

• wonder under fusible web
• fabric for the triangles
• solid fabric for the letters
• several yards of ribbon (1 inch thick).
  

Also, of course: scissors/rotary cutter, sewing machine, and thread. Optional: you can print out the letters in the font of your choice and stencil them onto the fabric.

1. Cut triangles out of your fabric. I had a bunch of 10 inch squares in coordinating fabrics, so I started at the mid-point on the bottom of the square and cut diagonal lines up to the corners.

2. Iron the wonder under to your letter-fabric, and then trace your letters onto the wonder under paper. You can free hand the letters, or you can print out some large letters -- I used a 300 pt very bold font. Don't forget to trace the letters backwards! (also: read the wonder under instructions carefully -- I might have missed a step.)


3. Cut the letter out, and remove the wonder under paper from the letter.

4. Iron the letter, sticky side down, to the triangle you want for the front side of your banner. Put a wet/damp cloth between your fabric and the iron and press for 10 to 15 seconds. Remove the cloth, and press until the moisture is all gone.

5. I sewed a zig-zag stitch around each letter, but you could skip this step. I thought it made the banner look more finished.

6. Sew a letter-triangle to a triangle cut from the fabric you want for the backside of the banner. With wrong sides out (right sides in), stitch along the diagonal edges, leaving the top unsewn.

7. Turn the triangle right side out, and iron it flat.

8. Once all the triangles are lettered and sewn together, measure out two equal lengths of ribbon long enough to leave you a few feet of unsewn ribbon at each edge for tying the banner up. I just measured by laying all the letters out and stringing the ribbon along to see how much I'd need. You'll need two lengths of ribbon that you'll sew together. If you don't have enough to leave extra at the edges, you can always tie another length of ribbon to the end (see Gram's banner above).

9. Pin the letters between the lengths of ribbon, making a ribbon-triangle-ribbon sandwich. Carefully place the raw edge of the triangle so that it's completely covered by the ribbons, and trim the triangle if necessary. Then sew along the bottom edge of the ribbon, securing all the triangles to the ribbon. Then stich along the top of the ribbon to close it off.

Hang up and enjoy.

I made two other things for Gram's birthday: a crown and a vest to match his patchwork pants. For the vest, I found a really cheap size 4T vest at a thrift store, cut it apart to make it smaller and to sew patches to the front panels, and then I sewed it back together again in Gram's size. It was really easy and took a little over an hour from start to finish (and I am slow).

Previous Project

Today Juniper turned four. Jim and I still exchange at least ten looks a day over her head that say to each other: "Can you believe this? Can you believe that she's our kid?" Every day has a moment or two that feels like the day we brought her home from the hospital and sat on the couch staring at how perfectly her tiny hands curled on her chest. This year I requested one of those really small video cameras for Christmas because I'll be damned if another year goes by and I end up wondering how she turned into a five-year-old. I'm carrying this video camera with me everywhere, and I'm going to sit her down with her brother every Saturday morning and tape them for a few minutes, so that at the end of the year I can watch all of the footage and remember what happened. I stopped noticing how she changed this year after her brother was born, and I feel like I just woke up this morning and found a big girl sleeping in her bed. I don't know how that happened.


I made her a birthday crown for her birthday. Jessica has a wonderful tutorial on making a felt crown, and that's where I started. I didn't follow it exactly, but I started with her instructions and just made up the rest as I went. I made the crown out of wool felt, ribbon, embroidery floss, fabric, elastic, and regular thread. I cut the flower free hand. I sewed the top edges together using a blanket stitch I learned from this tutorial.

She's worn it all day.

Previous Project