I Really DO Knit
Several months ago, I decided it would be nice to make the kids Christmas presents. I sometimes get a bit twisted up about how commercial Christmas has gotten. Although I know I need to go with the flow, I thought it would be nice to give the children something handmade every year as a little love-filled tradition. So to that end, back in the summer, I decided I'd knit them sweaters. I guess I was sort of weak from all the Ontario humidity when I determined that a hat wouldn't be enough and a sweater apiece was more appropriate.
I casually asked them what sort of sweaters they would like to have. Jillian didn't have any sort of opinion on the matter but Claire said she wanted a blue one with butterflies on it. I figured I had a job ahead of me to either hunt down a chart or design my own butterfly. The thought of knitting intarsia made me a little woozy but I was going to step up and do right by her.
I had mentioned to a few people that I was hunting for butterfly sweaters and a buddy of mine (Hi Vall) alerted me to the fact that the newest Lopi book had a butterfly design in it. I got my hands on the book and decided that their design was perfect for Claire. I started it back in the fall but the colours I chose, which looked perfectly good together in the balls, didn't make me happy on the sweater and I got discouraged. I admit that it ended up in the void at the back of my knitting chair for a while.
After that disappointment I decided to pick something out to make for Jillian. At this point, it was only about 10 days before Christmas and I knew that if I was going to come even close to making the date I'd need something simple and fairly heavy-weight. I went through my Miss Bea books and picked out something appropriate, dashed up to the yarn store and got a couple of balls of yarn and packed it all up for a hospital project to do while Claire was having surgery.
Turns out that Claire's remarkably fast recovery time doomed my knitting. I had visions of spending untold hours on the children's ward knitting my worries away while my poor infirm baby moaned and groaned and recovered from her trauma. Instead, I was back here, blanching at all the wild things Claire was doing a mere 48 hours after her surgery and trying to keep her from blowing her incision wide open. I ended up knitting on that little project after the kid's bedtimes when I was pretty much ready to hit the hay myself.
In the end, I didn't get either of the sweaters done for Christmas Day. Things got too busy and I decided not to stress myself out with all-night knitting sessions (pregnant mothers of two shouldn't do that stuff...it's bad for everyone's health).
I didn't feel bad about those sweaters till after New Year's Day. I'm not the resolution sort and I'm not very sentimental about the New Year but I do think a little something got to me about starting a new year with that unfinished business and girls who were growing faster than I knit. So, on Sunday, I dedicated the entire day to those projects. I'm only a little bit ashamed to say that I didn't get out of my jammies till just before bedtime when I had a bath.
On Monday morning I presented the girls with their new sweaters. In the end I think it was better that they didn't get them on Christmas morning when they'd have been overshadowed by Barbies and games and books. Instead, they both got quite excited about my handiwork and made me happy that I'd started in on the projects even if they didn't get done when I wanted them too.
They were very interested in wearing their sweaters but weren't nearly so interested in having their pictures taken in the sweaters. But, for the blog, I do the best I can. DH got me an external flash for my camera for Christmas and I have no clue how it works but I do know that my indoor photos look better even if I just put it on auto and set the flash at 45 degrees (any flash photographers with tips out there?). For some reason the new flash freaks me out much more than my new lens did. The new lens feels like a toy...the flash feels like highly technical equipment.
Ok, I've digressed enough, here they are:
The 53 bodies and antennae on the butterflies are duplicate stitched/embroidered on at the end. I used the colour of the main sweater for that part in hopes of making the colour combination look better and I think that was a) a successful plot b) a lot less soul-sucking than switching colours for each butterfly like they recommened in the pattern. The embroidery was time consuming but not difficult.
The pattern also called for this to be knit in the round and steeked but my fair isle guru Anne told me she thought that was going to end up not looking so great with heavy yarn and so I knit it back and forth instead. There was only about 9 rows where I was doing colourwork on the wrong side and that was completely endurable. As advised, I did crochet the button bands on and it was quick and easy and looks good next to the lacy ribbing. We chose clear buttons so not to make the whole thing look too busy.
Jillian (is it just me or is she starting to look awfully grown up?) has the "Cookie" sweater from Miss Bea's Rainy Day. Again, it is made from Cascade 220 in a colour I thought would look nice on Jillian. The patterns in those books are really great. They are intentionally designed to be fairly simple but still stylish. It seems like Louisa Harding went out of her way not to complicate things. In this pattern, the cable happens on the same row as the top of the little diamond pattern every single time. You don't even really need to keep track. All the patterns have charts and they are colour coded in a way that makes me really happy. And they fit kids at the point they say they are going to fit. All good things. It is getting hard to lay hands on these Miss Bea books nowadays but I highly recommend them if you see them and have a little person in your life you want to knit for. I'm also impressed at the girl to boy design ratio in these books too. It's not ever 50/50 but there are a lot more designs for boys than I've seen in a lot of pattern books for kids. It knit up so darned fast that I almost felt like it was cheating to present this to her as a token of my toil. I think I could have made it two or three evenings if I had really set my mind to it.
I don't even try to pretend that this is an exclusive "knitting blog" anymore. I got confirmation of that a while ago when I got an email from someone who called me a "mommy blogger". Still, it started out life as a knit blog and I still do it so I'm going to still try and put up the occasional knitting post whenever I can. Especially when life is routine and and my only other news is that my body seems to know that I passed the six-months-pregnant point and decided to make me tired and achy. My pelvis has decided to loosen its grip on, well, everything and it seems like any bit of exertion is too much. I pay for it in the evenings by being stiff to the point of nearly immobile. Hot baths seem to be my only source of relief so I've had a few of those. The baby, like Jillian before him, seems to be soothed by the baths and I sleep better if I soak before bed. Unlike Jillian, he gets so active sometimes that I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if he pops right out through the skin of my belly like one of the critters from "Alien". I might be brewing a boisterous little fella. I figure we're all in for a big change in a few months.
|