This rose and a pitcherful of its friends grew outside my house. In January.

There aren’t many patterns I’ve knit three times, but when you need a pretty little cardigan for a wee girl, it’s hard to go wrong with Elizabeth Zimmermann’s gull lace and garter. This latest incarnation of the Baby Sweater on Two Needles from Knitter’s Almanac is for a baby born in Costa Rica last October, which shows you just how back-logged I am on knitting for my friends’ children. Thank goodness it blocked out like a champ — I thought I’d be lucky if a four-month-old could be stuffed into it for as long as a week, but now it looks like it might fit her next fall!

This yarn is Deep Stash. In fact, in stash terms, it basically dates from the paleolithic. It is so old the internet doesn’t know it ever existed. (Okay, a few other knitters on Ravelry have some, but nothing comes up on Google so I haven’t been able to find out just how ancient it is.) I inherited it from my mother-in-law, and I’d been doubting whether I’d ever use it — cotton and viscose blends are not my cup of tea, and this one proved to be just as splitty and unpleasant on the needles as I’d foreseen. But the yarn, made by Crystal Palace, is called Helena and so is the baby. How could I resist? And I have to admit the finished cardigan is pretty charming in that antique ivory, with the vintage buttons that match so perfectly…

(What I’m going to do with the other seven balls, I have no idea. They’re a brighter white than the three I used here. If shiny, splitty cotton-viscose yarn really floats your boat, drop me a line and I’ll mail them to you.)

Time to say goodbye, Ada style, with a vigorous kiss blown at the end, to the briefest summer in my memory. All night, dozing lightly with one ear cocked upstairs for baby sounds — the only way I seem to know how to sleep anymore — I heard rain on the pavement. This morning I put on a wool sweater (Pas de Valse), a wool hat (”Mama HA’!” exclaims my small one, reaching to pull it off my head and flop it over her face for peekaboo), and wool socks. (Darned if those aren’t still the best-looking socks in the drawer, despite having been knit in 2005. My admiration for Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock grows annually.) Ada is in her reversible brioche cardigan (blue side out today) and her new boots. The boot leather squeaks and she steps tentatively in them, unaccustomed to the stiff soles.

We replenished the bird feeders this morning and discovered a mouse had moved into the seed bin on the back porch. I spotted the evidence right away, but didn’t expect to see Mouse herself peeping up at me from a hole in the bag, all sleek fur, bright eyes, and quivery whiskers. Ada, having been recently enchanted by a pet rat at the tea shop, thought we should pick her up and get to know her properly, but we didn’t. I am tenderhearted about mice, although I sincerely hope this one’s family isn’t expecting to move in with us for the winter. (The cat should be an effective deterrent. For all his faults, he’s a competent hunter and also pulls his weight when it comes to chores like dispatching house centipedes with alarming legs. (Don’t google them. If you don’t know what they look like from personal experience, thank the appropriate deity and go on your blissfully ignorant way.) And while the dog is useless against the creepy crawlies, she’d be thrilled to go all buddy-cop with Mingus on a mouse if he wouldn’t end her for cramping his style. So I’m not too worried about a rodent invasion.) But I’ll be devising a way to lock down the bin lid more securely. In the mean time, the finches seem untroubled to have shared some of their sunflower seeds. I’ve never seen a handful of birds tuck in with more vigor. They must realize summer is fading, too.

While the featheries are plumping up for winter, I’m feeling ready to turn my attention back to the thickest and warmest projects in my knitting basket. If you’re a knitter, there’s an excellent chance you already know what this is…

… but don’t tell, okay? Here be secret knitting. And speaking of miters, I’ve nearly finished my Mitered Cardigan: a seam to graft, buttons to attach, ends to weave, and then I cross my fingers and block this sweater like the dickens and, if all else fails, maybe take up running in case there’s a spare inch or so that could come off my middle.

Just before Ada was born — and only just: checking my notes, I see that our labor began four days later — I finished what I think is going to be the signature piece in her wardrobe for the next two seasons. My friend Jen had dreamed up an adorable new baby sweater (she knit a lovely lavender-and-yellow sample that Ada has been wearing all winter) called Baby Brioche; in a fit of third-trimester ambition, fired up by the brioche possibilities explored by Nancy Marchant, I adapted the pattern to use two colors. This month, it fits my girl.

(Mr. G saw this photo and said, “Is that our lawn?” He mowed it promptly thereafter. Thanks, love!)

10 months old and still no teeth!

A word about the hair before we get back to the cardigan: yes, it actually grows that way. But I like to tell people we get up at 5:30 in order to spend an hour fixing it just so with the curlers and blow dryer. I suspect we’ll be making appeals to all our curly friends for hair management advice, because Mama sure hasn’t had to deal with anything like this on her own head! I mean, do you even try to brush it? My friend Maria recommends a spray bottle of diluted leave-in conditioner, which sounds pretty reasonable for a squiggly toddler… But for now, back to the sweater.

Yarn: Socks That Rock Lightweight (NB: Jen’s single-color version is written for Heavyweight) in Blue Brick Wall (furrows) and a Rare Gem (ribs) that’s similar to Bumbleberry and Flower Power. It’s completely reversible; I sewed buttons on both sides. So far, I’m thinking this was worth the extra effort. I love the color combination no matter which side is out, and it’s so practical to be able to turn it around if one side gets foody or spitty when we’re on the go.

Needles: 2.75mm, US #2. Brioche is so loose and fluffy that you need to use a smaller needle than you’d think.

Modifications: I learned everything a person needs to know about basic brioche and two-color brioche from Nancy Marchant’s website and book, both of which should be considered knitterly world treasures. Don’t be intimidated by the new notation you’re going to encounter within; because brioche requires combinations of familiar movements (yarnovers plus knitting or purling and slipped stitches), it makes sense to offer a new shorthand, and that’s what Nancy has done. Jen has used Nancy’s system, and I think you’ll find it’s straightforward and sensible once you spend a little time with it. I will make my notes with the specific numbers necessary to recreate Ada’s jacket available this summer (or, um, as soon as I find them in my shameful mess of a woolery), but if you’re itching to start now, all you really need is Jen’s pattern and Nancy’s website. I cast on about 30% more stitches because I was using the lighter wool, and after stabilizing the cast-on edge I’m happy with the result, but the Channel Islands cast on and the brioche pattern are so stretchy that you could, instead, start with the numbers in the pattern and then add an extra increase round in the yoke before you divide for the sleeves. This would give you a sweater with a snugger neckline than Ada’s jacket has. Also, I added a round of increases halfway down the body to achieve a swingy line. I thought this would be extra cute on a little toddler and would work well with the single closure point I was planning, and I stand by that decision now that I see it on my babe. Especially since she came with lady tackle. I made no pretense of any intuition about her sex while I was pregnant, but apparently my fingers knew something my brain didn’t. Everything unisex I made for my little one kept turning just a little bit girly on me.

Love the short sleeves for increasingly capable little hands!

I expected to prefer the blue side, which is more to my usual taste, but I think this one suits her coloring remarkably well. She’s got a slightly ruddy complexion from her dad’s family and my rosy cheeks. (But she made up this fierce, impish smile all by herself. It goes with a rather scary growl when she’s excited. Not for nothing was my daughter born in the year of the tiger.) I can’t wait to see her staggering tipsily around in this jacket later in the summer. We have a lot of practicing to do, but Ada’s will is strong. Give me your fingers, Mama! Let’s walk! Rooooaar!

Elizabeth Zimmermann, in her wonderful Knitter’s Almanac, designates the month of May as the time to knit mittens for next winter. You’re digging in your heels, right? In the northern hemisphere, at least, May tends to bring the first really promising weather of the year; summer is just around the corner and we can finally forget about winter. Who hasn’t had enough of rain, wind and snow? The next winter isn’t for ages, and there are three whole months of lovely long, bright days ahead. Many people I know cease to knit entirely at this point in the calendar. (I call them foul-weather knitters. We fair-weather knitters have been seized by an addiction so bone deep that blistering sun and wilting humidity cannot keep us from the wool. I shall be joining squares of a thick wool blanket in the summer heat this year.) Anyway, it’s understandable if even year-round knitters are turning to swishy summer skirts and breezy tops in linen or cotton. And yet, Elizabeth was as practical as they come. “It is better not to make mittens in a hurry,” she wrote. “When snow flies and small frozen hands beg for warmth (sob), the actual knitting tends to be perfunctory and possibly scamped; one economizes on the number of stitches; one does not make the cuffs sufficiently long. The main object then is to turn out scads of mittens to appease the demand, and enjoyment of production is not what it might be.”

The same is true of winter hats — who hasn’t, in a hurry to be done, started the crown decreases too early and left the ear lobes exposed as a result? — and my daughter has just outgrown both her warm ones. Also, I am not optimistic enough to expect real warmth in the month of June, particularly at daybreak when my husband often buckles our girl into her pack and heads off to the coffee shop. (They bring me coffee in bed. I know. It’s an excellent arrangement.)

My kid has an enormous head. It’s in the 97th percentile, while her weight is 65th. Having spent many years looking at her father, I am not surprised that this turned out to be the case. (And I’m very grateful she was willing to start small at birth and then grow that noggin really rapidly once she was out.) But the hats sized for children 1-3 years old don’t fit any more, so I thought I’d best take an actual measurement before knitting her a new hat to make sure it would fit for next winter. Eighteen and a half inches, my friends. This translated to the Adult Small size of the pattern I’d chosen. Not the Toddler size or the Child size, the Adult Small. Ada is wiggly in general and also wanted to pull the measuring tape off her head to examine and taste it, so it’s possible I was off a little bit, but I thought I’d better play it safe. Adult Small it was, though I did go down a needle size because, really, Adult Small? An apprentice teacher at my school taught her class to use their own Reasonableness Detectors to check answers to math problems (you subtracted and got something bigger than the original number… does that make sense?), and this was pinging mine. But I didn’t go so far as making a swatch or anything. Another thing I’ve learned from Elizabeth Zimmermann is that a hat is an excellent swatch its own self. Plus the yarn was so delicious that I had no choice but to knit it RIGHTNOW.

Mopsy, from Blue Moon Fiber Arts… it’s my new favorite. You’ll never believe it’s only 10% angora. Cozy doesn’t begin to describe it. I want to knit a sleeping bag out of this stuff. And it loves to cable. I felt compelled to cable all the ribs on the hat even though the pattern doesn’t call for it.

Here we’re wearing it Dutch Girl style, with the ear flaps turned up. But turned down and pushed back is pretty hilarious, like Princess Leia on a wagon train. (I think the flaps will lie flatter if I actually give the hat a bath and a bit of blocking, but it’s tempting not to.)

And yeah, it’s plenty big for next winter. And the one after that.

P.S. This grown-up girl said “Mama” yesterday and I think she may actually have meant it. She was in bed with me, clambering about and practicing standing up, looking pleased as punch with herself when she managed it. I could see the wheels spinning as she thought, “The only way this situation could be more excellent is if I were also nursing right now.” So she huffed and puffed and bumbled herself sideways, stooped for the attack, then looked up at me with a big, milky, toothless grin and said, “Mama!” I’ll take it.