How about some knitting actually done by me? Yes, it’s baby knitting, and while I’m hankering to work on some adult garments, there are still a fair number of mini-knits on my needles that need attention if they’re ever going to fit anyone of this generation. Plus I’m trying to stay ahead of my daughter’s growth curve and finish some things she can wear next fall. This new sweater would fit that category, except that it isn’t for her:

This is Rufus, from Kristen Rengren’s Vintage Baby Knits, finished at last for my friend Leigh’s little boy or girl. It’s more or less Rufus, anyway. I checked the book out of the library and had to return it long before I had finished, but the stitch pattern wasn’t difficult to memorize and I can produce a raglan cardi without directions. Now that I’m looking at other Rufuses on Ravelry, I see I imagined the shawl collar, but doesn’t it look just right for this professorial little sweater? I made mine by keeping the original number of stitches for each front — I did the raglan decreases, but at the same time I added new stitches right next to them and took them into the garter stitch portion for the collar. I also worked the sweater all at once rather than in pieces. However, I did note that the pattern called for a smaller needle in the garter stitch button bands, and while you might not think a quarter of a millimeter would affect the outcome much, garter has a different row gauge than the pattern stitch and I suspect you’d get rather loose, wavy button bands if you disregarded this suggestion. No one likes a wavy button band. So I worked the body on a US #5 needle, letting the bands hang out on a #4. When I came to those stitches I worked them on their own needle — just as you’d do if you were using two circulars to knit in the round.

Cute buttons, right? I thought they were appropriate, given that this baby’s last name will be Wood. The yarn is Imperial Stock Ranch Tracie in the color “Quail.” Great stuff. It’s sold as sock yarn, but I think it’s far too softly spun to hold up to foot wear. Good for baby things, though! It isn’t superwash, but this mom’s a knitter who knows what to do with wool. And I’ve found that baby sweaters made of good wool are remarkably drool resistant. I rarely do a full immersion of Ada’s sweaters; a quick squeeze of the slobber zone in lukewarm water now and then has been enough to keep them looking and smelling presentable.

I may need to make another of these for Ada. I realized as I was knitting it that it’s an awful lot like my Amanda. Matching mother-daughter sweaters? That’s only going to be cute for a couple of years. Better work that while we can, right?

Whew, two posts in two days! Didn’t think I had it in me, did you?

Most of my friends and acquaintances know I knit — doesn’t take Sherlockian powers of observation to deduce this when there’s yarn peeping out of every bag I own and I’m actively knitting it at every opportunity. So when Ada’s decked out in cute woolen hats/sweaters/booties, people always assume I made them for her. This is true less than half of the time. My girl is blessed with a great many talented knitting aunties who have made many of my favorite articles of her wardrobe. Case in point: the pear sweater.

I was so delighted to find she’d grown into this. Daphne made it for her and I think it may be the cutest sweater ever. Those stripy sleeves! Speaking of stripes, she’s also wearing this now:

Still loving the toes. I swear I try to get her to do something else in photos, but up go the feet…

But it turns out I didn’t get the shoulders quite right. I need to overlap the fronts and backs more, which may mean changing the shaping a bit as well. So we’ll call this an Okoboji prototype and I’ll add it to my list of designs that need to be tweaked and re-knit…. Anyway, back to the gifts. A fabulous blanket arrived last week from my dear New York knitting friends:

Psst… look who learned to sit, just like a real person!

Knowing my eternal admiration for Elizabeth Zimmermann, they collaborated on a Mystery Blanket for Ada. (That’s a Ravelry link; go check out the many beautiful versions others have made so you can really see what it looks like. I’ll try to get a better photo of this one.) This is the April project from The Knitter’s Almanac and EZ’s singular genius for imagining new constructions is on full display: the squares are knit from the center out and never bound off, but rather grafted together. I’ve knit a few squares of it myself for inclusion in that crazy log cabin-ish blanket that’s languishing at the bottom of my workbasket, and it is fun. As long as you don’t mind grafting. (Which I don’t. But not everyone enjoys it the way I do, and therefore I’m extra impressed that my dear friend Lisa put in as many hours of it as I know she had to for the finishing of this project.) This blanket is soft, soft, soft, and we’re loving it thoroughly.

Thank you, my knitting friends! We wish you all lived in Portland!

We rescued this hat from the sad fate of abandonment on a sidewalk during a week of solid rain — we let it sit for a few hours after we first saw it in case the owners were backtracking for it, but it was only getting more and more sodden and forlorn. I hope we’ll run into another young family in the neighborhood who will say, “Oh, we had that same hat, but we lost it!” and I’ll be able to give it back. Meanwhile, it’s having a happy second life warming my big girl’s big head.

Want an easy-peasy thumbless mitten recipe for a baby in your life? Here you go!

Tom Thumbless Mittens

Materials:

Remnants of worsted-weight wool (I used Dream in Color Classy), maybe about 75 yards? (I asked for a kitchen scale for Christmas, so if Santa Claus comes through I’ll weigh the mitts and then give you an update on the yardage. )

US #8 dpns

Directions:

CO 28 sts and work 9 rounds in k2, p2 rib. On the 10th round, knit the knits and yo & p2tog over all purl sts but the last two. Knit 20 rounds, then decrease as given below. Rounds begin just left of center on the back of the mitt.

Rnd 1: K3, k2tog, k2, ssk, k8, k2tog, k2, ssk, k5.

Rnd 2: K2, k2tog, k2, ssk, k6, k2tog, k2, ssk, k4.

Rnd 3: K1, k2tog, k2, ssk, k4, k2tog, k1 and then divide the sts on two needles, one for the palm and one for the back of the mitt, to graft them closed. There will be one extra st on the back where you didn’t work that 4th dec; simply work those 2 sts tog as you graft.

Make a matching mate.

Twist up a mitten cord, beginning with a length of yarn about as long as your wingspan, tying a knot in the middle and looping it over a wee doorknob or picture hook or the finger of an obliging friend, then twisting the two ends together until they do not wish to twist any more. Keeping tension on the cord, pinch it at the mid point and at the ends, then relax the tension and let it twizzle up into a lovely cord of a good length for weaving in, out, in, out through the holes above the cuff and tying in a bow. Tie a knot in the end that needs it before you do any weaving, of course.  If your cord has squirrelly bits that twizzled away from the main cord, just give a few tugs on the ends and they should jump back  into place. Make another cord for the second mitt.

I’m going to pick up stitches on the inside of the cuff tops and knit a lining for each mitt for extra warmth, but for now Ada’s wearing them over those sleeves that fold over her hands.

P.S. Someone’s going to ask about Ada’s furry boots. They’re made by Robeez and I love them. I justified the splurge by giving them to Mr. G as a birthday present, but they’ve been well worth it; they are as functional as they are cute. And luckily Ada has very small feet, so they should last all winter.

I’m one sleeve and five buttons short of a new jacket for Ada. It’s got a hybrid round-raglan yoke, some garter stitch, some stockinet, and some slipped stitches for extra style. I’m going to change a few things based on this prototype, but I have to say I’m pretty happy with it. And the yarn, too — I finally stopped chiding myself to knit from the stash and bought some Malabrigo Twist. I’ve got two skeins of Liquid Ambar (and I can see how liquid amber sounds more poetic than pitch). I’m cutting it close on the yardage, though. Good thing I didn’t bother to swatch, right? I knit most of this while we were most pleasantly putting our feet up in Friday Harbor a couple of weeks ago. A cooperative baby who was strangely amenable to being propped among the couch cushions at the yarn store allowed for the knitting of the first sleeve on a rainy day last weekend. We’ll see if such favorable circumstances can be reproduced this weekend to finish it all off.

Speaking of babies, I love the sleepy stretching before they wake up:

Yeah, that’s a commercially knit hat. I have no excuse for not having made her a better one yet. Or a pair of mittens, for that matter. Except that I’m all about the little jackets right now.