The holiday maelstrom swept us up and spat us out again two weeks later. Since I last wrote I’ve had food poisoning, a baby demanding bi-hourly night feeds for a week after the resulting drop in her milk supply, a cold, a leaky shower that may require retiling and new drywall, not to mention the usual commotion of parties and shopping and wrapping and eating… but also thirteen days of wonderful visits with family and the opportunity to squeeze my wee niece’s marshmallow-injected thighs even if I couldn’t snuggle her as I would have had I been healthy.

I finished the Tomten jacket for my nephew and gave it to him with Astrid Lindgren’s The Tomten and The Tomten and the Fox. It is far too big and will probably fit him next winter and maybe even the winter after. My pictures of it suffer sadly from lack of time, daylight, and styling genius, but some sort of documentation was necessary to prove that I finished the thing at long last…

Like how I didn’t even manage to get that sleeve unrolled all the way?
In my defense, it was coming on to rain pretty hard.
But I could have at least started with a smaller coat hanger.

The chief addition I made to Elizabeth Zimmermann’s excellent pattern was jacquard colorwork at the shoulders after Franklin Habit. Garter stitch jacquard (and I’m using the term as Montse Stanley does to describe stranded color patterning) is not difficult to do; you can work any charted design you’d use for regular stranded colorwork, except that you have to work each row of the motif twice: right to left and then left to right, so that your design reads on the garter ridges. On the wrong side there’s a pleasurable dance of the working and resting wools fore and aft to keep the strands on the inside of the sweater.

You do want to be careful about where you place this kind of patterning. I didn’t anticipate how much the jacquard portions would spread vertically, and my first attempt at shoulder decoration created a major puffed sleeve I didn’t think my nephew’s Texan father would appreciate. I had to scale down the motif to end up with just a gentle epaulet shaping. In a future Tomten I think I’ll try an even, ’round-the-hem motif and just a simple band at the shoulders, but the shaping I stumbled upon could actually be useful in an adult garment; EZ went to intricate lengths to incorporate it via short rows in Cully’s Epaulet Jacket. (She added a nice natural bend to the elbows in that design, too — can’t you just see a prettier, colorwork version of an elbow patch dressing up a tweedy jacket? It would be functional, too, as the jacquard stranding adds sturdiness…)

I also got a little fancy with the button loops. These are just short lengths of i-cord twizzled back on themselves and sewn down. They don’t have the elegant economy of EZ’s i-cord tabs or applied i-cord button loops, but I was splashing out.

So! That’s one longterm project put to bed for a cleaner slate in the new year. Now for that Helter Skelter argyle for my brother, and maybe even that wooly Manos blanket that’s been cryogenically frozen in the bottom of the workbasket for about four years… but there are always so many new projects beckoning! My mother went to Ireland this past year and couldn’t find an Aran sweater in natural brown. (The woman in the shop didn’t even believe her that sheep came in brown.) Obviously someone needs to do something about that, and a certain seminal text on Aran knitting happens to be back in print now… Na Craga’s been on my list of dream knits for years…

I’ll leave you with an appealing nephew anecdote. Background: Riley’s daycare provider was concerned that he’d feel left out because his mother requested that he drink water in his sippy cup all day rather than juice, which is what the other kids get. My sensible sister-in-law just pointed out that she could call the contents of his sippy cup “juice” and he’d be none the wiser — the little man isn’t yet two years old. So we got to the Oregon coast just after Christmas and Riley trotted over the dunes and caught sight of the pounding waves. He flung his arms wide and exclaimed, “JUICE!”

Happy 2011, everyone. I’m not making it an official resolution like Don’t Eat Vegetarian Food in Decidedly Non-Vegetarian Restaurants, but I’ll try to be in touch here more often.

This has been finished for almost a month… my friends are pointing out that I’ve been a negligent blogger lately, and it’s the truth! I love this shawl, though. It’s another Akimbo — I knew I wanted one for myself as soon as I tried on my brother’s. I still had plenty of Socks That Rock in Pond Scum for the edging; the teal is some flydesigns Monarch that’s been marinating in the stash since… oh, probably 2007. Back when you could get it in 660-yard skeins, anyway.

I went up a needle size to US #7 to achieve a slightly larger size, and I think it was a good decision. I also think I should stand in front of orange walls while wearing it as often as possible. (Especially if those walls stand in proximity to amazing scones.) Although it’s nice against brown, too:

In other knitting news, I’ve finally picked up the Tomten jacket I’ve been knitting for the last eighteen months in an effort to finish it for my nephew’s Christmas. I decided it needed some jacquard patterning at the shoulders a la Franklin Habit, so more on that soon. (Pssst… how do you make an accent grave in WordPress?)

Er. . . pattern singular, for now. But take a look at the Patterns tab above. I’ve posted the schematics for Leif’s Twisted Tree Pullover, and you can grab the PDF and start knitting for your favorite tot. If you do, I’d love to hear about your experiences so I can become a better pattern drafter. The Patterns page is set up just like a regular blog post with a comment forum and everything, so please leave notes of any errors you encounter or any roadblocks you hit in the knitting. I’m especially curious whether I guessed correctly on the yarn quantities. I’ll be knitting the 4/5 size again this fall since Asa’s about the grow out of the 2/3, but it may be a while before I get to testing the smallest and largest versions. My intent is that patterns at Blue Garter will be a communal effort, with dialog amongst all those knitting them, until they’re perfect. It doesn’t seem right to me to charge money for something that hasn’t been thoroughly tech edited, so until I draw up something super schmancy, they’ll all be gratis. I’ll also post notes about patterns I publish elsewhere so you’ll know where to get them if you like my work. I’m excited to be offering something of my own to the knitting community, so thanks in advance for your support!

Meet my little cousin Asa. He’s three and a half, hell on wheels, utterly charming, and therefore a tempting victim when I cut my teeth on knits for shorties. Back in the spring, my lifelong amiga Abbie asked for a cute kiddie sweater recommendation for her nephew Leif. A design idea came to me in a flash and I scribbled a raglan pullover with a traveling stitch motif up the raglan lines and panels of stockinet and reverse stockinet on the body and sleeves. I rummaged up some ancient Cleckheaton Country 8-Ply Naturals from my mother-in-law’s stash and cast on a couple of months ago. I finished just in time to try it on the little dude at the big summer party last weekend — family and hometown friends galore, plus a six-foot boa constrictor. The boa swam in the pond, which the kids thought was awesome, although some of the adults weren’t fully on board with the idea. (I spent a lot of time making sure small children like this one didn’t drown in the pond. It’s a nervous business, the whole lots-of-kids-in-water thing. We played man-to-man defense for a while but eventually had to switch to zone when a medium-size guy who actually can swim stayed in too long, got tired, and had to be rescued…all’s well that end’s well, anyway.) It was a hot day: great for water play, but my little cuz wanted no part of a wool sweater. When the sun finally sank below the trees he was up for modeling, providing I pushed him over the lumpy parts of the meadow:

He wore it the rest of the night and even managed not to get marshmallow all over the front when his brother made him a s’more. He really likes it.

Verdict? The pattern needs work. The arms are too skinny, so I’m doing the math to plump them up before Abbie casts on a version for Leif. And I’m going to have to knit a bigger one if Asa is going to wear it when the weather actually gets cold again. But I think I’m going to like it when it’s done. If the pattern proves sound, I’ll offer it here.