How I Learn About "Cool Girl" Clothes and Realize I Don't Know How to Make Them

Well, it seems that my 6 year-old niece is enamored of "cool girl" clothes. Even though I am a child psychologist and meet with the elementary school set every day, Monday through Friday, I realize that I have no idea what "cool girl" clothes are. I suppose they are closer to what Hannah Montana might wear and not so much what Marcia Brady might have worn circa 1970.

So, herein lies the peril of knitting for others. Unless the knitee specifically picks out the style and colors, beware! The receipient may not: (a) like the style of the knitted item, or (b) wear it. I guess all dyed-in-the-wool knitters know this, but I am a slow learner. Despite having an inkling of this danger, I blithely went ahead and knit the following creation which, I am sad to say, Hannah Montana would not be caught dead wearing!

But, I had fun making it and learned a very valuable lesson. My next project is for my brother. And, yes, he did pick out the pattern and approve the colors.

My Great-Grandmother's Quilt

My great-grandmother was an amazing woman. She had to flee Lebanon in the 1930's after my grandfather was killed for political reasons. She immigrated to the Pacific Northwest with four young children, the oldest of whom was my grandmother. My "Citty" (as we called her) had to figure out how to make her way and support her children in a foreign country where she didn't speak the language. Fortunately, she was very resourceful and good with her hands and was able to raise her children to be honest, hard-working, productive members of society.

She taught my grandmother to knit, who, in turn, taught me to knit. So, for that in and itself I am forever grateful. But, I also loved her for her gentle and loving nature. She seemed to be one of those people for whom adversity and sadness had distilled in her a sense of what is really important in life and she was generous in her relationships with others. One of her most obvious traits was that she could never just sit still and relax. She always needed to be doing something and so knitting and quilting became important activities for keeping her hands busy during her infrequent moments of "relaxation."


By happenstance I inherited a quilt top she made in the 1930's out of scraps of fabric from various items of clothing she'd made for her children and herself. She pieced this Star of Bethlehem together by hand but never finished it and it was found among her personal belongings when she died at age 92.

I was honored to inherit it, and since I am not a quilter I had a professional quilter finish it for me. It now hangs in my therapy office and I hope it brings a sense of comfort to my patients. I know it does to me. Thank you Citty!




The backing is a reproduction fabric from the 1930s. It depicts little girls in long dresses serving tea to little boys with waistcoats.

Obsessions

"It surely is a great calamity for a human being to have no obsessions."

- Ted Berrigan, poet

Clearly, this is not a calamity from which I suffer.

Over the Labor Day weekend I went into an organizing frenzy. The label gun was out and the dust was flying. Eventually when the dust settled, here is what became evident.

First, the knitting books.


Then, the (partial) yarn stash.


This is an embarrassment of riches. If I sat down and knit for the rest of my life, I wouldn't run out of yarn or inspiration. On the one hand, this gives me a great sense of comfort (as in, "Phew - I'm glad I don't need to worry about having nothing to knit."). On the other hand, I feel more than a little embarrassed and somewhat baffled. How did this happen?! Have I been in a fiber-induced fugue for the past 18 months? And, most importantly, how will I work my way through this?

To wit, here is my knitting queue (in no particular order, because the latest project in which I've fallen in love always jumps to the top of the queue:

1. Gedifra Moments #1443

2. Narvik by Dale of Norway (for my bro)

3. Ivel by Evi T'Bolt

4. Ginny by Kim Hargreaves

5. Autumn Rose by Eunny Jang

6. Ingeborg Jacket #12614 by Dale of Norway

7. Military Jacket by Veronika Avery

8. some stealth gift knitting ...

... and many other projects for which I either have patterns but no yarn, or the yarn but no plan.

But, in closing, I must admit that I am not looking for a cure. It's my therapy. It keeps me sane. When things become overwhelming or stressful, I can always lose myself in the Zen of knitting.

Emma Peel: The School Jumper

Before I share my latest FO, I feel moved to digress a bit. It's about blogging. I am a blogging neophyte. I've only had my blog for a little over a year and I only post about once a month or so -- whenever I finish making a knitted item. But I greatly admire many other bloggers (mostly knitters) who write amusing and interesting blogs on a regular basis about a wide range of topics. With these inspirational folks in mind I've been musing a little about broadening the scope of my blog to share my latest read or talk about the amount of yardage I've swum that week. Stuff like that. But then I think to myself, who would really care? And, isn't that the fabric of my private life so why would I splash it all over the Internet? And then, finally, I think to myself, no one ever comments on my blog anyway so I know that I really have very few readers. (Sometimes I even feel a little bit sorry for myself about that last point.) But then I read the Yarn Harlot's recent blog about all of the hate mail she's been getting lately (mostly from one particular offender), and I think maybe I'm lucky that my blog seems to stay under the radar. Mostly I feel saddened that there are a few people out there who have to ruin the fun for the rest of us who would like to trustingly share a little bit of our lives with the world and spread the joy of a well-cut steek or a well-turned heel. Sigh. Okay, digression over. On to the knitting ...

This FO is the second of two knitted jumpers (i.e., sleeveless dresses for all you Brits) I made for my six year-old niece who begins first grade in a month.

She is a very active, athletic little girl who much prefers leggings and jeans to dresses despite the attempts of my sister, my sister's MIL, and me to dress her in girly-girl clothes. So when I saw Emma Peel which is described as a dress that school-age girls will appreciate more than a "frou-frou" knit with ruffles and bows, I thought I'd give it a try.



Okay, I couldn't resist some embellishment, so I embroidered a heart on the breast. I found this particular heart in libbyguillard's Flickr photostream, but I'm not sure if she made it up or used a pattern. Anyway, it was the perfect outline of a heart for this little dress. Sort of like the alligator on Izod shirts.

I love the trompe l'oiel effect of the belt. The skirt design is created using a slip stitch pattern. I added in a third color (the white) to give it a plaid look.

I used Rowan handknit cotton yarn, because my niece lives in Southern California and I thought wool would be too hot for her. But, I have to admit, although cotton yarn has its uses it's like knitting with string in my mind. I muuuuuuch prefer wool!

Anyway, I hope she likes it.

Specifications:

Design: Emma Peel

From: Mason-Dixon Knitting Outside the Lines by Kay Gardiner & Ann Shayne

Yarn: Rowan handknit cotton

Needles: US3

If you have something nice to say and you'd like to leave a comment, please do!

Twenty-eight pansies

My dear niece begins first grade in September, so I decided to knit her a couple of jumpers to get her started off on the right foot. (Not that she needs it, mostly I just thought it would be fun).

I finished the first of the two. It's actually a baby design by Kari Haugen published in the Dale of Norway Baby Collection Nr. 114. I modified it to fit a 6 year-old and added the colored stripes at the bottom of the bodice.

I purled the yellow centers of the pansies to add texture to the design and while I was knitting it the fabric was somewhat puckered. However, a good blocking seems to have taken care of 99% of the problem. There is still a small amount of pulling just below the yellow centers where I wove in the floats. I got lots of support and ideas about how to prevent this in the future from Mary Ann of http://www.kidsknits.com/ and the Two Strands group on Ravelry. Many thanks!

I was watching "An Affair to Remember" when I picked up the stitches on the left armhole which is clearly not beneficial to my knitting technique. The right sleeve stitch pick-up looks much more professional thanks to the fact that I gave it my full attention!

I thought these pansy buttons were perfect! I found them on Etsy at http://www.lovebuttons.etsy.com/.

Here are the specs:

Design: Kari Haugen for Dale of Norway, Baby Collection Nr. 114

Yarn: Baby Ull (natch) - light green (9013), deep lavendar (5135), deep blue (5545), pastel lavender (5303), and yellow (2015).

Needles: US0 and US2

Gauge: 28 stitches and 38 rounds in 4" x 4"

With apologies to Marion Foale

Last Fall I was thumbing through a back issue of Rowan magazine, Rowan 36 to be exact, and came across this beautiful cardigan.

Apparently, this was a Marion Foale design named "Betty" that was available in UK retail shops in the 1990's for about 250 pounds. I despaired of being able to "reverse-engineer" the design until I found this Marion Foale pattern published in Woman's Weekly (11/4/2008 issue) on eBay.

I decided to try and modify the pattern to approximate the "Betty." Six months later, here is my best attempt:


Overall, I am pleased with the outcome but it is now clear to me why Marion Foale is a talented knitwear designer and I am not.

First, I misplaced the pockets.


Rather than frog the whole thing (to which a collar was already attached) I decided to camouflage them with pocket-flaps (one of which I think is sewn on a little crooked).


Second, I had absolutely no idea how to turn a Revere collar into a shawl collar and, as it turns out, moss stitch does not look the same when turned on its side.

Third, I added a vent to the back just to be fancy.

After six months of slaving away at this, I have to admit it was not my best effort. Sigh.

Although I think I will be able to happily wear it to work, it does not warm my perfectionist heart. But, the great thing about knitting is there is always the next project!

Specifications:

Pattern: Modified "Neat Knit," by Marion Foale
Yarn: Rowan 4-ply soft in ecru (doubled throughout) - 20 balls
Needles: US0 and US1
Completed: January - June 20, 2009

What I Learned about Moss Stitch

I like using moss (or seed) stitch in knitted garments. I like the nubby texture. I like it as an edge to stockinette stitch, and I like how it adds warmth without adding a lot of bulk.

What I don't like about moss stitch is that it takes so looooong to knit up. I think these sleeves are like Penelope's shroud...I knit them during the day and then they unravel at night (all on their own).

Here they are in March:

And here they are in April.


And here is one of them as of today:

Not much progress, huh? What I discovered on page 23 of that wonderful knitting reference book, The Principles of Knitting, by June Hemmons Hiatt, is that "Seed stitch is 30% shorter than stockinette and 18% wider." Aha! I knew something was up. I knit and knit and knit and have only an inch to show for it. I've also noticed that it tends to become somewhat misshapen. The sleeves I knit in stockinette stitch never look this "wonky." I hope the pieces even out with a good blocking.

Well, I have to admit that I'm being a little bit melodramatic because the delay is largely due to several other knitting projects that have intervened during the past several months. Projects that have been much more interesting to work on, so I've abandoned these poor sleeves time and time again.

One of my other projects is the Military Jacket by Veronika Avery.

I swatched in a WW Khroma from the Fibre Company in Plum, but it was too dark. Then I swatched in a DK Khroma in Aegean, but the yarn was too thin. Finally, I cannabalized my stash of Cascade 220 Tweed set aside for Stefanie Japel's texturized tweed jacket (which would never have flattered me anyway), and that was just right the right yarn.


I've started on the right sleeve (you may remember my vow to work the sleeves of my next garment first), and added a ruffled border as I felt strongly it needed an edging.

Here is a close-up of the ruffled edge.

I guess I'd better go knit some more on Penelope's sleeves ... ;-)