Sassy Does It

OK, so since we’re at about a month from blast-off, I’ll go ahead and unveil my Summer Baby Gift in the making.

Not that it’s some huge impressive project, or even that big of a surprise to at least one person reading this, but since it’s for a baby that’s not born yet, it seems worth putting a little drumroll to it, a nice sense of occasion.

Usually I wait until the kid makes an appearance, but ehhh.  Spill the beans.

So Sissy B is having another one; this’ll make three.  She’s already got plenty on her hands with my two little nieces, and this will spice up all 24 of her waking hours come June.  Not sure if this one’s a boy or girl as they’ve elected to wait to find out. 

At least that’s what they’ve told me.  It’s possible they are sneaking around giggling behind everyone’s backs, secretly knowing.

Maizy calls her little brother- or sister-to-be “Cellpho” (as in, yeah, get ready to dial), and she does this with some confidence, as if this common name has already won the contest for her sibling’s playground moniker.  Hence the blog name of this child is born, ahead of the physical debut.

Regardless of whether Cellpho is a girl or a boy, this kid is going to get a lot of girly influence, what with the two older sisters and all.  (It seems weird to call E-dot - pictured here: awwwwww - an older sister, since so far she’s been the little guy.  Girl.  You know.)

So is it weird that I always make blankets when it comes to baby gifts? 

I know it takes much longer than booties or a layette set, but I always think to myself:  if you’re going to knit something, then really knit something.  Something that the little bundle of joy won’t grow out of in five minutes. 

Sweaters for toddlers make more sense to me: you might get a good year out of that before it’s handed down.  But for a baby, a blanket seems like something they can really use (to the extent they can use anything, other than a breast).  They can lay around on it, drool on it, burp up on it (ah, the joy of machine-washable cotton), all for a good little while.  

Then, once they can walk, that blanket can be really used. 

Beat up.  Dragged around for a long time.  Colored on.

Loved.

But.  Am I boring?  Should I branch out?  Put a little more thought into it?  If you had a kid, what would you want to receive?

Too late now on this one - but your opinions would either pacify my concerns that I’m in a rut with baby creativity or spur me on to make interesting-er tiny things in the future.

On the color, as I believe I announced when I started this thing, we have Blue Sky Alpacas Skinny Dyed in Pear (yes, that’s another name for green, and I think this may have been the start of what Clumsy Knitter kindly called Greenmersion, rather than a Green Problem).  But this hue seemed a good bet for a maybeboymabyegirl baby.

Here’s a little preview.  The repeats bunch up a bit unless they’re nice and stretched: blocking will help this.  (Yes, that is my new red bedspread behind it.  Oh, glorious red.)

Now that I look at it (a lot, often), the lace pattern on my Summer Blanket (otherwise known as “24-25-48 Lace Baby Blanket“, which is the catchy name the Japanese designer gave it) does look a bit more feminine than not feminine.  I was shooting for neutral in the beginning.  But hey - even boy babies are all soft and pretty.  I think a daisy-like pattern will probably fly if indeed a penis makes an appearance.

And there is the aforementioned girly factor that will surround this child. 

Right, OK, stop worrying about the lace pattern.  Good thing, since I’m probably about 2/3 through on the length.

I think what sold me on this pattern is the cool crochet border.  Not everyone who made this (and reported back to Ravelry) followed through with the border, but for me the blanket is a bit lukewarm without it.  I’m not usually a crocheter, but I can hold my own, and this border is going to be spectacular.  I hope.

Feefers is chugging along in the few minutes I can find here and there to work on it.

More time lately on Summer Blanket, which tends to get done on planes, when for some reason the monotony doesn’t bother me as much.  And I don’t like hassling with patterns when other people’s elbows are already touching mine in a fight for the armrest.

So this is the state of affairs that leads me into the weekend.  At this point I’m craving quiet:  sweet, still, quiet laziness.

And some fries with that.

My affinity for things green continues, as evidenced by the new moss-green purse I bought over the weekend.  I wasn’t out to get a green one on purpose, but lo and behold, all the finalists in front of me on the store shelf came up shades of grass.  In the same store I had another Green Incident:  I needed new sheets…hmmmm, how about these sage-green ones?

I know my Green Problem is likely to fade away before too long and be replaced by some other newfangled color, so it’ll be fun while it lasts.  I do have a history when it comes to such things.  Ah, who can forget Black (the New York and London years), Periwinkle (ever since I bought a suit jacket the exact Crayola color), and Red (intermittent, usually when I want to feel busy and important, à la Bridget Jones answering Daniel Cleaver’s phone calls)?

The Red Problem hits me hard when it comes to toenails.  For the life of me I can’t seem to commit to anything other than blood red, usually something named “Vixen” or “Not Just A Cocktail Waitress”.  Friends, sisters, nail technicians:  “Hmmm, where have I seen this before,” they say.  “Maybe…on your toes right now?” 

Well, at least I’m not putting green on my toes.  Yet.

In both knitting and green news, my Tree-colored Fifi is coming right on along. 

This was my first time using the cable cast-on and I loved the way it came out; such a nice smooth, pretty edge. 

I swear, knitting with Calmer makes me feel like I’m a better knitter than I am.  The slightly elastic version of the yarn keeps the stitches looking very uniform even as they’re flying off the needle.

It kind of feels like cheating, but I’m not going to stop.

That said, when I don’t spend more than 10 minutes knitting in a week, it tends to make that knitting-machine feeling grind to a halt.

Work has once again sucked the life out of me in the past two weeks, and I’m grateful to have a moment to connect with my computer that doesn’t have to do with a presentation or a deadline.

In the bit of knitting time I afforded myself this weekend, I went back to the Summer Baby Gift to knock out the remaining bit of my third skein so I could hook up the fourth and feel some progress.  Five skeins total will knock out the bulk of the project, and then I’ve got another skein of Skinny Organic for the trim.  No, I’m not ready to talk about the details of this little gem yet!  More when I’m in the home stretch.

Queue-wise, I’ve got a couple of other ideas brewing.  I’m targeting quick items that might be construed by some as summer garments, but could go the distance later in cooler months to be worn over blouses or layered under suits.  Case in point is Wendy Bernard’s Jewel, which is a pattern out of Custom Knits, a book I resisted buying until a few weeks ago when the Rav-generated Jewel craving started up.

Yes, OK, the picture in the pattern book shows the sweater in green - ha, ha, laugh all you want.

This may be reason I fancy it, since there’s not much to the design, really; simple enough that I probably wouldn’t need the pattern.  The variegation might be working its charm, even though I’m not easily wooed by variegation.  The drape of the tank with the silk fiber is nice - yeah, it’s probably the silk I like.  It’s shown in Regal Silk, but I’m not sure that’s what I’d choose.  I’ve never knit with silk, but given my recent brush with cashmere I’m feeling fancy.  Life’s too short.  And it’s not a huge sweater, just a little guy.

Probably the other reason I like it is because all of the projects in Wendy’s book are pictured on models that are ridiculously pretty and trim.  Note to self: phone is not ringing off hook with offers to model in knitting magazines.

So - grain of salt then, before purchasing yarn.

The other book I bought is another manifestation of my embarrassing cowl fetish.

Once again, I ran across a pattern that I probably don’t need in order to make the garment pictured, and once again, the influence of color is probably stoking my burning desire to look fabulous in it.  The pattern book is an older one from Adrienne Vittadinni, Fall 2004 (hard to find; I bought it here).  I like the pattern on the cover, but that’s not the one that sucked me in.

The red tank on the left has a removable cowl (kind of looks just like the cowl top on Sheer Poncho, eh?).  As knit in that to-die-for shade, the overall look is similar to a Target special I had a few years ago.  I wore it so much that they had to drag me away from it when the Goodwill truck came by to pick it up, lost among others in the well-loved-but-time-to-let-go pile.

The red sweater on the right illustrates the other neckline preference toward which a gravitate:  straight-line, boatneck-y type looks.  Not so much as to be off-the-shoulder, usually, but I like this look.  Again, not a complicated design that requires a pattern to figure out how to make, but this is how it works, right?  We look at patterns, we get inspired, we buy patterns.

There were a few other cute designs in this book, but it was this red-infused spread that got me. 

Ah, the very same red that is now covering my bed, since I caved and bought a (goregeous, wonderful) quilt in the same store as the aforementioned sheets this weekend (good to myself lately, huh?).  The sheets didn’t end up green, though (shocker!), since the quilt won first and I didn’t want to sleep in Christmas colors.

So maybe Green is losing its hold and really it’s my old friend Red that should keep me on my toes.  Toes!  Red nail polish!  Oh la la.

It’s true that the only fire I really know about at the moment is the flame on my blogiversary candle, but that’ll do.  It’s one year today since I started blogging here.  Happy #1 to me!

And I am in New England, finishing with my business travel and now attempting to unwind from my little coil of stress.

Let’s start with the good news: oh joy, I’ve not only selected my next project, but have managed to decide on and actually purchase the yarn to go with it.  This is big progress for me; at the rate I was obsessing over yarn colors I thought I’d never pull the trigger.

After my kill-me-now meetings ended this afternoon, I was out like a shot toward a surrogate East Coast LYS to get down to some business that was actually interesting.

I’ve decided to make Fifi (downloadable on Ravelry, pattern link) from French Girl Knits.  I just like the look of it - fairly sophisticated as a souped up tee but without too many frills that would keep it in the closet instead of on me this summer.  There’s a time for being practical in choosing projects that I’m supposed to eventually wear, sadly, since most of the time I’m dressed for work and not for play. 

That said, this little number does hug things nicely - yes, I mean in the boob area - so I think that’s a point in the sexy column.  Under a jacket it’ll be fine for work, and should I ever make it to a happy hour again, this will be one of those day-to-night pieces that are always getting featured in magazines like Cosmo (or so they tell me).

I’ve linked to A Little Loopy’s version, as I think hers is fabulous.  Just about all the Fifis on Ravelry look better than the hokey picture of French Girl’s official one on their website.

Given the Ravelry raving over Rowan Calmer, I decided not to sub the yarn but rather to knit it with reckless abandon as designed.  Apparently the soft and slightly stretchy-clinginess is to die for, honey.

So.  Then it came to color picking.

I guess the colorway selection for this fiber is nice enough, but it felt too pastelly for me, or if not too pastelly then too full of colors that just don’t work on the pale-shanks likes of me; I just can’t kick it with bright coral or yellow or turquoise.

After shooting many options down, I had left in contention the Garnet shade (492) and the Tree shade (500).  Those two I liked.  But oh, how to decide?

I hemmed and hawed over this for several days (Googling and Raveling images of Rowan colorways like a banshee, nearly making a decision, then not).  At times like these, common wisdom says to go to your LYS to actually see the colors with your own eyes.

Which I tried to do on Saturday. 

I started out with a glorious midday stroll with Bidie-In through the farmers’ market, where I saw this bike.  

Ah, another reason to love California.

After this, I meandered into the LYS nearby.  Not only did I receive aloof and slightly put-out service in response to a couple of inquiries, but I also got denied in the colorway department because they didn’t have the ones I wanted to see.  Poor selection, sloppy displays, and crappy attitude.  Great.

I exited stage left, harrumphing away like a petulant child until a glass of wine at the German pub down the street made the world right again.

The wine had sparkles in it, which made me even happier.  I know that really this is called sediment, but I told myself they were delicious minerals that made my wine nutritious.

Then this business trip came up.  And then the unexpected early finish today - aha! - an opportunity to try another store today.  I did the finger-walking thing first and after a few stores not picking up the phone in the middle of their business hours (hello? how do you expect to sell things if nobody’s bloody home?), I found one that not only answered the phone, but also had my Calmer in both colors that had made it through to the championship rounds.

So I went to shop.  And oh, did I drool!  What a lovely store:  A Good Yarn.  Super nice people, and the most impressive little collection of fibers I’ve seen in ages.  I lingered for over an hour - so decadent, but I did it…because I could.

Tree beat out Garnet, although it was a squeaker in the end.  I liked both finalists (both slightly less intense than they seemed online, which was good - part of my hesitation with both, based on pics, was too much saturation), but I’ve decided I need to knit more green things.  Tree was just the shade I wanted.

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t sure I’d bite the bullet for full retail price when online discounts are just so rightthere; but, after hanging around like a rash for so long in the shop, my save-the-Local-Yarn-Store conscience kicked in.  A few bucks’ difference isn’t going to kill me, but my ten bucks more-than-I’d-pay-online plus a bunch of other people’s ten bucks more-than-they’d-pay-online could keep that store in business.

But only because it would be a shame if a store like this one weren’t in business.  I’ve been empathizing with Clumsy Knitter’s entertaining and well-written rants (here and here) over the poor quality of LYSes lately; I swear, some of them make it so difficult to love them.

I digress.

In the midst of my decision to buy, I came up a skein short.  The LYS lady (with the help of a few regulars who’d wandered in) rooted around in the back room trying to find one more skein of Tree in the same dye lot. 

Just when I thought my do-good LYS-loyal intentions would come to nothing, the girls came up with the goods.  And I whipped out the credit card.  It felt good.

Then I left, but came back because I realized a few blocks away (already in traffic) that I’d left my bluetooth headset thingy in there (it had fallen out of my purse because, like a dork, I’d left the purse unzipped while knocking it over, multiple times, all over the store; I kept setting it down to free my arms for full range of yarn-groping movement).

Then, I left the shop again, for serious. 

And then.

I got stuck in nightmare gridlock.  Not your average back-up, but indeed a parking lot, a log jam - call it what you will.  Many many cars going absolutely nowhere, with no alternative routes emerging.

Did I know, as they were ringing up my yarn,  that I was two blocks from Fenway when the Red Sox game ended and started spewing fans?

No I did not.

Ninety minutes and many honking horns later, I made it past those few clogged blocks just in time to enjoy - ahhhh, the normal rush hour traffic still remaining between me and my hotel.

Got my knickers in a right twist, but tried to enjoy the pretty sunset lighting as I watched free-swinging non-gridlocked people running along the water (much faster than I was moving) next to the fluttering white sails of little boats.  This scene was easy to observe in detail since I was sitting very still in my car, budging not an inch in any direction for long stretches of time. 

Sigh.

Did I mention I got some soft, beautiful, tree-green yarn today?  Before I can unwind any of it it, I’ll need a cocktail to finish off the unwinding of me.  Let me go on and do that.

I’ll raise a toast to my blog’s birthday while I’m at it.  Ooo, and maybe have some cake.

The photo shoot with Maizy is a wrap, so now I can share my review of this pattern (as modified from women’s size to child’s) and the final product.

Original pattern:  More Fun Than Cables Socks by Marguerite Byrne, available for free at Stitches of Violet (Ravelry link)

My modified pattern:  More Fun Than Cables Socks (children’s knee-highs); mini-me version to fit 3- to 4-year old feet (Ravelry link to project notes)

Yarn:  Valley Yarns Huntington (machine washable wool) in colorway 4150

Needle:  US 3 circular (I routinely use the 2-at-a-Time method for socks on one circular, but pattern is written for use on two circulars; could be used with traditional dpn method)

Finished dimensions:  calf circumference = 4.25 inches (unstretched), knee to heel top = 11 inches, back of heel to end of toe = nearly 7 inches

In reducing the overall number of stitches to fit the foot size of a 3- to 4-year old, I needed to make some adjustments to the pseudo-cable pattern that repeats, and to accommodate a knee-high fit, I also modified the length.  You can review my adjustments via this modified pattern link in PDF format (also above) or through my Patterns link on the sidebar to the right.

I’m really happy with how these turned out:  I mean, come on, is Maizy not adorable in the bright-red knee-highs?  And tell me the fingernails in the picture above aren’t the cutest thing you’ve ever seen.  I love my niece, I really do.  She is so stylin’.

They come up right to her knees - bingo, right on target - and appear to fit her very well; tight enough around the calf to stay up.  I made sure to shoot on the long side for foot length so that she can wear these puppies for close to a year (assuming they hold up!).

Sissy B tells me that she’s enjoyed wearing them several times already, tying them in with outfits of all colors, including some (like hot pink) that grown women might not normally pair with red.   That’s my girl:  fashion-forward.

Sizing-wise, if you would like to make any further tweaks to size slightly up or down in age, I used a couple of resources in determining foot length for children of various ages, among other dimensions (length from knee to ankle, calf circumference…this second link is a lot of data, but I’m a nerd, as you’ve already heard on this subject).  If your wee recipient isn’t within reach to do the measurements in person, this info might come in handy.

I like the Huntington yarn (by Valley Yarns, procured from WEBS).  Soft yet sturdy, smoothly sliding down my non-Addi Turbo cheapo needles.   Not splitty at all - very easy to work with.  I’ve already drooled all over the perfect shade of red.

My research prior to ordering the yarn indicated that the yarn could be both machine-washed and tumble-dried (although the latter isn’t on the label). 

I’ll ask Sissy B how the fabric stands up over time.  Although machine-washing will probably be her choice moving forward, she said she hand-washed after Maizy road-tested them for the first time (getting them nice and dirty, like a good girl should).  Maizy modeled the socks for the photos here after that wash.  I noticed a bit of white fuzz clinging at this point, but not pilling.

These nearly made it entirely out of one skein.  You can see here how close to the toe ends my last bit of first skein stopped (in the 2-at-a-Time method, I pull from both the middle yarn and the outside strand to knit each sock on a different portion of the circular needle at the same time).

I used only 10-15 yards of my second skein in order to finish up with the foot length I wanted.  In fact, so eager was I to manage to crank these out from just the one skein (even though the second one was sitting right there) that I finished these socks once with a shorter length (around 6.25 inches instead of closer to 7).  And these would have fit Maizy now, on the tighter side…but given that the foot length is the dimension that will change the most for her in the next year, I wanted room to grow.  Plus there might be some shrinkage in the laundry.  You know.

So I ripped back re-did them to add that extra 3/4 inch.  Worth it.  Happy I did.

Overall, two thumbs up for both pattern and yarn.  Comment away with any questions.

More soon on other progress, which I’m happy to report has actually occurred.  Sheer Poncho was off the needles, as in off off, but a stretchier bind-off is needed…so it’s back on the needles.  Heavens to Betsy, if I don’t have it ready for mailing to Kymber by the end of the weekend I’m gonna be in my own dog house.