August 2009

I am very busy cleaning out closets and drawers in preparation for an eventual move and in my rummaging I found two children’s sweaters knitted by my great-grandmother. It’s time to go back 30 years!

My mom’s grandmother flew across the big ocean to visit us in the United States only once, back in 1979 in the weeks before my little brother was born. Now, I’ve never had children, but I can just imagine the fortitude it takes for an expectant mother to go to Disneyland in August less than 2 weeks before her baby is born. My mother did, though, although I doubt she rode the Matterhorn. In between doing touristy stuff and in the weeks after my brother was born, Oma had a lot of time to kill in the house and, fortunately, Thrifty Drug Store had a lot of acrylic yarn. She knitted us a great big afghan for the sofa. And also some little sweaters.

Here’s mine:

That strip on the bottom where the maroon stripe is especially wide and a little off-kilter is the extension. She knitted the sweater to an appropriate length for me, then knitted a separate extension and left that with my mother, who sewed it on sometime in the future so I’d get more wear out of the sweater.

My new little brother got an ensemble:

The hat is formed with garter stitch short rows. The ties on the sweater’s side were to narrow it to fit him when he was a little too small for it and to allow for growth as he approached growing out of it. I have to say Oma could really make a mean tassel and cord.

I’m rather disappointed that there isn’t any avocado or true harvest gold here but perhaps that is for the best.

Reading blogs today, I see Sock Summit is on everyone’s mind. I did not go but it looks like it was an absolute blast. My grandmother lives in Oregon and while she is not a knitter, she knows very well of my mania. Even she had heard of “some big knitting thing” in Portland and asked me about it. I explained. Socks, huh? I remember that’s what Stephanie Pearl-McPhee had written her web hosting person said. No one besides other sock knitters believes socks are so popular that they get their own convention.

While I did start another pair of socks for my mom on the bus this morning, one inch of ribbed cuff is hardly worthy of a sock post, so I will to show off the finished hippo toy here instead. She has been done for ages:

Pattern: Happy Hippo by Stephanie Gildersleeve, as published in Knitter’s #49, Fall 1997
Yarn: nearly 2 skeins Cascade 220 Superwash, 100% superwash wool, color 844 for the hippo; very old mercerized cotton that I got from my great-grandmother for the tutu
Needles: size 5
Started 3/9 and finished 6/13/2009

I worked the hippo pattern as written except I added 8 rounds to the body. I made that decision after finishing and stuffing her limbs; she needed a bit more length to make the legs look more in proportion. I also changed the order of sewing her together. The pattern asks you to stuff all stuffed parts, then sew the heads to the body, then sew on the eyes, then sew on the other parts. After seeing how rough our niece was on her Viking hat, I really wanted the limbs, ears, and eyes sewn on very securely with the yarn tails woven in also very securely, so I put her all together before I stuffed the body and head and grafted her together. Reminder to self: final yarn tail is tucked into left ear.

So Gwendolyn (what? you don’t give toys in progress a name?) accompanied me to the park one day in June and agreed to pose for photos. Here she is just finished with a pirouette:

She checked out the view of Conservatory Valley in Golden Gate Park:

But that was such an unflattering angle that she requested another pose:

Finally, we had a near scandal when Gwen decided to sunbathe in the buff:

I saw our little niece in June at Mr. MmmYarn’s family reunion (was supposed to be a celebration of his finishing chemo; instead, it was a celebration of his life) but she was overwhelmed by so many family members and had pretty much forgotten me because she hadn’t seen me in so long and wasn’t ready to meet yet another stranger, which means neither my presence nor my gift was well received. I wasn’t hurt by it. I know I will see her again and she will be small enough for a stuffed toy for a few years yet so I will try again next time.

I really, really like the head: