Baby sweaters

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.

The last couple of months have been very difficult and strange, for me impossible to put fully into words. I pretty much abandoned the blog here simply because it’s hard to get my thoughts in order. I also didn’t want Matt’s photos to no longer be on the first page of Mmm… Yarn or my Flickr account but now that I finally printed and framed a few photos it’s OK and I’m no longer freaking out at the thought of those no longer being first in those places. Having all digital photos means I don’t put in the effort of printing and framing anymore so there were no photos of him or us anywhere. On a side note, I learned you can take screen shots with the iPhone, which allowed me to keep a screen shot of our last text message exchange as a .jpg file, which means I’m also no longer freaking out over his phone’s battery going dead or getting some software update that deletes saved stuff.

My brain is all over the place and rambling thoughts abound. I do go to work 4 days a week, off Wednesdays, and thank goodness we are now busy with a computer lease turnover and an upgrade to Office 2007. Both of these projects can focus my mind for the duration of the workday. Then I go home and it’s rambling time again.

But back to the blog. For a while I had nothing to show you here as I did not have any knitting mojo for a little over a month after he died. Since then I have been able to concentrate enough to knit simple projects and even a few not so simple ones but haven’t had the wherewithal for dealing with photographing, writing down my notes (now of course all forgotten anyway), and getting things up on the blog.

So, here is the first object that I managed to finish and photograph, the baby sweater you saw back in early May. Last month I wove in its 10 remaining yarn ends and sewed on the buttons; I even mailed it off to its little (and growing) recipient.

Pattern: own
Yarn: Blue Sky Alpacas Organic Cotton, 100% cotton, .75 skeins color 632 (dark blue), .65 skeins color 630 (mint green), .25 skeins color 80 (off-white)
Buttons: from stash (I have these in several colors and really like them)
Needles: size 6
Size: 6-9 months
Started 5/5 and finished 6/10/2009

I did not hear from the parents whether they received it at all and therefore do not know whether it fits or they like it. This has happened to me with I’d say 80% of the things I’ve mailed off, gifts that I did not give in person. I don’t take it personally as I know new parents are busy and frazzled and probably use baby’s naptime to quickly nap themselves or try to get something done in the house, but I still find it disheartening to not at least get an email saying “it arrived.”

Somehow I thought a new baby sweater would take me at least a few weeks. Sometimes they take me a few months. But not this time. On Tuesday night I swatched. By Friday I had finished the back of the sweater:

Tonight (Sunday), it’s already looking like this:

And it’s not like I spent huge blocks of time just knitting over the weekend. We had our usual weekend errands. We cooked and we made little honey cakes. We went for walks in the park both days. Yesterday I briefly re-created Old Faithful in our very own bathroom: why, oh why, did the instructions for the replacement toilet valve not say to turn off the water source before step 1? Or even in step 1? Thank goodness Mr. MmmYarn ran as fast as he did when I hollered; saved me some major mopping. And my repair worked just fine after the geyser ceased. I helped him warp on for a new scarf today. We called our moms (did you?). We went yarn shopping (in the interest of full disclosure… the trip was for Mr. MmmYarn so he could replenish his weaving stash, but I bought some too, of course). All of these little things add up to a big list of things we did, yet this weekend was easy and actually relaxing and the baby sweater, another little thing, just flowed into being. Perhaps it was the size 6 needles, huge compared to what I’ve been using recently, that made this one such a joy.

If the sweater is dry tomorrow, I can seam it and knit the collar. Yeehaw.

Whew, the orange and yellow baby sweater is finally done and since I mailed it Saturday, the recipient should have it already.

Pattern: own, percentages based on Elizabeth Zimmermann’s February Baby Sweater
Yarn: Wolle Rödel Baby-Merino, 100% superwash merino wool, 3 skeins color 13075 (orange), 1 skein color 13065 (yellow)
Needles: size 2 for body, size 1 for buttonband
Size: 6 months
Started 1/2 and finished 3/2/2009

I made the little flecks at the bottom reverse direction at the center back by making little fleur-de-lis-looking things:

I like how the sleeves belled out a little at the cuffs and the swoop leading up to the button at the bottom of the front. The buttonband is an attached i-cord. The photo doesn’t do this sweater justice as it got a little wonky in blocking, making it look like the sleeves didn’t line up quite right. They are a bit tight at the armhole, I think, but without a little person here I’m not sure. Next time I might make underarm gussets so they lie a little more naturally.

This is always a good sign:

Terrible picture, but exciting that it’s all blocking.

Waiting is a big theme in the MmmYarn household these days. It’s not all bad. It turns out time spent waiting translates into quite a bit of knitting time. I took advantage of the brief period of sunshine through heavy rain clouds this morning and took photos to share.

The baby sweater nears completion:

I did finish knitting the lower band today and the sweater is officially off the needles as of early this afternoon. Now comes the sewing up of the sleeve seams, the weaving in of ends, and the creation of an i-cord edge with buttonholes along the two fronts. Ugh. Most likely followed by button shopping (much more fun than creating the holes); I haven’t checked the button stash but if memory serves I have nothing that will work with this coloring. This means I might need to go to the yarn shop because I don’t want to wait until Stitches West to send this sweater off to its continually growing recipient. Oh, the torture. Because I can’t buy anything but buttons at the yarn shop because I am still on a self-imposed knit-from-the-stash diet, with an exception for Stitches West, where I typically end up buying from the local shops’ booths anyway. It’s a strange logic.

Time flies when you’re knitting, and the Sweater Girl Pullover is well beyond the swatching stage:

Those safety pins up the right side of the back are marking where I added waist shaping that’s not in the pattern. Perhaps leaving those pins there will help me to remember to add the same shaping to the front. Perhaps if I write about the plan here that will reinforce it in my Swiss-cheese brain. You think? And yes, I nearly always knit sleeves two at a time when they are worked flat. It’s the only way I can be sure I’m duplicating the shaping.

Oh, and I may have done a little plying this week. Yarn, however, is still on the bobbin and not yet skeined:

Waiting took on another form a few months ago when I ordered a book I was sure would be fabulous. I got impatient, checking to see when it would be released and when it would be shipped on a regular basis. But you can’t rush these things and it finally surprised me by arriving last week. I wasn’t wrong about its fabulous-ness, and this sure is some great retail therapy, courtesy of the talented Nancy Bush:

Mmm… nupps. I do like the look of nupps and even enjoyed their execution when I made the Lily of the Valley shawl. I am looking forward to eventually working some patterns out of this one. First I have to read it, though; haven’t had time to really peruse it yet.

I indulged in a little more this week. The reward, me mateys, is my very own pirate-ish YARRRN t-shirt:

Mr. MmmYarn and I decided to stay in for Valentine’s Day this year. Lots of the knitting blogs I read posted something heart-shaped or red today. I give you, instead, Beef Braised in Ale on noodles alongside red cabbage with cranberries:

Hey, at least the side dish is in the pink/purple/red color family. We also indulged in red wine. Yum. Happy Valentine’s Day, all! I hope you are as lucky as I am and can spend it with someone special.

Happy Groundhog Day! I took a vacation day today simply to try to catch up with life a little. Due to circumstances beyond our control, neither Mr. MmmYarn nor I got a weekend this weekend, nor did we get much of a long weekend last week. Today I realized it has been ages since I’ve posted. I don’t have too much finished work to show for this big posting gap, but I’ve definitely been practicing various fiber arts.

Finished item #1, a hat:

Pattern: own, 3×3 spiral rib made on 61 stitches (a multiple of 6 plus 1 to create a right-leaning spiral)
Yarn: 4 ounces of handspun Widdershin Woolworks merino wool
Needles: size 10 (plus a little of size 9 at the very top as it turns out I have no size 10 double-points)
Size: adult
Started 1/23 and finished 1/26/2009

I am very proud of this as it is the first garment I have knit from my handspun. So far, handspun yarn has been relegated to a special section of the stash, the part I don’t knit from. I came to the conclusion: what’s the point of having this yarn if I don’t use it? This stuff is early spinning, probably made in 2000 or 2001. Bulky and uneven, but it sure made a nice hat:

I made hardly any progress at all on the baby cardigan since it went to Stow Lake. The sleeves were truly terrible. Here is a blocking photo from a week ago that I never got around to getting posted here:

Look how big those dots are in the sleeves! I’m working the body on size 2 Addi Turbos and for ease of working I switched to Susan Bates short double-points (with a rubber band on each end to make straight needles) for the sleeves, which completely changed my gauge. The sleeve fabric was totally floppy, nothing like the body. Since I took this photo last week, I have ripped out and re-knit both sleeves, this time on the Addis, and am now chugging away at the body. The sleeves’ gauge is far more satisfactory. I blocked them again just to be sure.

Finished item #2: I had this idea in my head a long time, that as a quasi-environmentalist it’s really shameful that I waste one cardboard sleeve on my teacup every Monday night at knitting group, so I cut a strip off a failed felted bag and needle-felted together a cup holder.

Failed bag with bizarrely wide strap and bizarrely narrow flap:

And voila, a cup holder:

Pattern: took apart a cardboard holder, traced it onto already-felted bag, cut out basic shape, needle felted together, put the cardboard holder in the recycling bin
Yarn: Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride Bulky, 85% wool, 15% mohair
Started and finished 1/25/2009

Of course, three of the felting needles were broken after my last adventure with needle felting and I did not remember where I put the replacements until this item was finished. Grrr. At least I know now I do not need to buy more replacements at Stitches West at the end of this month. And the next needle felting project will go far more quickly with a full complement of needles. When I used this last week, the cafe owner asked if I could make one and put the cafe’s logo on it. Uh… I kind of weaseled out of that one. I don’t see myself going into mass production on these.

I swatched with some lovely Rowan Kidsilk Night for the Sweater Girl Pullover:

However, the swatch lied despite my doing everything you’re supposed to do (wash and dry, hang a bit), and the 5″ of sweater I managed to crank out this weekend I ended up ripping out today because the work was too wide. Ripping is hard in this yarn. I cannot rip the waistband part but managed to re-use the rest of the yarn. This morning I cast on again with fewer stitches and have a whole 8 finished rows to show for it. Whoop-de-do. The Kidsilk yarn is fabulous, though. I can see why it’s known as Kidsilk Crack.

Spinning took place, too. I finished the last bit of purple for the purple and orange 4-ply last night. I’m deciding whether I have time to ply it now before heading to knitting group in an hour.

And wrapping things up, I finally was able to part with the way-too-big-for-me sweater. It’s on its way to its new home with the Cheyenne River Reservation youth project in South Dakota. They need warm, natural fiber sweaters and large ones are welcomed. This one’s Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride Worsted and has a 48″ chest:

Besides the hugeness of it (huge due to delusions about body size for the first 10 years or so after I learned to knit even though it is the correct size as dictated by the pattern), the colors simply don’t flatter me, so I decided a long time ago I wouldn’t rip this and re-knit it. I hung on to it a long time, unable to let go of something I put so much effort into. I was able to very peacefully send it on its way on Saturday with nary a regret. Nice.

Warm, sunny, practically windless weather continues, so today I went for a long walk in Golden Gate Park. Once I reached Stow Lake, I took a break and worked a little on the orange and yellow cardigan. This is it, dangling by one two-thirds done sleeve, enjoying a view of the Chinese Pavilion:

After several attempts at knitting the sleeves in the round, I gave up and decided to go flat. Stranding that tiny circumference on small needles just wasn’t working for me.

I made relatively good progress on the orange and yellow baby cardigan during the past week, but tonight ripped back to the 8th row after test blocking today:

See that puckering just below the garter stitch yoke? Even blocking will not fix that. It means I need to make the yoke deeper before each round of increases to avoid it. Sigh. The good news is that I really like the polka dots.

July’s spinning is pitiful: only 1 ounce that I spun relatively thickly and Navajo plied so I would get some practice (and, frankly, so I wouldn’t have to deal with multiple bobbins that day because I was feeling lazy).

This fiber felt rougher, longer, and more crinkly than the natural white merino top I spun a few months ago.  I don’t know whether this is because of the individual sheep’s wool or the top’s preparation, or whether natural moorit merino is simply different in texture than natural white merino.

Fiber: 100% merino moorit top
Colorway: Moorit
Quantity: 1 ounce
Finished yarn: 1 skein, 32 yards, worsted weight
Spun at 12:1 on 7/6/2008, Navajo plied at 8:1 on 7/29/2008

This is my first mostly successful Navajo ply project. There was no cursing involved (!) this time around, simply because the singles never broke. I recently bought Judith MacKenzie McCuin’s Handspinning book and it both has photos of how to start a Navajo ply and offers the tip of pulling through several loops before starting the wheel. This did the trick for me. Usually what happens is I break the strand over and over, trying to get the chain started. I call this project “mostly successful” because the chains are not even and the finished yarn is both lumpy and overtwisted. In other words, I made yarn with character!

I did have one area of trouble while plying. I use my right hand to chain and the left both to control the singles coming off the kate and to smooth out any chains as necessary. Doing this, my left hand constantly was in the way of the right and I had to twist my body. With only 1 ounce of fairly thickly spun yarn, though, plying went quickly so I wasn’t too bothered. Now, had I been able to read bowerbird’s post that includes a little sentence about keeping the singles on the right (about 1/3 of the way down that post) before I tried this, or even thought about perhaps MOVING THE KATE TO THE RIGHT SIDE OF MY BODY when my hands were running into each other (duh!), I wouldn’t have had this problem. Location, location, location. Next time I’ll know better

On the wheel for August: traffic-cone-orange merino that I will spin 2 thin singles of, to ply with 2 thin singles of Grimace-purple merino. Wish me luck; the last 4-ply I did took me 6 months.

The Prezioso sweater was nearly done but I decided on the bus yesterday that I really didn’t like the neckline, so I ripped out the last 2 inches and it now looks a little shorter than this: