Rocking their tomtens

Despite the mild weather we've been having in Boston, there have been ample opportunities for sweater-wearing this month.  Since I'm off from work for a week (whee!), I've had the rare chance to choose the kids' clothes for daycare and preschool.  Naturally, my taste leans heavily toward my own creations.

Here's Miss L in a wool tomten with the full hood.  It's hiding a head of pretty curls but I like how she looks a bit like a medieval knight.

And next is Mr. J, whose green eyes fairly glow in these colors.  I've lined the top half of this cardi in bamboo jersey to fight the itchies.

This pattern is definitely one of Elizabeth Zimmermann's grandest achievements.  It makes a great project for beginners - all garter stitch, hardly any seams - and yields a really wearable garment.

Alpaca lace

One more February baby sweater from Elizabeth Zimmermann, as I knit my way through yard sale yarn.  Here we have 75 cents' worth (i.e. three skeins in dinosaur-era prices) of Blue Sky Alpaca in a lovely cream.  I think that white and off-white are perfect colors for pre-solids babies.  The buttons are garnet-colored with a shank, which makes them easier to use.  I love the bell sleeve of this pattern.

My label looks really chintzy in this elegant setting...may need to reprint those at some point.

Don't look to hard for errors or you're be pleasantly surprised.

More knitting

I read this great post about Thanksgiving being a time for sewers to get back to their knitting, and I couldn't agree more.  Craft maniacs separated from their machines need a different outlet when traveling.  So here's my third sweater in my blue-green autumn trilogy.  The yarn has a really great story: I bought it (three balls of Rowan machine washable wool) at a yard sale for 75 cents!  At the time, I was worried that the seller was going to realize her ridiculous error and come running after me, at least for the alpaca (also 25 cents a skein, unbelieeeevable).  To give you some perspective, the buttons cost seven times that.  They're alternating gold and silver filigree balls.  Choosing the right buttons for a sweater is something I would really like to get better at.  I tend to go over the top (surprise, surprise) or, on rare occasion, too boring.

This Elizabeth Zimmermann "February sweater" from her almanac is a great pattern because it gives a beautiful result with minimal headaches.  I made one in cotton a few years ago.  It's for a little baby who will be arriving in early 2012 on the West Coast.

Two new sweaters

for him and her.  As a career teacher, I am in the process of recertifying (i.e. chipping away at 120 hours of professional development of varying quality and interest).  One of my goals (not the kind that I submit to my boss, of course...) is to spend as many of those 120 hours knitting as possible.  Thanks to a summer immersion institute and four days of conferences in October, I finished the only sweater I've begun since my daughter's birth 20 months ago.  And, while waiting on Webs to restock the wool for that sweater when I ran out, I knit another!  And then another, but that's a secret until a December baby shower for a friend.

Sweater One is a tomten in Plymouth Yarn Tweed, which has great flecks and body but is quite too itchy for my toddler.  Since it's by far the most expensive sweater I've ever knit for a child, this is a disappointment.  I am planning to line the neck area in bamboo jersey and see where that gets us.  I love this Elizabeth Zimmermann pattern nonetheless and the color looks amazing with my son's green eyes.



Sweater Two is a garter stitch cardigan from Knitting for Baby in Knitpicks' Swish Superwash (I think - I know that it wasn't intended for this project.  I had to grab the wool on short notice before a conference, and since I store all my yarn in my kids' bedroom, time is very limited there!).



Every time I make this pattern I get annoyed that the placket puts the buttonholes too far from the garment's edge.  The yarn is very drapey in garter stitch and has a bit too much stretch to it, but no one will be wimpering about itching!

Pull raglan

This sweater pattern, from Chic Knits for Stylish Babies, is a major pain in the neck. I hate lazy authors who don't bother to spell out directions in clear language (example: for sleeve decreases, the pattern tells you to copy the front decreases for one side of the sleeve and the back decreases for the other). Also, the neck is enormous. Nonetheless, I chose this pattern because I loved the stripe pattern, had leftover yarn, and found the raglan zip clever; and it has proved to be cute, thrifty, and easy to wear. Although it's quite warm today, I made Jonah wear it briefly this morning since he was already dressed in matching pants.

Jack Flash

This is another sweater in which I attempted to use up my endless supply of Debbie Bliss cashmerino in ultrapale pink. I love this pattern, which is one of my oldest failproof baby patterns: Jack Flash jacket from Tiddlers and Tadpoles. The buttons are wooden hearts. Combined with the pink and brown colorway, I'd like to think they complete the gender neutrality and baby perfection of this cardigan!

The baby makes the sweater

And here's proof! Eytan Z. and Jonah wearing some things I knit over the past year. Eytan's in a rainbow tomten. Jonah's wearing a Jack Flash sweater that I started knitting the day I went into labor; and a teal and purple tomten. Note how fetching baby boy looks in both pink *and* purple. Proof of our biological link, no?

Garter Stitch Cardigan

I bought this luxurious Debbie Bliss Cashmerino in pale pink several years ago and let it languish when I realized that it's a color that looks a bit horrid on me. Now I'm bringing it back to life, with the help of some accompanying browns, for a baby sweater (from Knitting for Baby). I found the gauge a bit loose (although correct, according to the directions) in that it yielded a very stretchy, spongy sweater. In the past, I found that the buttonholes were too far from the edge of this sweater (especially once you add the knitted border), so I tried a zipper this time instead. It seems to have the effect of shortening the body a bit. The coordinating hat, a garter stitch cloche, features two complementary pompons.

Fair Isle Cardigan

This pattern comes from Debbie Bliss' book but I modified the construction to take advantage of Elizabeth Zimmermann's seamless in-the-round technique. I also lengthened the body by an inch based on a suggestion I got on Ravelry. The sweater's made entirely of leftover cotton scraps, mostly Saucy Sport by Reynolds, and was a great stashbuster! I loved knitting the sweater in the round, but I did get some scary raveling when I cut up the front (my machine-stitching needed to be even tighter, apparently) and I found that EZ's joining technique left me with bunchy underarms, even though I swear I followed her EPS carefully. The matching hat features a pompon.

Tomten Near-Happiness

Ah, the frustration when you knit a pattern again and like it less. I have to admit that I prefer the Tomtens I knit for Caleb and Eytan to the one I just finished for my own Petit Loup. At least I finally had enough yarn to make the hood, and managed to use up all the leftover purple yarn I'd stashed for almost a decade. I used a lighter-weight separating zipper and found that made for a smoother front opening, too. So maybe it's not all bad!

Pull raglan

I knit this basic raglan pullover (#1 for petit loup) from La Droguerie's book Les bébés toute l'année. It is a treasure trove of adorable French baby goodness! The yarn is leftover wool that I bought more than ten years ago in northern France. I have a beautiful cabled turtleneck for myself out of it already, and since there's still some left, I'll have to make a hat and booties to finish it off completely. The sweater turned out rather somber so I added the owl appliqué to make it cheerier. Then I knit a matching hat with pompon and a pair of booties. The booties have quite a strange shape, rather like platform booties!

Sweetheart Pullover

This sweater (#2 for petit loup) was a recycling experiment, to see if I could combine leftover blue-grey-purple yarns into one colorway, and my red-orange yarns into another, and follow a traditional two-color pattern (sweetheart pullover from Falick and Nicholas' Knitting for Baby. The result is a somewhat too-stretchy sweater that recalls the history of many, many baby sweaters that came before it. My husband suggested, after the fact, that I make the heart orange - which would have been lovely. Another smart idea that I didn't get in time would be to knit this sweater in the round, thus saving much weaving in of ends. Two months later, I knit a hat to match. I especially like the tricolor pompon, who waves precariously atop a little "stalk" à la Dr. Seuss.

February baby sweater

I just finished my Zimmermann February baby sweater in Bliss cotton/angora (which I do not recommend, by the way). The yarn bled a lot during blocking (see evidence on my label at neck) but otherwise looks good. I am happy with the pearl buttons and managed to squeeze a bit more length out of the sweater while washing it, thus making up for the lack of yarn at the end of the project!

Update, October 2009:
Izzi is wearing this sweater at about six months old! Hooray for gift recipients of hand-knits who forward pics to the knitter.

Tomten happiness

Another Elizabeth Zimmermann Tomten jacket - happiness! This took 5 skeins of Cleckheaton Country 8 Ply (at a cost of about $22) and I used every last shred of yarn. Someday I *will* buy enough to knit the hood for this jacket, I swear! Like last time around, I really enjoyed adding the patterned ribbon to the inside as a way to cover the icky zipper edge. This week I'll send this sweater off to baby Caleb, who probably won't be big enough for it for several months.

Bliss kimono

I am rather suspicious of Debbie Bliss patterns (see double-breasted pullovers 1 & 2), though I still make them because they are cute, simple, and hip. The yarn for this kimono has been around forever - the pink was something I made into a sweater for myself long ago and hated, and the brown trim remains from a vest I made for an evil boyfriend who preceded my husband by at least a couple relationships. So, this was a stash-buster. I am not a big fan of the blocking process (all that waiting...) but this sweater really fell into place as a result: it developed a whole new soft texture and even appearance in the process, and the bottom edging finally lay straight after I pinned it to the towel as it dried. I couldn't bear to knit the ties (Directions: knit 6 stitches for 18 inches - agh! This is where I find Bliss truly lame) so I sewed on some flowery ribbon instead. I don't like the way knitted fabric ties, anyways.

Aran pullover

Nikhil does a lovely job modeling this pattern from Falick & Nicholas' Knitting for Baby! I knit this with four balls of Jaeger Baby Merino DK in a pleasing shade of pumpkin-y orange. A matching seed stitch cap accompanies it. His mom loved the color orange when we were roommates in college so I'm hoping it will appeal to her, too.

Kashmiri cap

I knit this cap after meeting my friend's daughter Anika for the first time. She is such a sweetey and she needed a hat that matched her winter coat! This cap is based on the earflap cap in Knitting for Baby and is made of various wool scraps. Its name comes from Anika's grandparents because the hat reminds them of the hats of Kashmir.

Zimmermann tomten

I made this tomten from The Opinionated Knitter. It's for another Summer 2007 baby, Eytan Yarden (notice a theme with the names?). I used leftovers from the capuchon Aztèque, which was satisfying and challenging (I had less than a yard left at the very end!). I am especially proud of how nicely the zipper lays down and how I lined the zipper edge with polka dotted ribbon on the inside: