yummy!



Bonbon baby cardigan from Rowan Classic Mother & Baby in rowan calmer

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I can finally move wee one's bonbon cardigan (from Rowan Classic Mother & Baby) to the finished pile! She waited over a month for the right buttons. After trying buttons in all different colors and with all different designs, in the end, I chose some simple, cheapy pearly buttons. Everything else just detracted from embellishments on the sweater.

All spread out, I find this sweater simply stunning. I love the sleeves, the triangles along the button bands, the embroidered flowers, everything. And the Calmer was a delight to work with again. This is the pure joy of knitting for a little girl!

It's the last day of first grade! The boys' classes celebrated with "First Grade Olympics", including:

the long jump

the shuttle run

badminton

and soccer

I sewed my first blocks for the civil war sampler, including:

"Lincoln's Platform" block

"Underground Railroad" block

And did the last bit of embroidery on wee one's bonbon sweater, including lilac and still that red (love that red!):

I think I finally got a good picture of the red here.

It's the first day of summer and the last day that I'll have time to take a shower and sit and write a post like this until September. Yikes!

Wee one's bonbon sweater (who even remembers that one - it was so long ago!) has been patiently waiting for its embroidery. I thought I had so many color choices to pick from in my stash, but I think what was keeping me from just doing it was that I wasn't completely happy with my red/pink options. I finally just pulled three colors I liked from the bag, sat down at Knitsmiths and did the darned embroidery.

Loooooove those flowers!! It's the colors I'm still not sure about. I liked the red a lot (it's actually a sort of coral red, but it turns really red against this pink). While at Knitsmiths, I had also used the coral color in the cross stitches in the triangles. But by the time I got home, I decided it was really too bold there, overpowering the triangles and the other little touches of color in there. I took it out and tried the other pinky color I had (see the link above for the picture), but it was way too pale and was barely visible on the sweater. So I ended up putting some of the orange in there instead. It's better. It's more the right sort of shade (warm, but not taking over). But, still, I didn't love it enough to redo the red flowers.

click for a big close-up

Take a closer look and tell me what you think. I'm beginning to think that the sweater really needs a cooler color altogether. Maybe orange out, red out, and the lilac in?

While still stymied by the decision over which buttons to put on my babycables cardi, I thought I'd move on to finish up all the little baby sweaters I had in progress. I managed three and then found myself in the same situation again.

It's time for the embroidery on wee one's bonbon cardigan and a search through my stash came up with too many choices! The original pattern picture shows sweet baby blue, chartreusey green, and orangey pink flower details. I've got those colors. Problem is, I've also got a fun, bright blue, a lighter, grassier green, and a rosier pink that would all look fine too. Plus, there's all the purpley, lavender choices. The original pattern sweater is done in a pale purple, whereas mine is pink so that pretty much leaves all the purples wide open as even more options.

I did start the finishing on wee one's little pink bonbon sweater. Really. I pulled out the tiny needles, put those button band stitches back on the needle and knit in ribbing all the way up one side. The wrong side. Doh! Apparently, if you read the instructions correctly, it tells you to work the button side first, sew on or mark the positions of the buttons and then knit the other side (the one I started with), working buttonholes across from the buttons. Okay, number one, I'm a dork. I admit it, I didn't pay enough attention. But, number two, I don't like these instructions that sort of loosey goosey say to space buttons evenly apart and then make buttonholes at about the same place on the other side. Can't you just tell me to make buttonholes a specific number of rows apart and then I'll match the buttons to that? Wouldn't that be better? Am I the only one who really appreciates that sort of direction? And let's not forget, number three, the length of the button band (and corresponding buttonhole band) has only been given as "until button band, when slightly stretched, fits up front opening". So, let me get this right, the instructions are to kinda stretch it and then kinda space out buttons and then kinda make buttonholes to match? No, no, people, not with me.

I did rip out the one band that I knitted. You gotta have the buttonholes on the correct side, otherwise it's a boy's sweater, right? I reknitted the button band on the other side and will now count out the number of rows that it took to fit up the front opening. Then I'll divide that by the number of spaces between buttons and figure out for myself how many rows to knit the buttonhole band and how many rows apart to space the buttonholes. But I'm not going to be happy about it, okay?

Bonbon from Rowan Classic Mother & Baby in need of finishing

Aren't those wing sleeves awesome? And the pink. And the Calmer. And we all know that I love making bobbles.

bobble-y front awaiting embroidered flower details

So I'm pretty much in knitting nirvana with this pattern. Although I suspect that might be just about to change. The pattern calls for holding the button band stitches until after the body is knitted, then placing those stitches back on the needles and knitting "until button band, when slightly stretched, fits up front opening". Only slightly easier to read than do, right? I have encountered these instructions before (in another Rowan pattern) and had the foresight to ignore them. Not this time. But I'm not going to worry about that yet. For now the pretty and the pink and the bobbles are enough to keep me flying high.

Two boy projects and I go running for the pink yarn again! While working on george the other night, I started thinking of a precious little baby cardigan that Dani made a while back. I couldn't get it out of my head. It's the Bonbon cardigan from Rowan Classic's Mother & Baby.

I had to get up that instant and check the pattern info to see if I could knit it. I got a little shock when I saw that the sizing only went up to 12-18 months. Then I remembered I have 4 balls of a discontinued colorway of pink Calmer in my stash. I did the math and figured now is the time to knit this thing before the baby's too big for it and 4 balls of Calmer isn't enough to make her anything!

I am loving this pattern so far. It has cool bat-like dolman sleeves which are knit right off the body section. The front panels are knit separately and then you join them across the top of the neck and work the back down to the ribbing. Neat, huh? And it has the sweetest little bobble design around the button bands. Of course, knitting with Calmer again ain't too bad either. This is one of those projects I'm going to be sad to see finished cause I just want to keep knitting it!