Wee one's Barefoot Knits tank is almost, almost done. Just one strap to sew closed and a few last ends to weave in and, oh right, there is the issue of the missing butterfly. I had meant to add a little butterfly motif to the front but after finding a sweet chart (thanks for your help, everyone!) and knitting half of it, I realized that I'd made a mistake when I started it. It was very annoyingly juuuust off center. Grrrrr! Out it went and, along with it, my desire to knit any more intarsia. So I knit the front section with my knitting class this week and am presently considering sewing a few cute butterfly buttons on the bodice instead. I did promise wee one that there'd be a butterfly on the dress and she never forgets things like that!

The good news is that the dress fits great! I made a ton of mods to the original pattern, so this was by no means certain, but I got lucky. After casting on a different amount to accommodate the ruffle stitch from the comfort zone skirt pattern, I ended up with about 20 extra stitches for the body of the tank. I worked some paired decreases near the upper section of the skirt to get back down to the proper number. I also added 3 or 4 inches to the tank so it would be more dress-length than tunic-length. And finally, I lowered the neck in the front of the tank so it wouldn't come up quite so high on her throat. Seriously, the neck is sooo much better this way. I can't wait for the modeled pictures on this one!

I'm spending my time this evening searching the net for a pretty little charted butterfly pattern. Know of one??

I've made it to the armholes of wee one's Barefoot Knits tank and have suddenly decided that I need to put a little butterfly on the front. Because she loves butterflies!

"butterflying" around the playground this weekend

On our thirteen hour drive down to DC (we had to stop to run the kids every couple of hours, ya know), I did a whole mess of knitting! The kids were so good that my knitting was only interrupted by occasional requests for juice boxes and Joe-Joe's cookies. And so I finally started the tank top from the cover of Barefoot Knits.

I've been wanting to make some barefoot knits for a while - my latest two knit skirts for wee one were a warm up to doing some things from the book. And I've had this mango colored rowan handknit dk set aside for a summer knit almost as long. The only bump in the road was that I'd fallen in love with the ruffle on wee one's little red skirt so much that I'd decided to work the same ruffle at the bottom of the tank top instead of the simpler garter stitch in the original pattern.

That, however, required casting on hundreds of stitches and counting decreases for ages, which I couldn't bear to do at home or at knitting group. But being confined in the car for hours made it conceivable, even enjoyable. And my reward for getting through the ruffle... miles and miles of stockinette in the round. Perfect! I could even knit while resting my eyes.

Now that the ruffle is behind me, I'm on track with the original tank top pattern. And I even have a couple of knitting students working on the same project with me. I swear I could spend the whole summer making cute knits from this book!

Wee one's twirly skirt (pattern on ravelry.com here) screams out "twirl me!" It's got rounds of increases, ripples of fabric, and tiers of color just begging to be spun around and around. Look at how big and round it is when you lay it out flat!

Unfortunately, wee one wasn't in a twirling mood today. The skirt fits her great and the 4T length is perfect for her but the sheer size of the flounces means she's got to work up some real speed to get a good twirl going. And today wasn't a high gear sort of day, if you know what I mean.

She does love it though.

Thanks to the delightfully distracting company at Knitsmiths and the charmingly engrossing little film My Neighbor Totoro, I'm almost through the last tier of wee one's twirly skirt. After all this stockinette, I'll be just about ready to get back to the crochet on wee's orange buttercup baby jacket. I hope wee appreciates all this!

Tier three of wee one's twirly skirt and it's starting to look like it'll be able to earn its name. It's getting wider and poofier and cuter every row. There are A LOT of stitches there though, let me tell you. I am so not looking forward to knitting tier four! That's gonna be a slow twenty rows for sure. I'm going to need a long, engrossing movie for that section. Any suggestions?

I had so much fun knitting wee's little red skirt, I couldn't help casting on for another skirt for her. (Even though hubby thinks that knit skirts are silly and refuses to admit that the red skirt is the cutest thing ever!)

The Twirly Skirt by Christine Schwender, who co-wrote Barefoot Knits, is a four-tiered skirt which gets wider from top to bottom and is supposed to be very twirly when it's all done. (The pattern is not in my copy of Barefoot Knits, despite many folks' claims that it's in the book. It was available in InKnitters magazine and there is a version of the pattern available on Ravelry.) I chose four different colors of Rowan handknit cotton, since my lys had more color choices in the handknit cotton than they did in the cotton fleece.

I'm only on the second tier, but the knitting is already getting dull since it's just stockinette stitch in the round, interrupted only for the eyelet rounds at the color changes. It's turning out to be a little hard keeping my motivation on this one, especially as it's gray and chilly outside, but I've got to keep knitting, if only to prove hubby wrong! Hee, hee.

Wee one's new spring skirt ("Comfort Zone" skirt by Knitting at Knoon, knit with only one skein of Cotton Fleece) fits her perfectly! Wee's never really had a skirt before, so I was relieved when she happily wore it around the house this morning. She even stopped to admire herself in it. Very ladylike and all.

We both love the little ruffles on the bottom. They become even more pronounced after some rolling and crawling around too. And the skirt is great for twirling!

Bring on the Spring. We're ready!

Sitting on the sofa, wearing my robe turned round Snuggie-style, sewing the waistband of wee one's springy skirt.

We've had all of two nice days here in Boston, so naturally, I've jumped ahead in my mind to spring and summer knitting! I've been looking forward to making some things for wee one from Barefoot Knits for a while now and just got my hands on some Brown Sheep cotton fleece at our most recent yarn swap. (All the Barefoot Knits patterns are written for cotton fleece.)

I was about to charge ahead and cast on for the tank top on the cover when I happened to find this adorable pattern from Knitting at Knoon at my lys.

loooove the sweater, but I think my wee one would wear the skirt more

Before I knew it, I'd cast on with the cotton fleece for the skirt! It's knitting up lightning fast and is adorable. But it's just a warm-up for the Barefoot Knits knits. Anyone else got a few of those on their to-do list? We could barefoot-knit together.