finally, a little girl to knit for!

  

baby bolero from Sidar1676 in Rowan Soft Lux,
Smockie from The second little Sublime handknit book in Rowan cashsoft dk,
little red smock from Sublime's Luxuriously Exotic Soya Cotton Handknit Book in Rowan denim (white)

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I so enjoyed making Erika Knight's denim pinafore for a friend's daughter a couple of years back that I knew I wanted to make one someday for wee one. I kept my eye open for Rowan denim and bought enough for the dress right before we left for vacation. The temporary loss of wee one's clothes (another quick hooray that they are back now!) was the perfect excuse to cast on!

Just like before, I'm downsizing the pattern to be about a 1 year size. The little girl I made it for before is now 3 and I've heard that she can still wear it as a top. So I'm hoping that wee one will get a lot of wear out of this one. And since the denim wears and washes so well, I'm even making it in white (after knitting one white sweater in a particularly lovely but not particularaly washable yarn, I swore not to use white again unless was supersupersuperwash)!

Now that all my sockapalooza socks are done, this will become my new on-the-go knitting project for quick trips to the playground. Everything else on my needles is either too big, too fiddly, or too much work. Wee one may not need a new dress now, but with three more weeks of summer knitting ahead, she'll probably get it pretty soon.

The second part of wee one's new little wardrobe in the making is a bolero to keep her arms warm on chillier mornings and evenings in late summer and early fall. Now that I've got her summer clothes back, I want her getting as much use out of them as possible! So I bought some baby leggings and am working on this light cover up for the top.

Shannon gifted me with a teensy version of this pattern at my baby shower. It was so lovely and was perfect for wee one in her first few months. It was an extra layer just where she needed it. Now that she's outgrown that first shrug, it's time for a bigger version.

two fronts - can't you just see the pretty shrug shape?

This one will be in Rowan's Soft Lux, their slightly sparkly baby soft yarn (the non-sparkly version is called Soft Baby). I've always wanted to use this for a baby project. The gold ply is very subtle and even though I'm not a sparkle girl that doesn't mean that wee one can't be one!

Working with this denim yarn is soooo weird. Everything seems "enormous and a half" (to quote my boys) when knitting and it's really hard to imagine that it could ever shrink down enough to be normal-sized. But it does. Take the denim hat I knit for a friend's little boy this vacation.

Before washing:

I knit the 2 yr. size. Can you believe that the pattern called for 9" before starting the crown decreases? It's as long as wee one's whole body!

After washing:

It's much snugger now. It even fits on wee one's head, although I did turn up the bottom edge twice to get it to actually sit on the top of her head. For a larger baby, I think it'll be great! With the ribbing and the extra length, he should be able to wear it for a long time.

And now my next adventure in shrinkage, wee one's white denim pinafore. The front is all done.

I've sized down the pattern to be about a one year size, but before washing it looks like a blanket next to a 5 month old wee one!

With some washing, it should fit her next summer. Cross your fingers, wee one!

Wee one's wee soft lux shrug now has a back! I couldn't resist laying it out over the first piece of the denim pinafore I'm also knitting for her to see how it will look on her.

Looking at these sorts of work-in-progress pictures with yarn ends everywhere, I can hardly believe that the garment will ever look neat and orderly. Sort of like my home nowadays.

Just the edging left. And all those ends!

I'm so relieved to have finished this just in time for the fall weather. The shrug is a perfect way to keep the chill off of wee one without adding too much more bulk to the whole baby bundle. She's usually wearing a dress over pants and so really only needs some covering on the sleeves and upper body anyway. This pattern - Sirdar Baby Bolero #1676 - was discovered by one of my best buddies, Shannon, who knitted a tiny version of it for wee one when she was still a work-in-progress. Now that wee one is seven months old, she needs a larger size, so it was up to me to make a bigger one. And get this, now that I'm making a baby bolero, Shannon is making her own wee one - go congratulate her!!

The pattern was great. It was simple and the result is really cute. As with most all Sirdar patterns, that pattern pic you see on the cover is probably the worst picture you'll ever see of the garment, so don't go by that. After watching Shannon and Johanna make many very lovely Sirdar things, I've learned that you just gotta trust that it's going to look way better than their kinda blah version of it.

And how much do I love this Rowan soft lux yarn? It is so snuggly soft and the sparkles are just right for a classy and sassy little baby garment. It was such a pleasure each time I returned to this project and picked the yarn up again. It wasn't the exact right gauge, so I had to play with the numbers, as per my usual. I think I ended up making about a 1 yr size, which means that there's a good bit of extra room in the body and sleeves for wee one to grow into.

So how does wee one like it? Let's see...

Hmmm, what's this?

Wow, it's got sparkles.

Hey, you have a camera... me wanty....

Isn't that an adorable name for a pattern? I caught a glimpse of this cute little dress in the new Sublime kids book, The second little Sublime handknit book, and couldn't resist it. (Psssst, you can download a free copy of the pattern here!)

It's a simple little smock dress, should be one of those easy no-brainer knits I can do while watching tv - now that there's something to watch on tv again! I'm all about using my stash these days (wee one's this close to figuring out how to get the yarn out of my storage cabinet), so I pulled out a couple of balls of Rowan cashsoft dk I got on super sale at Webs last year and cast on right away.

Ahhhh, stockinette, take me away!

I'm halfway done with stockie, um, I mean smockie (from the second little Sublime handknit book - free pattern here). Be warned, that's a lot of stockinette there folks!

about 3 seconds later

I'm making the 1-2 year size because my wee one is a big one-year old. After I finished the back and held it up to her, I saw that there was plenty of length in the skirt, so I decided to rip out the garter stitch bodice section and shorten it for a little more of an empire waist shape. Trust me, it'll look better on my babe.

And a little try-on...

Oooooo, so cute!

Last week I finished a fabulous little mod geometric blue dress for wee one's new dolly, Sally. I had thought about making a matching dress for wee one, since she has those same beautiful blue eyes that Sally has and the blue would look fab on her, but I knew that my lqs didn't have any more of that fabric (from RJR Fabrics' So You Sew Fun line). Well, it just so happened that wee one and I needed to get out of the house for a few hours over the weekend (so the boys could save the world in peace) so we decided to go looking for the fabric somewhere else. We found it at the totally awesome but not so local quilt shop Quilter's Way and it was even on sale!

it looks good enough to sit on

One psychedelic a-line dress for wee one underway! The pattern is Butterick 3772 and I know it'll look great on her because I just finished a dress for her with this pattern.

wee one with her new purse she got for her birthday

This dress is actually corduroy, perfect for the never-ending winter we've got going on here. It's called "cool cords" from Robert Kaufman Fabrics, is very soft and has the most awesome pink flowers all over it. It was easy to make with a little facing for arm and neck openings and a simple hem. My hemming is improving! The hem here is way better than on the first little dresses I made for wee one. Maybe after another few dresses for wee one - and Sally - I'll finally have it down!

smockie: back and front

Well, I've finished the front and back of the smockie dress (from the second little Sublime handknit book - free pattern here), but as you can see they don't match. This is on purpose and must be changed of course. So here's what happened....

First I knit the back as directed. I checked the length and, as it was pretty long, I decided to reknit the garter stitch section, taking out about an inch to shorten the dress overall and also to bring the waistline up higher for a short little empire bodice look. Cute!

Okay so far.

I proceeded to knit the skirt part of the front. This in itself was no easy task as I first had to find more yarn! I only had two balls of the cashsoft dk in my stash. I had hoped that one ball would make it up to the beginning of the garter stitch, which would allow me to work both back and front skirt sections in this lilac color. My plan was then to get a ball of a second color to work the garter stitch bodice sections. But one ball of cashsoft dk only got me about 3/4 of the way up the skirt. So I used two balls for the back and had none left for the front. Luckily, knitbuddy Lisa recognized the yarn as some she had in her stash and let me have her last two balls. Not exactly the same dyelot, but you can't tell the difference, can you?

Alright, front skirt section knitted following resolution of mini-yarn crisis.

Meanwhile, I've taken the pieces in and out of the knitting bag several times and have started to notice that the garter stitch straps on the back are getting kinda stretchy. They're knit on the same US6 needle that the stockinette is knit on and they've got a LOT of give. I start to think that this is a problem I should fix now before I finish the thing and end up hating it. So I finished the front, knitting the garter stitch section with a US3 (the size called for for the little armhole edging) and what an improvement! It's actually not significantly smaller (the difference in lengths you see in the picture above is mostly due to the back having longer straps), but it holds its shape so much better. Now alls I have to do is just reknit that back bodice section AGAIN.

So if you're knitting this one, I'd definitely recommend doing the garter stitch at the bottom edge and at the top in a smaller needle. (Yeah, I goofed and did the bottom edge in the smaller needle out of habit even though the instructions call for you to use the US6 there. Sometimes habits are a good thing!!) You don't have to go all the way down to a US3 like I did - it was just what I had around - but I think it significantly improves the final look of the dress to have neater, tauter knitting in those sections. And if you're lucky, you'll only have to knit the thing one time!

Look, I have a new dress.

I feel like a big girl now.

Notes from mommy: pattern - smockie from the second little Sublime handknit book (free pattern here); yarn - cashsoft dk (3 balls for the 1-2 yr. size); modifications - worked all garter stitch (edging and bodice) in a US3 needle and shortened the bodice by one inch. This was a quick knit, from casting on to trying on in two weeks. With the decrease in needle size on the straps and the one-row edging along each side of the straps that the pattern calls for, I'm not too worried about the top stretching out and becoming a problem. It's definitely a pattern I'd make again for wee one or as a gift for another little girl. And best of all, wee one seems to like it and it suits her very well. I think purple may be her color!

It's the back of yet another wee project, just begun.

This will be the little red smock from Sublime's The Luxuriously Exotic Soya Cotton Handknit Book. (Question: how annoyingly long and pretentious are the Sublime book names going to get?! And then after all those insane names, every other pattern is called "smock". I've actually got two other "smocks" from different books on my to-knit list!) Anyway, getting back to the project/problem at hand, that's Tide, George, Bonbon, and this little thing all begun in the last few weeks. Anyone noticing a trend? My only excuse for this knitting ADD is the fact that all of these projects use the exact same needles. The needles are out, the yarn is about (wee one is now getting into my yarn and dragging it around) and so I start something new. Plus, they've all been such fun and inviting little projects.

The yarn for this one is some Rowan denim in white that I was using to make a little pinafore dress for wee one.

from Erika Knight's Simple Knits for Little Cherubs

I finished the back of the dress last year and put it aside until wee one was closer to the right size to wear it. But now that she's big enough for it, I've decided that she doesn't really look so good in that style dress. She's much cuter in something a little poofy like the smockie I just finished for her (yes, another Sublime "smock" pattern). This smock cardigan pattern caught my eye right away. Although the smallest size in the pattern is 2 yrs, I'm hoping that with the shrink of the denim, I'll get something that wee one can wear now. The cardigan shape should still work well as a little dress, and the three-quarter sleeves as long sleeves should the thing stay a bit long.

So, full of the giddiness of a new project, I'm back at the beginning again.

In a vast conspiracy, anti-blogging forces have prevented me, until now, from showing you my progress on the little white smock cardigan I'm knitting for wee one.

now it starts looking a little smock-y

First, my server was down (or at least my connection to it), then hubby, having just returned from a business trip, gives me my computer back all extra firewalled so I couldn't connect to my photos and then it was the kids' turn. Right now wee one is struggling to keep herself awake to prevent me writing these very lines. But I will stay long enough to report that I have indeed finished the first front piece and have encountered no pattern silliness so far and have no complaints to register. And even in the face of the conspiracy against me, I will endeavor to smock on!

Totally my own damn fault.

I've been knitting along on the little white smock cardigan ("little red smock" from Sublime's Luxuriously Exotic Soya Cotton book). I completed the back and fronts.

love that little smock-y detail!

I need yarn to start the sleeves so that means it's time to unravel the denim pinafore I'd originally started with this yarn. I frog. I wind. I soak. I hang 'em up to dry.

And then I take a closer look.

Aaaaaack! What's that brown crap on my white yarn?! Okay, I guess my lazy and hasty decision to use some scrap pink yarn to tie the skeins together was a bad one. Doh, doh, dope! Thank goodness my lys still had the ecru denim yarn in the same dyelot. Phew!

Still, my own damn fault.

The little white smock cardigan is all knit and ready for washing. I substituted Rowan Denim for the original Sublime Soya Cotton, so I have to go through the extra step of pre-washing the pieces before seaming them up. Washing them all together before seaming (along with some extra yarn for the seaming) gets them to do that shrinking thing that denim does all at once, so there's no surprises later on. The only surprise is how much the pieces actually do shrink. I didn't adjust the pattern at all, figuring that the smallest size (2 yrs), after shrinking, should work for my 1 year-old wee one. But this denim thing is not an exact science. Oh, I suppose I could have knit a swatch and measured and washed and remeasured it, but have you really ever seen me do anything like that? I like surprises. Plus, in my years of knitting, I've found positive thinking to be just as reliable as making a gaggle of gauge swatches. So, here goes....

You put your left arm in and you shake it all about. Because setting in sleeves is annoying.

The little white smock cardigan is as cute as ever, but it's about to end up a vest if I can't get these g.d. sleeves in! I thought the denim yarn would shrink the armholes a bit more but those sleeve caps are still a little small. I've got to really finesse this seaming to make it work.

And that's what it's all about!

Lookie, patriotic baby sweaters!

And they're all finished too. I've been busy!! Georgie you saw last week. Now joining him in red is Tide from Miss Bea's Seaside, done in Knitpicks Shine Sport with some lovely little red buttons with flower details (the boys helped me pick out these buttons).

And our white sweater is the little smock cardigan from Sublime's new Soya Cotton book in Rowan Denim. I found precious little butterfly buttons for this one.

And it fits wee one perfectly!

I always wondered how wee one's emli bonnet would have looked in pink. Well, she's outgrown the green one, so it's time to find out!

Ooooh, that embossed leaves pattern is just as good as it ever was. Love it! This will make a fun weekend knit.

Can you tell we had a busy weekend? There was an end-of-the-year party, a birthday party, a school play and a playdate! And precious little time for knitting. But I did get wee one's new emli bonnet to the try-on stage. To size it up for my now 15 month-old, I added one more repeat of the leaf pattern to the stitch count (that's 16 more stitches) and one more repeat of the leaf pattern to the length (that's 16 more rows). The little red yarn you see at the bottom was to hold the stitches while we did an early morning try-on and.... it's gonna fit! Just the increases left to do at the bottom to form the brim and then I can cinch up the top to finish her off. And just in time too, because it is sunny as all get out here now. Plus, wee one has to have one more new hat to show off before school's out! The other moms at drop off and pick up have been asking. Seriously.

I know I wanted to see it in pink, but it turns out that I loved that green Trinity yarn from the first emli bonnet so much that I had to bring it into this one somehow. Instead of simply using my yarn tail from the top to cinch up the hat, I decided to make a little embellished tie with the green. I had Susan Anderson's Itty-Bitty Hats book out and thought that the little leaf from her pumpkin hat would be cute as the ends on an i-cord.

I think it really adds a lot to the hat. The pink is very sweet, but quiet and subtle. The green brings some contrast and life to the whole thing.

Wee one was certainly full of life this morning. She wanted to play you-put-on-the-hat/I'll-pull-off-the-hat instead of staying still for a pretty picture, so this is the best shot I got of her in her new bonnet. It's a smidge long, but all the better to keep the sun off her face. And the fit around is good. Because the lace pattern wants to cinch up like ribbing, but there's a lot of stretch in the cotton, the hat ends up stretching to fit just right.

The next one might just have to be green again though.