What Color Pony Do You Want?

Older daughter just called me to tell me about her conversation with Elizabeth (2). Elizabeth came running out of her bedroom this morning carrying a jacket.

E: Wook! It's a sweater Gwan maded for me!

oD: No, Gran didn't make that.

E (after a puzzled pause): Gwanpa maded it?

oD: No. It came from a store.

E: Oh.

Elizabeth remembers me!!!! From a month ago!!!

I'm off to buy a pony. If oD says it's OK.

Finished, in more ways than one!

In other words, I probably won't be making any more of these little sweaters. The knitting is easy; the putting-together is a challenge for someone as un-gifted as I in doing so. And I discovered - too late - that there is a mistake in the purple one.

Oh well. I will just assume that Ginny Weasley will be polite and say nothing. If she does notice, I'm telling older daughter to teach Ginny the concept of "design element."

Why I Gave Up Knitting

for about ten years.

When I moved to Georgia from Florida, I thought: Now I can knit again!!! There wasn't much inspiration to knit in Florida, with weather that was rarely cool, let alone cold. There wasn't the variety of non-wool fibers that we have now -silks, bamboo, lovely cottons. At least not in the only yarn shop anywhere near me.

What did I pick for my first project? The lovely sweater above. I mean, who wouldn't want shoulders like that? Gaw-jus. And what yarn did I choose? 100% black mohair. Big mistake. I had never knit with mohair and had never knit with such a dark color. I bought bamboo needles, another mistake.

I struggled for months with this project. I couldn't tell the stitches apart because the black mohair was so....mohair-y. That meant I couldn't get a reliable stitch count. As time went on, the black dye from the mohair penetrated the needles, turning them black. Then I REALLY couldn't see details.

I kept knitting, swearing, knitting, swearing. For months. And months. And then I gave up. I put the whole mess away in a closet, and decided that until I finished that sweater, I wouldn't knit anything else.

Amateur!!!!! I know better now. I always have multiple projects going at once, with others hibernating.

Well, that sweater hibernated for about ten years, until first granddaughter was born. I took the sweater out of Siberia, studied it, and threw the whole thing (except for the knitting needles) away. Again, what an amateur. I couldn't have frogged the sweater; the mohair was too stubborn to take out, but I could have kept the unused yarn for another project.

What's done is done, but I wish I had known then what I know now. I wouldn't have: a. bought that particular project; b. stopped knitting; c. thrown the whole thing out.

With age comes wisdom - I hope.

Elizabeth A. and Elizabeth Z.

I am back from Texas where I spent a week helping older daughter (spoiling grandchildren to the best of my ability) with her new baby, who was born five weeks early. She is beautiful and sturdy...and a good thing too, with three older siblings to deal with!

I had bought the pattern for Elizabeth Zimmermann's Baby Surprise Jacket a month or so ago, in anticipation of making it for new baby. But new baby was early, so I made it while I was in Austin. I have been knitting for a long time, but apparently not long enough for me to understand the directions for this jacket. It doesn't resemble anything while it's being worked up, and the instructions include such things as "See what you are doing?" (No, I do NOT) and "Hope you are still with me" (Nope). So I called a knit-night friend in Atlanta who had recently made the jacket. She agreed that the directions are vague and helped me through some of the tough parts. The jacket is finished, but I'm sure that a purist would find many irregularities in it.

The whole jacket is knit in one piece and this is what the finished knitting looks like:

This is it all sewn up and with the buttons attached.
And as tiny as the jacket is (I forgot to measure the finished project, but it's knit in sock yarn, and take my word for it, it's tiny), it's not tiny at all when compared with 4 pound, 12 ounce Elizabeth!
But not to worry. Elizabeth eats like a champ, and she'll grow into the jacket in no time!