Elizabeth's Ruffled Dress

Finally!

This dress has been a test of wills since before I started it, when the store that had the yarn I needed had just the amount the pattern called for. Not one extra skein.

And it turns out that whether you make a size four (like this dress) or a size ten (as Sallyknit did), there is barely enough yarn to make the dress. Actually there isn't enough yarn which is why Sallyknit and I both added stripes in the secondary color in order to make the main color go far enough. She had six inches of the main color left; I had a bit more remaining because I made the dress shorter in order to fit Elizabeth, who isn't quite into size four clothing yet.

Phew....

And Lucille, knitter and crocheter extraordinaire, made the beautiful flower and leaves for the dress and taught me how to do the crochet edging for it. Thank you Lucille!

So now off in the mail it goes, with a warning to my daughter. Be careful where Elizabeth wears it. It has to be washed by hand and laid flat to dry and it takes forever and a year to dry. Kind of a nuisance for a mom of four, I know, but I didn't know this before I made it. Sorry H!

The flower:

Ruffles

I have finished the first two of three ruffles for Elizabeth's dress---after a few problems, like making each of the ruffles an inch longer than the pattern calls for.  I don't know what I was thinking---or not thinking.

I spent Sunday un-knitting and then started over today.  I think the colors will work well together and now that I'm not making each ruffle one inch longer than called for, I won't run out of yarn, which was a definite possibility before I discovered my mistake.  Whew....

Swatched!

I made a gauge swatch. I really did! Most of a swatch anyway. Well, half of a swatch?

Did I wash it and dry it?

Get serious.

I don't like swatching. I consider it pointless knitting. Not making gauge swatches has caused me the occasional problem, but my knitting has survived. Basically.

Everything about this project, the dress for Elizabeth, is sort of just off. I bought the Tahki yarn, but not in the original yarn colors. When I got home, I discovered that the blue yarn was the correct weight; the green was Tahki LITE, so it knits up at a different gauge on a different size needle. The pattern makes sizes 2/4/6/8. Three-year old Elizabeth measures a bit smaller than size two, but that just seems so wrong. My daughter says to make it in a size 4 and Elizabeth will grow into it if need be---but what if she grows into it during the Texas winter?

So, I am dealing with the whole thing by knitting the green ruffle for size 6 and then doing ten extra decreases (k 2 tog) so that I can join the green ruffle to the blue ruffle. This sounds like nonsense, I realize, but in my weird head, it does make sense. Also, I measured the gauge swatch and I am getting a slightly tighter gauge than the pattern calls for; I figure that that will make the dress a bit smaller. Right???

That's my plan and I'm sticking to it until proven wrong. And then I'll rely on denial.

Shopping When Old

I am referring to myself.

Last week a J. Jill catalog arrived in the mail and I went through it, bending page corners back for all of the gorgeous things I just knew I wanted. And that I knew I would look wonderful in. No shorts---two knee surgeries on one knee have rendered that knee, um....unattractive. So dresses! Perfect solution! (Sorry for all the exclamation points---I was really, really excited to find these clothes.)

Look at this dress. Isn't it Gaw-Jus?!
And with this cropped sweater? Even GAW-JUS-ER!
And this dress! I must have it!!!
And this dress!
Look at the colors! I love the colors!!!
They would all look great on me. I just knew it.

And then I went to the store. And then I tried them all on. And OMG....not what I expected. AT. ALL.

They looked great on the models. They even looked great on the hangers. On me, they didn't look great. They didn't even look good. They looked awful. Can you say frumpy? Can you say dowdy? Can you say Old Lady in MuuMuu?

Oh, dear.

But I did buy two tops. Tops that are tunic length. Tops with sleeves. Long sleeves.

How to recover from the realization that I am not twenty years younger and twenty pounds lighter? How to stop the wailing, the gnashing of teeth, the moaning, the whining?

Thank goodness for knitting friends. SallyKnit called while I was still at the store to see if I wanted to join her and Lucille to go to a knit shop, not our LYS but a different one.

Perfect. So off we went and I bought yarn to make this dress for Elizabeth, my three-year old granddaughter.

She is young. She is slim.

The dress will look GREAT on her. And this time I know I'm right.

Another Marley

I have made so many of these hats that I've lost track of how many. They are quick and fun to make and I like choosing the color combinations.

The Rainbow Marley Hat was designed by Susan B. Anderson---it's in her Itty Bitty Hats book, along with a lot of equally cuuuuute hats.

This hat goes to a bitty baby, born over a month early, who currently weighs less than five pounds. He is doing very well and because he is small, this hat will fit him for a long time.

Now back to all the unfinished knitting on my needles...

Rowan

I needed a quick, immediate-gratification project, and this Marley hat fit the bill. It is from Susan B. Anderson's Itty Bitty Hat book, and I love it. I made it for a baby boy to be born in April; I started work on it at this past Thursday's knit night and finished it yesterday. Immediate indeed!

I'm still working on the Summit Shawl and the Juneberry Triangle, but I've gotten bored by the first and still a bit intimidated by the second. Someone (perhaps the shop owner?) had left this new Rowan book out on the table we knitters gather around, and I fell in love. There are 20 projects in the book and I love, oh, ALL of them! That's a lot of knitting, so I will have to narrow down my ambition a little...a lot.

I LOVE this!

And this!

And this!

Where to begin???

It's a Hat!

I finished all the tying up and weaving in at Knit Night last night, and now Elizabeth will have a bright Marley Hat, designed by Susan B. Anderson and found in her book Itty Bitty Hats.

It was fun to make, and really, I could use any combination of stitches I like, and just put the toppers on and still get the same look.

Off to the Post Office...

Elizabeth's Hat

Tomorrow I go to Austin to visit older daughter and her family. I have Valentine candy for the older grandchildren, but Elizabeth, four months old, isn't quite up to M&Ms yet. Instead, I've made her this flower-wreath hat, designed by Susan B. Anderson and in her book Itty Bitty Hats.

The hat itself is just a generic hat, easy to make, but the flowers are the fun part to make. They are EASY! And so are the leaves. The time-consuming part is attaching them to the hat itself, turning the hat around and around, and deciding when enough is enough. It's a great project for leftover yarn, but I didn't have any cotton yarn and so had to start from scratch. I'll use the rest for what the designer calls the Marley Hat, which, like all the hats in the book, is just SO cute!

For the hat I used a worsted weight cotton Plymouth yarn called jeannee. While I was knitting it up, I didn't like it much for this project - it just didn't seem as sturdy as I would have liked and the flowers get heavy. However, the hat is holding up OK even with the weight of the flowers and leaves, so I guess the yarn has worked out better than I had expected. The colored yarns are all Tahki Yarns Cotton Classic (just a few yards of each) in colors: 3528 (yellow), 3456 (cherry pink), 3713 (green), 3454 (pink), 3800 (turquoise), 3914 (lavender), and 3724 (green). But again, it's a great project for leftover yarns.

If Elizabeth will allow us to put a hat ON her, I'll take a picture of the hat on its model!

(Note: Answer to yesterday's question about balls of yarn: The owner of my LYS says that she supposes the reason that some manufacturers do not wind yarn into balls is to better show the colors - especially with hand-dyed yarns - or the textures of yarns. Also, she says that putting it into balls would add one more process to the yarn production and thereby increase cost. So put a ball-winder and swift on your birthday/Christmas/Valentine's Day/Presidents Day/ Groundhog Day/or Because I Want Them Day list!)