Stripes

§ December 25th, 2008 § Filed under Simpler stuff § 9 Comments

This year I have made or planned more baby things than I usually do – my mother wants to use up a lot of small bits of yarn she has, and I decided to bend my why-knit-for-babies-when-there-are-socks approach to small and quick projects. Two ideas frame this approach – 1)adult feet, unlike babies, do not generally outgrow their socks within a few months, and 2) when you knit for one friend’s baby, there’s no end to it, because at my age friends everywhere are popping babies like there’s no tomorrow. My fear, totally irrational, of course, was that I’d never see an adult pattern again if I got sucked into one of those seed-stitch-and-stockinette-oh-how-cute! Debbie Bliss patterns.

But there are babies and then there are babies. I made a small cotton A-line dress for a special five-month-old with a very piercing eye and stern disposition. She was not happy with it at first, but looked quite pleased with it later on.

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This is the third iteration. I first made it too big (160 st), then ripped it out and made it too small (100 st), and then finally settled on the right fit (120 st). I still have the smaller iteration, and am now eyeing another infant in the offing to give it to.

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I made up the pattern as I went along. I decided to try out a picot edge. Then I basically knit two rows of each colour, decreasing 4 stitches 4 times evenly through the body to get an a-line shape. Single garter ridge finish for the sleeves (pick up and knit the first row, immediately cast off the next) and double for the buttonholes and neck (knit one extra row between pick up and cast off). I pulled at each and every picot edge during the blocking, saying “this little piggy…” to myself the whole time.

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Project Specs:

Pattern: Random A-Line frock, my own
Yarn: Classic Elite Provence (100%) cotton; Laura Macagno Shang’s100% DK cotton, both in shades of purplish blue and bluish purple. I have no idea how much I used, but it was not very much.
Needles: size 6 throughout.
Gauge: I didn’t check it before beginning, and forgot to measure before gifting it. Are you at all surprised it took me three tries to get the fit right?

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All in all, it was a fun and quick knit. Laura’s cotton is great, but the Provence is extremely splitty. Both softened up a lot after the block, though. The baby this is for lives in a very warm climate, so the cotton should be plenty for her.

Happy holidays to all my readers, and see you all in the new year!

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