Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Knitted Christmas

Here is my cute-as-a-button niece Zoey wearing the Rainbow Girl sweater I made for her Christmas present. The pattern is Radiant by Meghan Jones from the Winter 2010 issue of Petite Purls. The yarn is Bernat Mosaic, which is an acrylic (easy care) self striping yarn I found at A.C.Moore. The only modification I really made was to put buttons all the way down the front. Delia and I picked out some crazy swirly buttons at Jo-Ann's for this sweater, but when we got them home they were way too big to fit through the buttonholes. That was OK with Delia because she immediately took them off my hands. I wonder if that wasn't her plan all along. Anyway, I sifted through the most recently discovered jar of my Grandma's buttons (Mom finds these things in the house and sends them home with me) and came up with exactly 5 carved shell buttons dyed orange. The reason we save things, I hypothesize, is so someday they can bring joy to someone else, and remind them of us. I have a feeling that every time my sister buttons her girl into this sweater, she will feel the coolness of the shell and think of Grandma.

And Zoey really seems to like it too!

Here we have the hat I knit for Seester! She told my hubby some time ago that she was still wearing the hat and scarf I crocheted for her back before Delia was born! That is dedication. Hopefully this hat will serve her for another 12 years. The pattern I used is Irish Girlie Knits Snowboarder Hat That Rocks, and the yarn is Plymouth Baby Alpaca Grande. Seester is sensitive to wool - as in, she thinks it is really itchy even when I think it is not, so I knew whatever yarn I used would have to be super soft, and this 100% alpaca fits the bill. The cables were so fun to work and never got tedious because the yarn is so big it knitted up quickly on size 10 needles. One hank of this yarn will not finish the hat (four rows from the top, I had to grit my teeth and wind the other hank into a ball to finish), so I got 2, and I have plenty leftover if those pom-poms ever need replacing. Instead of the braided ties from the pattern I knit on three lengths of I-cord and braided them, mostly because I love knitting I-cord. And the pompoms, well, they were for fun.

I think she likes it too.

1 comment:

Trisha said...

We LOVE LOVE LOVE them all!!! And who says you needed me to take any more pics of the Z?! These are awesome! (But I'll still post some on my blog... someday!) ha!!

LOVE!!

Oh and yes, I love the buttons... tonight I told Zoey a bedtime story about Princess Zoey walking in the woods and meeting the fairies... then she found out her orange buttons are magic and light up when she is near fairies! She loved it! (I hope. It was dark...) ;)