Category Archives: workshop


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2010-11-29

I’m getting so close to the end of these buckets, I can taste it! One more to go and then all my stash (except the “in progress” stuff, and my Rhinebeck purchases) will be in Ravelry. Whew!

It was a very busy weekend…I don’t have photos but Saturday morning we had a playdate with baby G while Maaike was at the Anne Hanson workshop, then we had a lunchtime playdate with my friend J and his daughter B. I got the boys home in time for their nap and spent the “free” time getting ready for that night…’cus if the day wasn’t busy enough, I had AWESOME dinner plans!

Saturday night the Montreal Knitting Guild exec hosted a potluck dinner for Anne Hanson. You can see photos on her blog from the weekend workshop and then the dinner. (You don’t actually see my face, but that’s my black shirt and blue jeans behind the cheese platter, and there’s also a photo of Maaike spinning behind Lisa, holding the dog).  I brought pitas, falafel, hummus, tzatziki, tahini, lettuce, onions and pickled turnips (that there’s actually a photo of on her blog LOL), and a really yummy cabbage salad.  If you imagine that each of us brought 1-2 dishes…there was a LOT of food!  It was a wonderful night of eating, knitting, chatting, eating, dog petting, stash admiring, and more eating. 

Sunday I attended the all-day workshop, taught by Anne, on Sweater Fitness…how to choose the proper size for your measurements (and NOT how to get your sweater to work out à la Olivia Newton John…TARA!)  LOL  It was a great workshop, especially the detail and time that Anne took in going around to give everyone personal help. 

I spent today entering all my sock yarn into Ravelry, and will spend tonight working duplicate stitch, duplicate stitch, and then more duplicate stitch.  🙂

Oh- good news!  I just found out that 2 of my patterns are listed with Patternfish, and they even Tweeted/Facebooked my Screwball Socks pattern!  Slowly making my way out there…

Sorry this post has no photos, so here’s a shot of Henri the other day, looking fly in my sunglasses.


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sunday’s beth brown-reinsel workshop – gansey sweaters

It has come to my attention that I haven’t posted any photos of Jakob in his latest Hallowe’en costume.  I know, I know, I’m a bad blogger/designer/Mommy.  It’s just that I haven’t decided if I want to try and publish the costume or self-publish it, and if I were to publish it outside of my own blog then sometimes they don’t want the pattern to have been viewed previously.  (“They” being any print or online magazine or pattern source).  So until I figure out what I want to do with the pattern, I’m hesitant to post it yet.

I can share what happened last weekend though! Sunday was the second half of the Beth Brown-Reinsel workshop, all about Gansey sweaters.  We learned what makes a traditional Gansey (Guernsey), what yarns to use, and what elements to incorporate.

We also knit our own little ganseys.  Don’t quote me, but if I may toot my own horn for a second (did I really just type that?) I think I was the only person to finish the sweater in class before the end of Sunday. 

The sample gansey has a Channel Islands cast on, an overlapping garter welt, initials (not that you can see them) in the plain section, a diamond pattern on the front and back, underarm gussets, shoulder straps, and in my case, a rolled neck.  I wanted the resulting sweater to be somewhat functional, and the two other neck options looked really tight and I was afraid it wouldn’t fit any of Jakob’s toys.  It really cracks me up how the finished sweater looks so bulky due to the construction- lying flat on a table it looks like it was made to fit a bodybuilder with huge biceps and upper body.

And yet, on a willing model, it actually looks really cute and proportionate!  After some searching around the house, Monkey’s long, skinny body looked like just the thing to fill out the sweater, and the fact that he has no discernable neck isn’t an issue here, as the rolled neck stretches nicely.

Now the best-dressed Monkey in the house only wants to lounge around in his hand-knit gansey, teasing all the other toys about being the favorite.  Cheeky Monkey!

I’m going to end this post with an email that Barb, one of my guild members, sent around to the Montreal knitting groups last week.  I know most of you have probably already seen this, but just in case, I wanted to spread it around.  It’s a really unfortunate thing that has happened, and while I know it wasn’t a targetted knitting attack, it still makes me feel queasy that it happened here, in my city.

Forwarded email follows:

This past Monday I had a visitor from Vermont staying with me—she was not any ordinary tourist, she is Beth-Brown-Reinsel — one of the knitting community’s A-list teachers and historians with a specialty in Gansey sweaters—how they evolved and how to make them. She was here teaching a workshop on Ganseys and another on Latvian Mitts for the Montreal Knitting Guild. Her suitcase containing all of her
workshop samples and reference books (some out-of-print) was stolen from the trunk of my car while I was giving her a tour of our fair (?) city—a city she was so excited to be finally visiting.

I need the public in general (not just knitters) to keep a lookout for this black suitcase containing 5-6 sweaters (some adult, some children), ornately knit Latvian mitts, approximately 20 mini sample sweaters which represent all the workshops she teaches, a pair of Scottish Sanquhar gloves, a multi-coloured tote bag-the one from Interweave, three books on Latvian mittens, and other items we may have forgotten to list. On our tour we visited the Old Port, stopped briefly by the McCord museum near McGill, then up to St. Denis and Duluth (Plateau area) to meet up with friends. I would ask people who live in these areas to pay special attention as there is the chance whoever took the suitcase will dump it once they realize there was no street value to what they stole.

That is not to say these items are of no value. They are actually of tremendous intrinsic value to those of us who understand what it is like to knit something from one’s own hands and have it worn by your family; the value of a research book which records historical data but is now, sadly, out-of-print and from another country far away, making it that much harder to find a second-hand copy; handknit items illustrating specific historical and cultural techniques which have been personal gifts and mementos from travels afar. And from a teaching perspective there is nothing like having something tangible to pass around the class that the students can touch and view intimately for details which may not be caught in photographs. We
all know knitters are “touchy-feely” people.

Should the knitting gods be merciful and someone does come across the suitcase please take it to a local police station, or if unsure where the nearest station is, flag down a police car and give it to them. There is a police report on file and they will contact the appropriate person to retrieve the suitcase. And if not for the love of knitting and doing what’s right, then do it for the financial reward which I am posting. Just leave your name and contact info with the police so I can send it to you (the finder of the suitcase).

And for all the knitters in our community, please support Beth by buying her book and patterns so she can fund the replacements for her workshops—she is at knittingtraditions.com and on the patternfish website.

The more people who know, knitters and non-knitters alike, the greater the chance of someone clueing in
if they see a black suitcase just sitting there. I am taking inspiration from a similar incident which happened this past summer to an esteemed quilter in Nova Scotia who had her samples suitcase also stolen from her car then found a couple of weeks/months later by the side of the highway and the fellow who found it knew what he’d found because the quilting community had gathered forces and publicized like mad. Thx to all who can get the word out.


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saturday’s beth brown-reinsel workshop

Better late than never, right?  Sorry it has taken me so long to get the workshop summary up, but it’s been a crazy week!  Monday I took Jakob out for some last minute shopping then that night I went out for dinner with the moms from the playgroup Jakob used to attend.  Almost everyone went back to work so we had to disband the playgroup, but it is still nice to see the moms and we try to arrange a dinner once a month. 

Tuesday I took Jakob to his first trial morning at daycare.  That’s right- he will be starting daycare next Monday!  It is so strange to think that he won’t be coming to work with me every day.  I had left him in his class last week when I brought him in to register, and he was fine.  This time he cried when I left and it was heartbreaking to see him pressing his little hand against the window like he was trying to will me to stay.  I only left him there for an hour, and he was fine by the time I got back, playing with the other kids and the toys.  That night I stayed home while Yannick went bowling but I spent the night knitting like crazy on Jakob’s costume and didn’t even get a chance to upload my photos from the weekend. 

Wednesday I brought Jakob back to daycare for a 2 hour visit.  He cried when I left but by the time I made it to the door I could hear that he’d stopped.  Yannick met me there when it was time to pick him up so he could see the school and meet Jakob’s teachers, and we were able to peek in on the class without being seen.  It was sweet to watch Jakob running around and interacting with the other kids.  I know next week will be different, since we have yet to leave him there for a meal or a nap, but I have hope that it will be an easy transition for him.  That night Yannick took me out for dinner for my birthday which was…uh…in September.  Yeah, we do things late around here.  After dinner we rented Forgetting Sarah Marshall which was a cute movie, although I have now seen parts of Jason Segal I never thought I’d see! 

Last night I was supposed to go to prenatal aquafitness but I wasn’t feeling well so I skipped it.  I’ve never heard of “third trimester nausea” but it seems that’s what I’ve got.  I had a few weeks, maybe even two months of feeling fine and now all of a sudden I’m nauseous daily and have started throwing up again too, instead of maybe once a week it has now been, on average, one to three times a day.

Today is Hallowe’en, and it was also Jakob’s last day at work.  He wore his costume all day and before leaving we went around to the other stores in the mall and said good bye to the friends he’s made there.  It will be really weird to not have him with me.  As frustrating as it can get, it made my day to be able to glance over and see him, or to have him come running up to give me a kiss and a cuddle.  Now I will only get evenings with him, and it makes me sad.  Not sad enough to keep him home with me, since I need him transitioned to daycare before the new baby comes, but sad nonetheless.

But I digress.  Trick-or-treating has been done, Yannick and I did our annual drive-around to look at decorations, and I now have a few minutes to post before I try to get an early night’s sleep.  On to the workshop!  I still haven’t photographed my knitting from the Sunday workshop, but I will try to do that tomorrow.  In the meantime, here is what happened on Saturday:

This is the progress I’d made by the time the class was over.  The yarn Maaike and I used is Sport by Briggs and Little, purchased from Robyn’s Nest.  If I remember correctly the workshop called for any sport weight yarn and a 3.75mm needle.

 Starting at the bottom, we learned a two-color cast on, we did a two-color half braid and then a solid-colored half braid, some scalloped lace, a few knit rows and purl ridges throw in to give each section some definition, knitted-in fringe, a braid I think was called the “Norwegian” braid, and then some colorwork.

This goes to show you the difference between two knitters.  Maaike and I used the exact same yarn and needles, and not only did our choices in color placement result in completely different-looking mittens, but you can see the difference in our gauges too.  Her mitten cuff is slightly wider than mine, and the section from the cast-on to the two-colored braid (above the fringe) has the same number of rows, yet hers is longer than mine.

I deliberately pushed myself to learn new techniques in the workshop, so when given the opportunity to work 3 colors in a row (instead of Fair Isle’s usual 2 colors), I took it.  You can see that in the photos above.  However, as I am still not completely comfortable with stranding my yarn (I MUCH prefer intarsia to Fair Isle, so far) my mitten had no slack and was crazy tight.  The cuff had fit me perfectly, but the progress I’d made on the mitten needed to be ripped out if I was to have anything servicable.

After the workshop most of us went out for dinner with Beth, and instead of working on Jakob’s costume when I got home, I stuck in some needles and ripped back to the last 2-color section above the Norwegian braid.  I played around with Beth’s chart in Excel until I found a color pattern I found pleasing, then reknit everything I’d ripped.  I was very pleased to find that my tension with 2-color knitting didn’t seem to have the same issues as with 3, and the mitten stretched nicely and fit me quite well.  It was getting late and I was exhausted so I didn’t keep going with the plan of having a completed mitten.  1) the yarn is a little too scratchy for me to want to wear as a mitten, and 2) I wanted to finish whatever I was working on that night and not have another “ufo” lying around.

So I continued until I felt like stopping, and wound up with a fingerless mitten.  I followed Beth’s directions for knitting in a spare yarn to do an afterthought thumb, and after working enough of the color pattern to make me happy, I did a few plain stockinette rounds.  I then threw in a purl ridge followed by another Norwegian braid, and finally bound off loosely holding two colors together.  I know a typical fingerless mitten should come up to at least the base of my fingers, if not the first knuckle, but it was late, I was tired and I didn’t care.

At the very end I took out the waste yarn and picked up those stitches, plus a few extra around the sides of the thumb hole.  I did a few rows in stockinette stitch before binding off in purl (I like the edge it gives).  I’d like to hope I’ll make the matching mitten someday so I can have a pair, but in the meantime at least I have a finished something and I don’t feel guilty.


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if I…

…told you that I was going to knit a mitten on Saturday and a sweater on Sunday, would you think that I was crazy?  Fear not!

This weekend is the Beth Brown-Reinsel workshop hosted by the Montreal Knitting Guild.  Maaike and I will be there, along with a packed house of other knitters eager to learn from a master.  To quote from our newsletter:

Beth Brown-Reinsel has been a knitting teacher for 18 years. She is probably best known for her Gansey sweaters and has published what may be considered the Gansey bible, “Knitting Ganseys”.

 

 

This is the plan for Saturday:

The beautiful mittens of Latvia will be studied in this class and a child’s mitten will be knitted to learn the following techniques: A choice of the fringed cuff or scalloped cuff, the herringbone braid and many subtle and beautiful variations of the half-braid, the waste-yarn thumb, and round tip shaping. A variety of traditional motifs are incorporated in the main body of the mitten, and reading from the chart will be covered. Additional techniques to be discussed include knitting with two yarns in the right hand, two yarns in the left hand, or a yarn in each hand, as well as setting up the knitting for color changes in the braids and weaving yarns to reduce float size.

This is the yarn I will be using:

 

Briggs & Little Sport in (clockwise from top right) Teal Blue, Washed White, Light Gray, Orange and Dark Gray, purchased from Robyn’s Nest here in Montreal.  The class only calls for 4 colors, but it calls for 2 oz of each.  The skeins of Sport have 3.5 oz each and Maaike and I decided that since we liked the same colors, it made sense to buy only one of each skein and split them.  So we threw in a 5th color to make sure we didn’t run out.  Now if only I could shake the feeling that I should be knitting a Miami Dolphins sweater with these colors…

I haven’t told Yannick yet, but Saturday night after the class many of us will be going out for dinner with Beth (‘cus I can call her that!) and will get a chance to hang out with her on a less structured level.  I didn’t go to the dinner with Suzanne Atkinson or Fiona Ellis, and I can’t remember if I went with Lucy Neatby, but I did join the group for dinner with Sally Melville, and can say that it is definately a great addition to the weekend!

Here is the course description for Sunday:

Students will learn how to construct a Gansey, a sweater form prevalent in the last century and early part of this century among the fishermen of the British Isles. A small scale sweater will be knitted using traditional construction techniques including the classic Channel Island Cast-on, split welts, seam stitches, traditional knit/purl patterns, the underarm gusset, shoulder straps with perpendicular joining, and picked-up sleeves. Alternative methods to these techniques will also be explored.

 

My sweater will be knit with Cascade 220 Superwash in Winter White, also from Robyn’s Nest.  I’ve never used any Cascade yarn before, so I’m looking forwards to seeing how it knits up.  I’m assuming that the sweater will be doll-sized and think that a little white gansey will be adorable.


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sally melville workshops

A few weeks ago I was privileged to spend the weekend at the Travelodge Hotel with a bunch of knitters and one very famous knitting designer. In honor of her having led the very first Montreal Knitting Guild workshop 10 years ago, (and also because she’s just a wonderful teacher), the MKG brought back Sally Melville to run a weekend-long series of workshops.

Sally Melville. Maybe you’ve heard of her? Author of Styles, The Knit Stitch, The Purl Stitch and Color, not to mention designer of countless patterns in magazines from Interweave to Vogue to…

Yeah. Her.

If you ever get a chance to take a class with Sally, do it! She is the cutest little thing, and tells wonderful stories. She is also a great teacher. Here are my swatches from that weekend:

On Saturday I took 2 workshops- “Rescue Tips and Emergency Techniques” and “Learning to Love Intarsia”.

This poor swatch got really put through the wringer! First we had to cut a stitch and unravel back to show how you could cut your knitting to make changes (shorten, lengthen, etc). I wasn’t afraid to cut, remember the Superman costume legs? I’d already cut them and lengthened them by an inch, before grafting the feet back on. We also learned how to fix a mistake by duplicate stitching then cutting out the original yarn. In this swatch, the blue stitches in the Fair Isle row were originally black. We duplicated-stitched over them, then cut out the black stitches.
This was our intarsia sampler. She gave us some great techniques for avoiding holes without too much twisting of the yarn.

After the classes Saturday night a bunch of us went out for dinner with Sally. We had a great time and had some yummy (but overpriced) Italian food in Dorval.

On Sunday it was one workshop all day long; I forget the name but it was something about tips and techniques “…for the Self-Taught Knitter”.
This was a little stockinette stitch swatch I made to show Angie that knitting wouldn’t unravel sideways. She was positive that if you cut your knitting, it will all come undone- this was to show her that even in a plain-old acrylic yarn, the stitches aren’t going anywhere. The 1-stitch width you see unravelled above took a LOT of tugging and pulling to get it to “pop out” on its own.
This hideous piece was our increase, decrease and bobble sampler. It also prompted a witty observation- we spend money to go to a workshop, spend all day joyfully knitting away, then come home to our significant others waving this deformed mess at them, proudly exclaiming “look what I did today!!!”. No wonder non-knitters don’t get it!
This last swatch was for practicing seaming and buttonholes. I think one of the best “a-ha!” moments of the class was her tips on picking up stitches for a neckband. One simple modification to eliminate any gaps- it’s genious.

All in all, it was a great weekend spent with some great people. I am thrilled that I was able to meet a knitting legend like Sally, and wish her much success with future books and projects.


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more procrastination…

In keeping with my apparent fondness for throwing in extra projects even when I have deadlines, I present the 2 other projects that made up the 5 that I spent the last week on, instead of the stuff I should have been knitting.

Yannick’s cousins welcomed their second child Emily on Monday, and we were supposed to go to the hospital on Wednesday night to meet her. I couldn’t show up empty handed, especially after making/bringing something for their first-born (anyone remember Elodie’s Sweater and Booties?).

I grabbed some stash yarn and cast on for the Child’s Placket Neck Pullover (Ravelry link) Last-Minute Knitted Gifts. I know that when I’d knit it for Jakob, it had only taken me 8 hours, so with 2 evenings ahead of me, I should have been able to finish a sweater for Emily.

I didn’t do a gauge swatch because I figured it was for a baby…if it didn’t fit her at a year it would fit her at 6 months, or 18 months. Ahem. I *should* have knit a swatch, because after I cast on the number of stitches for the 1 year size and finished the 8 rows of seed stitch border, well, it was big enough to fit me!

That got promptly ripped back. Unfortunately it was now about 9 pm on Monday, leaving me with only another hour or so to knit before bed, and then Tuesday night to make something for Elodie so she wouldn’t feel left out. I had to find something quick. I found it in the Blanket Buddy pattern from Lionbrand. It is a pattern that you can either knit or crochet, and after browsing the Ravelry archives for a bit, I decided I liked the crochet version better. Plus, crochet is faster than knitting (although it does take more yarn), so I knew I had a better chance of getting it done on time.

It came out perfect, with one small flaw. It’s small. It’s supposed to be about 17″ long. Mine? Maybe 8″. I switched yarns and instead of using a bulky yarn I used a dk-weight yarn. I didn’t feel like fussing with the pattern (although it is really easy to make it whatever size you want) so I left it as is.
Here’s a bad photo of it with Jakob to give you an idea of it’s actual size.

I figure that it’s being given to an infant. She’s tiny, so her little toy can be tiny. Who knows…maybe she’ll end up loving it and it will be the “doodoo” that she carries around until she’s 18?

As I mentioned I wanted to give something to Elodie as well so she wouldn’t feel jealous of the attention (and gifts) that the new baby was getting.

After some debate between knitting anothe cupcake, another bunny or another swatch bunny, the cupcake won. Both bunnies only take about an hour or two of knitting, but they each have quite a bit of seaming. The cupcake takes under an hour to knit and really only has 4 ends to weave in once you’re done.

This time I followed the pattern exactly as written. I won’t do that again. There’s nothing *wrong* with the pattern, but my (and Yannick’s) mental image of a cupcake has some overhang where the top meets the base. We’re probably influenced by our love of muffins, and we freely admit that. Regardless…we like my variation on the cupcake better, so when I knit more of these (“when”, not “if”) I will continue to use my increase/decrease rounds in the icing section.

On Wednesday night we found out that they were leaving the hospital in the morning to go home, so instead of running down there we made plans to go see them and their home this weekend. With my now-free time I sat down to knit and by the time the CSIs in New York had caught Suspect X, I had finished all 4 of my swatches for the Sally Melville workshop this weekend.
Yup, I’ll be spending the weekend learning from Mrs. Knit Stitch and Purl Stitch herself. Is it cheesy if I bring my books for her to sign?


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lotsa fun stuff

There was a lot going on this weekend, here in our little neck of the woods. Saturday was a huge milestone for our family- we started Jakob on solid foods!

Here he is having NO idea what he’s about to get into.

…here comes the airplane…open the hangar…

…and the verdict is…

…he likes it! Ok, he really didn’t express any form of like or dislike over the strange mushy stuff we were repeatedly spooning into his mouth. He did, however, avoid crying or fussing, and kept breaking out in his usual grins, so we’re counting this as a success!

We’ve been giving him a sippy cup with some purified water after each meal to help wash down the cereal, and he has yet to refuse the cup. If he continues to take it we’ll see if we can get him to take breastmilk or formula in it, and since he’s still refusing bottles, this might be a way to be able to leave him for longer than 2-3 hours. (Of course, I’m not going to try to get him to take bottles any more, because there is no sense in getting him started on them just to have to wean him. I’d rather him go straight to the sippy cup).

Here’s another photo of him, just because. 🙂 I can’t stop taking photos of him and I can’t stop staring at them, so now you all get to see what I get to see every day. My gosh I love this boy!

Does anyone remember the Froggy Hat and Socks set? I finally found the bag of handknits I made while pregnant. Just in time too…the socks are too big still but the hat barely fits! I think he will have worn it just for this photo, and it is now going to go into the “grown out” bin.
Sunday was another exciting day- I attended an all-day Fiona Ellis workshop! She is so nice and warm, so genuine, and I am really, really happy I took the course and got to meet her. In the morning I took a class on short rows, and in the afternoon it was about slipped stitches. I felt bad because Yannick had to bring Jakob to me twice so I could feed him, but it was remarkably non-disruptive. The first time he brought him in was during the morning class, but they came in silently, I fed Jakob on my lap and then they left, all within about 10 minutes and all without causing any interruptions to the class. The second time we called a bit more attention to ourselves, but that was because it was during lunch hour and we played with him for a bit. It might also have had something to do with the fact that he wore his Superman costume. (I had been asked to bring it in).

This is my short row swatch. The pink section uses the “wrap and turn” method, which I usually tend to use in garments (like the bum area of the Superman costume). It works well, but if you look closely you can see the 3 turning points. The blue area uses a “yarn over, slip first stitch” method, which I enjoy. I find it shows less than the wrapped one, and I tend to use it a lot on short-rowed sock heels (and toes). The yellow sections use what I think she called the “Japanese or catch method” where you grab the back of the stitch in the row below to close the gap. I didn’t mind it, but it was fiddly. I was knitting fast on Sunday so I had enough time to make a second “catch” swatch and do the short row/3-ndl bind off shoulder method. I didn’t really need practice on that, however, as I almost always adapt patterns to enable that bind off on the shoulders. I really, really like the professional look it gives.

Before the short row class was over we were given the time to work on a creative swatch. The assignment was to work the short rows while interrupting a pattern, and the examples given were lace and cables. I decided to see what would happen if I worked short rows while working a striped pattern. This was the first time I used 2 different colors to cast on (I did the long tail method) and I was able to practice my Fair Isle. I tend to pull too tight when switching colors (probably because I do a lot of intarsia) so I was trying hard to keep things loose. I was also holding the green with my left hand and practicing the two-handed technique. I was able to knit pretty fast using both hands, but I had to remember to knit that color through the back loop on the following rows because the stitches I knit from my left hand wound up mounted the wrong way on the needle.

This is my swatch from the slipped stitch class. There are 6 different techniques shown, I did the first 4 twice each for practice. I never before realized how much fun slipped stitches are, and how much I enjoyed working them and how much I like the look of them. I think this is something I will definately have to play around with some more!

Two last things. First of all, I tried a new recipe tonight. I found this on Caroline’s blog not too long ago, and remembered that I had some apples in the fridge about to go bad, so I made it for dessert tonight. The only modification I made was to bake it in individual dishes instead of one larger pie plate.


It was delicious! Thanks Caroline! Next time I would probably try adding just a dash of lemon juice (I like how it brings out the flavor of the apples) and I would put less sugar, because I found it sweet. I would also probably make up for the less sugar by serving it warm, with vanilla ice cream. 🙂 What I also found cool was that I’d sprayed the dishes with Pam first and the resulting dessert was able to pop out and still hold its shape…so I would try making it in smaller ramekins next time I entertain and each person could get their own little one for dessert, maybe with some melted chocolate drizzled across the top…

The other last thing is my current knitting. I have been working on something but I can’t show photos of it here. I can tell you it’s a hat, but I can’t say much more because it is one of my Knitty.com submissions. My mom’s manicurist saw a photo of it and wants me to make her some to give as gifts, but before I can figure out how much to charge I need to make a second one and record how long it took, the exact yardage it took, etc. So I’ve been working on that for about a week now, but today I decided to put it aside temporarily.

We have a family event to attend this coming weekend and I wanted to dress Jakob up a little. I decided to knit him a little vest to wear with a white button-down shirt and dress pants. After rooting through what little of my stash is unpacked, I found some gray Patons yarn left over from the Glam Coat. I have two balls left, which I’m sure is more than enough for a baby’s vest. I didn’t feel like hunting down a pattern at the right gauge, so I spent today writing one up. I was able to knit the ribbing too, and hopefully I will have a vest in time for this weekend.

Here’s my swatch, before I unravelled it. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to use a garter or ribbed edging for the cuffs, so I swatched it with both. That’s regular garter on the bottom, sideways knit-on-as-you-go garter on the top left, and ribbing on the top right. I like the look of the regular garter the best but the swatch kept flipping up really badly along the first stocking stitch row, so traditional ribbing it is.

Tomorrow I get to go knitting with Robyn, Tara and the blogless Kate, so I hope to have some vest progress photos by night time.