Tuesday, October 31, 2006

An Announcement and a Reid FO Report

Recently, my old former college roomie took up knitting. I have been watching her progress with great interest and have been quite pleased that she never stooped to knitting a garter stitch fun-fur scarf. Anyway, she just produced her first ever sock. See it here and tell her what a wonderful job she's done. She even grafted the toe closed!

Reid
I'm so cute, says Scout

Pattern: Reid from Knitty, 2 year size
Yarn: Patons Grace in pink (4 balls) and blue (part of a ball)
Needles: US size 5 and 6, crochet hook of an appropriate size (Size gray in my own personal crochet-hook sizing system. I can never remember the real sizes.)
Recipient: Niece Eva
Cat: Scout

Picots Modifications: I started working the picot edging as specified in the pattern: work a round of single crochet then work a round of single-crochet picots. But when I finished, I thought that the edging looked too clunky—it needed something more delicate. So I ripped the picot round and tried a slip-stitch picot round. The combo of single crochet then slip-stitch picots looked nice, but alas, I found doing the slip-stitch picots very awkward. So I ripped out all the single crochets and did a single-crochet picot round directly onto the sweater. I think it looks good now—and it’s a lot faster.

(Don't let all this fancy-schmancy crochet talk make you think that I know something about crochet. Everything I know comes from the big fat Vogue Knitting book.)

Oh and I did a 3-needle bind off for the shoulder seams. Do I really need to say that again? Maybe I should just tell you when I DON’T do a 3-needle bind off.

The perfect gift for a long-armed baby Oopsie(?): I knit the sleeves as directed (“work all rows of upper sleeve chart, etc.”) and I probably shouldn’t have. Or I should have dry-blocked the sleeves to see how long they were after working the sleeve increase chart. But I didn’t dry block and when I actually blocked the sleeves to the size specified in the pattern after binding off, I didn’t think that the lace pattern was open enough. So I made another one of my brilliant snap decisions: “I’ll just make the sleeves longer! That way Miss Eva can wear the sweater for a longer time.” Um, yeah. Perhaps if Eva is part Neanderthal she could wear it. (No, I’m not saying that my brother or my SIL are Neanderthals. It’s a joke about having long arms. It must be a bad joke if I think I have to explain it.)

General thoughts: Overall it was a nice, quick knit. The lace pattern is easy to memorize and the results are cute. Just dry-block those sleeves to check the length, okay?

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

That is too cute! I love your color combination. And there's nothing wrong with cuffed sleeves, you can totally get away with pretending that's how you wanted them in the first place.

Anonymous said...

That is a really cute little sweater, I think I'm going to have to knit it for my friend's baby girl. It's exactly what I've been looking for.

Thanks!

Nik said...

I love the sweater. but i'm mostly impressed with you skills in getting the kitty to sit still while you draped it with the sweater.
is it stuffed? a statue of a real kitty? 'cause in my experience with the furry members of the animal kingdom, I've NEVER seen such a thing.

amylovie said...

It turned out great Laura.

Amy

Anonymous said...

looks perfect for a little girl, even if she has to cuff it :)

janna said...

I love the cuffs! And I really wish I knew someone who was having a girl..... OH - and Scout is absolutely lovely! (Did you have to drug her first?)

Jeanne said...

Very cute sweater - but I love the picture of the sweater on the cat!

Jennifer said...

Love it! Very sweet sweater. Scout looks like she enjoys wearing it too!

Triona said...

I agree with Nik and janna- there's no WAY a real cat would sit still for that. You really just have a series of incredibly lifelike stuffed cats with different poses and expressions, don't you?

Anonymous said...

You should send that image to Knitty for their calendar, if Scout doesn't mind. :) I love that sweater, and wish they made it in adult sizes. But then, of course, I would have to learn to crochet...

Stoat said...

aww... thanks for the shout-out!

can you really imagine me with a fun-fur anything? gah, that kind of thing just makes knitting seem scary.

and Reid is very cute (not to mention Scout!). i really don't comment often enough on how cool all your work is -- it's always so professional looking!

soapy said...

Great model! Sweet!

Anonymous said...

Reid looks great! And you are quite the crochetier!! ;)

Anonymous said...

Awwww pretty Scout being good and letting you model Reid on her. Reid looks great! And if I make Reid I will try to remember to dry block the sleeves! :)

Terby said...

Cute! Scout looks good in it too. :)

So what's on the needles now?

Anonymous said...

I do love that sweater. I wish I had a two-year-old to knit for. The result might be a little insipid if I made it in my size.

Haven't you seen that Geico/cave man commercial? You'd better watch what you say about the Neanderthals or they'll sue you and your blog.