Flint Knits

Some dear friends are expecting a baby. Okay, LOTS of dear friends are expecting babies right now — at least six people I know are pregnant or have recently given birth.

Luckily most baby knits are insanely fast.

Isaiah, who was born last week, got a pair of wee socks, and has a Baby Surprise Jacket on the way.

For Lucy, who’s expected to arrive in January (observers unanimously agree, however, that Lucy’s mother is so enormously pregnant already that she won’t make it through the month of December), I used the bonnet pattern from Hello Yarn.

After picking up 12 stitches for the ears/eyes, knit one round.
Round 2: K1, M1, K4, M1, K1
Round 3: Knit
Round 4: SSK, K4, K2tog
Round 5: SSK, K2, K2tog
Round 6: arrange remaining 8 stitches on two needles (4 on each)
Graft stitches using kitchener stitch.

Using black yarn, single crochet into knit stitches in a circular pattern.
With tapestry needle, white yarn, and chain-stitch, embroider a circle around the black.

So my question for all of you is this: What are your favorite baby knits?

(Yes, Nova, I know what yours are!)

Keep in mind that my priorities here are:

1. Speed: there’s a lot of gifts to be knit, so I’m not interested in fingering-weight colorwork jumpers here. Quickness is key.

2. Simplicity: easy on and off — most of these folks are first-time parents, and have too much on their minds to fiddle with dozens of wee buttons and bows.
3. Functionality: I want to give gifts that will actually get some use.

Thanks in advance for your suggestions and insights!

Elizabeth sent me the prettiest sock!

A Drunken Bee, knit just for me!

She also sent the rest of her yarn (J Knits, in the Massachusetts colorway) and the pattern, so I can knit the second one for myself.

And put the whole lot in a beautifully-made, fully-lined tote that she sewed herself, talented woman that she is. And included a matching handmade notepad cover. Thank you so much Elizabeth!! I feel very special.

So all that is very, very cool. I love the pattern and the yarn, and can’t wait to knit the second sock. I think I’ll have to go up a needle size from what I usually use, to match Elizabeth’s gauge, but the challenge was part of the fun of our swap.

The thing is, the package she sent? Also included these:

Four glass plates, with fabric glued to the backs. Horses, turkeys, butterflies, fish… Not exactly her style or mine, but I just figured they were a kitschy gift she threw in out of kindness and/or silliness.

Not so.

Elizabeth has no idea where these plates came from. She sent the box with only the sock, yarn, pattern, and bag inside. Somewhere, somehow, along the way, these plates found their way into a taped, sealed box.

But, wait, there’s a clue! Each plate has a label on the back, with the name and address of a woman in Texas. She will be getting a friendly letter from me, and I’ll definitely keep ya’ll posted…

For my part, I sent a single sock today to a certain other knitter friend, who will knit the mate and keep the pair. I hope she likes it, and that it fits…

pattern: Knitty’s magic cast-on, and Wendy’s toe-up gusset heel [pdf],
with Kate’s “Ode to Eames” mosaic pattern.

yarn: Sundara sock yarn in Crimson, and Mama Blue sock yarn in Mermaid

[the guts]

needles: 2.5 and 2.75 mm circulars

yarn? check.
pattern? check.
stitch markers? check.
tape measure? check.
sock tote? check
needles? FUUUUUUCK!!

So I spent the four-hour flight reading trashy magazines and napping. I’d rather have been knitting, of course, but it could have been worse. On my last cross-country flight, for instance, they played Failure to Launch [shudder].

As soon as I got to the building where the conference was being held (Royce Hall at UCLA), I realized that it was the college home of both Buffy Summers AND Sydney Bristow (and also Rory Gilmore, if that’s your thing).

Don’t let my cool casual posture fool you — I am all aflutter. The TV nerd in me (which, if we’re being honest, is almost all of me) was really, really embarassingly excited. I mean, can’t you just picture Sydney sprinting out those doors after ditching her realistically depicted (snort) 19th-century American lit course, because her pager flashed a 911 from Spy Daddy?

I had a few hours on Sunday before my flight, and needed some needles for the trip home. The incredibly kind, funny, fascinating Jillian/Ms. Sknitty was good enough to meet up for some lunch and yarn shopping.

After a huge and tasty lunch at Jerry’s Famous Deli (where we noted that, in a city where no one seems to eat, there are some alarmingly big portions), we went to Compatto, where half the store was on sale and a cuddly chow/lab mixed named Gracie charmed our socks off.

See how Jillian is humoring poor Gracie with a belly rub, even as her eagle eye is on the sale shelf? She walked away with a heap of excellent yarn for an unbelievable price.

Then we headed over to A Mano, which may have been the friendliest, most welcoming big-city yarn shop I’ve ever visited. I bought my sock needles there, and a skein of Malabrigo for some more fingerless mitts (Dashing, perhaps?).

Finally, before I headed to the airport, Jillian took me and a friend to the beach near the Santa Monica Pier, where we saw the most beautiful fucking sunset, like, ever.

As it turns out, that lovely orange glow in the photos, which we initially took for smog, was the beginning of this week’s deadly wildfires. Thanks for a lovely afternoon Jillian — stay safe!

There are definitely some changes I’ll make for the second sock. For one thing, I’ll flip the chart to make the right and left sock mirror images of each other.

I’m also going to use a short-row heel instead of Wendy’s fabulous toe-up gusset heel. This was the first time I’d used Wendy’s new tutorial, and I’ll definitely use it again — especially with my high instep. But I think a short row heel will look neater and more compact with this sock, and the stitch patterns have enough flexibility that I think it will still fit well.

Question: Should I also run a line of 1-2 purl stitches along the underside of the cable, to make it stand out from the sole? Initially, I liked how the cable looked melting into the sole stitches, but since I want the purl stitches to run alongside it on the leg, it might make more sense to have them just run the whole length of the sock.

[click photos for larger version]

All in all, I’m pleased with and proud of this little baby, and am thinking seriously about writing out the pattern.

Yay, fall!

The 90-degree heat wave broke last night, and was followed by a perfect, crisp autumn morning.

This is also the season of Midterms, and I have a lot of them to grade. Even so, my Autumn Aran sock is, slowly, coming together.