Yup, I’m still here. Hope you are, too.
It’s been a busy autumn. I’ve done a lot of knitting. I made a new pair of socks for Sylvia (purple yarn with sparkles in it!), a wool pullover for myself (more on that in a future post), and one of these:
This is the Anouk pinafore from Knitty. I made it for a friend of mine whose daughter was born in late spring and knit it in a size that would fit her (I hope!) this winter.
Working on this filled me with all sorts of nostalgia, because I had made an Anouk for Sylvia when she was two. She wore it frequently until she outgrew it . . . and even then she continued to wear it a bit longer. It’s now safely stored away in our bin of “clothes to keep.”
I started knitting the Anouk pinafore for Sylvia two years ago . I finally finished it completely last March. Good thing I set out from the start knitting the largest size—she hasn’t outgrown it yet.
Not that you would have noticed until recently, because Sylvia wasn’t very interested in wearing it. But about two weeks ago, she suddenly developed a love-affair with “the pinafore” and would be wearing it nonstop if laundry weren’t an issue. She especially loves to wear it while doing her “acrobat dance” (inspired by a recent trip to see the Big Apple Circus, she’s now declared that she wants to be an acrobat when she grows up).
I started the Anouk pinafore in January 2006. The bulk of the knitting was accomplished pretty quickly, and a little over two months I had completed the piece–sort of. I’d attached the four side bands as the pattern specified, but the top pair were placed too high up and consequently squeezed Sylvia’s little armpits. Since the weather was already turning warm–too warm for a knit pinafore–I put Anouk aside and decided to wait until the following winter to fix it.
Well, I finally got around to doing the “repairs.” First, I removed the side bands and all of the buttons. (I had thought about replacing the leaf-shaped buttons I’d originally used with some garden-themed pewter ones I’d picked up recently, but the new one were just too heavy for this light fabric.) Then I blocked the pinafore and the side bands. Then I reattached the side bands–just one pair this time–and the buttons.
The result? I’m pretty pleased with it (even though the picked-up stitches around the neck–the first time I’d ever done that technique–aren’t super tidy). Sylvia really likes it and deemed it banana-eating-worthy attire.
