Really, I do still knit

I got word from my friend Karen that she received the package I sent her, so at long last I can post pictures of this sweatercoat! I knit it for Karen's little girl, Hazel.

Close-up of the back and all those seed stitches.


Pattern: "Smock Coat" from Debbie Bliss' Simply Baby. The pattern was pretty simple. The only adjustment I made was that Ms. Bliss called for ribbon to be sewed on to be tied in the back, and I substituted a knitted belt. I tried every which way of sewing on several different kinds of ribbon, and they all looked sloppy, so finally I just knitted little strips of seed stitch to use instead.

By the end of this project, I was entirely comfortable with the continental method of holding the yarn in my left hand and "picking" both knit and purl stitches. This made for a faster knit than if I'd thrown the yarn with my right hand.

Yarn: Rowan Cashsoft DK, a pretty reasonable (and much cheaper) substitute for Ms. Bliss' Cashmerino. Its lovely, merino with a hefty amount of microfibre and a bit of cashmere. It is machine-washable (supposedly) though I didn't attempt that. It blocked out nicely for me, though.

Needles: Addi Turbo circulars, sizes 3 and 4.

If you check back to this page and scroll down a bit, you can see that Hazel has grown since the last time I posted her picture.

Karen emailed me some pictures of Hazel wearing the sweater and here they are:


Oh, what a face, you have to love it.

I will love Hazel forever for wearing the sweater, even if just for the pictures. I hope she gets a few months out of it before she grows too big to wear it!