Cherry on top
First of all, thank you all so much for your warm embrace of Daisy Daisy! She’s flattered, and so am I. I am mulling over different possibilities to size the back shaping and will try to come up with some sensible instructions soon. Meanwhile, I’ve got other knitting that hasn’t found its way to the blog yet…
One of our reasons to travel east last month was to attend my cousin Caroline’s baby shower, the better to glimpse a bunch of relations on my mother’s side whom we’ve rarely seen since we moved back to the Northwest. Caroline is an interior designer with impeccable taste, and she’s also having a girl. All the most recent babies I’ve knit for have come with man tackle, so I thought I’d take this opportunity to pull out all the stops and design something really girly and adorable. So I hunted up some sock leftovers from the stash (those skeins of Dream in Color Smooshy are generous) and just kicked up my heels. The result is this sugary confection:
Sorry the photos aren’t a little better; they were taken in haste at the shower itself, since I was sewing on buttons in the airport and steam blocking in my brother’s hotel room just a few hours before! But I think you get the sense that if you were to make a big sundae of sugar & spice & everything nice, this would be the cherry on top. Pink! Picot! Scallops! Rose petals! (I actually feel a need to go read some Ernest Hemingway and knit Scratchy Man Wool just looking at it.) I opted for a sort of bubble hem because I was quickly running out of the red (that’s “In Vino Veritas,” and you might recognize it from a certain February Baby Sweater)… only about eighteen inches remained after I bound off. Here’s the back:
The rose motif (though I think of them as snowflakes) is from a chart in Lizbeth Upitis’s Latvian Mitten book. I added the “lice” wherever there was a particularly long carry, thinking of baby toes getting snagged on the way through. Since The Baby Currently Known as Bundle doesn’t have a real name yet, I’m calling the design after her mother: Sweet Caroline. My cousin may have broken a land speed record with her thank-you note, so I can smugly report that this little top has been dubbed an heirloom and a favorite gift. Thanks, Caroline! Can’t wait to meet your little daughter!
Posted: August 5th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
The top looks adorable. I love the colorwork.
Posted: August 5th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
We’ll love an update of Bundle in her heirloom!
Posted: August 5th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
So cute! I love the way the variation in the pink pops against the darker wine color. That is one baby outfit the little girl will not cringe to look back on!
Posted: August 5th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
hemingway and scratchy man wool indeed! you are too funny. the top is freaking adorable.
Posted: August 5th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
absolutely adorable!
Posted: August 5th, 2009 at 6:37 pm
I love it!!! What a lucky little girl!
Posted: August 6th, 2009 at 12:54 am
Boy knitting can be fun, too. I keep telling myself that. But this is over the top on pink picots and sweetness! I love it!
Posted: August 6th, 2009 at 5:53 am
That is SO CUTE!
Posted: August 6th, 2009 at 8:40 am
I just want to eat it up. Yum! I hope you get a photo with it on the little one eventually – that will be heartbreakingly cute.
Posted: August 6th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
That is super duper cute. I can only imagine how much more adorable it will be with a little one snugged up inside!
Posted: August 6th, 2009 at 6:54 pm
This is so gorgeous! What a lucky babe!
Posted: August 7th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Makes me want to get knocked up so that you can design some knitwear for my futurebaby. You should write the pattern for that one up too, you sneaky designer lady, you!
Posted: August 9th, 2009 at 6:36 am
this is such an adorable design!!
Posted: August 11th, 2009 at 7:16 pm
Adorable! Colors are beautiful!!! LOVE IT! Congratulations!