Archive for the 'Knitting' Category

Oh Little Kimono Sweater

Published on October 18, 2010 in Knitting. 1 Comment Tags: , , .


Meet little Jin Levi

I think I may have found the most rewarding knitting projects—those for little darlings. Not only are they fun to make because they are delightfully tiny, but the pictures make me giggle and coo and smile—and I haven’t even met the baby.

This sweater I knit for little Jin Levi (pictured above) who is the first-born son of my dear friend, Carrie. Several years ago she married a Japanese man and they are currently living in Chichibu, Japan where Jin Levi was born—he’s only about a 6-7 weeks old right now (as pictured).

When I saw the Kimono sweater pattern in the knitting book One More Skein, I just knew it was perfect for a little Japanese-American baby. I love the yarn I used. Its a washable wool yarn that has a lovely fluctuation of color without being variegated. If you look closely at the pictures you will notice the Kimono ties. There are four total—two interior and two exterior—allowing the sweater to wrap-around the baby. There is a border around the exterior edge of the sweater and cuffs created by using the seed-stitch, with the majority of the sweater knit in stockinette. I’m still learning how to construct a garment. I find that I still need to work on attaching arms to torsos—wish I had more time to spend at my favorite yarn store Loop & Leaf.

This is the second baby sweater I knit this year—the other sweater can be seen here.

I also recently finished a lacy-holey beanie, and a lovely scarf/shawl. I still need to block the shawl/scarf, but will try and take pictures of both to post for your viewing pleasure. Have you done any interesting projects lately? I’d love to hear about it—send me an email or post on my blog with your blog site and I’ll check it out.

Thanks for reading!

©2010 Charlene Tiedemann

Knitting Sweaters: Baby Steps

Published on September 17, 2010 in Knitting. 4 Comments Tags: , , , .

I’m now about 8 months into my second year of knitting and its official: I want to knit clothing for myself that is not hats or scarves. So, in order to build my skills and confidence, I decided that knitting a perfectly adorable sweater for a friend’s baby would provide the confidence and skills to move into larger clothes. I found the patter in the book, One More Skein: 30 Quick Projects to Knit by Leigh Radford. It has a variety of quick projects to knit for many purposes, including winter warmth (hats, gloves); accessories (purses, jewelry); baby clothes (sweaters, poncho, pants); household items (placemats, kitty toys, felt vases, etc).

The sweater went well. As with most knit projects, I get to a point where I either have to improvise by adding a stich, or I have to rip out the stitches and re-do. Unfortunately, I tear out knitted stitches far more frequently than I would like—this project was no different. I was relieved to overhear at the knitting store the other day that other ladies—even the owner of the store—get absent-minded with knitting, as well.

Here is a picture of the baby in the sweater—everyone, meet baby Vanek. I have not met him in person, since I reside in California and he is happily sleeping his days away in Minnesota.

The sweater pattern is called “Nash’s Garter-Stitch Baby Sweater”. The whole thing is in garter stitch. You can’t go wrong with knitting every row—easy-peasy! I found the pattern easy to follow—although I ran into some problems with the tab that has a space for the other tab to pass through for buttoning (see close-up below). I found some adorable buttons that were perfect—with the markings of stitching on top (check out the photo below). As far as skill building for future knit projects, this was the perfect project to practice piecing on.

So I must thank baby Vanek for giving me an excuse to make a baby sweater, and for making this sweater project a reality. Good thing this little sweater will get plenty of use in Minnesota!

All written content © 2010 Charlene Tiedemann
©2010 Charlene Tiedemann