So! I knit my girl a Shalom Sweater:
But... wait. I have to start at the beginning. See for the March installment of Kate and Jeanne's Road Trip Yarn Club we wanted a bulky yarn with pops of colors. The inspiration was Wildflowers on the Great Plains. I love how the finished colorway/pattern turned out.
There's a couple of extra kits for this pattern up on the
Destination Yarn Etsy Shop along with some other colorways on the new bulky base.
But! It was a new base for me. And a completely new dye technique that I had never tried before called stipple dying. It was SO FUN to experiment with. But it took some serious getting used to. And after I screwed up one skein... and then another... and then another I threw my mistakes in the dyepot with a bunch of leftover dye and was all FINE. YOU WILL JUST BE PURPLE. STUPID YARN.
However my fit of rage lead to some really gorgeous yarn.
I figured it would end up as a cowl or something. But my daughter claimed it. And I had just enough to make her this:
It's the
Shalom Cardigan pattern that everyone,
myself included, knit a few years ago.
It knit up crazy quickly. Then on one of the MANY snow days we had she asked me to make a skirt to match. So we dug out some fabric and cranked out a
Lazy Days Skirt. Easy.
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| Literally that morning by 9:30 we had made a skirt and the boys had
watched a movie and IT WAS ONLY 9:30 WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DOOOOOO.
There were a belligerent amount of snow days in a row this year. |
The finished outfit is just darling. A photoshoot after her art class at the CMA was necessary.
I love LOVE the yellow buttons. She picked them out herself from the button box I inherited from my great-grandmother. I'd guess the buttons are older than I am.
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| 90cents for buttons?! |
The yellow against the purple is just so kicky and perfect.
As far as modifications go it was pretty easy to take this down to a kid's size. I started with 51 stitches on a size 10.5 needle. I only did 3 knit stitches on either end because the 5 the pattern called for was a bit much on a little kid. Other than that I knit as written until the divide for the arms. After the 2nd increase I had 101 stitches and after the third I had 129. When dividing for the arms I K23, BO21, K43, BO 21, K23. Then cast on 9 under each arm. I omitted all of the waist shaping and just knit straight down from there.
I actually had to do the divide for the arms twice. The first time she didn't like how tight it was across her back. So I ripped it out and adjusted my stitch counts. That's one of the best things about knitting. Make a mistake? Don't like how it fits/looks? Rip it out and use the yarn again. No problem.
Overall I'm just thrilled with this. The whole thing started as a mistake and turned into something really beautiful. She's worn it to school often since it was finished. I think that's about the best compliment I can ever receive.
Also she turned 6 this week. Which. DUDE. It goes so fast. I'm actually writing this because I'm procrastinating getting the house ready for her Frozen Birthday party tomorrow. It's amazing how much festivity you can create with a few streamers and some balloons. Anyways in honor of her birthday here's a side by side of Shaloms from when I was hideously pregnant with her:
Yay for Shalom Sweaters!
