A Set For A Special Baby

I like knitting brightly coloured clothing for babies and I think this yarn is truly excellent for baby clothing.  It is Aire Valley DK, a 75% British wool, 25% nylon blend from West Yorkshire Spinners, soft, washable and excellent value; I could see myself using this for many more baby knits in the future.  The pattern is the classic Baby Surprise Jacket by British born, American ground breaking knitter Elizabeth Zimmermann.  As you knit the jacket looks nothing like a garment, but a neat piece of folding and two short seams later it has magically transformed itself, the closest knitting gets to origami.  This yarn is just right for showing off the mitres in the pattern - Elizabeth Zimmermann adored mitred corners - and it has made a cosy, colourful jacket, without being utterly overwhelming (to me anyhow).



To go with the jacket I made the matching bootees and bonnet, which are less startlingly made but still fun knits, I will be interested to see how well the bootees fit and crucially stay on because that seems to be the crux of the matter with baby footwear.  I would recommend these patterns, the jacket is available as a separate pattern from School House Press and in the UK from the Knitting Parlour and Knit'n'Caboodle does kits.  All three patterns appear in her book The Opinionated Knitter, well worth the price, like all her books it is an enjoyable read in its own right as well as containing lots of useful information and great patterns.  School House Press have recently brought out a more detailed version of the pattern too, for those who find the original writing style a little short on detail.

Now I want to knit another, there's something curiously moreish about garter stitch in brightly coloured wool.

Actual Knitting Content

Now we have not had much actual knitting content in a while have we?  Most neglectful on what was originally supposed to be a knitting blog.  So, on the needles, Dad's jumper very much on the back-burner, more to the forefront is a cute 1950s cardigan from a pattern I bought in a charity shop.  I am extremely pleased with this purchase, not least because it contains the pattern for the matinee jacket with hearts and embroidery featured on last year's BBC 4 programme Fabric of Britain.



The cardigan I am making is called Rogue in Raglan, a name I suspect inspired by the wonderful expression on the little model's face in the photograph.  My alteration to this neat little textured cardigan has been to lengthen the cardigan by a good few inches to make it a full length cardigan, although as it is it would make a lovely cardigan to go over a girls' empire line dress.  The pattern is fun to knit, now I have got the hang of how it works, creating a very stretchy variation on rib; it would work well on socks, something I may have to consider in the future.  I am using the delightfully soft Patons Fairytale Dreamtime 4ply, in a discontinued colour I got for £1 a ball at Black Sheep Wools ages ago, I do love a good bargain.  For authenticity and practise in making up I am making it in pieces, even though a raglan cardigan is so easy to do top down.  May Elizabeth Zimmermann forgive me!



As the summer is upon us I have resurrected the double v cardigan I put away last year after it went wrong one too many times at a point in the year when I was never going to have it ready for that summer.  Mercifully I managed to sort out the problems I was having, despite initial confusion over whether the piece on the needles was a front or a sleeve and I am powering on nicely with it.  Part of a front and one sleeve left to go, then making up and hopefully I will have a new summer cardigan.  The yarn is Nikkim by Vinni's Colours from South Africa, bought at Purlescence, the colours are gorgeous, although it is hard on the hands being 100% cotton.



If I get my act together and sew on some buttons there may soon be a Baby Surprise Jacket and attendant bonnet and bootees to show off soon.

The Year in Books: February

Before we run out of February here is my book for the month: An Omelette and a Glass of Wine, a compilation of the journalism of Elizabeth David.  I adore reading Elizabeth David's cookery writing, she wrote as well as she cooked, so that her pieces are pithy, inspiring and taste good to read, odd though that statement sounds.  She had a real skill in recalling a place and a time, so that as she travels you walk through markets, taste, smell and eat with her.  If she did not like something, a restaurant, or the sample tinned pies sent by publicity departments with an optimism born of lunacy, or the British practise of taking other countries' dishes and bastardising them, she could be devastating.  In the case of one restaurant she adds in an after-note that sometime after the publication of her piece the restaurant had lost its Michelin star!

The pieces are a whole mixture and show the sheer variation that can be achieved when writing about food, there are short biographies of key figures like Mrs Beeton and Marcel Boulestin, an account of the invention of tinned tomatoes, numerous wonderful travel pieces (she would have made a good travel writer), various aspects of the history of food are covered, as well as the more usual pieces containing recipes.  I cannot recommend this book enough, her writing is a joy and her passion for good food, properly made, is inspiring.

I would love a kitchen like this

Elizabeth David began writing on her return from Egypt in 1946, where she had been working during the war, because she missed the food of the Mediterranean and the sunshine.  When her first book, A Book of Mediterranean Food, was published in 1950 food was still rationed and many of the ingredients were largely unobtainable, except sometimes in small shops in Soho, but the book was wonderfully aspirational, a reminder that food could be something more than a problem to be solved.  She went on to write a number of books on European food, which were followed by a few more scholarly, in depth books on English food, including a superb book on bread.  Although she died two decades ago, many modern chefs still cite her as an inspiration and if you love food I would recommend you get hold of her books and start reading.  The books are still in print, although second hand copies are available more cheaply and two colour books compilations of her recipes have been published more recently, At Elizabeth David's Table and Elizabeth David on Vegetables This Guardian article has more about Elizabeth David, her extraordinary life and her legacy.

If you knit and have heard of Elizabeth Zimmermann then you may understand more when I say that what Elizabeth Zimmermann was to knitting in the second half of the twentieth century, Elizabeth David was to food.  I often associate the two of them in my mind, they were born at a similar time into a similar social class and both were determined, opinionated women who pursued their passion.

You can find the other blog posts in the Year of Books here

A finished baby cardigan

Ta dah!  A finished Baby Sweater on Two Needles, often called the February Baby Sweater, as it appears in the February section of Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitter's Almanac, an excellent and original little book.  Although it is worth noting that Elizabeth Zimmermann's pattern writing style is concise and takes a little getting used to; she expects her knitter to be using her (or his) brain when knitting, one's hand is not held through every step.  However, her patterns are rewarding when one has done the spadework and this cardigan is one of my favourite cardigans to knit for baby girls.  I have used Sandnes Garn Smart, a Norwegian yarn available from Scandinavian Knitting Design.  Now all I have to do is reposition the bottom button, which for some reason I have sewn on in completely the wrong place (relief at finally nearly finishing sewing on the buttons going to my head?) and post it to the intended recipient before their daughter outgrows it.

Next time I will definitely do the sleeves in the round, make the body a little longer and work out a more widely spaced option for the buttons as there are ten of them, which seems excessive on a baby cardigan and takes ages to do up.  Ravelry page here.

There we are, some knitting content at last, doesn't that feel better?