Knitting and purling

A few weeks back I went to visit my grandmother in Florida. She's 83 and more active and energetic than anyone I know... My mother and I are close runners-up, according to our friends and family. It seems to run in our genes.

So, my grandmother always has several knitting, crocheting, and corss-stitch projects going on at a time, in addition to watching her stocks every day, bleaching everything in site, and gardening up a storm. Whenever I see her I return inspired to knit, needlepoint and clean, clean, clean. It is great. Too bad she lives so far away!

So far, I have knitted two sweaters: a brown collared vest for my 3 year old (I'll post that one later, when he has a chance to wear it!) and this blue/purple sweater set which I sized for newborn to 3 months. Our baby is due at the end of January, so a warm sweater will see quite a bit of use.

I made the pattern myself (much to my mother's dismay, who only goes by patterns) and made the sweater entirely in stockinette stitch, hence the cute little curled edges. Stockinette stitch is made by knitting one whole row, and then purling one row, and so on. Although I have knitted for over twenty years, I have never really done much with fancy stitches, and stuck mostly to just knitting. So, this was my practice project to make sure I really have the purl down before I move on to some more complicated stitches. The sweater was very easy and fast to make with a thick yarn and size 10 needles. The front consists of two panels -- one which goes only as far in as the neck opening, and the other which crosses over and covers most of the front. It is closed with one button.

Next up: a light purple baby blanket! Some people feel purple is not a unisex color, but I disagree. Most purples are very unisex, tho some of course are better suited to girls. The purple yarns are mottled and also have blues in them, so they are even more unisex. I have plenty of green white and yellow baby things knitted by my grandmother (and others), and my mother is going with turquoise for her baby projects, so I am going to stick with purple for now :)