Knitting for Lil' Miss

Jiminy Christmas it's been awhile since I've chatted about knitting! I recently finished up two items for Lil' Miss and I didn't even have a chance to wash them before she snatched them fresh off my needles and put them on.  Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining, I mean who complains about someone who is so delighted to wear items knit for them?  There were 2 projects I was working on for her, a pair of rainbow knee high socks I talked about earlier in this post and a summery cotton top, Sourpatch published in Petite Purls last summer.

I had fallen in love with the top as soon as I saw it but didn't get to it until last month.  I seem to have trouble knitting a season ahead, which is probably what I should be doing but I just don't want to deal with wool in summer or little cotton tops in winter.  Anyway, I used Knit Picks shine for this top and the colors and sheen of the yarn are perfect for the design, of course Lil' Miss helped to pick out the colors for the top and had great fun doing so..  In spite of  the original being done in wool I chose cotton as the wool seemed a little counter-intuitive to me, I mean, who wants to wear wool in the summer?    I had a devil of a time getting gauge and now that it's done I think I should have gone down a needle size for the color stripes as I did for the stockinette portion.  The biggest hiccup occurred because I didn't fully read the pattern, for all larger sizes there are more color stripes and I just looked at the picture and bought according to that, oops!  So I got knit up to the last strip with the yarn I had and set it aside while I waited for the final color to arrive.  Once it did the knitting went fairly quickly, if rather repetitive once I hit the stockinette portion, knitting only knit stitches endlessly in a loop can get, well, hellishly boring!  I did enjoy a few movies while doing that part I must say.

After the rough start with her rainbow knee highs they went pretty quickly the final time, taking about 2 weeks to complete from start to finish after the third cast on.  It is so much fun to watch the color changes as you knit, really alleviates some of the boredom with doing endless rows of ribbing.  I'll say it now, her next socks will not be knee highs (I'm thinking of either Hermione socks or Socks for Little Witches out of some felici in tiki I couldn't help but buy) and it will probably be awhile before she gets another pair of knee high socks!

The sourpatch top I knit for her fared better than the socks without being washed before wearing.  The only issue with it is that it turned out a bit on the large side and since I thought a shirt that falls off one or both shoulders probably isn't too appropriate for school I wove a narrow pink ribbon through the top just below the cable cast on to nip it in.  Although not part of the design the little ribbon and bow look totally adorable and make me even happier with my result!  As for the socks, well, I felt kind of bad for her when I picked her up at school the day she wore them for the first time as they were sadly around her ankles.  Hopefully that won't happen again as they have now been properly washed however if it does I think I may need to run some elastic thread around the tops to help keep them in place, at least I will if it bothers her enough!