{"id":1025,"date":"2006-10-27T19:35:00","date_gmt":"2006-10-27T23:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kissmyknits.com\/?p=1025"},"modified":"2006-10-27T19:35:00","modified_gmt":"2006-10-27T23:35:00","slug":"1025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kissmyknits.com\/?p=1025","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

(I tried to re-load Photoshop onto my machine today, but the disk was too scratched. I’m still waiting on a new copy of Photoshop and a newer version of Mac OSX, so no new original pics for at least another four days. Le sigh.)
\n
\nEmily had a good day in school today, for the most part. We had our parent\/teacher conference, and it’s clear there are things she needs to work on, but we appreciate her teacher’s willingness to not sugar-coat things for us. We’re always happy to act on things if we know action is needed. And of course, as always, Emily’s teacher loves her. She’s smart and sweet and loves to smile, and that always goes a long way in helping people to like her. Plus her teacher is fantastic.<\/p>\n

Say what you want about the public schools, but we have never had a bad experience with Emily’s. The administration has always been very willing to work hard and be creative in finding ways to help our daughter. And when a less experienced teacher, like Emily’s art teacher, kind of… gives up and gives her a book to read during art, Emily’s regular teacher speaks to her and suggests new strategies which work. I discovered this when asking during the meeting today why my daughter kept telling me “I read a book” when I asked her what she was doing in art. See, I didn’t even have to get all “Mominator,” her teacher beat me to it. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

One of the things they’re doing in her regular classroom is breaking into small groups and working cooperatively. This is difficult for Emily, as there are several groups in one trailer, all talking about different things, and I think she has a hard time filtering background noise out. I feel certain she can tell you exactly what the other groups are working on, but can’t contribute to the conversation in her own group. We’ve got a line on a conversational speech therapist, though, so there are avenues to explore to continue to work on this. And hopefully Girl Scouts will also give her practice.<\/p>\n

She is picking up on things, though. She came home today running through the American Sign Language alphabet, and she pretty much had it down. And her class got to go to a celebration for classes that have a very low number of warnings in their “specials” (leaving the classroom for art, music, etc.) so she’s not dragging everyone else down with her, which is good to know.<\/p>\n

We got an invitation from another Brownie mom to come to a local sports store so she can shimmy up their rock-climbing wall with the other mom’s daughter. That’ll be fun, and after the dead ends I ran into sending the occasional note home for her classmates’ moms, seeking playdates, it’s gratifying to have a new avenue for social interaction for her. And me, since the mom seems cool.
\n

\nA friend had a baby back in April, and only recently did I finally get around to knitting her something. I do make A Charlie Brown-type hat<\/a> but after she waited so long, I kind of felt I should make a greater effort. The item was mailed a couple of weeks ago, so although I haven’t heard back, I’m going to assume she got it and it’s safe to post now. So, here she be, the toddler sweater!<\/p>\n


\nPattern: Knitting Pure and Simple Baby Pullover 214<\/a> (modified)
\nYarn: approx 3 skeins Karabella Aurora 8 in yellow, 1\/2 skein black
\nNeedles: US 7 size 16 circs (pattern calls for 9’s)
\nGauge: 4.5 stitches per inch (pattern calls for 4)<\/p>\n

I wanted to use Aurora 8, because it’s machine washable. Since that’s a thinner yarn than the pattern calls for, I used smaller needles and modified the pattern to account for the math discrepancies. Because my stripe pattern is a 12-stitch repeat, I also changed the number of body stitches to be divisible by 12. This wasn’t hard – I just put an extra stitch under each of the arms for a total of 108.
\n
\nLooking at a closeup of the stripe pattern, I wish I could say that the weirdness in the yellow within the stripe is deliberate, but in fact it’s just my uneven tension doing colorwork. This was done in the round. It’s better not to carry yarn across that great a distance – this wouldn’t have puckered if I’d worked the front and back separately, done it in intarsia on the flat pieces, and seamed the garment up. However, I’m choosing to call it a “design element” because frankly, it’s good enough for me.
\n
\nThis closeup of the inside of the sweater will show what I mean about stranding the yarn – that part’s going to have less give than the areas that aren’t stranded. It still has enough resiliency, though, that I feel it’ll be practical.
\n
\nI wanted to be sure the cuffs and collar were nice and loose, so I did Denise’s variation on Elizabeth Zimmerman’s sewn bind-off<\/a>, which worked like a charm. If it can fit over Robert the Bear’s head, it can fit over anyone’s.<\/p>\n

Because the garment is knit in the round rather than in pieces, and because it’s for a toddler, I didn’t go nuts with the blocking. I just washed it lightly in cool water, spun it in the washing machine, and laid it flat to dry. I don’t know that it made significant difference with this sweater. It’s not perfect, but darn it, I think it’s cute! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

In case anyone wants to give this a try themselves, here’s the chart.
\nHave fun!
\n<\/center><\/p>\n

Hats up for: England, Chicago, and England. Go Brits!<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(I tried to re-load Photoshop onto my machine today, but the disk was too scratched. I’m still waiting on a new copy of Photoshop and a newer version of Mac OSX, so no new original pics for at least another four days. Le sigh.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[37,87,49],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kissmyknits.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1025"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kissmyknits.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kissmyknits.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kissmyknits.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kissmyknits.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kissmyknits.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1025\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kissmyknits.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kissmyknits.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kissmyknits.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}