Birth/Rebirth

The snow receded some at the end of last week. On Sunday afternoon I found signs of new life.





This snow drop has barely lifted its head out of the snow:



Last year my first snow drops emerged in mid-March, so despite the intense cold these are 3 or 4 weeks earlier. Maybe that silly groundhog was on to something.

Also, finished but for the buttons is the "baby sweater on two needles" known to most knitters as the February baby.



I highly recommend this sweater. It was great fun to knit. It's quite easy, and every part of it fits together in that perfect way that Elizabeth Zimmerman sweaters do, thanks to her various percentage systems. I did change it to be completely seamless by knitting the body first, slipping stitches to holders for the sleeves and then casting on again across the held stitches so I could continue the body in one piece. I then picked up the sleeve stitches and knit them in the round on circular needles. I also changed the bottom edge just slightly. I always found the original garter stitch border clunky. I prefer lace patterns that provide their own edge with just a little adjustment, so when I got to the bottom edge I did not decrease as Elizabeth calls for, and I stayed in pattern, but changed the wrong side rows to plain knit instead of plain purl.

In The Knitter's Almanac the sweater is pictured with a matching bonnet, for which no pattern is given. As far as I know, EZ didn't publish that pattern, instead she describes how to add an extension onto the bonnet pattern you (of course) already have to keep the baby's neck and chest warm.

There don't seems to be all that many bonnet patterns to be had now, but this very girly sweater cried out for a bonnet, so I greatly modified the one that I have to make a matching bonnet. If it fits, and I can figure out what age of baby it fits, I will post simple directions.