Ruthless Knitting

Pattern: Basic top-down V-neck raglan sweater, à la Barbara Walker’s Knitting from the Top

Size: Maybe 9-12 mo.? 21″ chest, 6″ length to underarm, 4.5″ sleeves to underarm, 3.5″ V-neck depth

Yarn: Harrisville Designs New England Shetland (100 percent wool; 197 yds per skein), poppy and white

Yardage: 1 skein poppy; two-thirds skein white

Source: Yarns by Design, Neenah, WI

Needles: US size 3 (3.25 mm) metal circular and bamboo double-pointed needles

Gauge: 26 sts and 40 rows = 4″ in Stockinette stitch

Notes: I think this may be the first time I’ve made a V-neck cardigan, and I am struck by how thoroughly the V-neck transforms a simple cardigan into a prepster’s dream garment. The whole time I was knitting it, I kept feeling as though it needed a varsity letter or some pockets, just to complete the look. So cute!

This Harrisville Designs yarn makes a nice rustic fabric that I think will work well for an outer layer. Their colors are really saturated and fabulous. The poppy I used here looks like a red with orange in it in the pictures, but in real life it looks much more like an orange with red in it. At some point, I’d like to make an adult sweater with the worsted-weight Harrisville yarn. Something simple, like Elizabeth Zimmerman’s modified saddle-shoulder design, would really show off the color and wear well forever.

I think this is the last of the baby sweaters for a while — I’ve got adult sweaters on the brain again! Before too long, I’ll post an update about my progress on Neiman, which I’m making for a friend of mine. I finally finished the body up to the armpits and am feeling fresh interest as I begin the sleeves.

Welcome to the new Ruthless Knitting! If all went as planned, it looks almost exactly like the old Ruthless Knitting, but at a new web address. This may be exciting only to me, but I’ll take it.

Okay, on to the good stuff. I have finished a baby kimono, and lo, it is cute. (Apologies for the rather sub-par pictures: I had to send my good camera in for repairs, and I didn’t have the skills to take non-blurry pictures with my brother’s camera, which I borrowed for these photos.)

Pattern: One-Piece Baby Kimono by Cristina Shiffman for Mason-Dixon Knitting

Size: Newborn-ish (16″ chest, 4″ to underarm, 5″ sleeve to underarm)

Yarn: Blackberry Ridge Wool/Silk Laceweight (25 percent silk, 75 percent wool; 350 yds per 2 oz. skein) in Deep Red for body, held double; leftover Kona Superwash sock yarn for I-cord

Yardage: 1 skein, slightly over 2 oz.

Source: Yarns by Design, Neenah, WI

Needles: US 5 (3.75 mm) bamboo straights for body, US 3 (3.25 mm) bamboo double-points for I-cord

Gauge: About 21 sts and 26 rows = 4″ in St st

Notes: When I had about two inches left of knitting to do on the teensy sleeve of the orange-and-white-striped baby cardigan, I was struck by a strong urge to knit something — anything — else. So I whipped up this little baby kimono as a gift for my friend Martha’s baby, who was born preterm and therefore can be expected to be small enough to wear it for much of the winter.

I modified the pattern slightly because I thought the garter-stitch version would be too thick for my taste. Instead, I used garter stitch only for an edging and kept the rest of the sweater in stockinette. I followed the directions for yarnover increases because I like the little line of holes this makes along the front, and I omitted sewing on two ribbons, choosing instead to do a single I-cord tie in a contrasting color.

It wasn’t until I had knit about two-thirds of the sweater that it occurred to me that one skein of laceweight yarn might not actually be enough to get the job done. As it happens, I had enough yarn to finish the body — just — but not enough to seam the sweater or to make the I-cord ties. Thankfully, I had some nice deep red leftover Kona yarn in my stash that I used for the ties, which I think gives the sweater a little something extra special.

(Interestingly, when I made a Baby Norgi sweater for Martha’s firstborn, I came so close to running out of yarn that I had to use the little leftover bits from weaving in the ends to finish the second sleeve. Something about knitting for Martha makes me improvident, it seems.)

All in all, this was a fun and simple pattern, and I can see why so many hundreds of these kimonos have been made.