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| Debbie Bliss pattern and yarn |
Here is the amazing sweater my Grandmother in-law knitted my eldest daughter. It's absolutely stunning. I don't know if it's actually possible to buy such a nice child's sweater at any price in rtw. We are so lucky that Connie will knit for us like this. She literally has 80 years of knitting practice under her belt. I am pretty sure she could knit anything.
What she actually knits are a lot of children's sweaters in cheap acrylic yarn to sell at her local WI market in Oxfordshire. It's ridiculous to waste such a high level of skill on cheap materials, but that's the price point she needs to hit. I'm under the impression that Women's Institute markets are a bunch of old ladies of the "make do and mend" generation selling to other frugal old men and women! She also does a roaring trade in pickles, chutneys, jams and tea cakes. None of it marketed in cute rustic jars with just the right sort of shaby chic touches and artful script. It's in genuine re-used mayonnaise jars, etc. without any gussy-ing up at all. I'm digressing here, but I must say, I'll be sad to see this generation go!
Pull overs like this make me want to knit. Sadly the results are not quite of the same caliber! Here is my first attempt at knitting anything. It's supposed to be a baby scarf.
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| Wool baby scarf |
It's kind of funny. You can see that I started out very tight, but also even. I simply couldn't get any tighter, so it had to stay even. Boy did my hands cramp, though! So a friend gave me some suggestions and things got a lot looser. Finally I figured out how to keep my hands loose but the knitting tight at the other end. It's a bit of a mess, but I'll send it to my sister anyway. I've moved onto the baby hat. I've already made some mistakes on that one too!
All this makes me think of Victoria's Ten Thousand Hours of Sewing blog. If takes about 10 years of steady practice to master something, I am still in with a chance on knitting. But, I'd have to live to 120 to catch with Great Nanny! :-)
