bioengiknitter

I have some dear friends who are sailors. Mr. P has always had a dream to quit his job and sail around for six months, before having kids. He ended up marrying one of my closest friends, and the new Mrs. P soon became enamored with the idea as well, despite the fact that she gets seasick and was violently ill during many of their "training" trips out to the islands around San Diego. That's love!!!

They finally decided to do it--bought a fixer-upper boat, made it good as new, and in 2004 set off for Baja California and the Sea of Cortez...or so they (and we) thought at the time. Turns out that after spending 3 months or so in Mexico, they decided they weren't ready to come back yet, so they made the 25-day hop to the Marquesas. They sailed all over the south Pacific, and after coming back briefly in 2006 to make some money (leaving their boat in New Zealand), continued their adventure. We joined them for a wonderful 9 days in Fiji later that year, and from there they slowly made their way north to the Marshall Islands, making land back in the States at San Francisco at the end of last summer. Three years after first setting sail...and pregnant!

Of course I had to do something really special for these friends, and I wanted it to be tied to their trip upon which the baby was dreamt of and finally conceived. I looked and looked for a baby sweater with a sailboat or fish or something "nautical," but didn't have much luck finding something that was just *perfect.* I had a very specific sweater in mind, and couldn't find it. So I found a plain-jane baby sweater pattern (or one that was easily made plain-jane) with the buttons at the shoulder that I wanted, and set off on my own nautical adventure of creating the South Seas Sweater. My younger son J helped me find the perfect waves. I ran into one of my knitting group friends at the yarn store and she helped me in the excruciating decision of which two blues were the perfect blues--not too stark, not too "baby blue," not too this and that. Of course the yarn was the wrong weight for the pattern I had chosen, so it took a whole evening with the calculator and a swatch to figure out how to modify the size. Started the sweater, it was coming out HUGE. Ripped it out. More math. Finally got it, and set sail once again.

Success!

click for bigger

I'm so happy with it. It came out exactly the way I envisioned it in my mind, and that NEVER happens. My critical eye notices that the alternate color shows through a bit in the wave part, as I was attempting to "weave" it in back rather than stranding. I didn't want little baby fingers to catch the loops. Not sure if I did it right, probably should have looked up a tutorial before doing it. The back looks great, though! Didn't think to get a picture inside out. And I'm sure a non-knitter would never notice that the fair isle is less than perfect.

Sailing, sailing, over the bounding main...

click for bigger

My friends love it when pods (?) of dolphins come and jump and play in their bow wake, and Mrs. P even got a small dolphin tattoo while in Tahiti. So with J's help once again, I copied a photo of a dolphin jumping that I wanted to embroider on the arm opposite the buttons. I have to mention here that my previous attempts at embroidering on my knitting looked (in the words of the Yarn Harlot) like ass. So I looked up a bunch of tutorials before trying it on this one, because I really wanted it to look good. It's slightly crooked, but BY FAR my best embroidery ever! Both kids then helped me find silver metal buttons that matched the dolphin.

click for bigger

After being terrified that the two balls of dark blue that were the only ones in the store weren't going to be enough, I ended up with leftovers. I had just checked out "Knitting for Baby" from the library, so I knit up a quick baby ball. Really fast and easy. I put a jingle bell inside during stuffing.

click for bigger

So here's the whole set. It got plenty of oohs and aahs at the baby shower last weekend, and most importantly, my friends love it. I am happy beyond belief.

Sweater:
Pattern: Five Fruits, by Amanda Kerr, from Magknits. Modified to be knit without the stripes, and adding the top half of an only slightly modified wave chart from Swell, by Kimmie Kemper, from Knitty.
Size: The whole thing is sized for less stitches because of larger yarn, but I used the measurements for the 12 month size.
Yarn: ggh Samoa, in 15 (navy) and 56 (medium blue)
Needles: US5/3.75mm, US6/4mm
Gauge: 5 st/in
Notes: I think I covered most of it above. The hardest part was having to size down after realizing that knitting the 6-month size in the larger yarn was still going to be WAY bigger than 12 mo, so I'd have to branch out on my own to make it even smaller. The chart ended up working remarkably well with the number of stitches I had on the body and sleeves, so that part wasn't difficult at all. I liked the yarn, it's a 50/50 cotton/acrylic blend that's soft and machine washable.

Ball:
Pattern: Baby's First Ball, by Melanie Falick and Kristin Nicholas, from Knitting for Baby.
Yarn: ggh Samoa, in 15 (navy) and 56 (medium blue)
Needles: US6/4mm, I think
Notes: Quick and fun! I stuffed it with polyfill and added a jingle bell to the middle.