Handmade Birthday

I loved knitting this.

The puffed sleeves – adorable. The top-down construction – my favourite. The lavender colour – elegant. The beaded bind-off – sweet.

The nearly daily falling asleep at the same time as the kids and hardly ever having time to work on it in secret? That only proves that this is a brilliant pattern that is a fast knit.

The photo shoot in which her father taunted her to get a smile – fun. Her retaliation with snow balls – classic.

She’s 11 and wearing a sweater that fits me (proving I’m a good mother who didn’t fall prey to my instinct to keep this flattering, playfully sweet sweater). She’s growing by leaps and bounds. She’s fun to be with, thought-provoking to talk to, great to work beside. This is the first birthday in years that hasn’t brought on a panic-attack about the state of her reading skills, largely because I can see such progress in the past year that I no longer need to worry that we’re stuck or creeping along.

Pattern: Dahlia from Knitty.com

Yarn: Dusty Lavender from Knitpicks.com – a cotton/wool blend

Size: I knit between the XS and the S, easy to do given the top-down pattern.
Mods: added the holding holes for the ribbon, picked up 3 for every 4 even along the cast-on edges of the neckline to keep the beaded bind-off from flopping at back top and the front bottom. Still needed a bit of ironing in those spots.

I liked this so much – in style and in knitting it up – that I’m very seriously thinking of knitting one for me. But in a very different colour to keep us from being too matchy-match. And never to be worn on the same day.