Before I wrote my Halloween birthday post, I combed the photo albums for pictures of Sarah wearing something I had knitted for her. I had spent some time in France while I was pregnant and stocked up on Phildar and Anny Blatt baby patterns, and on another magazine -- I think it was Modes et Travaux -- that had really good, crisp, fairly modern patterns.
But my best find was Le Petit Faune, a lovely boutique of baby and children's clothing on rue Jacob, in the 6th arrondissement. Besides its expensive Liberty's of London dresses and smocked baby blouses, the shop also sold kits to reproduce its line of lovely baby sweaters. I bought a few of the kits and occupied myself happily during the last months of my life where free time was a commodity I could take for granted. The sweaters were worn by Sarah, and some patterns were used again in time for other babies. The shop still exists but I don't know if kits are still available. French knitters might be able to find the patterns or similar ones in this book which was published by the author of the patterns.
I won't inflict every specimen of my baby knitting on you but go straight to the piece de resistance, which I knitted that summer. It was my most ambitious effort ever, but in infant size, even the slow-going rows didn't take all that long to complete. The pattern suggested several color combinations and I followed this one blindly. Thus was born my fondness for medium grey and pink combined. I still have some yarn left over from this prehistoric creation.
I really didn't know what I was doing back then. Everything I knew about knitting I had learned from books, and my eyes must have glazed over the injunction to keep the unused yarn loose enough when stranding two colors. When I hold the sweater today, the body pulls in very noticeably in the stranded areas. Notice, too, the clumsy stitching on the left sleeve, which isn't exactly improved by my choice of bright pink yarn. It is funny to me that I could knit something fairly elaborate yet give up on my efforts in the final assembly stage. Sewing was not my friend back then, and the blunt tapestry needle was an object of suspicion and frank dislike.
In other news... I have been tagged by Biscuitbear , just when I had started to reveal a bit more of myself than my knitting hands on the blog. I am going to jump in the cold water bravely and follow the rules, which are:
1. Link to your tagger and post these rules.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself: some random, some weird.
3. Tag 3 people at the end of your post and list their names (linking to them).
4. Let them know they've been tagged by leaving a comment at their blogs.
All right, my seven facts in no particular order:
1. I was brought up on the movie "Les Parapluies de Cherbourg" and I can sing the entire soundtrack from beginning to end (not sure that my family is as appreciative of this trait as they ought to be).
2. I am the oldest of three sisters and mother to three daughters.
3. I learned English at school but I owe my fluency to the acute Beatlemania which contaminated me at age 15. For several years I served as Secretary of the official French Beatles fan club ( I wish I could write "card-carrying" but I never got a card!).
4. Some evolved humans have no widom teeth: I was granted five.
5. In a past life, I obtained a Ph.D. in comparative literature, writing on French novelists of the 17th and 18th centuries.
6. From the time I received my first Skipper doll in 1964, I have loved playing and dressing dolls. Having daughters provided the best pretext to indulge. I love seeing daily life recreated in miniature form.
7. My first paid summer job, at 16, was on a movie set.
And now for my victims: I tag
1. Sock maven Marilyn of Bona Fide Knitter
2. The bilingual fair-isle magicians Libby and Rebecca
3. Fellow chocolate addict, multi-talented Chelle
Oooh - I've been tagged! Hmm, what can I reveal?
Posted by: chelle | November 03, 2007 at 07:05 AM