Remember the baby snake charmer sweater that I managed to cut a hole into just as I was putting the finishing touches on it? Well. Word spread like wildfire and within moments of returning from her holidays, my knitting guru was at my desk, surveying the disaster area . Then she took a day or two to contemplate various solutions to the problem. And then! She. Fixed. It. I’m telling you, this woman can work miracles.
I’m not sure I completely understand how she did it, but the surgery went something like this:
1. Clamp the cut ends of yarn with binder clips (David Scrimshaw! Did you hear that? ) to prevent them from unravelling further.
2. Lasso each of the cut ends of yarn with a looped length of split yarn and then fuse them with a no-fray glue intended for fabric. (This is because the cut yarn ends were too short to work with – this step essentially lengthened the cut strands of working yarn without having to further unravel the work.)
3. Rework the missing stitches in duplicate stitch using the newly created yarn extensions.
It’s perfect now! (Except for the fact that it’s still neon green and covered with snakes.)
And what do we have here? Only the world’s most adorable baby booties, that’s what. These booties are for the next baby to come along, because they only fit newborn babies for about five minutes and all the babies on my to-do list are older than five minutes. (Aggie – you should try these – there is no heel-turning involved in these baby booties.)
And last but not least, I’ve started the Central Park Hoodie. I’ve got both sleeves done and I’ve started the back. But when I started the back I realized that I’d done the sleeve cables wrong – it’s a 10-row repeat and I was doing a six-row repeat. But it’s okay, it looks fine, and I can live with knowing it’s not technically perfect. It’s Good Enough and that’s good enough for me.
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On the monitor the green is great, the booties are super cute and it’s nice to see you knitting. I’m glad the cut in the sweater was fixed without huge trouble.
Dude, those booties make me want to have another baby, just to get them! But why don’t you make them in a bigger size? Seriously, I LOVE them! And i’m so glad your sweater got fixed, ’cause it’s gorgeous too!
Congratulations on all the successful knitting projects! I would like to give those little booties a try. There is a little new newborn out there I’d like to give them to, but I expect he will be in college by the time I get around to it. I’m a knitter who needs A LOT of hand-holding, Zoom. I need to join one of those knitter support groups I guess.
Zoom, you don’t think I’d miss a binder clip use, do you?
As an added attraction for your knitting readers, in addition to adding your binder clip use to my important “Uses for Binder Clips” series, I’ve found some other uses they may be interested in.
Your Kniting Guru (Genius) did an excellent job on the sweater. The baby booties and CPH sweater look good too!
What yarn did you use for the baby booties — very pretty.
OMG I actually squealed with delight at those booties! Makes me want to get pre…oh thank you reason for showing up!
What’s the yarn in those? It is beautiful!
Buy nothing month is almost up and I STILL want to make green dandelion fairy sweaters for the boys! My time is so limitted right now I might just use the green wool blanket I have sitting in my “repurpose” basket and make felted coats instead – super fast and I get to do blanket stitch (which always makes me happy)
Good work on the fix! And I have many “good enough for me” clothes that no one but me knows the flaws. If they work and they fit, I don’t care.
Nice Save! Your knitting guru deserves a medal and the green is fine. Wouldn’t it be boring if everything were always the same colour?
Those booties are too cute! I’d try them myself if knitting a rectangular blanket weren’t such an endless endeavor for me!
those are the cutest booties i have ever seen!
I am in love LOVE with the booties and .. will have purpose for them shortly. Where is the pattern?! (’cause you know, I totally complete knitting projects @@.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
For those looking for the pattern for the Saartje baby booties, it’s free for the downloading on Saartje’s blog. I used Koigu Painter’s Palette Premium Merino fingering weight yarn (which you can get at Yarn Forward, btw).
For those of you tempted to get pregnant after seeing those booties, okay, but don’t forget the booties will only fit for five minutes, and the baby will eventually turn into a teenager.
David, that was truly an inspired post and I look forward to seeing what this marriage of knitters and binder-clippers will bring forth.
Aggie, are you on the Ottawa knitters email list? There are regular gatherings of knitters at Bridgehead and also at the Carleton Tavern. One of these days I’m going to go to one.
Look – my friend Kimmy delurked and left a comment! HI KIMMY!
Zoom! Darling booties! Glad the sweater got fixed. As for the cables, simply do the same on the body of the sweater. Hey, whatever works, no?
im telling, it took the booties to bring me out!
Mmmm…. Koigu!
Nice Central Park Hoodie! I made one last year and it quickly turned into one of my most oft-grabbed piece of knitwear.
your knitting pictures are just so gorgeous