elle melle gets lots of love

Elle Melle is finished!

Actually, Elle Melle’s been finished for several weeks, I just haven’t found time to post. Catching up where I left off…

I stitched the buttons onto Elle Melle the night before the Autumn Equinox, so that it could be the “to wear” part of her gift. (We celebrate each turn of the seasons with “something to do, something to wear, and something to read”.) She wanted to put it on as soon as she opened it the next morning, and wore it while enjoying her other gifts (an alphabet stamp set, and two Gail Gibbons books about seasons).

The buttons, which M picked out herself at Joann, turned out to be a perfect match to the brighter/lighter purple in the sweater:

She’s worn the sweater several times since the Equinox, because it’s actually been chilly enough to merit woolens. Most recently, she wore it while running errands this weekend – among other things, we wanted to get our tires rotated before our drive to Rhinebeck next weekend.

(She’s also modeling her new red hat, but that’s a topic for another post!) I love the elbow patches (which are not part of the pattern; I added them because while I love Beaverslide yarn to pieces…well, I actually have literally loved it to pieces, so I know that some elbow-reinforcement is not a bad idea!)

I really love how the sweater turned out; the combination of purples is absolutely perfect for M, and it’s just so cute on her. That said, the sizing is fairly weird – I knit her the size 4 sweater (because my girl, despite not even being 3, is solidly 4T in size), and the body is plenty wide and long, but the sleeves are oddly tight. This may just be a matter of M’s proportions (she’s a SOLID kid), but I find the snugness of the sleeves relative to the fullness of the body a bit odd. I still want to knit myself a grown-up version of Elle Melle (with set-in sleeves, because raglans are NOT flattering on my broad-for-my-petite-figure shoulders), perhaps in dark and light grey for maximum versatility, but we’ll see if I ever get to it. Time, time. It’s no surprise that I’ve not posted in awhile – turns out being a full time faculty member (even if not on the tenure track) is a very, very busy job.