I am pleased to share that I have finally finished knitting an Owlets pullover for a close friend’s baby that was born last month. For those of you who aren’t obsessed with Scottish knitwear designer Kate Davies, Owlets is the infant and child size version of her fiercely popular adult size Owls pullover on popular knitting hub Ravelry.

Don’t worry, I’m not spilling the beans prematurely here – Maia’s Mom has seen the sweater over the magic that is Skype all the way in London, UK from my home in metro Vancouver.

The pattern was a delight to knit, both well written and nicely laid out. For Maia, the new arrival, I chose a Madelinetosh Rios superwash worsted yarn in a lovely green variegated colourway called ‘Lettuce’. I used most of two skeins. The yarn was so soft! And durable, to keep up with a young baby’s adventures. I chose to knit the 1 year old size, thinking that this will be ready for her first fall / winter later this year. I hope this clever plan works out.

I finished by embellishing the owlet eyes by hand sewing Swarovski crystal flower buttons for eyes, secured with a small bead at the centre where a pupil should be. I am pleased with how they turned out!

Confession time: the package with this pullover should have gone a long time ago, but I was procrastinating on the underarm grafting to take care of the underarm holes made when attaching sleeves to a round yoke. Truthfully, grafting is much more simple than it would first appear. I feel kind of silly for having delayed so long. There was an excellent kitchener stitch tutorial on Knitty to ease the pain of grafting. I felt so accomplished afterward – it really does work.

At last the parcel is truly ready to go, with another surprise in it for good measure. Now that is a secret I can keep.

x Rena