Now is the month of Maying

and we happily celebrate the second year of this blog! If I've learned anything from this endeavor, it's that I'll never run out of material, because the New England knitting scene is so entirely rich. Upcoming posts will include glimpses of Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, and of course there will be continued focus on places closer to my bailiwick.

Loyal readers of Knitting New England will recall my first post, where I described trying to knit a baby sweater while listening to a lecture on beekeeping. (There's a link to the free pattern on that first post.) Demoralized by the pessimism of the apicultural instructors, I decided against beekeeping as yet another sideline of my life, and dropped the course. I did, however, finish the sweater. Here it is, modeled by Langston, who at the age of two has now outgrown it.

Perhaps he'll one day have another sibling, to share in the fun of a sweater with bee and flower buttons.

Then there was the sheep-motif sweater I made for Cy shortly after completing Langston's pullover.

He began wearing this when he was a bit past the ripe age of one. In the two photos above he's two. In the following photo he's three.

The sweater still fits! But it was time for something new. I made Lucinda Guy's "Dangerous Dinosaur" from her wonderful book, Handknits for Kids (Trafalgar Square, 2005).

It is blissful to knit for children, especially those as beautiful as Langston and Cy. Fortunately I have a granddog to knit for now.

Dexter

To celebrate the anniversary of Knitting New England, I'll give two interesting knitting books from my personal collection to two randomly-chosen people who leave a comment on today's blog post beginning now and up until May 31. Thank you for being there, my friends!

Endgame

Here's where things stand now: the mitts of my own crude design are about 90% finished. The mitts of another's crude design are about 75% finished. Cy's sweater is about a quarter finished. (Photo above.) It's the "Dangerous Dinosaur" pattern from Lucinda Guy's Handknits for Kids.

What a super book! Lucinda Guy, a Briton, is one of the most talented children's knitwear designers ever. Her partner/illustrator, François Hall, exactly captures the spirit of Lucinda's designs in his whimsical sketches of the sweaters, blankets, toys, and her other wonderful creations. For more on this great team, see the article about them in Rowan Knitting and Crochet Magazine (Spring/Summer 2006).

The sweater, size 4, is a delight to knit. I'm making it in a variety of stash yarns, including an Artyarn ombre that's decidedly Crayola-like, and finding it much more compelling than my other projects. Cy's birthday (his second) is February 26th, so I know what my deadline is. Progress reports forthcoming.

And, while I'm on the topic of whimsical knitting, have a look at this article in the latest Resurgence Magazine, on "Extreme Knitting":

http://www.resurgence.org/magazine/article2997-Extreme-Knitting.html

I've always been interested in knitting as a purely visual art form. Last September in Vancouver I saw a fence surrounding a community garden that had been covered in hand-knitted fabric of various colors. It was, unlike the Extreme Knitting profiled above, non-representational. If you're aware of any non-clothing knitted art examples in the New England area, please let me know for a future post.