All you knit is love.
“It turns out that knitting isn’t about the yarn or the softness or needing a hat (although we really can’t argue with these secondary motivators). It’s really about this: Knitting is a magic trick. In this day and age, in a world where science and technology take more and more wonder and work out of our lives , and our planet is quickly becoming a place running out of magic, a knitter takes silly, useless string, mundane sticks, waves her hands around (many, many times...nobody said this was fast magic), and turns one thing into another: string into a hat, string into a sweater, string into a blanket for a baby. It really is a very reliable magic.”
Young Jemison in “Hemlock” by Three Irish Girls
Oh, handknit baby gifts. I love being able to gift something unique and full of love. I've been teaching my children since they were old enough to understand the spoken word that things made by hand, be they cookies, socks, or roasted vegetables, are made with a bit of the person making them. They're made with love.
There's something especially wonderful about welcoming a baby into the world with handmade baby gifts. They transmit a bit of the love and hopes and dreams we have as adults who've learned some small thing about what this business of being alive is all about to new people just starting their own journeys of figuring out this business of being alive.
Looking Sharp in “Terrarium” by Madeline Tosh
Baby hats are quick and easy. I usually make hats when I'm on a severe time crunch. Blankets are very useful, but are also a very large undertaking, even for a car-seat-sized one, and those I make only sometimes. A little cardigan is usually just the right-sized project. I have a couple I love for baby girls, but for some reason, people I know don't have baby girls very often. I'm usually knitting my favorite sweater for baby boys: the Young Einstein Cardigan by Julia Stanfield.
By my count, I'm on iteration ten. Ten baby boys who've been dressed like "little professors" in wide-collared cardigans.
Every time I knit Young Einstein, I choose two skeins of DK weight hand dyed yarn. I've never used the same colorway twice. I love neutrals, so I've enjoyed choosing various shades of brown, gray, and green over the years, with an occasional blue (“Worn Denim” by Madeline Tosh is an amazing blue with a little green and taupe blended in... Sadly, it's discontinued now.)
Young Einstein in “Worn Denim” by Madeline Tosh
Then, I pull out my size 5 bamboo Addi Clicks. The tips are worn, stained and pitted from doing this so many times. I should probably replace them, but …not yet.
I select handmade wooden button from the stash I've purchased off Etsy. I cannot bring myself to put mass-produced buttons on a handmade sweater.
Young Faraday in “Pelican” by Madeline Tosh
I use twine to attach a little tag that instructs the new owner to hand wash the sweater.
Another Smartly Dressed Baby in “Stovepipe” by Madeline Tosh
As always, I take the time to photograph it, at various stages along the way.
The first Young Einstein I posted on Ravelry was dubbed "Looking Sharp." The recipient was the eldest baby of a dear friend from my college days. She has been one of the most Knit Worthy people I've ever known—all the things I've knit for her boys have shown up in her professional family portraits and she usually cries when I gift them. I love that girl. Anyway, her son really did look sharp in that sweater and he wore it until she physically couldn't force his growing body into it any more. Clearly, the pattern was a winner.
After that, I just came up with snarky titles for my Ravelry listings:
"Another Brilliant Baby Sweater"
"Another Smartly Dressed Baby"
"I'm Running Out of Intelligent Names for This Sweater"
"You'd Think They'd Know By Now..."
And since it seemed like there was no end to how many times I would knit this pattern, because people keep having baby boys, I decided I needed to do a little better with titles. So I started riffing off the “Young Einstein” theme:
"Young Hawking"
"Young Newton"
"Young Faraday"
"Young Sagan"
(I swear I chose Tesla once, too, which means I might be on sweater eleven and forgot to list it.)
This time, I took to Instagram for title inspiration. I got so many wonderful suggestions from you lovely people, and what knocked my socks off was how many female scientists you suggested without my prompting it. How many women I'd overlooked! So, that was something to remedy, and the newest sweater is now christened Young Jemison after Mae Carol Jemison, physician and NASA astronaut.
Knitting this pattern so many times makes it familiar. Relaxing. I can't do it from memory, but the pattern is now merely a reminder and a place to keep track of buttonhole rows and increases.
Not too long ago, I went to a friend's house and saw the sweater I'd made for her baby. The sweater was out because it had been worn recently in unexpectedly cold weather. The baby's grandmother was a knitter as well, but her hand knits hadn't arrived yet from overseas, so my friend greatly appreciated having something warm to dress that baby in!
Clearly it had been used and loved. The sweater was felted to all heck.
I didn't mind at all, which surprised me. That sweater was being used and that baby was being wrapped in love. I'd knit it at a size that should have made it fit the following winter, but having shrunk a bit, it instead fit a 2-month old when it was most needed! And it honestly still looked great.
(But from now on, I'm choosing superwash.)
I selected Springvale DK (superwash!) in "Hemlock" by Three Irish Girls for Young Jemison. I loved the warm, golden brown tones—and I'll admit, sometimes I choose a colorway in part for how it'll photograph, but can you blame me? Look at this:
I was right; the golds catch the light breathtakingly, don't they?
"In the sweater I make for others, I gently pass on my positive desires for their lives; these garments give warmth while embracing the wearer in a hundred-thousand little prayers. And when I knit for myself, the resulting sweater is a tangible reminder that I can make my own warmth in what is often a cold world. "
—Bernadette Murphy, Zen and the Art of Knitting
Now that it’s done, I need to see about delivery… and another sweater will be out of my hands, and quite possibly, never to be seen again.