Carnaby Kid behind the scenes

This morning Lori Versaci of Versaci Knits released her adorable Carnaby Kid sweater. It's, the tiny version of her fun adult Carnaby Street design*. A few weeks ago,  I met Lori for cocktails after I taught  at Pins and Needles in Princeton. Between gin drinks--very good gin drinks-- she tucked the sweater into my bag and asked me to shoot it on Zoe.  The drinks were so good, we didn't quite discuss details--but it was obvious to me that we'd made a winning model:design pairing. Really, no bias ;-)  This past Sunday, the shoot finally happened.

Official version, above. Serious style! Thought you might like to see what else went on when I slipped the stripey wonderfulness onto the 3 year old with the freshly trimmed bangs. Sister Lulu had come over for pancakes. For the bazillionth time, she was drafted into helping with reflector/diffuser duties. Sister knows how to throw some shade, on demand.

We'd been shooting for 10 minutes in increasingly sticky weather by the tracks at the end of the street when we heard the toooooooot toooot of the vintage trolley approaching--do you see it in the upper left? Our model got a little excited. She's been wanting to ride the "choochoo".

 

A split second later, completely unplanned,  barefoot and with camera in tow, we're trolley passengers. We're breezing through the wetlands it crosses, spying egrets,  and nesting osprey with their babies, enroute to the ShorelineTrolley Museum.  My neighborhood adds the local color for tourists  We didn't let them down when we boarded, unfolded reflector flopping with us.

Wicker seats! People used to ride with civility. The wool sweater was a little warm..but so dapper.

The trolley makes a stop at the car barn out in the woods. Visitors see the old subway cars and trolleys under restoration, and learn commuter train history. We skipped that part while our sweater model put on her sparkly sandals and played house in a vintage trolley stop shelter.

Waiting for the whistle to all on board again.

We rode back to our street. It's the turnaround spot for the trolley.  As we headed home,  the trolley went the opposite way. Not that you could tell without a caption.  I just couldn't post this one without adding arrows--so ominous!

fo (not) friday: a little funny bunny doll

I knit a lot of little under-the-radar things that never make it to this space.  For example, on the recent holiday extravaganza weekend (Passover/Easter/Snow Melting Lovefest) I had the sudden wants to knit a bunny for Zoe.  

In case you lost count, Zoe is 3 now. Can you see why, despite my long history of having no interest in knitting dolls, I was seized by this impulse?  I could have downloaded a pattern for any of these irresistible softies:  Bunny Nuggets from Rebecca Danger, Beau the Bunny from Woolful, Susan B. Anderson's Bunny Love...in fact go search bunny on Ravelry and you'll find plenty of wonderful patterns. 
Instead, I made it up as I went along, using yarn that last saw action as baby booties for Zoe. I thought the angora was a nice nod, like a fiber private in-joke.

Say hello  to Funny Bunny, as we call him. I was aiming for something in between the Bunny Nuggets and a more realistic doll. I maybe{cough}{pretty much} missed my mark, but Zoe loves him. Although she told me his eyes are "not right" and requested button replacements. It is, in all truth, amazing what the face stitches do for a doll. Refer to my last knit doll foray, 10 years ago (!) when I coerced my favorite friends into knitting bears for the Mother Bear Project. 
(and how the heck is that 10 years ago, anyway??)
Anyway, Zoe's comment  gave us a good excuse to dump out the button tin and sort buttons--an activity I seriously love.

It does leave me with some questions, including....why don't I knit little dolls more often? and, what do you all stuff your knit dolls with? I used to have some of that acrylic fluff I use when making Halloween costumes but couldn't find it, and anyway, it seemed so wrong inside the wool. Do you use batting? Washed fleece? I ended up using some old, clean, well darned and still holey wool socks- -a lumpy solution, which added to Funny Bunny's odd  demeanour. 

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Psssst- Kirsten Kapur's brand spankin' new book: Ten Best Loved Shawls Book 1 is out! Order it directly .  Or request at your LYS. I did the photos and I am super proud of this collaboration.
 Par-tay at Trillium Yarns in Morristown NJ this weekend. See you there?

midweek making: Zoe sweater

 

About time Zoe got a new sweater, isn't it?

 

"Mine? Me!! "  She noticed when I started to sew on the buttons --and stayed right on top of me till they were all attached. These perfect buttons, had to get them at Vogue Knitting Live, even though I surely have a dozen in the old button tin that would work.

The sweater is Playful Stripes by Alana Dakos, I intentionally made it larger than needed, to last a while. But it came out even bigger than that. Yarn is mostly Dale Falk.

Accessories? All Zoe. She insisted on grabbing my red Thorpe* hat & her coordinating sippy cup. Girl's got style.

A test drive at the park. Extra floppy big sleeves? Did not slow her down.

Those picot sleeves and hem are what made me knit this--that and using all the stripey colors. And seeing a couple other versions at knit night....

Tulle and handknits. Can never go wrong.
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* Funny story about my Thorpe, and meeting Kirsten Kapur, the designer (now my friend & crafty collaborator, too) on this old post from December 2007, scroll down to the end.