lil red {again}

A few months back I began the Lil Red Project {as I am now thinking of it, in caps and large and red, of course}. My Jerry's daughter had asked if I could make a lil red riding hood and cape for her daughter, who is now five. I said, "sure!" with tons of enthusiasm and a really can~do spirit.

I set off right away, tho she didn't know that {she didn't mean for me to get right to it and make it so; she was gonna get the yarn that she wanted from a really cool yarn store near where she lives}; but I was itching to see what I could do. The actual hood was something I just tinkered with til I thought it would do. Oh~no following patterns for this here can~do spirit {huge roll of the eyes here}!

I actually used my Jerry as the model. And no pictures of that exist. Sorry, my faithful readers. You'll just have to use your imagination.

What? you ask, a grown man models a five year old girl's hood? What were you thinking, you crazy zany girl, you?

Well, the child is larger than your average five year old. And I wanted it to be something she could continue to wear for more than just one season. And her mom thought that knee length would be nice.

Knee length on this five year old would approximate crotch length on my Jerry, since the girl is about four foot tall {i KNOW, i did type that right, five year old girl, at four foot tall...sometimes folks see her size and forget her age...but that happens to me, too~~nodding solemnly}. So I set to work on the gawdamn cape, sigh.

The gawdamn cape, sigh is turning out to be a rather larger and more involving project than I originally thought. To start with, I wanted a nice dense stitch so that the cape would keep the girl warm. So I did the front left panel entirely in single stitch and slip stitch.

Then wisdom prevailed in the form of logic {delayed, yes, but still valuable}, the cape would be tremendously heavy if I did the entire thing in those stitches. The poor child would not be able to walk, let alone go skipping off to grandma's, swinging a basket full of bread and treats.

So I switched to a different stitch {a treble treble}, which does move lots faster and tah~DAH! I am almost finished with the gawdamn cape, sigh part of things. It's still tremendously heavy but I think you are going to have that no matter what...unless it's of fleece, or made of the emperor's new clothes stuff.

Today, I will begin to connect the cape to the hood. The hood actually descends down over the shoulders, so it's like a mini~cape of sorts by itself. After that is done, I'll add some kick~ass buttons to the cape so it can be closed along the front of the lil girl.

Then I'll pack it with a few other things, including a centerpiece from the wedding, and send it across country to my Jerry's daughter and her family. And you just may see some pix of the completed project being modeled by...gasp, could I persuade my Jerry?

*wink*