I decided that the dress was indeed too short, and I realized I had done the feather and fan border wrong, and there were not enough garter rows at the end so the whole thing just rolled up… so I ripped out, reknit a few rows and voila:

So much better!!  The dress is still too big across the top, but I think I can knit a little cord and add it to the back for a design detail and to pull the sleeves in, then take it out when she grows.I love the malleability of knitting, to make it what you want, to undo and redo.  Truthfully, I’m not much of a perfectionist, and I see knitting as a way to improve that part of me.  I often tend to see things as “good enough” and not feel compelled to make them just right.  With the knitting, I push myself to do that, and am always pleasantly surprised  to be much happier that I did.

My best friend from med school came out for a visit last week with her family.  I was so excited for our kids to meet–she has a 4 year old daughter and a 2 year old son.  The older kids met almost 3 years ago but obviously had no recollection of each other. When thinking of presents for the kids, B told me that her daughter was really into fairies, and her son into balls.  What’s a knitter to do? Enter Sally the Eco Fairy and a set of knitted balls.

Not quite finished here–she needed a set of wings, hair, and eyes.  In my usual fashion I was sewing these on in the car to Vail.  While I managed to finish in time, my camera ran out of batteries so I don’t have a picture of the finished product, but will try to get my friend to send me one.  Really, she is so cute–even my boy looked at it and told me, “Mommy, that doll is really beautiful.” Honestly, I don’t know if the girl will really love it–it seems that so many kids these days are more enchanted with plastic versions of toys that look like the movie characters they see.

The knitted balls are adorable too, and of course suffer from the same lack-of-camera syndrome.  I almost put little jingle balls in them, but then took pity on the parents and decided against it.

I’m of course going to make a fairy for my girl–darker yarn, darker hair.  I’ve realized that there are very few representations in children’s media that involve non white children or voices.  Some I find frankly racist (the Latino car in the movie “Cars,” for example, complete with hydraulics and flame paint job).  Sesame Street is going off the air, and Dora/Diego are so unpalatable that I can’t bear to watch. But Bob the Builder, Thomas, Curious George don’t really have any.  Any thoughts on others?