A Local Vest for Baby

I put the last stitches on the vest a few days ago while the baby was napping and I was waiting for the canner to boil.  There were some new skills I learned in making this vest, like working in stockinette stitch, and making buttonholes.  I didn't follow a pattern, as I haven't quite reached that stage of mastery yet, but I was inspired by a little vest I found here, and loved how they called it 'manly', though mine ended up being quite different in the end.  As I was nearing the end of this project, I was thinking how the fibre and much of the processing were local, which got me thinking how rare a thing it was to have a local piece of clothing in one's house!  Long before I ever imagined I'd be knitting things for my own babies, I had a friend who's grandmother kept sheep.  Each grandchild was 'given' a sheep, which stayed on her farm, and whose fleece would find it's way to her spinning wheel and knitting needles, before being wrapped up in a box at Christmas and gifted to the 'owner' in the form of socks, sweaters, toques, mittens, etc.  I remember thinking how special it would be to know the story of where your woolens came from, and am delighted to be a step closer to that reality now.

The alpaca for the baby's vest came from a farm in my parents' neck of the woods.  The alpaca farmer is a neighbour and friend of theirs, who I met during the unfortunate aftermath of a tornado that took out a number of trees on my parents' farm.  J showed up with his chainsaw to help clear the road and the fences.  Our kids played together in the yard, and later we all sat down and ate dinner together.  That Christmas, my parents gave me several packages of roving from his farm.

I had no idea as I was spinning it last winter, that it would make the perfect 'manly' vest for the little man growing steadily in my belly, but the soft silky fibres seemed just right. 

The vest would require buttons and I considered ordering some of the beautiful rustic wooden buttons I've seen online.  But as I was knitting the last stitches I thought, my husband's handy....I wonder if he could make some buttons?

Apparently this wasn't a complicated project.  The old apple tree at the back of the garden provided the wood (a branch that had been removed in trimming last spring) and in a very short time he and the boys had a number of buttons under production in the shop.

They sawed, drilled, and then rubbed them with pure linseed oil which brought out the natural beauty of the wood.

The hard part was choosing which ones to use.

Their hand-made buttons added character to the little vest. In the end it turned out to be a special project not only because the raw materials came from familiar places, but also because we all had a hand in it as a family. 

The tiny vest now seems infused with love.  I hope our little one can feel it too.