Baby Surprise Jacket #2!

Baby Surprise Jacket #2
Originally uploaded by sunasak

Well, I was so enthused at the possibility of making this pattern again that I zoomed through it. The self-striping DK weight "sock" yarn I used (Plymouth Encore DK Sock) didn't really make lovely stripes with shorter rows, but I like the tweedy effect that came out on the longer rows for this jacket. The only real modification that I made was to do the increases and decreases slightly differently. I made a line of stockinet stitches (which you can see if you click the graphic and look at it full sized).

Jennifer, the recipient and future mommy, requested white trim on the jacket, so I used some white sock yarn I had. I worried a bit that the thinner yarn would cause the edging to bunch up, but it did not at all. The white really makes the edges pop up.

I am especially proud of how I got the edging to go around the collar and to do the shoulder seams. It's all one long i-cord edging. To do the seam, I did i-cord on the little collar edge. Next, I picked up along the garter stitch edge, then using the other end of the needle, I picked up the same number of loops on the cast-on edge (I had used the knitted cast-on, which makes a nice edge that's easy to work with this way). That put the yarn at the cuff edge, which enabled me to i-cord bind off (knitting three together at the seam) heading back toward the collar. I then would re-join at the collar and continue to the other side.To finish, I did i-cord along the other collar edge and joined using a few grafted stitches. You can hardly tell where I the i-cord started and ended.

There's one sorta funky join where the left seam joins back up to the collar., but I don't think this looks too bad. it was fun to give this method a try, anyway.

I am going to go look for cute buttons one day this week. I was thinking of finding little black and red Scotty dog buttons, if any of the fabric stores around here have them. I think it will be one eledant little baby jacket if I could do that!

Tomorrow I will show some photos I took at the LYS on Saturday. I had a nice time teaching a variety of people a variety of things. But today I just wanted to show my lovely second BSJ. I will try to hold off making another one for a while, but an adult version sure is tempting.