Buttons and Slogging...and Happy

Briefly: Today I am proud to be an American. I am glad I lived to see this day.

But back to knitting (you can read my other rants in my other blog--just ask for a link). Here's the final shot of that recent Baby Surprise Jacket with buttons on it. I could not find the little scottie dogs on it that I wanted, but I did find ladybugs in the right colors and size (I decided to NOT get sparkly ones, though there were some at the Hobby Lobby we went to). I'll keep looking for better buttons.

I am slogging away with the last sleeve on the orange Inka Alpaca sweater. I got quite a ways up on it, only to discover that the previous sleeve wasn't exactly done the way the instructions said. Unfortunately, I was following the instructions on sleeve #2. Because the first sleeve came out so nicely, I figured I'd better mimic it. So this one is going to take a long time. Sigh. I guess I better go back to work on it. I sure want to work on those ideas I've had and projects I want to work on. But. must...finish...sweater.

Bye, and enjoy the rest of an interesting day, or week.

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.

Answer to Baby Surprise Jacket Question

Baby Surprise on Baby Kevin
Originally uploaded by sunasak

Jennifer asked in the comments to the previous entry whether this pattern (shown without my son mangling the doll, at right) is as hard as everyone says.

My answer is no, it is not difficult at all. It's fun and easy, and quite fascinating. You do have to be a person who can deal with some ambiguity, though--a confident knitter. I am never sure in the pattern exactly which row Elizabeth Zimmerman means for you to do things: "...at 172 stitches, do this..." Well, is that after the row with that many stitches, or ON the row that WOULD have that many stitches if you weren't increasing? But, I realized that it really didn't matter exactly which row, as long as you interpreted the instructions consistently. It's a very forgiving pattern. (And there is also, somewhere on the Internets, a list of exactly how many stitches to do on each row. If you go through the finished BSJs on Ravelry, you will find references to it and can use that to help your drive for precision--I just wanted to do it with no "help" the first time, to have an authentic EZ experience.)

It does help to DO one. Then you can tell what parts of the jacket your stripes are going to affect., for example And you can decide how to do some things differently without ruining the pattern. For example, in the next one (which, coincidentally is FOR Jennifer the question-asker) I am doing the increases and decreases in a more decorative way, since I did not like how they looked very much. I'm going to have a nice line of knit stitches in both places, and do more attractive increases on the front. I have seen others use YOs for the increases, too.

That new BSJ, shown here in its infancy, uses DK weight yarn originally intended for making thick self-striping socks. I got a bit farther along on it last night, and I am finding I like the stripes better on these longer rows than I did when I was trying to make a scarf out of it.

Really, my main difficulty with the original BSJ pattern (from the Opinionated Knitter book) was reading it, since it is all squished onto a page of very dense typing (literally, typewriter typing) and all folksy-like. I think there may be versions of the pattern laid out more clearly, but I have not gone out of my way to find them.

I plan to make an adult version. But, heh, you know, I have a lot of projects lined up. I've mentioned that, haven't I?

OK, So Here's the BSJ

Since my passionate biography of my great knitting influence engendered no comments, I am hoping that large photos of a finished object will be more fascinating. (I hope this addresses the comments that my knitting looks better in person than on the blog, which I guess isn't fair to those of you I don't actually see in person!)

This evening I sewed the buttons on the Baby Surprise Jacket and asked my son to pose with Baby Kevin, who was the kids' toy when they were little and now is my baby product model. Beccano was pretty funny (and I uploaded even more photos on Flickr).

This first photo shows how it looks finished (and Beccano looking astonished). The arms are a little long, which is good, since I am hoping it will fit a baby more like 9 months old next winter. I hope Katie can move the buttons out for a little more growth, too.
The second photo lets you see the back, which shows the striping pattern. I really like it--just a pattern I made up, but I think it blends the blue, green and purple nicely. The colors of the O-Wool Balance are named after gems, so they are actually opal, jade and amethyst.

And the last photo is a close-up of the buttons, which I got at the LYS. They are pastel swirls that have all the colors in the sweater, plus a bit of yellow. I think they are pretty, but not too girly.

I had lots of fun knitting this, and sure hope the recipients like it, even though it is not a very traditional looking baby item. I have started another one in Plymouth Encore Sock DK in white, reds and blacks, for the next baby, also a girl. Also not traditional. Sigh. That's me, not traditional. Then for SURE I stop with the new projects and work on Orange Sweater and Maelstrom (sure, Suna, sure).

Baby Surprise Jacket Almost Done

Baby Surprise Jacket Almost Done
Originally uploaded by sunasak

A college football game featuring a local team was so exciting last night that I was unable to finish this (well, I also cooked dinner and did normal human stuff). I even hooted.

But, isn't this sweater cute? I am incredibly impressed with myself at how the striping pattern I totally made up randomly is working out absolutely perfectly for the BSJ! My buttonhole band looks especially good, because I diverged slightly from the instructions so that there is not an irritating extra purl ridge on one side. This makes my purple and green stripes look all perfect. I just have a few more rows to go, albeit long ones. I am thinking I will crochet neatly around the neck, and perhaps do a decorative 3-needle bind-off on the shoulder seams. I like the way that looked on the Wrap Me Up shawl.

My next goal is to make another one in a self-striping yarn with more decorative increases and decreases. Then, orange sweater!!!

Knitting Video Game?!?

I hope to have the Baby Surprise Jacket done tonight, so will post about that later.

But OMG, when I read on Lime and Violet's site there was a knitting video game coming out, I had to go see. Yep, soon, if you are stuck with no real needles, you'll be able to do Wii Knitting (or Kniittiing). I am not sure exactly who the target audience is, but I give the creators credit for finding an as-yet untapped market!!

More tomorrow. And thanks to all for the nice comments about OpArt. The high school kids just LOVED it when I posted photos on Facebook!

OpArt is 2009 FO #1!

OpArt Pre Blocking
Originally uploaded by sunasak

OpArt is done, as you can see. It only took a month and two days, which is not bad, considering its size and the little things I had to make before Christmas. I spent all day yesterday finishing up on the edging, which I made with a picot bind-off. I figure that is nice and stretchy, plus the baby is a girl, so this sightly feminizes it. I must admit that the blanket does its job--if you look at it too closely, it will get your eyes all confused and start to appear to move around. It's hard to believe that such an easy pattern produces such cool results!

As you can see in the picture of the whole blanket, it does need to be blocked. The instructions warn you to not get upset when it comes off the needles, because it needs to be "severely blocked" to end up square. I'll be doing that at some point today or tomorrow, I figure. I measured it, and unblocked, it's exactly 40" across, which is what size it's supposed to be. That's a rarity for me! I am not sure whether it will block out slightly larger or not. The bigger it is, the more space for the baby to roll around and enjoy it.

The yarn is very soft and was quite nice to work with. I'd use it again in an afghan or something (KnitPicks Swish). I am going to get some Fray Check stuff and dab it on all the ends so that the back looks as neat as possible. That's for two reasons: there's no way to avoid the back showing when it wraps a baby, and I know babies tend to pick at things like yarn ends when they get a bit older, and I don't want the blanket to get picked to death (like my own baby blanket did). This baby will have a LOT of blankets, though, so who knows which one she will pick for her "lovey" if she picks any at all!

Moving On

The next project is the Baby Surprise Jacket. I just could not control myself from trying this, and I am happy to use up some of the organic yarn I bought a while back to try out organic projects. I am using O-Wool Balance, which is an organic wool/cotton blend. It is worsted weight, but I am using a size 4 needle, to get 5 stitches per inch. That supposedly makes the one year-ish size jacket, which would work for baby's first winter, I think. I am going to make a second one in sport-weight yarn for another knitting friend's baby, which will be a little younger so might need a slightly smaller jacket. That does, of course, assume I make it through this first BSJ. I am trying to follow EZ's instructions and not read any additional hints and helpers. I want to pretend to be a lady of 1968 who got the original newsletter.

I am using some new row markers to keep track of the double decreases in the BSJ pattern. I got them from Entrelac (in person, but YOU can get them from the Loopy Ewe online, or Gauge or Knitting Nest locally). They are shaped like little omegas, and really work well. They stay in when you want them to, but easily come out to move up to another row. I got these nice shiny anodized ones, because I love shiny colorful things (as you may have noticed).

I'm off to write in my personal blog, then work on the jacket, watch football, and finish taking down holiday decorations. A nice end to the holiday season!