Category: Knitting

I picked up some Spud and Chloe super bulky merino-cotton yesterday, and interruped the linen clapotis to knit it into their boyfriend hat today.

The color work was a first for me and I didn’t know to let the strands of unworked yarn hang loosely. The hat is nonethess very very cool, but it’s now destined for the 6 year old, not the 18 year old.

Fortunately I have enough yarn left to reverse the colors and do a second hat, and this pattern is interesting enough to have a second go at it

This is a little bit of late night business trip knitting–the start of a Clapotis in my own hand-dyed linen. I only have two skeins so it will be, of necessity, a miniature version.

I’m internetless here, so I’m reading the pattern off of my iPhone as I go and hoping that will work.

Why is it that finishing my knitted pieces becomes an overwhelming challenge sometimes?  I knit along, incredibly eager to see the finished project, but, after all of the pieces are knit, I seem to find excuses to avoid doing the finishing work.  Making up is hard to do.

I'm not sure if it's sewing anxiety or some other form of generalized laziness.  But, right now, I've got a Baby Bolero and my Debbie Bliss Manos Silk Shrug both in unfinished pieces.  I'm knitting the last piece of Ellie's Miho Shrug, done in the same yarn as my own Shrug, and I've decided this is it.  When I'm finished, I'm going to have to devote an entire weekend to getting some finishing skills.

Here are the pieces of Ellie's Miho Shrug.

The yarn is Manos's silk/merino blend and the colors are fabulous.

I like the colorway so much that I decided we had to have coordinating Shrugs, and there is no doubt that this is the kind of colorway that goes with just about everything.

There are about 4" left to finish that last piece of Ellie's Shrug.  Will finishing anxiety overtake me again?  I hope not.  I'm determined to conquer it and finish these pieces this month.

Isn't it wonderful? The internet find my grown children send to me!  It's wonderful having a child who is old enough to have a girlfriend who knits, so that he has to value that activity.  Ah, sweet justice.

This cartoon comes from the nice people at http://wondermark.com/491/

I had no idea that the midnight-Iphone photo of the fresh-off-the-needles Baby Surprise Jacket last night was a blurry horror until I took a look at it a moment ago.

With apologies, I'll provide a better picture and show you how I figured out the way to finish the sweater.

This, for those of you who have never knitted one, is the Baby Surprise Jacket Blob.

It's a blob because you knit it all in one piece, and although I kept trying to guess at how it would fold together like a complex origami piece at the end, I just couldn't see how this strangely shaped piece could become a sweet little baby sweater.  (The original pattern was written by the legendary knitter Elizabeth Zimmerman, and can be purchased in book form here.)  The pattern includes a chart that labels the folding points, but my brain doesn't seem to work that way and the chart was not helpful.

There were two clues, though.  On opposite sides (you can see them a bit down from the top in the blob picture) were squared off corners that looked like the front neck.

This is also the only picture that, at least on my monitor, gives an accurate impression of the colorway, which is incredibly baby-girl pretty.

The other clue was buttonholes down part of one side.

They're sort of hard to see, so here they are again, up close.

Figuring that the buttonholes had to march down the front and the two square corners had to be on either side of the front opening, I finally folded the blob to come up with this.

Hmmm….this jacket just does not like to photograph as pretty as it is in person, but here it is, and you get the basic idea.  The only seams that need sewing are two short stretches at the top of the sleeves.

I'm hoping to find an accommodating small child to model it for me after it is sewn up, as the wee one it is meant for is not here yet.  After knitting this pattern for the first time, I totally get its allure.  I want to try one in a solid color.  And I'd like to do another with stripes.  And, I really want to do one in a heavier weight for Ollie next fall.  It's a very cool exercise in geometry and "knitting around corners" — just the kind of thing that makes knitting fascinating.

It’s an oddly shaped little thing, isn’t it?

This is the Baby Surprise Jacket I’ve been knitting. I’ll put it together this weekend, but it’s hot off the needles and I couldn’t wait to share it!