The Baby Surprise Jacket has now visited Montgomery, Alabama, Orlando, Florida, and Washington D.C. I'm sad to say that it hasn't grown much on its travels. I've finished the decreases and am just starting the increases.
I'm very happy with the colorway, but not quite sure I'm going to finish this one in time!
Everyone in our house has a favorite, cherished object that is their lovey (I'm including the Judge in this, because that man really cherishes his TV clicker in an unnatural way). But this is a new one. That would be Harry, my darling Maine Coon Cat, who discovered my stash of Selma Jubilee Sock Yarn, waiting to be wound into balls so I could take it along on spring break.
He doesn't usually get to break into my personal stash of yarn, but I left two skeins sitting on the dining room table in a bowl so I could wind them, and discovered sweet Harry, all curled up in a little kitty cat fetal position, snuggling with some Jubilee.
Sweet kitty! I'll have to knit him his very own little toy if I have any of this yarn left over.
This is one of those moments when I have to wonder what the **&&%& I was thinking.
A sweater, albeit a baby sweater, knit from sock yarn on size four needles. Admittedly, it's not as bad as the afghan I'm knitting from sock yarn on size 2 needles in hopes it will be done in time for Ellie, who is 10, to take to college with her. But it's slow. Very slow.
Four days into it, and I've knit 20 rows. And this is the decrease section. So it's only going to get slower.
It is, however, endlessly fascinating and pretty.
This is a brand new colorway, Rebecca's Kitchen, so I'm knitting with it for the first time. It's hard to see in the nighttime indoors pictures, but the colors are soft and pretty, with no unpleasant pooling.
You get a good idea of how soft the colors are, looking at them in a ball.
I'm hoping for lots of knitting time — maybe another southern snowstorm, so I'll have time to make some progress on this one. I'm starting to feel like the more I knit, the less progress I make. Maybe I'm on Lost and I'm jumping backwards in time?
Seriously, all whining aside, I am just amazed by the beauty of the math that makes this pattern work. Elizabeth Zimmerman is one of those women who could have moved mountains or solved mathematical uncertainties with her genius. But personally, I am enormously grateful that she has left us a legacy of incredible knitting patterns. I think the reason I'm so impatient is that I can't wait to get to the point where an amorphous, awkwardly shaped piece of knitting is converted into a beautiful baby sweater by folding it in the right places and stitching down a couple of seams.
The yarn is called Bling and I just had to have. The skinny scarf in my LYS looked so cute.
About halfway through my ball of (über expensive) yarn I realized mine was just plain fugly. So I’m going to frog it and start over with fewer stitches. I’m no entirely sure that will do the trick, though. Comments suggesting potential non-fugly used for this yarn will be greatly appreciated!
Those of you who weren't totally put off by the abbreviated from-the-Iphone posts yesterday saw the beginnings of my first Baby Surprise Jacket. This is a classic Elizabeth Zimmerman pattern that I've had on my to-do list forever, but somehow never started. So I was excited when I found out that my wonderful Local Yarn Store, In The Making, was going to do a class on the pattern. As a working Mom, it's a rare event when I have the luxury of a Saturday morning to hang out with knitters and knit. The class was really a treat! Two hours passed in what felt like about 10 minutes.
We've been sent home with an understanding of how to do the first part of the pattern, which is essentially a fascinating exercise in geometry. I'm about 12 rows in and have just finished a row of increases and decreases (really, you have to love the demonic brilliance of Elizabeth's knitting knowledge, even the Judge is fascinated by it). The decreases continue for about 10 more rows before you begin to increase out the other end. I'm told I will end up with an incomprehensible piece of knitting, which, with the addition of a couple of folds in just the right places and two simple seams will become, voila, a cute little new baby sweater.
Here is my start.
I'm using some of my own yarn, the Juliet 2-ply superwash merino for socks, which should be perfect for an easy care baby sweater. I actually had some Koigu set aside, that I'm planning on still using for my second one (I love this pattern so far!), but at the last minute I decided to use this yarn — it's a brand new colorway called Rebecca's Kitchen and I wanted to see how it would knit up as something other than a sock. The nighttime in our living room picture doesn't display the colors very well, but they're really delightful. I'm hoping this will be a baby present for a girlfriend who is having a little girl towards the end of summer.
Finally, one last snow picture. Our intrepid Maine Coon Cat, Harry, the Adventurer, just in from an early morning foray out into the snow (which is now melted). Apparently Maine Coons, among there other idiosyncracies, like water. Harry and Hermione played outside all morning.
Our teacher Tami shows Pat how EZ does her increases. I love Pat’s yarn! It’s Noro Silk Garden Light.
I just finished knitting a pair of small longies ( a wool cover designed to go over cloth baby diapers) — while waiting for the ballet (Cinderella) to begin. Ollie graciously displayed them for me.
These longies are knit with Elliebelly Blue Faced Leicester that I dyed in the “Sunshine” colorway. I was too impatient to wait on a pattern, so I swatched for gauge and measured. I ended up having to decrease a few stitches near the tops of the legs to get the fit right. And, although my original intention was to play around with the number of stitches to have the patterning on the waist match the legs, after watching the waist knit up and looking at the gauge swatch that was knit on the same number of stitches as the legs, I decided to let them go with the natural patterning, which seemed like rays of sunshine to me.