Surprise! It's not a Baby Surprise!

The next baby sweater is blocking.

It's not a BSJ!  This pattern is the Jester Collar Cardigan from a Leisure Arts booklet called "Beautiful Baby."
This month is the two-year anniversary of my LYS owner buying the shop.  In addition to some awesome sales, she's running a contest - everyone who cast on a project at the anniversary party on May 1st and finishes the project during the month will be entered into a drawing for a gift card.  This little sweater is my entry.  I need to sew all the seams, knit on the triangle "Jester" collar and add buttons.  Finishing work always seems to take the longest for me, so hopefully the deadline will keep me focused, and it'll be done soon.

I did recently finish another BSJ (periwinkle-yellow-green) that has been sent away.  But the only pictures I remembered to take of it are on my phone.  I have a DumbPhone, so as soon as I figure out how to get those pictures into the computer, I'll post one. :-P

International Shipping

The most recent BSJ is about to be shipped.  I hope this little bleu-blanc-rouge sweater will have safe travels to France, and I hope it'll still fit the little guy when it gets there.

The Fibonacci sequence of stripes used up every last bit of my white, and I ended up buying another ball of blue to finish it.  I'm sure it would've looked fine with a narrow stripe of blue and more red, but I wanted to finish out the sequence.  Besides, with all these baby boys being born, I'm sure I'll have more use for blue.
This is knit out of Plymouth Yarn's Dreambaby DK, because my dwindling stash of Reynolds Wash Day Wool did not have the right colors for the French flag.  I had hoped Dreambaby would become my new go-to baby yarn, but I don't think so anymore.  It's quite nice and soft, but it's rather fuzzier than I prefer.  I was just spoiled by the perfection of Wash Day Wool.  If anyone knows of an in-production yarn that is a good match for it, please do let me know.
This is the third BSJ I've knit this calendar year, and I believe it's the seventh since August.  One more on the needles already and then I think there may only be two more sweaters to knit this spring.

Gloves and BSJs

 Finally, a picture of the husband's finished fingerless gloves.  He's been wearing them everyday.  He was showing them off to my dad, and now Dad wants a pair too.  I love it when the handknits are worn and used to full capacity.

The Baby Surprise Jacket Assembly Line continues work apace.  The brown-green-blue sweater has been gifted, and the navy-yellow-orange one is getting sewn up and having buttons added today.

Since my sister-in-law is in labor today, I call that pretty good timing.  This one has stripes of five rows each, which I think helps it look more like a striped sweater.  With only three-row stripes, the colors seem to blend a bit as you look at the sweaters.  I couldn't keep the stripes continuous around the shaping, though, so I may go back to three-row stripes.

 Next on the needles is a bleu-blanc-rouge sweater for a friend who now lives in France.  For these stripes, I'm using the Fibonacci Sequence (1-1-2-3-5-8-13-21-34-55).  Gotta keep it interesting now I'm on my seventh BSJ in the last eight months.  I ran out of white about 30 to 40 stitches short, but called that plenty close enough.  I'm hoping the blue holds out for the final wide stripe.

I am knitting something very fun for myself in the midst of all this, too.  That deserves its own post.

Yarn Along - Flood and BSJ

Joining in for Ginny's Yarn Along again this week.  Check out lots more knitting and reading on her blog.

My brother found my size 3 needle tip!  He was riding in my car, where I had been sitting and knitting before the tip went missing, and it somehow revealed itself to him, because he just picked it up off the floor.  Hooray!  With this find added to all the wonderful knitting Christmas gifts, he is in the lead for doing the most to facilitate my knitting this year.

So now that the tip has returned, I'm knitting away on the next Baby Surprise Jacket.  For this one I'm trying five-row stripes.

This year marks 100 years since the Great Miami River flood of 1913.  My senior thesis was on this flood and the response to it.  Hamilton and Dayton, Ohio, were worse than decimated -- estimates are that one out of three Hamilton residents were homeless (at least temporarily) after the flood.  75% of buildings flooded.  (Way worse than one out ten.)  Afterward the people in this valley created the Miami Conservancy District, which is still a national model for regional flood control.  None of the areas designed to be protected by the massive works of the MCD has flooded since.  The flood was the last week of March, and there are going to be lots of commemorative events this year.  I'm preparing by reading through the books I still have from my senior thesis days.  The one in the picture is "Through Flood, Through Fire:  Personal Stories from Survivors of the Dayton Flood of 1913" by Curt Dalton.  There is a real wealth of first-hand accounts of the flood.  Personal stories are a very powerful way to study history.

Little Sweaters

I know so many people expecting babies (or who have just had them) between December and April, that I've had to start a list to keep track of them all.  Fifteen babies.  Fifteen.  Not all of them are close enough to receive knits, but many are.  So I've been making a lot of Baby Surprise Jackets.  These are all being knit from my stash of the much-lamented Reynolds' Wash-Day Wool (except for two of the shades of blue in the first picture below).

First there were these two, for Alisha's identical twin boys (born early January):

Shades of blue - one sweater dark-to-light, the other light-to-dark.  With adorable navy blue car buttons from my LYS.

Then there was a Neapolitan ice-cream-striped sweater for one of the few girl babies in the bunch (born late December):

And early in the new year I started the next batch of sweaters.  I'll have two new nephews, both probably arriving in February, so their sweaters were at the top of my list for the new year.  Here is the first sweater, with my lovely new yarn bowl hard at work:

I really like making three-color striped BSJs.  I got the idea from Alisha a while back.  Three colors, each stripe is three rows wide, and the next yarn you need is always ready right where you need it.  One little modification on the BSJ - 18 rows instead of 20 on the section to make the back longer - and the stripe pattern is continuous throughout.  It also keeps me entertained through all the garter stitch, and helps me keep track of how many rows I've knitted.

I finished the brown-green-blue sweater January 18.  Here are some before and after folding pictures:

 I realized that with all of the BSJs I've made, I'd never taken any "before folding" pictures.

 Ready for sewing up and buttons.  I ran out of blue in the middle of its last row, but I just started the brown stripe a bit early.  I was impressed it lasted that long.  These babies don't know how lucky they are, getting the last of my Wash Day Wool stash.

I started the next BSJ right away, but have run into a problem.

I was knitting in the car, and when I pulled the project out of my bag after getting home, one of the interchangeable needle tips was missing.  Not to be found in the bag or anywhere near it.  I still have to do a thorough search of the car, but I fear I have lost one of my size 3 tips.  I don't think I even have any other size 3 needles.  NOT GOOD.  I'm not sure what I'll do -- order replacement tips, buy one size 3 circular the right length for BSJs, or long straight 3s -- but babies are coming, and I can't get behind on their sweaters!

Olympic Report

My Lil One loves owls; her first favorite clothes were all ones with owls on them.  I love Kate Davies' Owl Sweater pattern - what a great idea to make a cable pattern into characters on a sweater!  Whimsical yet understated.  So I decided back in the spring that I should make the Owlet version of the sweater for Lil One.  Still being somewhat new at this parenting gig I said so in her hearing.  For the next two months every time she came to Knit Night with me, she'd point at the wall of Liberty Wool yarn, look at me, and say "Owl sweater."  So to be certain it would happen, I made the Owlet sweater my Olympic Project.

(It's the project I knit while watching the Olympics, so I'm calling it my Olympic Project.  Valid use of the language.)

The pattern calls for aran yarn, but I got gauge on the first try in the worsted weight Liberty Wool on size 8 needles.  I knit the 24-month size, the largest of the "baby" sizes, and although Lil One turns two in a few weeks, I believe this will fit her all through this coming winter and spring.

I must have been in the zone during the Opening Ceremonies party at my LYS, because I managed to knit more than one whole ball and got nearly to the underarms.  I knit the sleeves at the same time on one long circular needle (which wasn't quite long enough for comfort), then the adorable and easy owl pattern, decreases, ribbing, and Jeny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind-off.

I think I like the matte buttons with shanks better than the shiny buttons with holes, but my local giant-craft-store didn't have enough of them, so I just used them for the center(ish) owls on the front and back.  Finished sewing on the buttons on Wednesday, August 8, comfortably ahead of schedule.  I submitted the sweater to the Ravellenic Games, earning three medals -- Baby Dressage, Cable Steeplechase, and Sweater Triathlon.  Also submitted to Quiddich in the Harry Potter Knit & Crochet House Cup, but not for real points as I'm still a Not-Quite-First-Year.  I did complete my sorting form this month, so I hope to have a House and start playing "for real" in September.

Overall I'm very happy with this project, and am really looking forward to giving it to the Lil One for her birthday.

Yarn Along - Striped BSJ

I'm joining Ginny's Yarn Along again this week, kind of at the last minute.

I've been working on my three colored striped Baby Surprise Jacket.  I really love this pattern, and I'm also liking this method of striping.  I'll really like it at the end when there are only six ends to weave.

I've been reading French Kids Eat Everything:  How our family moved to France, cured picky eating, banned snacking, and discovered 10 simple rules for raising happy, healthy eaters by Karen Le Billon.  My mom recently gave me this book, and it's a good one to read as a follow-up to Bringing Up Bebe.  This one is by a Canadian who married a Frenchman and moved to his small hometown for a year with their two small girls.  I'm already changing some of our habits based on the some of the simple, smart things in this book.

In other news, I have a very strange set of wind chimes hanging in my shower right now.

More on that project soon!

Baby Surprise

I said last week that I thought I was all caught up on recently finished projects, but there is one more to share.

This was my first time knitting Elizabeth Zimmermann's Baby Surprise Jacket. I got her Knitting Workshop book with a birthday present gift certificate at Nautical Yarn. This is a great little store, and it's the LYS where we go on summer vacation. It's a great book, and this is a very clever bit of knitting. I neglected to take a picture of the piece before I seamed it. I'll have to remember to do that next time, because there will definitely be a next time.

I made the sweater with Reynolds Wash Day Wool in brown and periwinkle (extra ball from my Lil One's sweater) and some dark blue and bright blue Dalegarn Baby Ull from the stash . The darker blue is the same I used for one of the little hats back in April. I made up the stripes as I went along. I think they turned out well, but now with more knowledge of how the knitting actually relates to the finished project I'll be able to place stripes a bit better. Also, I'm going to try to find a way to stripe it so there will be fewer ends to weave in!

I made this for our newest nephew, HH. Like the jacket, he is surprising. First because when he arrived in April it was three months early and second because the ultrasound had said that we were going to get a niece. I made him a couple of hats earlier this year. He hasn't had an easy time, but he is home now and doing well. I finished this in time for the baby shower in early August. It was a new experience to attend a baby shower where we knew specifics about what the baby likes and dislikes.

Now I think I'm all caught up on finished objects. No, wait, I finished something else just today!

One year already

I didn't join in the yarn along yesterday, because there's something else I wanted to blog about.

Yesterday was my baby's first birthday. I haven't done tons of knitting for my Lil One yet; most of my knitting still finds its way to other people's homes. I already blogged the blanket that I finished last fall, and there were the leg warmers made from blanket left-overs. However, this spring I did make a sweater for the babycakes.

(The pieces took a bath in the sink, rather like their owner)

It's a Baby Bolero by Debbie Bliss, made out of Reynolds Wash Day Wool in periwinkle. I made the 9-12 month size, thinking it could be used as a spring and fall sweater, which is working out so far.

I absolutely love the Reynolds Wash Day Wool, and am so sad that it is going away. This has been my go-to yarn for baby projects for a while now. I stocked up on it at my LYS at their recent clearance sale.

The pattern is in a book too, but I got it from the magazine you can see in this picture. There's another cute toddler sweater that I'm planning to make, too. It's a well-written pattern, and I like the construction and the shape of it.

Here's the Lil One trying it on after the shawl collar was done, but before the sleeves were attached.

As you can see in previous pictures, I blocked the pieces before putting it together, but have yet to give it a good blocking after adding the edging/collar. I really like it, but it has a strong tendency to curl and could benefit from serious blocking.

It got cool enough on Labor Day that she got to wear it for her birthday party, too.

So that's the knitting-related baby news. Next in the queue for her is a cotton candy dress like the ones I made for her cousins two years ago. But there will be a few other things before we get to that.

New Year, new dedication

Wow, it's been way too long. I've had this blog for two full years, now, and I'm going to be more dedicated to making better use of it this year. First of all, I think I have a pretty good excuse for being away from this for most of last year:

My lil one born the day after Labor Day, 2010. My universe has re-arranged itself more than a little bit, as I'm sure other parents know well and other people can imagine.

Secondly, some catching up on the knitting:
During my June vacation at the Lake, I worked on a cabled cardigan for me. I have finished the fronts, back, and sleeves. The next step is to block them all, connect them to each other, and work on the huge shawl collar.

What a nice place to sit and knit all day.
I'd really like to finish this soon, because I think it'd be a great sweater to wear this winter while I'm breastfeeding so much. It turns out that nearly all the sweaters I own right now are pullovers.

Then I made two more baby sweaters - a six month and a twelve month size of a lace sweater for a new first-cousin-once-removed and for a new niece.

Then I made my baby a blanket. This is the "Baby Shane Blanket" from Tanis Fiber Arts. I made it with four colors of Baby Boutique, two solids and two variegated. The colors remind me of a sunset at the Lake.

After a bit of a break (see baby picture above), I made a hat and sweater for a new nephew. Here's Strong Bear modeling the hat.

No pictures of the sweater. It wasn't quite done for the baby shower, and then the little guy came early so I had to hurry up and finish it. Christmas green Encore worsted weight in a simple pattern with some cabling. I had to size down what the pattern called newborn size because it was coming out huge. It's still more like a 3-6 month size. I also modified it to add buttons. The pattern called for a drawstring around the neck, and that just seemed like a really, really bad plan.

I also made two pairs of baby mittens, one for Lil One and for Nephew O, out of leftovers from the baby blanket. Those little hands just will not stay in swaddling and get so chilly during the night.
The only Christmas knitting consisted of four stockings. Here are two of them:

There was one more Snowman Head and a Rudolf. These are Mary Maxim stocking patterns of which I have about 60, I think.
I also gave my grandmother a nice pair of fetchings in blue alpaca, but I had that gift idea right after Christmas last year, so those were knit almost one year ago. I'm just glad I found them!

So ends 2010, The Year of Babies.

Catching up Part the Last

Finally, well not quite finally, but for now, I made duckie-themed baby clothes for the first baby of my college RA. He'll be arriving anytime in the next month, and the shower was the second Saturday in June. The duck theme has a little story behind it: The first few weeks of school the first-year students tend to follow the RA everywhere - to dinner, community events, etc. - and someone joked that we were all following Marta around like her baby ducklings. The idea stuck and she got called Momma-Duck Marta. So now that she's having a baby it only seemed right to my roommate and me that our gifts be duckie-themed.

I don't have any completed pictures of these items because this was one of those finish-at-the-last-minute projects. I'm very glad it was a surprise shower and we got there a while before Greg and Marta got home, because I was sitting on their living room floor sewing on buttons and weaving in ends!

I'm also glad that I had just read and followed the Yarn Harlot's advice on blocking sweaters before sewing them up -- otherwise I might not have any pictures of this little sweater at all.


Here is the Puddle Ducks cardigan in the process of blocking on my Sun Room floor. This pattern is from the Knitting for Babies and Kids book by Jeanne Stauffer, as so many of my recent baby projects have been. This is an very good and useful book; maybe I'll review it sometime soon.


Here is a close up of the little puddle ducks. There're also supposed to be embroidered raindrops around the ducks, but that didn't happen. The sweater got buttons instead.

This was made in the six-month size out of DreamBaby DK and Dale Baby Ull. I'm collecting quite a little stash of DK/baby weight machine washable colors. I intend to make good use of them if I ever get through this summer's slate of projects.

To go with this sweater I also made the duck socks from the recent Spring/Summer issue of Knitty. No pictures of those at all, but hopefully Marta will send me some later, when they are being worn. I'd include a link, but the Early Fall issue just went up today so the Knitty site is too slow at the moment. I must be a pretty ambitious knitter because here are all the new techniques I learned just for these little baby socks: (1) toe-up socks (2) Magic Loop (3) Judy's Magic Cast-On (4) Turkish Cast-On (5) applied I-cord and (6) Jenny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind-Off. I think I just don't let my lack of knowledge and experience get in the way when I find exactly the right pattern. Also, other people figured out how to do all these things - reading and following their directions doesn't seem to me to be the hard part.

I just realized at this very minute that I forgot all about the knitting guild meeting that was last night. Shoot. I really wanted to make that little beaded Christmas stocking, too. Bummer. Well, it was probably for the best - we're going camping this weekend and had tons to do last night.

So now we're all caught up with the news of my early-summer baby knitting. Next, there'll be an update on what I knitted on vacation, and probably more baby knitting.

Catching up Part 3

Last weekend I finally put the finishing touches on my Olympic Project, the Dale of Norway seal sweater for my cousin's first baby. This had been sitting in the knitting basket completely sewen up with the ends woven in and everything for a few weeks. It needed only the three duplicate stitches for the nose and the embroidered whiskers. Since this little boy was born in March, it was time to get it in the mail. Here is the sweater getting a heavy-duty steam blocking before being shipped halfway across the country.

And here's a closer shot of the nifty little cuffs.

I hadn't steam blocked with my iron before, and was really pleased at how well it performed, especially since it's a rather old hand-me-down. Look at that little cuff lay flat!

This sweater was made in the nine-month size using Reynolds Kids Wash Day Wool (main green color) as well as Dalegarn Baby Ull (all accent colors). I have a lot left over, which I'm planning to use to make the overalls from this same Dale set for another baby -- more about that later.
So this has finally been shipped, and the USPS website tells me it was successfully delivered last week. Another item crossed off this year's baby knitting list, and Knitting Olympic dreams (belatedly) fulfilled.

After the Olympics

Well, I did not quite finish my Olympic Project in time, but I still feel quite accomplished. Here is the Dale Seal Sweater as it is right now:

The neck band has been added since the end of the Olympics, but otherwise, this is where it was last weekend, too. *Nearly* to the sewing up. I feel like if I hadn't added the duplicate stitched baby seal I probably would have been able to finish. But the seal is cute enough that I don't mind.

I was able to finish my entry for the creative competition I mentioned in my previous post.

It's a version of the Vancouver logo, based on the stone totem people - I'm afraid I don't know the proper name for them. This was Pat's brilliant idea one evening while we were watching curling. I made the pattern up as I went along. If I were to do it again, I'd change some of the angles and numbers of stitches, but this is a good first little invention. I think I will likely win a medal for this project as well, because as of last Monday's Knit Night, I was the only one who had submitted an entry.

I haven't worked very much on the seal sweater this week, because it has been pre-empted by Niece H's blanket. She turns one next week, so I need to hurry up and finish it.

I think I'm almost done.

Olympic Knitting

I love the Olympics. I always look forward to them and stay up way too late watching as much of the telecast events as I possibly can. This Olympiad, for the first time, I am competing in the Knitting Olympics.

The main event is to pick a project that will be challenging for you to complete in 2 weeks, begin during the opening ceremonies and finish before the flame goes out in the closing ceremonies. But before I get to that, Lambikin's Hideaway had an Opening Ceremonies party. Alisha over at 2BuckeyesInCinci has provided a great recap, so check that out. People brought lots of Olympic-themed food; I particularly liked the sushi hockey pucks, the truffle curling stones, and the chips and dip with five bowls of colored dip corresponding to the Olympic rings, but everything was delicious.

There were additional events during the evening too, and I won medals!
To warm up we had a game involving passing around balls of yarn, and the yarn each person had at the end was hers to use in the Creative event. If we choose to participate, we knit something from this ball before the closing ceremonies and the finished object will be judged on creativity. Here's my ball:

Pat came up with a really good idea for me, and I've got it started.

Next was the blindfolded knitting. We all wore blindfolds and knit a pattern that Christina read to us. The results were then judged based on how much they actually look like they were supposed to look. Here's my silver-winning effort:

It's a cute tiny basketweave swatch, although I had no idea that was what I was making until the blindfold came off. This event was absolutely the most fun. It was great to listen to everybody, and must have been even more fun to watch us all.

Then came the speed knitting. The group at Lambikin's has determined that Leslie and I are unreasonably fast knitters and so we were given handicaps of crazy yarn to work with. Mine was an eyelash yarn and Leslie's was a stringy fuzzy thing that produced a fabric that looked very much like Cookie Monster. The challenge here was to knit a tiny sweater pattern, and whoever finished first won. Hallie and I tied for silver.

Toward the end I think my handicap yarn actually became a bit of a help because I was able to whip stitch the seams in a very hasty somewhat sloppy way without anyone ever being able to tell. This sweater is just the right size for a beer bottle cozy, and Pat has already used it as such.

Finally, the main event. For my Olympic Knitting Project I chose a Dale of Norway baby sweater. Somewhat complex but small seemed like the right balance for me in my first Knitting Olympiad. Also, I have seven baby projects to knit between now and August, so I thought this would be a great way to turn one out quickly. It's a wrap pullover sweater in green and blue. A picture of a baby seal will get duplicate stitched on the front at the end. Here's my progress as of Sunday:

The purl ridge there is the fold line for the hem. This sweater is knit in the round to the armholes, then divided and the front and back are knit flat. I finished the back at my church board meeting last night. This sweater will be for Mac and Kristen's baby, my first cousin once removed, who will arrive next month.

Now, back to knitting and watching the Olympics!