Christmas Stocking #1 and goals update

One more finished item for this week:

I finished the first Christmas stocking for 2013 earlier this week.  Nephew HH2, your Christmas present is the first one done!  I love the crossed candy canes pattern.  Probably the one I've made the most of, and one of the easiest of these intarsia patterns.  I have made so very many stockings at this point.  I churned this one out in just over a week.

So far I am on track for my 2013 goals.  Four washcloths and one stocking done in the first quarter of the year.  There is only one baby who has already been born and doesn't yet have his sweater, and that one is on the needles (BSJ number eight since August).  I need to get a move on on the blankets, for those babies who will get one by their first birthdays.  I think that will be just four of the fifteen.  Maybe five.

I've changed the controls on the comments section here.  Now anyone can post comments even if you don't have an account in google or blogspot or what-have-you.  I hope that'll be easier on everyone.  Thanks for reading!

Yarn Along - First 2013 Stocking

Joining Ginny's Yarn Along again.  Check out lots of knitting and reading at her blog.

I'm getting started on the first of the Christmas Stockings for 2013.  I'll have three or four to do, so I'd like to have the first one done by the end of March.  Deep in the tangle of intarsia, but moving along well.

I've finished the March washcloth, but can't find it now.  When Niece K was over for an afternoon this week, she played with some of the knitted things that had been living on the coffee table.  I have no idea where they got to in the course of that.  They are around somewhere, but I haven't been able to find them yet.

For reading, I'm still on Turn of the Screw via Craftlit.  It's a very interesting story.  I'm not at all accustomed to having a narrator quite this unreliable.

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.

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!