Finally a FO!

Well, the Baby Surprise Jacket is finished! I finally decided on buttons, and went with my gut feeling:



These are the ones I originally chose at the fabric store. They are a natural shell with a nice little design etched into the material. The shell has hints of both shades of pink when the light reflects off of it tying in nicely with the overall design. I also liked how the more complex buttons give the more simplistic sweater an unexpected detail.

Now on to the sweater:




Pattern: Baby Surprise Jacket from "The Opinionated Knitter" by Elizabeth Zimmermann
Yarn: Bernat Cottontots in "Strawberry" (darker pink) and "Pretty in Pink"
Gauge: 20 sts - 26 rows = 4"
Needles: US 7 Knit Picks Options Circs.
Amount Used: Strawberry : 2.25 skeins. Pretty in Pink : .25 skeins.
Mods: Used an applied I-cord for edging and cuffs.
Buttons: Etched Shell from JoAnn Fabric.
Size: Toddler Size (?)

My thoughts:

Pattern: This pattern is truly ingenious! You knit this semi-rectangular blob and a few origami folds later and you have a baby sweater! In true EZ fashion the directions are a bit...let's say sparse. At first this confused the shit out of me. But after reading and re-reading I got the hang of everything and was able to figure it all out. It truly helps to knit this on a longer circular needle. This allows you to fold it as you go:



If I would have done this on straights I don't know if I could have figured it out on my own. I am a visual learner and not being able to figure out how to fold it and see it in action as I went along would have totally driven me nuts!

Yarn: I used Bernat Cottontots for this project for a few reasons. First, the recipient lives here in Virginia and the baby is due in August. I feared that if I used a sock-weight yarn (for a 0-3 months size) the baby would grow out of it before properly wearing it. It does get cold here in VA, but it seems if summer lasts forever sometimes. The cottontots is 100% worsted weight cotton. Hence reason number two, I wanted something machine washable and dryable. Now I don't have kids, but the thought of having to take time out to hand wash something while trying to take care of two kids seems like a really huge hassle. I mean, I have a hard time hand washing stuff (like store bought wool socks, I've felted a few of those in my time, I'm getting better though). And thirdly, cottontots is cheap. Way cheap, and readily available. I got it at Michael's for under $4 a skein. The downside: It's 100% cotton and pills like none other. It was starting to pill as I was knitting it. It's now finished and it isn't so bad. An appointment with the sweater shaver before gift giving is in order though. I know a lot of people hate working with cotton because it hurts their hands etc. I've never known this phenomenom, perhaps I have hands of steel, I don't know, but it's never been an issue for me. The yarn itself is nice and soft and the garter stitch of the pattern really makes an extra cushy fabric.

Needles: Like I said before, the circs really make a difference with this pattern. If you value your sanity, use them.

Mods: At first I was really tempted to use a varigated sock yarn. I really love how the bright variegated colors look. I bought some Socks That Rock in Sherbet. After doing some research on Ravelry I found that those made with sock yarn came out really small. I waffled for a bit, and then decided to use the Cottontots. I was really enamored with the BSJ I'd seen with and applied i-cord edging and took this into account when trying to pick colors. The variegated cottontots was a bit barfy looking to me so I decided to go with solid colors, and being drawn to pinks, naturally that's what I chose. I am really happy I went with the applied i-cord. It was the first time I have ever done this, but I think it was worth the extra time and aggravation as it really makes the jacket.

Size: In choosing a worsted weight yarn I knew it was going to be a bit bigger. It ended up being more of a toddler sized sweater than an infant one, but I am totally fine with that as babies generally only grow bigger right?

Overall, I am very happy with how this sweater turned out. It is cute, and totally genius in construction. I'll definitely keep it on my baby knitting list.



One last gratuitious shot.

Just to let y'all know my little brother is in town for a few days so I'll be regrettably absent from the blogosphere. See you next week.

Presenting Rusted Root!

Presenting... Rusted Root!



My first sweater. After three weeks and four skeins of Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece I have a lovely spring/summer/fall sweater. I love it, and not in an obligatory because I made it kind of way, but in an over the top lovefest sort of way. The color is perfect, the fit is perfect, the design is perfect, and the knitting is, well almost perfect. Here are my thoughts on the various aspects of the process.

The yarn: I really like Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece. It comes in a great variety of colors and is reasonably priced. Being a cotton blend yarn (80% cotton / 20% wool) I had feared it might be a tad hard on my hands like many cotton yarns can be, but I had absolutely no problems with it hurting my hands. The yarn is soft to the touch, and does have considerable more elasticity than 100% cotton yarn. My only gripe about Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece is that it can be incredibly splitty. There were many stitches I had to go back and make sure I had the entire loop on the needle not just a few of the strands that make up the yarn. In this respect I had to pay more attention to each stitch then I would have if I was using a non-splitty yarn. Overall, I'd recommend Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece and will use it again in future projects.



Pattern: The pattern is incredibly well written except one small section that could be confusing to those new to top-down raglan sweaters (ie ME!). It was written to M1, K1 right after the lace pattern instead of K to first marker M1 K1. This put the increases for the sleeves right after the lace pattern unless you knew to knit to 1 st before the sleeve marker. So for a few rows until I realized what I was doing was wrong I made the increases right after the lace pattern. I caught it only a few rounds in, so I decided to let it go and not rip back. It is barely noticeable. Aside from that one minor flaw in the pattern, I didn't find any others. One thing about this pattern I found after browsing through the Craftster archives is that the sizes tend to run big. I am normally a size XL, but I downsized to a size large for this sweater, which is a good thing because it fits perfectly. The beauty of the pattern (and top-down raglans) is that you can try them on as you go. I tried mine on quiet a bit while in the process of knitting to make sure everything was working as intended. I know that several people over at the Sexy Knitters Club Sexy Knitters Club were having problems with the sleeves ending up not being poufy enough. I didn't really want super poufy sleeves because a large chest + poufy sleeves = not flattering. What I did want was the sleeves to be a bit longer. My sleeves actually turned out a bit larger than intended (see gauge below) but I'm not sure if it bothers me enough to rip them back. I didn't notice how large they were until after the sweater was blocked, they didn't bother me before it was blocked.

Gauge: My gauge differed from the recommended gauge only in the number of stitches per row. I was spot on for the number of stitches per inch, but I was getting one less stitch per row which meant less knitting!

Needles: I used Knitpicks options needles and boy are they great for this type of sweater! It is way simple to try it on as you go by leaving the cables in with the endcaps on. I used a US 6 for the body and a US 4 for the ribbing. Definitely love these needles.

Modifications: I didn't modify it very much. I did a few more rows of ribbing on the sleeves and bottom, but that's it.



Overall Thoughts: I will definitely make this sweater again and I am already thinking of a long-sleeved winter version with a cable motif where the lace panel is currently. I love the asymmetrical look to it and really like the versitility the lace panel affords as it would be really easy to swap out stitch pattern of a similar size. I really like top down raglans, in fact I already have another one on the needles (more about that later). I loved the process of this knit. I learned so many things, top down sweater construction, lace patterns, and beign truthful with myself about patience over progress. This sweater felt like it went incredibly fast and I was unusually monogamous with it. I am by no means a monogamous knitter ( uh hello log cabin blanket, I'll get back to you eventually!) but I had such a great time watching it grow on my needles that I pushed myself to continue. I finished it in three weeks but didn't block it until last Sunday. (I had a tremendous amount of guilt about showing you all photos of an unblocked Rusted Root, so I decided to delay the F.O. post to show off Rusted Root how she deserves to be seen, all shiny and clean and de-lumpified.) And me? I'm still basking in the "I just completed the first-ever sweater" glow.