WIP: Baby Surprise Jacket

I've been so distracted with "A Knitted Wonderland"* that I've gotten behind on my blogging. I have two FOs, a cake and a new WIP to talk about. I'm starting with the WIP.

It's my very first Baby Surprise Jacket!


Back in January I said I was daydreaming of a sweater made from my stash. I wanted a cardigan that was seamless or almost seamless. Mom suggested that I look through her old Wool Gathering newsletters for patterns. When I saw the Baby Surprise Jacket pattern, I immediately knew that was what I wanted to make.

In The Opinionated Knitter there's a pattern for an "Adult Surprise Jacket," the Baby Surprise Jacket's grown up counterpart. It's perfect for my epic stash sweater.

But first, I'm taking the author's advice and making a Baby Surprise Jacket before I embark on a larger sweater. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the pattern.


The Baby Surprise Jacket is both very simple and very complicated. Basically, you knit a wonky rectangle, fold it, seam the shoulders and end up with a cardigan.

At the beginning of the jacket I had no idea what went where until I did a row of increases to create a cuff. At that phase it was hard to imagine that I was knitting sleeves. A little while later, I was binding off a few stitches for the collar. It started making sense in my mind.

There are diagonal increases and decreases that work well with variegated yarn and makefor some interesting stripes. I went with some variegated yarn from stash. I would have liked to add some stripes, but I don't have anything that works with the yarn I found.

I'm using Baby Bee Sweet Delight from Hobby Lobby. I bought it ages ago for because I liked the bright colorway. So far, I'm happy with it. It's a nice for a machine washable synthetic yarn.

There's a point where the increases and decreases meet in the picture above. That's the armpit. If you fold what I have so far, you get this:.


This pattern, like most Elizabeth Zimmerman patterns, is more like a recipe than a set of instructions. Specific row numbers aren't listed. So I want to leave some notes about row numbers, increases and decreases for myself and anyone else who's interested. If you follow her original instructions exactly, you'll probably have the same row numbers.

The original pattern suggests a gauge of five or six stitches per inch. I'm knitting five stitches per inch, mostly because that's what I got with this particular yarn and the first needle I could find. Five stitches per inch makes a size for a baby around one year old. Six stitches per inch will get you a newborn size jacket.

I think row ten was where I did the increases for the cuff. I spaced them out so that there was no M1 next to the marker.

At row 43 I found myself with 91 stitches, not 90 as the pattern says. I looked carefully at all my decreases. I think I decreased by two stitches instead of three in the first row. So on row 44, the first of the "work three rows even" I knit two together at the corner where I made the mistake. I think it'll be fine.

Row 47 started the increases, and I think row 60 was where I added the increases to add fullness in the back. I don't think I did a very good job of spacing them out. I miscalculated and one M1 was too far off to the side.

On rows 72 and 73 I did the neck shaping. As of right now I've finished row 79, and on row 80 I'll be doing some more mind bending shaping.

If you're new to the Baby Surprise Jacket you're probably still confused, I'll leave you with "Baby Surprise Jacket - The Movie." It's a short (14 second) video that I posted for the first time in 2008. I tmade it when we found an unfinished Baby Surprise Jacket that Mom had started years ago.


* - We recently found out that our display will be up another week. Now you have until March 25 to see the the installation.

Yarn (Store) Pr0n: The Knitting Nest

Last Friday, I was all excited about the grand opening of the The Knitting Nest. After work I ran home for a shower, got my things together and fought the Friday afternoon traffic to South Austin.

When I finally got there, I took this picture of the sign. Then I walked up to the door. And it was locked.

I pressed my face against the window, wondering what happened. Maybe I was too late? Or too early? Was it an afternoon event?

I went back to my car, and tried to figure it out. I was so sure it was Sept 22.

Then I realized Sept. 22 was on Saturday. I was a day early.

So I had some dinner, visited my parents, went home and got up the next morning to attend the grand opening.

When I arrived, I discovered that the grand opening had been moved to October 13. But this time I didn't mind, because at least they were open. I would have gone on Saturday either way.

I spoke with Stacy the owner, and she had decided to push back the grand opening to wait for some new shipments of yarn, including some Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock (including colors from my Alma Mater, the school formerly known as SWT, and St. Edward's University) and, the one I've been waiting for, Hill Country Yarns.

Here is the store.






Here is one of the cool sitting areas. They're having knit-outs on Monday nights.














Here is the other sitting area.

Stacy talked to other knitters before opening shop, and one of the things they said was they didn't want a lot of novelty yarns or super-expensive yarn. The result is a true Elizabeth Zimmerman style shop with lots of affordable, sensible, versatile wools and wool blends. It's the kind of store where you can buy a sweater's worth of yarn at a reasonable price.

And the number one yarn that the knitters requested was...

CASCADE!

I don't think I've ever seen so much Cascade 220 in one place, and in so many different colors. I don't think I even got the whole wall in this picture. From what I've heard, "The Great Wall of Cascade" has already become a favorite for photo shoots. And there is more that's not in the wall.





Here is some Quatro. I think they also had some Superwash on another shelf.

























Here is some Queensland Kathmandu, which I thought would be scratchy, but it's actually very soft. A little bit of silk and cashmere make a big difference.











The store also has a lot of Elsebeth Lavold, including some I hadn't seen before. This is Baby Llama. It's so soft, and I'm looking for a reason to use it.











Chunky Al is another one I want to try. It's half wool and half alpaca.














This wall is mostly Farmhouse Yarns. It's a very sturdy wool.

Speaking of sturdy...
















They have Peace Fleece, and a very nice selection. They have some of the company's patterns and other items.
















I love these little "Learn to Knit" kits from Peace Fleece.

















They've been raving about O-Wool Balance on Stash and Burn.



















I had to try the O-Wool Balance. I picked up a skein, along with some dpns. I'll probably swatch it. It may be a Morrigan candidate.













They have a lot of other little treasures. I love these sock monkey project bags. And the little guy with the little hat. (The tiny hat is made of O-Wool Balance, the same colorway I bought.)











They have a good button collection as well.














I have to get one of these shirts.














Stacy really likes Tom Hanks. Really, really likes him. She named her dog after him.















Finally, this is Stacy, the owner. She's originally from the Houston area, but she and her husband spent a lot of time in Austin attending Longhorn games. (BTW - they wanted to get Lorna's Laces in Longhorn colors, but a shop in Houston has already claimed that colorway.) So they decided to move here and set up shop.

Ok, so Saturday, October 13 is now the big grand opening. Hopefully the third time's a charm and I'll get it right. I didn't make Monday's knit out (I was too tired.) I'm going to try to make it next week.

Is there life after Knitty?

Yarr...Happy Talk Like A Pirate Day, me hearties. Why not check this shawl from Monster Crochet, or get some booty from the Yaaarrrrrrrn Pirate.

So It's been about 48 hours after finally submitting three patterns to Knitty, and my brain is finally recovering. Everything had been building up to that deadline. I realize now I tend to think of my knitting in terms of knitting deadlines. Now that this one has passed, I can start some new stuff.

As you see above, I got some free Moo cards with my Flickr account. Of course, you can see all these pictures at a larger size on my Flickr page.

Also, I got my cube that I won from Schrodinger. Now I need to start some socks to put in it.

Actually, my focus for now is the Stash and Burn One Skein Contest, which is also a running start to Christmas knitting. It's a shame that the Knitty submissions have to be secret (although I understand why.) One of mine is a perfect one skein pattern, and I've made several since the contest began.

One of the projects I want to make is Elizabeth Zimmerman's Spiral Hat. The Opinionated Knitter seems to imply that they still make this yarn (The original pattern was written decades ago.) I need to do some research before I cast one. Last time I checked, I couldn't find it on Ravelry.

I was feeling a little overwhelmed, so I decided to just cast on something. So I started with Foliage from the new Knitty. I used Malabrigo Chunky in 102 "Sealing Wax."

I love this pattern!

The chunky version is going very quickly. It has a fun top down construction. Also, the designer took the time to include both charts and written directions. I have very little chart reading experience, but when I started looking, I realized there wasn't really anything to learn.

The most amazing thing happened with this pattern. The pattern calls for US #10.5 needles. During my break at work, I cast on a swatch on size 9's, knowing that my gauge is usually really loose.

This evening, when I arrived at Bluebonnet, I measured the swatch and realized the gauge was too tight. That was unusual. So I got out my size 10s. It was still too tight. So I bought some 10.5s. And it worked! I don't recall any other time I've gotten gauge with the needle size recommended in the pattern! I guess the designer and I must be gauge soul mates or something. I think I'll be making more of these. I also have some yarn for the worsted weight version.

I love the yarn. The semi-solids are beautiful.

And I love this pattern!

Saving the Amazing Technicolor Disaster

Hopefully, I have turned a total disaster into something... interesting.

Once upon a time, about a year and a half ago, I discovered Recycled Sari Silk on E-Bay and I fell in love with it. I decided to make a nice comfy jacket out of it and I ended up buying an obscene amount of it. (In my defense, I ended up paying less than $3 per skein for yarn that retails in the $15 per skein neighborhood.)

I borrowed my Mom's copy of Elizabeth Zimmerman's "Knitting Around" and decided to make the bog coat. An Amazing Technicolor Bog Coat. (Knit and Tonic has a nice explanation of it here.)

However, this whole project was ill conceived. For starters I didn't account for how saggy, bulky and heavy the knitted fabric would be. Combined with a coat pattern with no shaping and a small gauge (even with my loose gauge, size six needles were way too small) it was shaping up to be a complete disaster.

This project has been long languishing, getting pulled out in between projects for a couple of those long rows. The yarn itself, while beautiful, is very demanding. I probably spent as much time picking out vegetation and un-kinking the stuff as I did knitting. Sometimes, I could hold the yarn taut and pluck it and see a little cloud of dust. Recycled Sari Silk is made in Nepal. The threads are swept off the floor of sari factories and are spun into yarn. (There is a more in-depth explanation is here.) I still say it was worth it. The yarn is so beautiful. And it is supposed to get much softer after washing.



I started coming to my senses when I pulled it out at a knitting group and started getting compliments on my beautiful throw. I started thinking that maybe I should make it a throw. I had knitted some waste yarn (the lime green) where I was supposed to form the sleeves. I just have to weave in some matching (and matching is relative when you knit recycled sari silk) yarn where the lime green was.

So today I was back at Chicks with Sticks at Bluebonnet, between projects, with my giant sari silk rectangle. I was asking the throw or jacket question, when someone mentioned that it would make a great shawl. That's when everything clicked. It was the perfect size for a shawl just as it was. After a bit of discussion, I started binding off.


After I bound off, I did a little photo (please excuse the poor lighting.) I'm not calling it an FO yet. I started removing that waste yarn (which is difficult when the yarn keeps breaking) and I have more ends to weave in. Also, I want to wash it. (This time I'll probably have to clean the bathtub instead of the bathroom sink.)

At any rate, I think I made the right decision. Even on me, even with generous ease, I had made the jacket way too big. Probably by 6-12 inches in width.


Besides, I've always wanted to make a shawl. Apparently I started one a year and a half ago.

And I can still use it as a throw.