What's there not to like about miles of stockinette?

Especially at a loose gauge on big needles? It goes super-fast!
This is the front (or back, haven't decided yet) of Klaralund. I threatened to cast on last weekend, and this is how far I've gotten in 3 evenings. Not bad... I may be done in 2 weeks. I contemplated knitting this in the round with waist shaping, and changed my mind. While I am a bigger fan of narrower stripes, I also wanted to offset the one 'surprise' color that doesn't look so good on me, the orangey brown that shows up at the top of the lower hem garter edge that I offset with the red. Don't get me wrong, I like the color. It's the same color as my couch! And the red is the same color as my tablecloths, on small side-tables right beside the couch. Do I need to think outside of the color-box a little?

So what did I do? I knit from 2 different balls which start and end on different colors, alternating balls every 2 rows. (I attempted this trick with BSJ 2, but less successfully). And selecting balls which start and end on different colors wasn't hard, the striping of the balls in my bag is pretty random, and some balls have knots which join some very different colors. I also wound every ball and organized them so that orange-brown wouldn't end up near my face. I'm quite happy with the result. Here's a gratuitous stripe close-up.
As you can also see, I added waist-shaping too. While I'm not such a big fan of pullovers (this will be number 2, the first one was Menja) I prefer figure-flattering ones and I love hourglass shaping. So I think this will work out for me. Assuming it dosen't end up way too short. I was a good girl and blocked my swatch, but I think I'm knitting tighter on the real thing. My stitch gauge (pre-blocked) matches my gauge swatch, but my row gauge is coming out short, so I added one inch to the length before knitting the upper garter-stitch border, and extended the upper border a bit too.

All in all, I love Noro Kureyon. I don't think I will ever buy Sik Garden again (the recommended yarn for this pattern) because I find the mohair extremely scratchy, there are way too many twigs, loose threads and chunky bits that have no dye! In fact, for all my future Noro designed projects (I'm thinking of making Rocktorp next winter) I think I'll just swap in Kureyon. There are twigs and knots too, but it's not quite so bad, and my favourite knitting medium is pure wool. And the colors are fantastic. This easy project is knitting heaven! And I'm quite sure that this pattern would look very nice in a solid-colored or a tweedy yarn because the garter texture in a few places looks very nice.

Now I have to block all those baby sweaters sitting in the yarn box, the latest celtic knot swatch (sitting around now for about 2 weeks) and post it!

Ivanova

Baby Surprise #2 is done... will there be a #3?

Here's the photos; the front...
and the back.
I think it turned out pretty well, and while the striping isn't as striking as I originally imagined,
this subtler effect looks nice too. Maybe if I had chosen much different colorways the striping effect would have been stronger.
Details:
Pattern: Babies' Garter Stitch Surprise Jacket by Elizabeth Zimmerman from Knitting Workshop.
Yarn: Lang Yarns Mille Colori, a 50/50 wool acrylic blend
Modifications: None, except I extended the sleeves by 1 inch, and knitted 3 rows in garter stitch around the neckline, to tie in the colors a bit better. I manually striped 3 different colorways of Mille Colori this time, with the blue-grey-brown mix being the 'main color' (2 balls), and a brown-grey (1 ball) and purple-grey (1 ball) being the 'secondary colors'. I knit 4 rows from the blue, then 4 from the brown ball repeatedly until the brown ran out, then knit 4 rows from blue and 4 rows from the purple ball. I knitted the 6 ridges of the button band and neckline finishing in blue, and extended the sleeves with the purple. The finished dimensions are 19.5 inches across the chest (pre-blocked).
Notes on the yarn: I HATE it and will never use it again. It's too fuzzy! It looks so fragile! But, after seaming last night, I tugged and tugged on a long scrap piece and... nothing happened. Then my husband did it and... nothing hapened. So it's stronger than it looks and is a decent seaming yarn, except for the fuzziness. Too bad it looks so pretty, taunting me from the LYS shelf. Never again!

Now for the pressing question - will there be another BSJ? The answer is yes. I found out last weekend from mom that the cousin and wiife are expecting their third child in April. Gender to be determined at a later date. So, I stood by my promise of only making quick and easy BSJs from now on (so I can have more knitting time for me!) and went to the LYS yesterday. I say a gorgeous red and black variegated yarn last time I was there, but unfortunately it had mohair in it. Mohair + Babies = BAD!!! Also mohair + cats = bad. Something about a choke hazard. I haven't heard anything about angora, or alpaca though. Either way, I think machine washable yarns for baby knits is best, so I picked up some Lang Yarns Soft Shetland in two purpley tweedy colorways. I think I'll be doing color blocks again, like for BSJ 1, but I have lots of time to decide. I'll cast on after Christmas, I think. Or I'll knit it on the plane ride home and present it to my mom to deliver with her gifts in March. Why did I buy the yarn so early? Well, when stuff is off the shelves here, who knows how long it'll take to reappear? The Lana Grossa Royal Tweed only showed up recently, and it's been off the shelves for 8 months! But shopping at LYSs is fun here. The service is good, but they want to know what you'll do with it! I brought my BSJ 1 to the store in anticipation of the question, and the LYS lady raised an eyebrow, petted it, identified the yarn correctly (Lana Grossa Mega Stoppino), said that my new yarn choice would work, and said it was very nice. Hopefully she won't think I'm some crazy 'kid' anymore when I come in to see what's on the shelves!

Now for the next project... Klaralund, to be knitted with this:
Noro Kureyon color 157 lot E. I bought it on Ebay, and hunted down many many pictures before buying a bag (10 balls) at a very reasonable price (about 60 bucks). It dosen't look exactly the way I thought it would, but with Noro, I know to expect that by now. I like most of it, and it looks OK on me (tested by holding it up to my face in a mirror), but I don't really like the brown. I guess I'll have to sort the balls to make sure the brown doesn't end up near my face. The pattern (Klaralund from Cornelia Tuttle Hamilton's Noro Hand Knitting Collection Book Number 2) looks very simple. One rectangle for front, back, and each sleeve. Here's a flickr picture or two of the sweater. I think I'll knit the body in the round, with waist shaping because I hate seaming (and overly boxy sweaters). And I'll do the sleeves in the round to the armpit, to keep the stripes the same width and to be sure they don't come out too long. All in all, I think it'll work. The colors remind me of south asia... check out these pictures!

Ivanova