My favourite model

Here is my DS modelling the lovely Baby Surprise Jacket that Ivanova was kind enough to make for him. I've been meaning to post these pics for quite a while now...

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

BSJ 2 is flying by...

It's so easy and so fast, I'll probably be done by the weekend. Then it's time to mail off all these baby things I've been knitting. This time I'm using Lang Yarns Mille Colori, but I'm manually striping the yarns instead of leaving them to form large color blocks like with BSJ 1. Instead of swapping colorways of these self striping yarns every 2 rows (like many people have done beautifully with stockinette or ribbing patterns and Noro yarns, as can be seen here and here) I decided to swap every 4 rows so I get 2 ridges of each colorway uninterrupted. But, this is not Noro. The color stretches are shorter, so it dosen't look quite so stripey. But I like it anyways, that is the sweater, not the yarn. It is a 50/50 wool acrylic blend, and while it is very soft, it's too fragile for me to knit with. It's a single loose ply, and my needle tends to miss some stray fuzzy bits so I have to knit quite carefully. It just spreads out and fuzzes too much for my liking. I even went out and got a new pair of ADDIS because my good old trusty cheapo aluminum needles were too pointy for this stuff. Overall, I wished that this yarn was a baby-friendly version of a Noro yarn, but it's just not as pretty as Noro yarns. I dislike the fuzzing and spreading even less than pulling out stray threads from Silk Garden. I will probably not use it again.

Why do I love and hate Noro so much? Sitting here working on this sweater made me wish I had a self striping sweater for myself, so I bought some Noro Kureyon for this sweater. Once this baby knitting is done, it's time to knit for myself again! And I'll need a(nother) nice warm sweater because it's dark, cold and wet already!

Ivanova