BSJ

Pattern: Baby Surprise Jacket (BSJ) by Elizabeth Zimmermann
Size: 9 months (ended up with 12 month size)
Needle: 7 (4.5mm)
Yarn: ArtYarns Supermerino in color 107, ocean blue semisolid
For the jacket, I used a little over 300 yards. For the hat, I used less than 100 yards.

This is my first completed Elizabeth Zimmermann pattern, the ever popular BSJ. Her patterns are a test to the knitter's confidence. The instructions are a little vague because she intended for the knitters to make their own decisions. In the beginning, things were a little haywire, as I wondered "is this what she meant?" all over the place. Then, I got help through a dvd, and instantly I knew I was ok. Plus, it was a great moment when I folded the amorphous lump of knitting into a recognizable jacket. If you don't know already, this pattern is like origami.

Using DK weight yarn, I chose to make this jacket in the 9 month size. However, after handwashing it in Eucalan and blocking, I measured it to be for the 12 month size. Chest 18 inch circumference, length 12 inches. I really have no idea at what age the baby will be able to wear this! If he grows really fast, he might wear it at 6 months?!

Hi Sara. Surprise! I shipped this off to you last week, so I think it's safe for me to post about it now :) Enjoy!

Purple Karma

Pattern: Anthropologie-inspired Capelet by Peonyknits
Yarn: Knitpicks' Wool of the Andes Bulky (2.5 skeins) in Grape
Needles: size 11 (8mm)

I really liked knitting this pattern. Very easy and straight-forward to knit. And in the end, you get a great cropped cardigan. Yeah, it's thick wool and wouldn't be worn outside during the warm spring/summer months. It might work out well in my office though. With the air conditioning blasting during the summer, it'll be a little bit of armor against the chill.

This capelet was the third incarnation for this yarn. Originally, I bought it to make the long sleeved v-neck sweater from Fitted Knits, but that didn't work out. I wasn' t sure about the color, I wasn't feeling the pattern, etc. The yarn was so tough at the gauge I thought it should be that my knitting needle cord snapped due to too much pushing and pulling of the stitches around my needles. Resistance is futile. Who said that? It was true in more ways than one. I do know better than to force yarn and needles into a gauge not meant to be, but, at the time, I obviously wasn't thinking.

Then, I came across the Rorschach Jacket pattern from Elizabeth Zimmermann. Again, the yarn had too much resistance on the needles (incorrect gauge) and miles of garter stitch with this stuff was not making me happy. Frogged. Although I will make this EZ jacket some other time with different yarn.

Finally, I remembered this cropped cardigan pattern and it used bulky weight yarn. I got gauge on size 11s (bigger needles than with the other two attempts at size 10s). The yarn was so much easier to knit. The stitches moved smoothly around the needles. Happiness. Good karma.

Inexplicable Knitters Day

I didn't intend to do anything special for the Inexplicable Knitters Day, April 1. I'm not working on a sock at the moment, so I don't have any pictures with socks-in-progress, a pre-requisite. Still, this may count, as just inexplicable.

We walked across the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, so how could I pass up an opportunity to take a knitting picture there? I'm really sorry I didn't go back to the car and get out my BSJ sweater work-in-progress. So, I did the next best thing and whipped off my knit hat and held it up for a picture.

Then, we found Yoda and thought why not continue with my knit hat pictures? I thought about putting my hat on Yoda's head; he would've looked grateful :)

Anyway, those were my sorry attempts at crazy knit pictures. I know holding up a sock with four needles sticking through it would've been weirder. Still, I got a few weird looks at the Yoda statue. Mission accomplished, I suppose.

I should explain why I happened to be at these places. It was not to take knitting pictures, that's for sure! We had decided to take a mini-vacation in San Francisco, the city I grew up in. We did a bunch of touristy things, as well as visiting some of my old haunts for eats in the neighborhood. I haven't walked across the Golden Gate Bridge since an elementary school field trip, celebrating the bridge's 50th anniversary. Last year was it's 70th. It's a really nice walk, especially if it's a non-foggy day. After that, we decided to hunt for Yoda, since we were still in the Presidio. We don't live far away at all and do come back to the city quite often to see family and friends. It's just we never have time to stop and do these types of things.

Cousteau

Finished the hat for my dad. My mom's hat is here. My parents are going on an Alaskan cruise soon, so I figured they should have wool hats from their knitter daughter. I'm trying to imagine them walking around the deck, looking at the glaciers, wearing my hats... Do they get to cruise by the glaciers? Not too close, though? Probably would want to avoid a titanic disaster.

Anyway, this is the Jacques Cousteau hat. My dad, a scuba diver, will get a kick out of this. Yes, he will get to wear this on a ship. Ha! When I mentioned it over the phone to my mom, she knew exactly what I was making. The end product looks great, and I'd be glad to wear it myself. But knitting an entirely ribbed hat in BLACK yarn is so boring. While you're working with the yarn, the black color makes it hard to see what's going on. It just isn't a fun color to knit with. This should've been a fast knit, but it took probably two weeks start to finish. Other knitters know what I mean. Personally, I wear lots of black but prefer not to knit with it.

Pattern: Jacques Cousteau hat by Typy

Yarn: Cascade 220 wool (less than one skein)

Needles: size 7 (4.5mm) dpns

Hat model: Simon (not my dad)

Fiery Fish Scales

I'm on a roll with these Cookie A sock patterns. Here's Pomatomus!


Yarn: Mountain Colors Bearfoot (60% superwash wool/ 25% mohair/ 15% nylon)
Color: Firestorm
Needles: size 2 (2.75mm) dpns

For the longest time, I considered this pattern to be too hard for me to even think about knitting. I knew it was incredibly popular, but I couldn't see how to knit those curved fish scales. I admit that I hadn't even looked at the written pattern when I made that "informed" decision. Ha! Then, last month, I had such a good experience knitting the Monkey socks that I printed out the Pomatomus pattern and jumped right in. It really wasn't that hard. Yes, I made two changes to the pattern but I didn't really deviate from the pattern.

To get the twisted rib look for the fish scale definition, you have to knit through the back loop. However, for any decreases, it was physically hard for me to knit two stitches together through the back loop. Everytime I came to that point, my knitting would stall. So, I changed it to k2tog from the front, the regular way. No biggy. Once I made that change, everything was much easier.



I also made a regular slipped stitch heel, instead of the twisted rib heel. I know it interrupts the "scaly" pattern down the heel, but I really wanted a thick heel.

I used up almost the whole skein of yarn too. Not much for leftovers! Nice. Plus, I love the "fiery" red color.

Here's the Story... Stitches West 2008

I had a great time in Santa Clara at Stitches West. It's taken me four years to figure out how to make the most of this trade show. My first year, overwhelmed by the magnitude of the event, I bought two skeins of Schaefer Elaine yarn. Turned out not to be quite enough for a sweater but a sleeveless top/vest. Second year, I thought I'd walk around and wait for something to grab my attention. Duh, everything grabbed my attention and I couldn't figure out what to do. I left empty handed, if you can believe it. Third year, I had a plan- sock yarn and needles and I got them. Not a lot but enough to get me started on my first and second pair of socks.

This year, I made a list of vendors/yarns that I wanted to see in person. I knew I wanted to something laceweight to make the Skater's top from Knitting Classic Style. Something to substitute for Kid Silk Haze and it didn't have to have mohair. Also, I knew I wanted a knitting purse and would decide then and there between the Knitter's Satchel and Bella from Jordana Paige.

Sunday, the last day of the show. Much less crowded than the previous days. I couldn't go any other day, due to other commitments. I missed all of the Ravelry meet-ups and the Stash and Burn meet-up. But I went with my cousin and aunt, the one who taught me how to knit years ago. They'd never been and I don't think they knew what was coming. They came away with some great deals on yarn and seemed pretty happy about it all. We also bumped into my mom's friend, a master knitter, there too. We compared yarn.

My haul:

• Ravelry tote bag and blue t-shirt
• 1 cone of Valley Yarns Colrain laceweight (grey blue)
• 1 cone of Valley Yarns 2/14 Alpaca Silk laceweight (grey)
• 2 skeins of Lisa Souza sock yarn in Awwtum (cute) and Emerald City
• 2 skeins of Creatively Dyed's Seawool (merino wool with sea cell)
• 1 skein of Argosy Haiku 4 ply in Blackberry (so soft, so nice!)
• 1 skein of Valley Yarns Franklin (fried green tomatoes!) sock yarn
• Red Knitter's Satchel by Jordana Paige

I was going to play the Ravelry Passport game (get stamps from participating vendors) and have a chance to win a prize. But I arrived with only an hour left in the game, so I decided to focus instead on orienting myself at the market and not rush around collecting stamps. I bought a Ravelry tote bag right away, since I'd need it, in addition to my other shopping bag, to hold my purchases. I introduced myself to Jess and we chatted for a bit. That was really nice, seeing as I'm a complete stranger. At the end of the day, I came back and bought a t-shirt from Casey. In between, I met Kathy from the WEBS podcast. She rang up my purchase and Steve bagged my yarn. It was fun to hear their voices and finally see them in person. She thanked me for listening. I spoke very briefly to Dianne about her Creatively Dyed yarns. Really nice colors! I hope the trek across the country was worth it for her and her family.

Plus, I have a new purse/knitting bag! Thanks so much to Jordana's mom (I think it was her mom?) for letting me peek into her Bella bag to see how it looked and to "test drive" it around the booth. Although I chose the satchel, I may acquire a Bella in the future. One at a time.

I'm gushing. It was definitely my best time at Stitches West to date. There were other yarns I thought about getting, but it began to overwhelm me towards the end. By the time I got home, I was so tired. But quite happy.

Monkey Socks

Monkeys! Aren't they cool? They were super easy to knit, even though they look like there's a lot going on. These are my first pair of patterned socks and my first Cookie A socks.

Pattern: Monkey by Cookie A
Yarn: Trekking XXL blue multi
Needles: size 2 (2.75mm)

I really enjoyed knitting these socks! I know Monkey is considered the easiest of Cookie's patterns, and I can vouch that they're a great way to jump into sock knitting. Before this, I had knit three pairs of plain stockinette socks, which I thought were ok but not anything that made me want to join the ranks of crazy sock knitters. These, however, have changed my way of thinking. The pattern contained just enough challenge to keep me happy and was easy enough for me to crank through.

I noticed that she included a plain stockinette heel flap, which I'd never done before. I'd always made a slipped stitch or eye of partridge heel flap. No matter. Next time, maybe I'll add one of those in. Yes, there will be a next time! I plan to make another pair but in a lighter color yarn. I think it'll make the pattern a little easier to see.

Anyway, this is the other project I had talked about before. I had cast-on for my v-neck sweater but wasn't too happy with it. So, I started and completed the Irish Hiking Hat and also had the Monkeys going too. Quick note about my v-neck sweater. It's frogged. After my needle cord snapped off while trying to knit it, I took it as a sign that this sweater was not meant to be. Last week, I re-purposed the yarn for the Rorschach jacket by Elizabeth Zimmerman but I'm still having a little knitting trouble. It must be the yarn? It's chunky, the color isn't exactly me, etc. It's physically exhausting to knit with this stuff; it doesn't move easily down my needles and cord. If it's a needle issue, I've got a new set of Knitpicks Options headed my way. By the way, I received my replacement cord from the Denise company and I'm happy to have my kit in one piece again. Anyway, we shall see what happens with the Rorshach.

What else is going on? I've cast on for Pomatomus socks. Fish scales!

Next week: Stitches West! Can't wait.