Baby items and my publishing debut

I thought this baby sweater would be done by now, the last stitch was knit a few weeks ago, but it's still waiting on a zipper. That'll have to be ordered online, I went to four fabric stores and nobody had a separating zipper in the right color.

The front:


I love the pointy elf hood

The back:



It's pinned together where the zipper will go. I'll probably seam the hood and stop the zipper at the neck so the baby won't have his/her head pressed against a hard zipper. Of course the colors look much better in person (more jewel like and vibrant), my digital camera kungfu is not the best.

Some knitters praise Plymouth Encore over Lion Brand Wool-Ease (both are 25% wool, 75% acrylic and OK to machine wash/dry) but they don't feel all that different to me. It still feels like knitting with acrylic, though not really gross acrylic. Encore is available in better colors, which is a definite plus, so for that alone I'd be more likely to use Encore again -- if I could buy it in local yarn shops. Maybe Encore wears and washes better than Wool-Ease. I'd much rather use a nice superwash wool but this Encore was so cheap, the jewel blue color is fantastic, and it'll survive multiple trips through the dryer.

Pattern is free, located here: http://knitting.about.com/library/blbabyswe4.htm
I don't recall finding any errors in the pattern, it's pretty straight-forward.

---

Right now I'm working on a bootie using leftover Lorna's Laces sock yarn, here's the first one in this pair:



I'm knitting these on size 0 needles so they're smaller than the size 1 booties posted last month. The leg is also a lot longer (40 rounds) so they can be folded over or left up to keep the leg warm.

---

I've been published! Apparently they'll give a book deal to anyone nowadays. I'm kidding, I didn't write a book, but my website made it into one. Some time ago Judy Brown asked permission to include my website address in her book so I said sure and promptly forgot about it. As a generous thank you (which I wasn't at all expecting) she sent the final product, a knitting journal titled Knitting Notes.



One thing I really like is the spiral binding, which makes it easy to cleanly tear out a ruined journal page. The full page size is an advantage over the smaller knitting journals I've seen in book stores. I also like the Canadian flavor, because I have a crush on Canada.

A knitting journal isn't the sort of thing I'd buy myself (I'd be more inclined to make one, I'm cheap) but now that one is in my hands I can see myself using it. I'm trying to decide if I want to start the journal with my current projects or backtrack by entering in data for projects completed years ago. It's nice to have that info in my blog but I can see the advantages of keeping it all in a paper journal as well.

Something Judy wrote struck a chord: "Use [the journal] well and it will be a treasured gift to hand down." She's right, I wish my grandma had kept a knitting/crochet journal, I would've dearly loved to look through it every so often. I have her crochet hooks and knitting needles, but I don't know anything about what she made with them.

St. Paul MN yarn shops

I was in St. Paul, Minnesota last month and visited three yarn shops: Three Kittens, The Yarnery, and Borealis Yarns.

1) Three Kittens Yarn Shoppe has a lot to offer the serious knitter (oodles of yarn crammed into every available space, large selection of buttons) but they had a temporary? odor problem. I'm not a delicate flower about odors so it had to be pretty bad if it chased me out of the store early. Otherwise I could've easily spent an entire day looking at all the yarn -- and boy do they have plenty of yarn -- and daydreaming. Don't pass up an opportunity to visit this shop if you're in the Twin Cities. (I'm assuming the problem is temporary because nobody else has mentioned it in their online reviews.)

2) The Yarnery is smaller but easy to love, they were having a 20% off everything sale! I left with a few skeins of super-cheap Plymouth Encore DK to make a zip-up-the-back hoodie for my brother's baby. (Photo coming soon, I just need to block it and sew in the zipper.) The shop interior is clean and organized, which isn't what I expected from a yarn shop that's been in business for 30+ years -- you know how cluttered those can be (see Three Kittens). I'm assuming they moved or remodelled in the recent past because really, the shop looks like a new yarn shop located in an old house. My only complaint, and it's not a deal-breaker, is the pattern closet. They have about two-three dozen pattern binders, which is a lot more than the average shop, but they're stored in a tiny closet. This makes it hard for more than one person to browse the patterns at a time. Ideally people would grab the binder they want and look through it at the nearby table to free up closet space but some people are oblivious to other shoppers breathing down their necks.

3) Borealis Yarns was the third and final shop we visited. By then my desire to look at yarn I can't afford had been sated (and I was eager to see my brother) so we breezed in and out and didn't give it a fair shake. They had the cutest Fiber Trends hedgehogs on display, which is the best use of novelty yarn I've seen. I dare you to click on that link to see just how cute. I wouldn't mind going back to Borealis but it'll be the first stop so I'm not yarned out by the time I get there.

Baby Booties

I should've used size 0 needles instead of size 1 because the foot looks too long for a newborn. But babies are known for growing like weeds, they'll fit eventually.


yarn: Fortissima Colori Socka Color #2419 (kolibri)

This was a cheap project, I used leftover sock yarn and a free pattern. The pattern is online here at Woolworks, but I changed it to knit in the round, used a different and better looking sole, and corrected an error. Where it says "On Sections 3, 4, 6, & 7, decrease 1 st at the beginning and end of each row" change it to "... beginning and end of each purl row."

Right now I'm working on something else for the baby, a hooded sweater that zips down the back. I just finished the hood:



yarn: Plymouth Encore DK


We won't know for another week or so if the baby is a boy or girl or alien. My brother said any color I use is fine with him and his wife, which is exactly what I expected him to say.

Striped Yoke Baby Cardigan

In 5 1/2 months I'll be an Aunt -- for the first time! To say I'm happy about this is an understatement, and not just because there's a zillion cute baby things to knit.

Up first: This is a sacque according to the pattern which just sounds weird so I'll refer to it as a cardigan. The pattern is from a 1968 book titled "Lovable Hand Knits: Infants to 4 years." I bought it a few years ago at St. Vincent's, back when I didn't know any babies and didn't anticipate any arriving in the near future. It caught my eye because most of the garments require fingering weight yarn, which is better than the bulky knits up fast! kid patterns so easy to find nowadays.



The yellow buttons were photoshopped in to indicate where the buttonholes are, that's the color I'll get if there isn't anything better at the fabric store. The colors are a little unusual but they passed the mom test. It's the sort of thing I'd put on a young child but I wouldn't wear myself. The green makes me think of spring and the cardigan is sized to fit the baby next spring and/or summer. That's the plan anyway, what I know about clothing growing babies could fit on the head of a pin.

It was knit from the neck down without any seams. The sleeves were meant to be knit flat but I did those in the round. I'm thinking about sewing up the front (stopping at the bottom of the yoke) and turning it into a pullover.

Yarn: Dale Baby Ull (blue) and Lanett Ull (green) -- both are Superwash 100% merino wool fingering weight yarns made in Norway; they look virtually identical to me. This yarn is delicious, it's so soft and perfect for babies (it's machine washable) or anyone who thinks wool is scratchy.

Right now I'm working on a pair of green/red/orange/yellow booties using leftover sock yarn.

Ullared hat, finished

Pattern: Ullared hat, in the book Hats On! by Charlene Schurch

Yarn: Brown Sheep Nature Spun Sport, 100% Wool, Pepper and Bit of Blue (less than 50g each)

Gauge: 8 sts/in on size 2 needles -- I can't remember if I've talked about Schurch's death grip before, but I don't know how she can get 8 sts/in with sport weight yarn on size 4 needles.

Notes: The chart for this hat is not the same as the hat pictured in the book (she fiddled with the chart after knitting the sample), but it's similar and not a big deal. There's also a tiny error in the chart, there should one more black square on the far left in the line before you change the beginning of the round.

I like this hat a lot, I'll make at least one more in black and teal green.

Ullared hat and two pairs of socks

Right now I'm working on the Ullared hat from Charlene Schurch's Hats On. It should be done by next week.


Brown Sheep Nature Spun Sport @ 8 sts/in

I reluctantly decided to start with a tubular cast on. I love it but it takes an eternity, especially for a hat with 180 stitches. Of course when I viewed the results after pulling out the waste yarn I knew it was worth the extra time. Any ribbing worn around the wrists or head deserves the tubular cast on, it's gorgeous.

Also finished up some socks recently:


Trekking sock yarn, cuff down


Regia sock yarn, toe up

---

This week I checked Aran Knitting out of the library (again) and was peeved to discover extensive water damage on ALL the pages. It looks like someone dropped it in a sink full of water. Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. Of all the books to ruin... sigh.

I used part of my gift certificate to buy 6 skeins of dark blue jumperweight yarn, I'm using that instead of natural black for Meg Swansen's Fair Isle cardigan. I'm changing most of the other colors too and the yarn shop doesn't have all the colors I need in stock. I have to check in when the owner is around to see if she can help. I'll order online if I have to but it'd be nice to get the rest of the yarn through the shop because there's still a good chunk of money left on the gift certificate.