BSJ Received

Baby Surprise Jacket #6 is finished.
(I know I packed the buttons when I went on vacation, but I couldn't find them when I got to the house and was ready to sew them on. Buttonless BSJ it is!


New Mama is very happy with her gift. "It's a California Hippie Baby Jacket!" she exclaimed. I think this one will get some good use, buttons or no.

Momentous Occasion

Stop the presses! Something big has happened!

Remember these mittens? They were my first experiment in stranded knitting wayyyy back two years ago. I thought they'd be difficult and a big ol' mess, but it turns out I'm a quick study with the Fair Isle work, and I churned out a bunch more pairs over the next year.

But these were my first pair, and that's something special. So I wore them as my primary mittens in cold weather. And there's a lot of cold weather. Still, you get used to a thing when you do it a lot, so imagine my surprise the other day when I put on these mittens, hopped in my car, and felt the steering wheel strangely cold against my thumb!

That's right! I have worn my way through the thumb of my accidental mittens! It's the first time I've ever worn a hole in anything I've knit myself.

In my world, this is something I'd call "Very Exciting."

Now you know what a thrilling life I lead. A hole! Wooo!

I am undecided as to whether I will knit myself a new thumb in these mittens, or just wear a different pair. It's not like I don't have plenty of others to pull out of the mitten pile.

I'm sure you're all on the edge of your seats to find out what I choose.

Baby Surprise (it's yet another) Jacket!

Okay, so my friend I've been knitting a baby gift for is currently on an airplane, headed in my direction (well, actually, we're meeting up in Madison, WI. But I'm already there, and she's in a plane). So I can finally show you photos of what I've been making for her, since she'll be receiving her gift soon.


Surely you knew I'd be making her a BSJ, right? RIGHT? I mean, come on.

Here is BSJ #5, also known as "green is a unisex color for babies!" I'm all about gender-neutral clothing for babies anyway, and it seems like the only way you can get them these days is to make them yourself. Also, when I started knitting the sweater, we didn't know if the baby is supposed to be a boy or a girl anyway, and I don't know if they're going to find out or not. Also-also, I had some green superwash left from another baby project I was doing at the same time. And some navy blue. And seriously, what's cuter than a navy blue stripe on a baby sweater?

So the question is, can you spot the error in this sweater? Can you tell why I had to rip and redo a few inches of BSJ?









It's right there. One side of picked-up stitches came out on the wrong side. Whoops.

Also, it turns out I ran out of green yarn before the end of the sweater, so I had to get creative with my striping. Still, though. Seriously cute!

(FO photo to follow, after the Proud Mama has actually received it.)


Also yes, those are the Knitpicks Harmony Options needles. My darling Husband gave them to me for Christmas. He's the best.

Lizard Ridge is SO COOL!

Okay, seriously? I knew that the Lizard Ridge blanket was going to be cool. But I had no way to conceive of how it was all going to come together. It's way awesome.

This progress shot is at about 40%, I'd say. There are five skeins of Kureyon per strip, and the ones shown in this photo are #3 and #4 on the second strip. Instead of knitting blocks of a single skein and then seaming them together (hello, I hate seaming, we know this about me), I'm just knitting with two skeins at a time and seeing what happens, until skein #5. That one gets doubled onto itself.

Anyway, it's super-cool, and constant discovery of the "what's the next stripe going to look like?" has me totally engaged and knitting like a madwoman. So much fun!

Also, there's been more travel lately, and it was very easy to throw the two starter skeins in my carry-on and cast on in the plane. Who knew a blanket could be good travel knitting? But it was. For a 3-day jaunt to Cleveland last week, it was just right.


Doc likes the blanket, too. He can't wait to see how it turns out.


(And yes, I'm doing the garter ridges modification. I knew you would ask.)

Not Just Any Baby Gift

When your really awesome knitting friend -- the one who got you back into knitting in the first place -- the one who reminded you of everything about knitting that your mom taught you when you were eight and you had since forgotten -- the one who would teach you how to do new knitting techniques while you were both waiting backstage before the choir concert -- the one whose now-defunct knitting blog first inspired your own still-going knitting blog -- the one who still, 10+ years after it all started, insists that you take turns flying across the country just so you can knit together every four months or so -- when that knitting friend gets pregnant, what the heck do you knit her?

Not just any baby gift.

You go to Northeast Fiber Arts. You buy 20 skeins of Debbie Bliss Rialto DK (you hope you can return whatever you don't use, but it turns out you can't return it after 30 days, and you've picked a project that you will spend more than 30 days doing, if only because you are a pastor and you were dumb enough to buy the yarn before Christmas and then leave it sitting in a bag for a month before casting on in the first place). You grab your Mason-Dixon Knitting book (the first one). And you cast on for the Moderne Baby Blanket. For this particular knitting friend, you will Log-Cabin your little heart out.

And then you make yourself write a blog post about it so that you are forced to block the darn thing and put it in the actual mail.

I can't wait to welcome you to the world, Baby Knitting Queen! I love you already!

Startitis Strikes Again

Someday, this orderly-yet-haphazard collection of Kureyon is going to be the Lizard Ridge Blanket.

As of this writing, I've got 10% done. That's two skeins of 20. My hands already hurt.

(It may be the new Harmony Options needles that are making my hands hurt. I'm in denial, though, as Husband gave them to me for Christmas. To be fair, I picked them out in the first place. Also: they're PRETTY.)

Anyway, this is the order of how I'm going to knit these skeins. The finished product is, miraculously, not going to look anything like this photo. That is the amazing thing about Noro. I swear, those people are geniuses.

More Photographic Evidence

This is the current state of my Labyrinth Rug. I have started sewing the fabric around the filler cord. And I've started sewing the coil to itself (you can see it on the left, I swear). But now it's kind of a tangled mess in the middle of my living room floor. And it may be like this indefinitely, as I can't figure out how I was making the seam before, and it's not as nice-looking on my later attempts.

"But, Holyknitter," you say, "won't the seam be sewn up in such a way that you can't see it anyway? Why does it matter if it doesn't look consistent or even particularly nice?"

BECAUSE. I say. JUST BECAUSE. I will know, and I will care, and it will drive me crazy if I know it's not done right. So there.

Maybe I could just move this giant blob of yarn and filler cord to the bedroom where the rug is supposed to go? Husband would be okay with that, don't you think?