Small things

I'm going through a bit of a period of knitting lethargy, but here are two things I finished up a while ago.

Friends of mine back in Chicago had twins a month ago, and here's what I made them (I'm hoping that they've actually arrived in Chicago by now, given that other things I mailed the same day have made it to their destinations... and if not, surprise!).

I decided to go for sweaters that "matched" because they were made from the same yarn. (In this case that's Tess' Designer Yarns Super Socks & Baby, which I bought at the Stitches Midwest marketplace.  It's superwash, and I thought that with twins they'd probably definitely want to be able to stick them in the washing machine.  These two sweaters took significantly less than two skeins to make.  The yarn was generally nice to work with, but it bled like crazy.  Because I always wrap yarn the same way around my left index finger, that finger had a crazy purple swirl around it the whole time I was working with the yarn.  It also smelled like fake grape, which makes me think it was dyed with coolaid.  But, the colors are nice, and I think I got all the extra dye out in the washing, so it should be OK.)

And I also decided that the sweaters should "match" in another way--they're both products of the mind of Elizabeth Zimmerman.

On the right we have her "Baby Sweater on Two Needles," also known as the "February" sweater. 

It comes from her Knitter's Almanac, which presents monthly projects for knitters--and this is the February project.  It's a charming little design.  You start by casting on a small number of stitches for the neck, and then knit the whole thing down from there.  That is, you increase a few times for that circular yoke, and then start to knit straight.  At one point you put stitches for the sleeves on waste yarn and knit down the body, and come back to knit the sleeves down later (I think she may actually call for you to do the sleeves first, but... I didn't).

In other words, it's a really nice introduction to top-down sweater construction, in an easy to manage baby size.

The other sweater is the famous "Baby Surprise Jacket."  Why a surprise?  When you're done knitting, it looks like this.

A big flobby mess.  It's kind of a rectangle, but with blurpy bits created by unusually (but strategically!) placed increases and decreases.

But then!  Then you do this.

And then you sew up the little bits along the top.

And then you get this.

Cute, no?

I actually ended up knitting this twice, because the first time I totally messed it up.  I always had the right number of stitches, but those right number of stitches were incorrectly placed.

My problem came in what would have been the back of the sleeves.  You can kind of see how the variegated stripy bits kind of make a 90 degree turn along a line on the back of them, right?  That's accomplished by doing a double decrease (that is, turning three stitches into one stitch) into a central point.  Well, I messed up that point in a way that resulted in not the right angle for that line of turns.  And that ended up meaning that all the rest of the shaping was wrong, too, and it wouldn't fold properly.

I solved this problem by replacing the single double decrease with two single decreases (in other words, instead of once going from three stitches to one, I twice went from two stitches to one... so four into two instead of three into one).  This allowed me to keep the central line between the two decreases, and kept my path straight and true.

And, honestly, I didn't mind knitting this twice.  It's an adorable pattern, and... well, yay to it!  And yay to babies, who will hopefully soon be letting their mother get a bit more sleep.  Fingers crossed for you, RH!

Comments

[kv]

what a great idea, the same yarn different sweater idea, that it.

[RosieO]

They really came out looking great! I liked the folding video!! I wonder if a vest could be made like that?

[desiknitter]

Beautiful! What a lovely shade, and that's a neat combo for a pair of twins. Have you seen the adult version of the Feb sweater that became insanely popular on Ravelry? I've been wary of even clicking on it for fear that the bug will bite me and I won't understand it at all.