EZ Jackets

I finished knitting this Baby Surprise Jacket some time last year but it was only last month that I finally got around to sewing the buttons on! It's knitted from 5ply acrylic bought at the Australian Country Spinners Mill Shop in Wangaratta in July last year. It is incredibly soft, especially compared to the harsher acrylics I used in the blue Tomten below.

This is the first Tomten I ever knitted [February '08]. I had no idea how much 8ply yarn it would take to knit so it is an interesting concoction from my own hand dyed acrylic. I was going to rip it all out but I've decided it's not that bad; someone will like it! It's still waiting for a zipper but it will be finished by the next Guild meeting - that's when I anticipate handing over a heap of knitted items to my contact for Australian Inland Ministries.

And finally, the jacket just off the needles - another Tomten. I had two 50g balls of Saluetations Knitwise in navy and another three balls in a variegated blue. The 'pink' Tomten above weighed in at a little under 250g so I figured that I had enough of the Knitwise to knit another Tomten. I started with stripes - four rows of navy, six of the variegated, in keeping with the ratio of yarn that I had. It looked good when I first started but by the time I finished the body I was sick of the striping. I called it my "Sad Bumble Bee Jacket" - sad as in 'blue'. I decided to knit the hood and the sleeves in the variegated then trim the jacket with the navy. Ultimately I used less than one ball of the navy and less than two balls of the variegated yarn. DD thinks it's 'so cute' - I'm not too sure. But, working on the premise that one woman's 'so-so' is another woman's 'cute', I'm sure someone will like it. That's one of the advantages of knitting for charity - someone will like it even if I don't, and it will always fit someone! I would never knit something badly just because it's going to charity but I remind myself that I don't have to love it! [In fact, it's better if I don't, it's easier to give away!]

The leftover yarn [of which there is rather more navy than I had expected] will, probably, be used in a beanie or a pair of wrist-warmers/fingerless mitts!!

In our knit4charities forum, someone said that washing acrylics with creme shampoo and conditioner would soften them; they also suggested tumbling them in the dryer on warm. I know from experience that dyeing acrylic makes it softer so the heat must have some effect! I'm off to give it a try!!

BSJ was a real surprise!

For those of you who notice such things in the sidebar, my progress bar for BSJ went from 85% complete to 5%! I was at 95% when I decided to frog. *sigh* I knew there were issues while I was knitting but kept going - it's such a quick knit and I was very keen to see how it folds to make a jacket. Well, now I know and those holes from my increases were so darn obvious! *sigh again*

So, it was out with Vogue Knitting and Katharina Buss' Big Book of Knitting and yes, I was doing my increases correctly. I was using the M1 method of inserting my needle under the yarn between the two stitches from front to back and knitting through the back of the loop. Still I had several good sized holes - anyone would think I had used yarnovers! So I checked out my alternatives. I wanted something reasonably 'invisible' - the increases are part of the design but shouldn't be overly noticeable.

So I tried this method - M1 [version 2] from Vogue Knitting: insert needle under the yarn between the two stitches from back to front and knit through the front of the loop. This is much trickier than the other version, it's easy to pick up the next stitch when trying to knit through the front of the loop - no wonder this is not the method we teach for M1 ! It does indeed twist the loop but I can still see the little holes made by this method.

Because I'm knitting this for charity it's in acrylic so it won't block out. The problem is possibly 5ply yarn on 3.5mm needles coupled with my tension - the gauge is too loose! But it makes a lovely soft garment! The increases so far are in the sleeves to give fullness; I haven't yet begun the increases to shape the garment - I think I might use knit into front and back of stitch for those increases - sure that's not invisible but it doesn't leave holes either! Will keep you posted!!