Baby Surprise Jacket: Nearing the End

Guest Post by Elizabeth DeHority

 

I'm sorry it's been so long since we've posted another installment of "how to do the stressful rows of a BSJ the easy way"... 

 

Many people have gotten through the part where you knit back and forth on the center 90 stitches, for 10 ridges... 20 rows.  I always like that part, because it's fast and easy and it means that we're almost ready to turn this oddly shaped piece of knitting into a real sweater.

 

If you are making your sweater longer, perhaps you added extra rows here.  If that's the case, you also need to pick up extra stitches.  You will need to pick up one extra stitch for every two rows, AND when we talk about stitch counts later, you need to remember to add that same number to your counts.  For example, if you wanted an extra two inches and you were knitting in bulky yarn, you might have knit an extra ten rows, or five ridges.  When we tell you in a minute to pick up ten stitches, you will need to pick up 15.  AND you will have five extra stitches before your first increase and after your second increase.  Don't worry, you'll see in a minute what I mean.

 

Many people worry about picking up stitches... they see examples on ravelry that look quite sloppy, or they've tried and aren't pleased with the results.  I pick up stitches with my work flat on a table, so that I can see right where to go.  I made a video of my failure-proof method,

 but you'll need to forgive the george noise in the background and my pneumonia voice... 

 

You can, of course, pick up your stitches any way you want.  With my method, you'll need an extra end of yarn, which may mean extra ends to weave in at the end, but since it's otherwise so easy, I think it's worth it.

 

Here we go:

 

Knit your last row of the 90's, which should be a right side row.  Then lay your work down on the table and pick up ten stitches from the side of the flap of 90s that you just knit.  Now you're to the 34 stitches that you put on a piece of yarn or a spare needle a long time ago.  Put those onto any spare needle you have around, and knit those stitches onto your working needle... so now your working needle has the 90 from the flap, the ten you picked up, and the 34 from before. 

 

Take a breath and turn your work around to knit the next row.  Knit the 34 that you just knit, then the ten that you picked up, then the 90 across the bottom.  Now you need to pick up ten stitches (or however many rows of the flap you made) on the other side of the flap.  Then you can guess what comes next... take the 34 stitches from the other yarn or holder, put them on a needle, and knit those onto your working needle. 

 

You did it!  If you made it regulation size, you should have about 178 stitches on your needles. 

 

One common question:  what if my longest circular needle isn't working around all those stiches and around the corners?  Answer:  You can squish the stitches together and just struggle around the corners for a bit, and it will get easier, or you can put your work on two circular needles, one for each half, and transfer it to one needle later when it's easier. 

 

Next you need to plan your next rows.  See your pattern for where to put your markers for increases.  Basically they go in the corners where you turned from the bottom of the flap to the edges of the flap.  If you are making regulation size, your first marker would be after 44 stitches (34 from the stitches on waste yarn, ten from the picked up stitches...) but your number will be higher if you added rows to the flap.   You'll be working only a few rows until you do buttonholes, and then we're almost done.

 

If you're making a big sweater with bulky yarn, you're not going to want to follow the pattern exactly for the buttonholes, because they will be too far away from the edges.  I would work them after four or five ridges, and then only do one or two more ridges before casting off. 

 

Do you tend to cast off tightly?  That would pucker in the edges of this sweater... so you can either cast off loosely or you can use a needle several sizes bigger when you cast off. 

 

We will have one more post, on sewing up and weaving in ends... and then the post about the prizes... perhaps I'll have time this weekend to get my two halves to meet and then I can post pictures of my sweater.  maybe even on george :-)

Progress

 

Notes tomorrow, I promise. For tonight, I'm just reveling in having crossed off all 97 lines.

Yarn Along: Pretty Poppy Hug

My Baby Surprise Jacket is still stalled. Elizabeth isn't feeling well and I am absolutely terrible at all things spatial. Hence, I can't wrap my brain around what she's trying to tell me about picking up stitches. Stay tuned. The good thing is that we're both stubborn and we won't give up. I promise a new tutorial post soon and I know I still owe you a prize post. This is summer schedule boot camp week. I'm totally focused on making my kids do whatever I tell them as soon as I tell them establishing rhythm.

While I've been waiting for my brain to catch up with my fingers, I finished this sweater for Sarah. I spent hours--literally-- waiting for the ferry to go back and forth across the Potomac for soccer last weekend. Put the van in park, listened to a book on tape until I could bear it no more, and then listened to Scotty McCreery's "album" over and over again while I knit and knit and knit. About that book: I usually love Roald Dahl, but I could not bear to hear how the witches talked about children. It was making me physically ill. I never write negative reviews--usually I just say nothing if I have nothing good to say, but it brought tears to my eyes to have my kids hear this book. Maybe I'm overly sensitive. Or I just don't suspend disbelief enough to be unaffected by fantasy. Whatever, I'm not a fan.

I love the way this yarn behaved and I think the shirt is pretty poppy hug. The pattern runs small. I added eight extra stitches under the arms and it's still a bit snug, especially since I knit it for a layering piece for next fall and winter. Not much need for sweater hugs in Virginia in the summer. The heat index today was 105 degrees. I also tweaked it a bit at the bottom, finishing with a broken rib stitch. {Geez--I tweaked it. Sounds like curriculum;-)} Knitty gritty on Sarah's hug sweater on Ravelry.

I just sent Give them Grace: Dazzling Your Kids with the Love of Jesus to my Kindle. Haven't yet begun to read. I will admit here and now that I bought this book because of its title and cover. It just looks like something I would really love.  And because it's on Kindle,  it won't add to my house clutter.

Speaking of house clutter, I'm after it with reckless abandon this week, truly eradicating it from my house. I'm on a tear. And then, maybe I can think my way clear to write again. I once read that the best way to teach children how to be good writers was to teach them how to clean out and organize their closets. There is something to that. If you can't organize and get rid of the clutter, you can't write logically or edit well. At least that's what I'm telling my children.

Mary Beth has saved enough babysitting money to buy herself a brand new MacBook. This accomplishment has me bursting with pride. She went a little camera crazy this afternoon in order to have lots of pictures with which to christen her very own iPhoto. So the pics of my baby in a pretty poppy hug come to you from Mary Beth's Mac.

Now, I'm off to haul away another bag or two of stuff. And grab a hug or two of the kid kind.

Do go visit Ginny. That new baby is scrumptious.

 

Baby Surprise Jacket: Increases

Guest post by Elizabeth DeHority

We left off doing decreases until we got to 90 stitches on our needles.  You can look at your pattern to tell you how many rows you were supposed to have done, but I have no doubt that any mother who has more than one child helping her knit might have any number of rows knit so far.  Guess what!  It really doesn't matter, it all ends up folding up right no matter what.

 

 

This is not a mini pink BSJ.  This is an oddly shaped swatch.  Have I ever told you I LOVE to swatch?  I am so totally a process knitter.  It's the sensory experience, the colors and the textures that matter to me, not so much the finished garment.  Except for Rosary socks.  I'm good at finishing Rosary socks :-)

 

See those two diagonal lines?  They are INCREASES, not the decreases we've been doing.  We have many choices about how to do our increases.  They all work out just fine, so if there's any particular method you feel comfortable with, go right ahead.  I thought you might like to see how similar they end up, though.  The diagonal on the right was made with the same "knit into the front and back of the stitch" (KFB) that we used for the increases above the cuff.  The one on the left is the original Elizabeth Zimmermann Make One  (M1) increase.  Let's look at both for a minute.

 

 

I do the KFB increase, without leaving a regular knit stitch in between, because for me it's fast and easy.  I like only having to move one marker, and it seems less fiddly to me.  Of course you can also do the KFB sort of increase WITH a stitch in between, so that your diagonals for the increases will line up perfectly centered with your diagonals for the decreases.  It totally, truly doesn't matter. 

 

 

 {Elizabeth Foss' increases, using two stitch markers, knit front and back increases, and a knit stitch between the two increase stitches. My thanks to Ginny for talking me through this part. I couldn't reach Elizabeth DeHority, so Ginny and I talked it to death. In the end, these increases look just like the Chloe ones I know and love, so I settled comfortably into a very familiar pattern. -EF}

 

 

But here is the original EZ M1 increase.  Note that this is NOT the same one as in the video.  EZ liked to do her M1 by making a backwards loop over the right needle... if you have the pattern in The Opinionated Knitter you can find this info in the little box on page 102.  (Don't worry, we have our own video.  Just keep reading a minute first.  Breathe. )  If you choose this kind of increase, you might want to leave the single knit stitch between your increases, because two loops right next to each other can get a little too tight and hard to work on the next row.  The downside is that you need to move two markers.  Some people I know (Hi, Mrs. Foss!!!)  love their orderly stitch markers, so this might not trouble them. 

 

I think they look remarkably similar in garter stitch.  In the stockinette stitch part of my swatch, you can see the differences, both are fine... so for this BSJ project, just go with the one that is easier on your hands and your brain.  I guess it would be good to do both sides the same, but if you want to experiment and you're not a swatcher, this would be a good project to try out any increases you've read about...

 

And we'll keep going at these increases for a while... see your pattern for our target number of stitches where we add ten, evenly spaced across the back... This implies that we actually know which section is the back...  it's hard to see it yet, but it's actually just the part in the middle, between the diagonals.  Count your stitches BETWEEN the stitch markers, or pairs of stitch markers, divide by ten, and remember that number.  I'm not telling you how many stitches between your markers out of respect for the copyright, but also, because, honestly, truly, your counts really might be different from mine by several stitches and I don't want you to stress or rip back.   

 

So anyway, remember that number?  The divided by ten one?  Let's say it was six point something or other.  You can increase ten stitches evenly enough by doing five knit stitches, then a KFB in the sixth one. therefore turning every group of six stitches into seven.  What about the leftover ones?  Don't worry.  When you get to the markers for the increases, stop counting and just increase as you've been doing. 

 

 

And we'll keep doing this until we get to the part where we cast off for the front of the neck.  That's where our next BSJ post will start. 

 

I promised you a video tutorial for decreases, though.  Here's the link.  

Yarn Along: Praying As We Go

Hi there! I'm still knitting along with lots of friends, stitching a Baby Surprise Jacket.

Surprise! It's too big for my "baby." Looks like Karoline will wear this jacket before Sarah Annie does.  That's just fine with me; I was sort of sad that when Sarah outgrew it, it would be relegated to the giveaways or to my hope chest. Now, two little girls will wear it (unless Karoline wears it out). Still investigating exactly what this means in terms of adapting the pattern. And trying not to hyperventilate.

I'm reading Mysteries of the Jesus Prayer, by Norris Chumley. This has been a bit of a serendipitous read. Before the book arrived, I was looking to settle into a rhythm of knitting and praying when I am away from my audio Bible. A little digression: when I was being treated for cancer, I discovered that I had just enough time while they zapped me with radiation to pray three Hail Marys, followed by imploring St. Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist, to pray with me that I would be able to conceive, carry, bear, and raise healthy, happy, holy children. My third child born after those treatments, and first daughter, was named Mary Elizabeth. Ever since, I've keyed prayers to certain activities. For instance, I had different repetitious extamporaneous prayers for each of my labors.

My girls have all repeated the words, "in, around, through, off" as they've learned to knit--words that match the actions, marking motion with meaning. I have discovered that in exactly the time it takes me to knit a stitch, I can pray the ancient Jesus Prayer: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God,have mercy on me, a sinner." It fits just perfectly. It's rhythmic and contemplative and meaningful.There is an inner peace to be found in the rhythm of the prayers and the needles.

Chumley's book is a bit of a documentary in print, taking the reader to visits hermits and monks and nuns who share how the prayer is lived in their lives. The rich layers of the ancient prayer are revealed to the reader as they draw us into the practice of simple, simple prayer. Chumley writes, "The point is to try to maintain connection with God at all times, remembering that God is here with us at every moment. The practice of prayer and meditation helps us do that, uniting the inner core of our being, our soul, with God and with all the scattered parts of us."

Knitting and prayer. So simple.

Be sure to stop by and visit Ginny and see what other folks are knitting and reading.