Babies!

Of my friends on Facebook, four have either just welcomed or are expecting the arrival of their latest family members. In my own family, two of my nieces will have their first babies this year.

To that end, I have learned to knit a few baby sweaters. My first one down was a Baby Surprise Jacket.



The "surprise" is in the constructions because the sweater is knit in one piece, and the only seams needed are along the top of the sleeves. The knitting looks like an origami nightmare while in progress, but then it magically becomes this little garment for a little body.



I ran across the buttons in my button stash (which overflows two quart jars, thank you very much). They are plastic, but vintage.  On a card of originally ten buttons, the price sticker read $0.17. How far back is that price? 1960s? '70s?

My first BSJ doesn't have a specified recipient. I'm guessing it'll fit a 12 month old, though, so maybe when one of my niece's babies is older, he or she will get this one.

In the meantime, I knit another BSJ to fit a smaller baby. In yellow, as requested. But I added just a touch of fire to the sunshine.





I learned how to add the hood, and I would have added an i-cord tie and trim around the hood but I ran out of gas on this project. Mostly because I was knitting another yellow baby sweater that gave me fits. (Um, pun unintended and kinda stupid anyway.)



This sweater is knit from the hood down, and the yoke pattern is what hung me up. A few things were implied rather than specified on the pattern. One of them had to do with making a new stitch. For those of you indoctrinated in knitting, you have probably been taught, like I was, that when you make a new stitch by picking up the horizontal bar between two stitches and knitting it, you're supposed to knit into the back of it to twist the stitch and prevent a hole. This is second nature to me now. Well, in this pattern, a hole is supposed to be part of the design. A series of holes, actually, a pretty little line of them every few rows. I didn't catch onto this until well into the yoke. And I was not about to rip back to do the whole yoke over, so I just improvised. Two pattern repeats without holes, two repeats with holes, the last two repeats without. So, see, I meant to do that.



Not the best close up of what I'm talking about, but some of it is there.

So, now I'm baby-sweatered out. Done for now. They're fun, they're quick, but y'all are going to have to fend for your own baby clothes, you who are reproducing too quickly for me to keep up. ;)