Four Cousins and a Funeral

Here is a picture of the completed EZ Baby Surprise Jacket that I promised a couple of days ago. Unfortunately, a little family business delayed the finish of the jacket. Of course, the fact that I decided on the I-cord bind off also took a lot of extra time. It's worth it though, what do you think?
A sad thing - an aunt died, that was the "family business." It seems like the only time our family gets together is for weddings and funerals. I hope the next event is a wedding! I did get to see my favorite cousins and catch up on their families. They are all grandparents. That would make me feel old, except they are all older than I am anyway. (ha,ha)

Now that I am finally finished with the jacket, I find that the intended recipient will be too big by the time it is seasonally appropriate. You know, when I was with my cousins, my cousin Donna said that it looks like I was the only one to inherit our grandmother's knitting gene. It reminded me that our Nana was not a gauge knitter. She made a sweater and you were lucky if it fit. She made me a beautiful tennis sweater once, when I was around 12. I think I wore it once before I outgrew it! I was lucky to get some sweaters from my cousin Joanne as she outgrew them.

Speaking of knitting(!) this is what I have on the needles now - 2 socks (different), 1 lace scarf, 1 lace shawl (I finally started the Heartland KAL from Ravelry) click here for free pattern, and the EZ Adult Surprise Jacket that got sidelined for the BSJ. Stay tuned - pictures of all to follow.

10 inches!

10 inches might not seem like a lot, but that is exactly how many inches SHORT I am on my latest baby surprise! It takes around 400 yards to make a BSJ and I always have some yarn left over, so I just knew that 372 yards would be plenty. Well, guess what?

I even cut off the several inches of yarn that I had hanging from joining the second ball and spit spliced them onto the end - still too short. [loud scream] NOTHING in my stash to go with this gorgeous hand dyed Bee Bop.

I went to the KAL at my LYS tonight and found a good solid color to use to do the cast off. I started to do the cast off and planned to do a crochet edge around cuffs and collar to pull it together, but now I am thinking of an i-cord bind off and trim. I am posting no picture today - keep your fingers crossed for a completed picture tomorrow.

Happy Independence Day!

Life in a small town, like Wenonah, has many advantages, one of which is the best little Fourth of July parade in the country. Many homes (like mine, above) are decorated for the holiday and the whole town shows up for the parade - either as participant or spectator. Those unfortunates who have been forced to move away, come back to celebrate. The festivities start at 8 AM with a canon blast and progress through the day from the early morning parade, to the speeches in the park, on through the annual community party at the firehouse (don't forget to buy your commemorative beer mug!) and ending with a 5K race and a concert in the park. Amongst all of this, it is traditional for some to eat their way from backyard to backyard throughout the day.
It rained a little, but the parade went on as usual. Luckily, the weather cleared in time for the speechifying and Kevin Mullin presented Bob Shryock with the Home Town Legend Award. Bob's humorous speech included the fact that he was Kevin's first basketball coach.
It's hard to describe the atmosphere in Wenonah on the Fourth of July. The town is alive with excitement. The kids are getting their fire truck rides, the adults are milling about in front of the fire house, people you haven't seen all year run up for a hug. This year was my twenty second Independence Day in Wenonah and I hope to be here for many more to come!
You can see more pictures here. And oh yes, this is a knitting blog...
Dancing Leaf Farms, Bee Bop Superwash Merino in Copper Canyon Colorway - EZ's Baby Surpise Jacket for my cousin's grandson.

The Graduate

Well, last week my dear nephew Sam graduated from High School. His older brother Dave is on the right. They belong to my youngest sister, and the one on the left is Zach, the son of the middle sister. Yes, we are three sisters, my father was very lucky! The graduating class was over 400 kids and there were 7 salutarians. (You can imagine how long the ceremonies were.) Well, dummy me, I left my knitting in the car! Each graduate was called up, individually, to collect their diploma!

I am doing a KAL at my LYS, The Knitting Store. I had never made an EZ Baby Surprise Jacket. Well, here is my first effort:

This has to be the cutest thing I ever made. I used 4 balls of Berroco Love It Colors, 3293. I have to say that the color change on this stuff is really weird. There is one big stripe of the contrasting color, in my case blue, in each ball. Each ball has 120 yds and it looks like they just wound the120 and then cut. The balls start in different places of the repeats and one ball only had a few inches of the blue at one end! Since they are pull balls, this unusual color change is not immediately obvious. Luckily, on this small of a project, I was able to work it out, but in a larger project, I think you would have to be very careful. I started another BSJ from my stash. It is a beautiful hand dyed superwash from Dancing Leaf Farms. It is a gorgeous color called Copper Canyon and you can see it here.

Of course, since I took 2 skeins from my stash, I had to immediately purchase enough to start an adult version for me.
Here is the yarn that I chose for the adult version:



This picture doesn't do the colors justice. The main colors are really teal and a rich chocolate brown. Claudia Handpaints and some Cascade 220 for the solid accents. There will be more on this in future posts.

Well, I am off to finish the BSJ...