Girly Girl Finished, Now on to Next Surprise

My Girly Girl Tunic is upstairs on my spare bed blocked and drying. I used my lace blocking wires (Blockit) to block it out. It worked really well and I was able to use a minimum of pins and had it blocked in less than 5 minutes. Nice! I wasn't sure how I was going to block something that is knitted in the round, but the blocking wires worked well. That was an investment well spent.

Now that Girly Girl is essentially finished, I cast on another Baby Surprise Jacket only this time, I want to make one that will fit a baby between 12 and 18 months, so I am going to use Elizabeth Zimmerman's [K] method to get the size. I knit a swatch on US size 9 needles with Hobby Lobby's Bamboo Spun which is a boucle-like yarn made with 77% Bamboo and 23% Polyamide. My gauge came out with 4.5 stitches to the inch. I used the size chart from the Craft Yarn Council to determine the measurements I needed.

I cast on the number of stitches I calculated and am working on the first few rows right now. I will post again  when I have enough to photograph.

Happy Knitting!

Girly Girl Tunic

I am working on a baby sweater for an upcoming baby. I am not sure what baby yet, but as there are 5 expectant parents in my office right now, I am sure that one of them will be a girl -- hopefully a girly girl! The name of the pattern is Frills by Yarn Madness. I found the pattern when searching on Ravelry for a  lace baby dress. This can be a sweater or a dress with minor modifications. The pattern has been quick and easy to do so far.

I am excited about this sweater because I have never done a raglan top before. I am not sure why -- it has just never happened. But I really enjoyed the process of the increases -- it is very similar to increases in a couple of things that I have knitted recently. So maybe I will have to put a raglan sweater on my "to knit" list for me!

The yarn is Yarn Bee's Rainbow Wool. It is machine washable, which I think would be important to your average new mom. It is a bit scratchy, but I think that it is soft enough to wear in cold weather. I only bought one skein of this the other day just to try it out -- but I had no idea what I might knit with it. Now, I may have to run out tomorrow and see if there is any left. The pattern calls for 200 yards for the 3 month sized sweater and the skein has 204 yards. If I get a second skein, I will have plenty to finish it safely and I could even modify it to be the dress. That is what I get when flying by the seat of my pants.

Happy knitting!