Baby Surprise Jacket & My New Knitting Bag

Yes, I've been a bad blogger.  My poor little blog has gone unattended.  But please gentle reader, don't give up on me or think I don't have my reasons.  The weather is warmer, children have been home (one child in particular, whose well-liked knitter girlfriend has caused me to toss my stash, looking for just the right yarns for her), Easter eggs have been hunted, colleges have been applied to and selected from among.  It has been a particularly busy season in our home.

So, forgive me for my wanderings, as I catch you up on what I have been doing in the next few posts.

Today, progress on the Baby Surprise Jacket.

Isn't it pretty?  Fortunately, the baby it is intended for is a July baby, so I'm not feeling any particular pressure.  I do have this advice to offer, though: if you are knitting your first BSJ and like me, are not a highly skilled knitter, you might want to avoid both fine sock yarn and variegated yarns.  The former has kept my progress slow, although it is a yarn I am particularly fond of and I've enjoyed the feel of knitting with it a great deal.  And strangely, while the decrease rows were slow, the increases went by quickly and now I'm onto the rows of just 90 stitches in the middle.  The variegated colorway has made it difficult to see the increases, although the wonderful Tami at my LYS, In The Making, helped me figure this part out as well.  So despite my incessant bitching minor issues with this sweater, I hope to have it done in the next week or so, in plenty of time to do some matching booties and perhaps a wee cap, as I have plenty of yarn left.

I'm sure you noticed the tease in the first photo.  Here it is, with a bit more.

I was lucky enough to get this ever-so-cool knitting bag from Flip, Skip, Jump.

I fell in love with the kitschy paint by number fabric, and had to have it.  I love the bag, and the matching key fob and needle case are the bees knees.

I'm convinced this bag is going to turbo-charge my knitting, much as it has with my organization, and give me good karma for finishing up a few projects I want to have done before summer hits.